Here at Kaleidoscope, the newly minted 8am’s inaugural conference, lawyers gathered to hear about the dangers lurking in their pockets. Rather than being happy to see us, the phones they lug around carry a ticking ethical timebomb poised to erupt as their terminally Millennial clients demand to talk about their cases over SMS.
It’s not an outlier scenario anymore. Mark Palmer, Chief Counsel of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism, explained that 59 percent of clients want to communicate with their lawyers by text. And not just to reschedule depositions, but to make key substantive decisions despite the security and recordkeeping risks involved.
Like any good service professional, the secret for lawyers hoping to navigating troublesome client demands lies in redirection. “That’s such a great question… it requires more detail than I can get into here, how about we schedule a call for tomorrow morning?” Keep the client happy by routing scheduling and general information through the convenience of text, but shunt their serious questions over to an in-person meeting, or at least an email, as soon as possible. The medical profession would never let you text the doctor’s cell phone, Palmer explained, lawyers have to catch up.
But until every firm runs through a clunky portal like your HMO, take some steps to protect yourself and the client. Turn off notifications. Definitely kill the message previews. Disable those laptop echoes that mirror your client’s latest text onto multiple devices. And tell your client to do the same. Conduct your law practice as if you’re hiding an affair better than the Coldplay couple.
While that’s a bit glib, the stakes are serious in family law. One attendee asked about managing communications when texting could jeopardize the client’s safety. As Palmer noted, in the old days, firms might slap big red letters on the file warning any future associate or admin to only contact this client at their office number. Attorneys need to be a bit more creative in the digital age, but the obligation remains.
If the younger and younger clients — the march of time comes for us all — can’t understand the importance of keeping conversation limited to more secure channels, consider adding a “communication policy” to the engagement letter. The kids crave boundaries, even if those boundaries are just keeping your litigation war plans from getting Pete Hegseth-ed to the other side.
Clients crave the personal touch and the immediacy that comes from texting. As service professionals, lawyers need to nurture that… responsibly. Which means making sure the client feels seen with scheduling reminders, but discouraged before they slide privileged communications into your DMs.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.