Legal Marketing & PR

Three Ways to Get Fired by a Corporate Client

By Larry Bodine

Many are the ways that a lawyer can annoy a client, such as failing to return phone calls quickly, leaving no one in an office to field an emergency call from a client, and failing to learn the business of the client.

But now there is actual research about the three major peeves of in-house counsel.  Each will irritate corporate lawyers, and will likely get the lawyer fired, according to BTI Consulting of Wellesley, MA:

1. Poor billing and budgeting

   Of the corporate counsel surveyed, 33.3 percent said that poor billing and budgeting were their biggest frustration with their outside law firm. Failure to communicate changes, untimely invoices, ignoring clients' billing guidelines and going over budget without warning were the major complaints in this area.

2. Weak client focus

   For 32.5 percent of general counsel, outside counsel who act as if they do not care about their client's needs were a prime source of ire. Lawyers in this category tended not to update their clients frequently enough or let their ownership of the case languish, or proved to be generally unresponsive.

3. Ineffective case management

   For 29.4 percent of corporate counsel, ineffective case management on the part of outside counsel can be traced back to a lack of concern for providing value. Over-staffing, bad judgment weighing the risk against the reward of a particular action, training associates on a client's dime and billing extravagantly for doing easy work were all signs of poor case management, according to corporate counsel.

   Putting too many associates on a case and charging for 'ridiculous items like research for things that are obvious and shouldn't require research" were mentioned as examples by one associate general counsel for a privately held wholesaler.

For more details, visit Top 3 Pet Peeves Of In-House Counsel on Law360.

Full post as published by Larry Bodine's LawMarketing Blog on September 09, 2010 (boomark / email).