01/25/2010 03:51:24 PM EST
Lauer on Effective Attorney-Client Communications
In the context of the relationship between clients and their counsel, lawyers often forget or fail to apply the communication lessons they learned in law school. In this Analysis, Steven A. Lauer examines miscommunication and lack of communication in the context of business litigation. He writes:
Another example of a “failure to communicate” is the situation where in-house and outside attorneys use the same words but with different meanings in mind without realizing and adjusting for that discrepancy. Several years ago, during a panel discussion of relationships between in-house and outside attorneys, the managing partner of a national law firm referred to the “productivity” of the associates of that firm. While an in-house attorney (or, probably, almost any employee of a for-profit corporation) in the audience would think of productivity as a trait that would lead to lower cost or more efficient processes, that managing partner meant that more productive associates bill more hours than their less-productive colleagues, leading to more revenue for the firm. . . .
While researching the subject of communication between in-house and outside counsel, an in-house lawyer told me that a basic problem, in his view, was that in-house lawyers think strategically by training and due to the expectations of their internal clients. Outside lawyers, on the other hand, tend to approach challenges, and their clients' assignments, from a tactical perspective, focusing on what steps to take to accomplish the task identified. . . .
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Miscommunication or lack of communication can lead to failure in the representation and failure to reach the client's goals. The value of the legal service will decline, perhaps entirely, if the lawyers inside and outside the company do not see eye to eye and they do not have a common understanding of what they want to achieve for the company and how they expect to do so.