Boutique Law Firms, Small Law Firms

Your Client Relationship Needs Face Time

Face to face time is a fantastic opportunity to build rapport -- to build trust, and a connection -- with the clients.

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john-balestriereYou may be technical, sophisticated, and efficient in how you handle your work, and you may have bright clients who are used to email and memos, but they need your face to face time, and that takes exactly that: time.

In one of our firm’s multijurisdictional disputes, a colleague and I had the opportunity to spend several days with two of the clients in their home country. The chief reason for the time was to meet with witnesses who were thousands of miles from New York, and see the “crime scene,” as it were, in this civil litigation: the physical location where the business relationships at issue in our case were developed and, eventually, broke down. This opportunity gave us the chance to spend time face to face, literally, with clients with whom most interactions previously were by email or phone. We had lunch with the clients, went to the clients’ office, and met their staff. We heard stories about their families, and details of the case we had never heard in nearly two years of engagement.

It was a lot of fun. We learned a lot of details of the dispute that could help us in the multiple proceedings we have to be ready for. We also gained a better understanding of the cultural context of our dispute.

But it was a lot more than that.  It was a fantastic opportunity to build rapport — to build trust, and a connection — with the clients.  I don’t mean this in a cheesy, kumbaya way. I mean that after spending several hours, day after day, with the clients, I hope that we built a deeper level of trust with them, and a fuller understanding of their situation and why this litigation, supposedly just about money, meant so much to them.

That’s what it took — a lot of time with the clients, and on their home turf. We did no legal research.  We did next to no development of our tactical plan. We did not discuss complicated choice of law questions. Instead, we learned about the clients and simply talked about what mattered to them.

It took a long time, though that’s exactly what I learned: developing a deeper client relationship, and the knowledge about the client and his or her goals that comes from that, and the knowledge about how to win that comes from that, all takes a lot of time.

When we are all so efficient, providing quick edits on our iPhone on the 4 train from downtown to Grand Central, or responding quickly to emails from the bathroom when we’re on a date, it’s easy to forget the value of not quality time, but quantity time with clients. I’m not saying we do a slumber party over our client’s home on the weekend and watch “When Harry Met Sally.” However, serious, unscheduled, and, perhaps most importantly, unguarded time with clients helps them really open up and, if you respond well, trust you. The more that they trust you, the more that they will share with you, the more they will help you figure out their goals and serve them better.

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We must balance our days and weeks to handle the myriad work which comes from being a great litigator, but clients need serious face time for us to get to know them better, and help them win.

John Balestriere is an entrepreneurial trial lawyer who founded his firm after working as a prosecutor and litigator at a small firm. He is a partner at trial and investigations law firm Balestriere Fariello in New York, where he and his colleagues represent domestic and international clients in litigation, arbitration, appeals, and investigations. You can reach him by email at john.g.balestriere@balestrierefariello.com.

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