Best Practices to Handle Your Lawyer/Client

In spite if my young age, I have been on both sides of the attorney-client relationship enough to know what to expect. In fact, I have been pretty much all over the map, when it comes to it: attorney at a large firm and  as a solo practitioner; client as in-house counsel for a large financial institution and as general counsel and co-founder of a startup. Experiencing first-hand the attorney-client relationship from all these different angles has given me some unique perspectives that may prove useful for both lawyers and clients in understanding each other's motivations.

For Lawyers

1. Whenever possible, clients want fixed or capped rates. No one likes surprises and no one wants to go about auditing and reviewing your bill. Give me a price and, if I accept, stick to it. Frankly, I don't care how you get to that price, as long as I know it in advance and accept it. A good lawyer should know well how much time a certain matter should take. (But see rule 1 for clients below.)

2. Be prompt and responsive. Never miss a deadline. Always return a client's call or email. Anticipate his every demand or need. For example, got a set of comments? Give him a list of open points, identifying the nature of each issue and your recommended course of action.

3. Don't bill your education. If this is your first time doing something, then you are likely to spend time learning it. Don't bill this time. Imagine you have done a dozen similar deals. Where would you have started? That's where you should be billing. And be happy about it: you learned something new.

4. Whenever possible, save costs, but always be involved. For those at larger firms, especially, remember to always be involved. The last thing a client wants is to call his lawyer and realize he has no idea about the status of his matter.

5. No surprises. Always be on top of things and be the first to deliver the news.

For Clients

Fortunately, there aren't many "rules" for clients. They are the client after all.

1. Once you get a fixed or capped price, make sure you read the assumptions behind the quote. Make sure they are reasonable (e.g. an assumption that loan documents will not be negotiated at all is not reasonable, while an assumption that there will not be more than three turns of a document is). Be flexible if you missed the mark by a lot (e.g. your financial statements went "stale" and now your lawyer has to draft an entirely new set of disclosures).

2. Be reasonable and respectful. This is a very important rule, especially for those who, like me, are selective when getting new matters (I can only handle 2-3 deals at a time). Make sure your expectations are known beforehand, but also make sure your deadlines reflect your true needs. The worst thing for a lawyer is to pull all-nighters and work weekends to deliver a draft and then see how it gets ignored in your "to-do pile." Also, make sure you tell your lawyer at once once your deal is on halt-mode.