A relationship, I think, is like a shark. . . . It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark. – Alvy Singer, Annie Hall
It’s a bittersweet fact of romance and business: relationships don’t last forever. People change, needs change, and the distance of the tectonic drift of our respective worlds becomes too far to bridge. The drift can happen slowly, the inevitable resolution of a dissonant relationship. The drift can happen abruptly, the result of a trauma — someone leaves without a succession plan, someone has a health issue, or someone decides he doesn’t want to be in the relationship anymore. Sometimes, the shark dies.
When you are part of a separation of ways, you have a choice. You can make the separation contentious in a futile effort to show your former partner that you still have control over them. You can prove how difficult her life will be without you. You can treat the separation as the last opportunity to show your former partner that you are better than her. Or, you can do your heart a favor and let go of the animosity and make the separation easy and amicable.
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When the separation is between a law firm and its corporate client, there are many reasons for a law firm to keep the proceedings amicable beyond protecting its heart. The most obvious reason: you (“you” meaning both the individual lawyer and the law firm) may want the corporate client back one day. Maybe not today, when the wounds of failed romance are raw, but possibly in a few months, or even a few years. Who knows what the future may bring: you could move to a new firm, or you could lose another client and need something to fill the gap. If the last thing in the client’s mind is how difficult you made the separation, the bridge is burned. You might get lucky and find there’s been turnover in the former client’s legal department and the individual who bore the burden of navigating the separation is gone, but that doesn’t mean the institution automatically forgets the trauma of leaving the relationship. Simply because you might have a new contact does not mean you get a clean slate. Colleagues remember these things, billing software maintains notes, the person may be gone, but the institution remembers. Furthermore, your contact may move on to a different company; he can choose to bring you with him or not. It makes sense to make the separation easy so that reunification, if it can happen, is also easy.
What goes into an easy separation? There’s the obvious stuff, like the prompt return of files and documents, but there’s also the stuff that should be obvious but needs to be said: be nice. There’s no reason to start treating a former client as an adversary. Keep communications civil (heck, maybe even try to stay friendly), use the correct channels to ensure full and final payment. If the former client has a billing system it uses to evaluate and pay bills, continue to use that and don’t harangue your legal point of contact unless that’s who you would have harangued in the good times.
When you see each other at events, say hello. Be generous with referrals and recommendations. The professional relationship may have turned into a dead shark, but that doesn’t mean the personal relationship is also a dead shark. Try to keep the personal relationship moving forward enough so that if you want to rekindle the professional relationship one day, your shark is alive enough to bite.
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Celeste Harrison Forst has practiced in small and mid-sized firms and is now in-house at a large manufacturing and technology company where she receives daily hugs from her colleagues. You can reach Celeste directly at [email protected].