Cheap is OUT; Value is IN: Communication and Trust Make it Happen

I have learned that trying to guess what the boss or the client wants is the most debilitating of all influences in the creation of good advertising.

Leo Burnett

I took a bit of liberty in using Mr. Burnett’s quote, applied to the advertising industry.  But the concept, if a word or two is changed out, applies just as well to the attorney/client relationship.  I have learned that trying to guess what the boss or the client wants can be a most debilitating influence in the creation of a healthy attorney/client relationship.

So what does the in-house lawyer client want from her outside counsel? In-house lawyers want VALUE for their money, not cheap fees.  But what does it take to deliver value to an in-house team of lawyers, especially a small law department with little in the way of benchmarking tools and fancy matter management systems?

Upon arrival at a new company, a good in-house lawyer takes some time to learn the business.  The newly retained outside lawyer should follow the in-house lawyer’s lead and do the same. The general counsel should expect the outside lawyer to research the company as much as possible using public sources, then spend some time with the general counsel to learn how she does business; gauge her interests, plans and strategic goals for the department; learn where she (and her department) fit into the business; learn how outside counsel has been used in the past; and find out where she sees the future of the inside/outside “partnership.”

Then it is time to learn how the actual business operates - what does it do, how does it do it?  What are the business weaknesses and where does potential legal exposure lurk? The general counsel should introduce the outside lawyers to the key players in the organization. By this I do not necessarily mean the C-Level folks or even vice presidents. Rather, the general counsel should introduce outside lawyers to the people with whom the outside lawyers will regularly work on matters. The small department lawyer must leverage the business resources to provide the needed information to the outside people so that her day is spent performing legal work, not gathering documents and performing administrative tasks to keep the outside lawyer busy. 

Integral to creating a relationship based on value is developing a protocol for communication between the outside and inside legal teams, one that may include the business people. Word of caution: do not open the floodgate by inviting the business client to call the outside lawyer “any time they have a question.” Your outside legal team will be on the phone constantly with your business people and they WILL bill this time.  So, the inside team should always serve as the conduit for contact with the external legal resources. Open communication will serve the general counsel well in several ways:  She will be personally (or through her team) aware of potential legal issues developing; she will have an opportunity to put an internal resource on the problem right away to try and resolve it before it requires expertise or time commitment beyond that available to her via in-house sources; she will be aware of the matters that her team is addressing; and, billings will be monitored, controlled and minimized. 

A very important element for a value based inside/outside relationship is the development of trust.  Trust is gained on both sides through positive day to day, or issue to issue, experiences. Each side of the relationship must be wholly open and communicative about their thoughts, concerns and expectations. There is a social element to building trust as well. There is nothing wrong with spending down time with your outside firms. However, it would be terribly foolish to compromise your decision making on behalf of your client due to the social interaction you have with your outside firms. Lawyers, though, are particularly adept at keeping business and pleasure separate to ensure such compromises do not take place.

  

As a legal matter develops, it can change, the expectations, goals and expected outcomes and means to the end may need to be adjusted as a result. Neither side should bury their respective heads in the sand and avoid uncomfortable conversations. For a healthy, long-term relationship, expectations and deliverables must regularly be updated to reflect changing circumstances.

 

In closing, let me reiterate the most important points mentioned above – communication with and education about the client, about how the client operates, about expectations and about changing game plans.  Following these elementary rules will go a long way in developing and nurturing a valuable, long term, trusting relationship.

Emotional Intelligence

“…the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions” Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer, “Emotional Intelligence”, 1990

A high Emotional Intelligence Quotient, or EQ, is an essential element of a successful lawyer’s personality. This is readily apparent from the definition set forth above. Some scholars believe that one’s EQ is set at birth while others believe that Emotional Intelligence can be learned and developed. In either case, breaking down the several elements that make up the EQ helps one to better understand the concept of EI. When one is aware of the various factors that enter into the EQ, one can work to harness the insight gained and enhance the ability to interact with the client.

As is the case in traditional psychological sciences, there are several schools of thought that address the concept of EI. I will look at the model posed by Salovey and Mayer in their 1990 article “Emotional Intelligence.”

Salovey and Mayer break down EI into four basic elements: (1) Perceiving emotions; (2) Reasoning with emotions; (3) Understanding emotions; and (4) Managing emotions. In the context of our profession, it is very important for us to be in tune with the emotions of our clients.

You might wonder why someone’s emotional state is so important in our delivery of legal advice. It is important to remember, while our client is the company, the company is made up of people. People cannot be separated from their emotions. As people and employees, they may have concerns about their job performance, the decisions they have made that are now being questioned (or are going to make based on your advice), the mistakes they may have made (or are perceived to have made) and impact they are having on the business. People also have lives outside the company. A sick wife, child or parent, financial problems, major life decisions – all have an impact on the emotional well being of the individual and hence impact the manner in which they address the business problem at hand and in turn the manner in which you provide counsel.

As lawyers, once we have a sense of the emotional state of our client, we need to understand the root of that emotion. Is it business related, or personal in nature? Does it revolve around you and the advice you have given in the past and anticipation about what advice you might give now? Or, does it involve someone else in the business? What is the client’s relationship with that person? What is your relationship with that third person and with the client?

The most important aspect of the Salovey and Mayer model for you to consider is how to deal with the knowledge and insight you have gained into your client’s emotional state. This is the real test of your EQ. Those lawyers who are successful are able to make an accurate assessment of what they are dealing with and react with an approach that is complementary to the given situation.

My friend Jenifer Robbins, General Counsel at FPL Advisory Group, summed up lawyers’ EQ in one word – “Empathy”. The ability to relate to your client on an emotional level is absolutely essential for the successful corporate attorney and business person.

As you approach your daily activities, take a moment to think about those with whom you are interacting and try to gauge their emotional state, think about why they might be feeling the way they do, and take into consideration their perspectives and emotional state as you interact with them.

“Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge”

Plato

Mentoring: The Key to a Bright Future*

Mentor: a wise and trusted counselor or teacher; an influential senior sponsor or supporter.

The definition of mentor certainly lends itself to my perception of what a good lawyer should be — wise (of course), a counselor and certainly influential. So then, as lawyers in positions of influence, should we not devote some amount of our precious time to mentoring young people who express an interest in the law? How do we create a pipeline of good, honest, ethical, smart and intelligent lawyers to take our place when our time is done? We take advantage of our position today to ensure a future for our profession tomorrow. We teach. We mold students. We take advantage of opportunities to show them what lawyering is all about and guide them as they make decisions about their futures. According to Socrates, “The right way to begin is to pay attention to the young, and make them just as good as possible.”   

Lawyers from ACC’s Chicago Chapter participated in a mentoring opportunity this summer with the ACC Chicago Chapter Minority Law Student Summer Internship Program. The program, just completing its eighth year, serves the legal community in several ways: For one, the program places rising 2Ls in internship positions at top notch legal departments in the Chicago metro area, providing students with an invaluable, unique perspective into in-house practice that typically takes years to develop before one enters the coveted offices of the in-house world. Further, the program presents intense personal mentoring to each student regarding all aspects of what it means to be a professional — from interview skills, resume writing, proper attire and interpersonal skills (eye to eye contact, firm handshake, etc.). The students receive feedback and advice worth many years of real-world trial and error, because it comes from experienced people who have already made the mistakes. It also opens the eyes of many people to some of the challenges faced by minority students — challenges that they would not understand but for the relationship with the students. So, in that vein, the mentors may actually become more enlightened than the students as a result of their interactions. Lastly, it creates deep, lasting and meaningful relationships between mentors and mentees, and enhances the reputation of ACC and its members in the legal community.

I think we can all agree that mentoring young people is good for the legal community and the community at large, but what personal benefit will you receive as the result of your mentoring efforts?

First and foremost, you will be making the legal profession better, one person at a time. Mentoring provides you the opportunity to share your values with those entering the profession. We all have a responsibility to ensure our profession continues to maintain the highest ethical standards. Answers to questions the legal professional faces are often not clearly black or white — there is much more gray. Therefore, guidance based on one’s personal experience will help the uninitiated navigate the unknown, avoid mistakes that have been made by the mentor, and answer those questions with a much higher degree of confidence.

Mentoring is a wonderful way to build your own personal network while creating a lasting legacy that will exist beyond your professional life and that of your mentee’s. Part of mentoring is imbuing the mentee with a sense of responsibility to give back to the community. So, as your values are passed to your mentee, she too will pass those values on to her mentee, and so on down the line. Today’s mentees are tomorrow’s leaders, so not only will you have a higher degree of exposure to an emerging talent pool, but you will also be helping people who may one day be hiring people like you!

Mentoring enables you to practice your leadership skills and to receive honest feedback. The mentoring process should include the mentee providing feedback to you. Is she receiving your advice loud and clear? Are there any miscues in the way that you approach the process? How does your style fit with a younger generation of professional? How can you tailor your message or methodology to better communicate core values that are not generationally limited?

In addition to generational differences, you may also benefit from exposure to a young professional that may have a richly diverse background from your own (e.g., a different race, religion, personality style, economic background, national origin, citizenship, etc.). They are also excellent teachers in new media and technology trends, and they can help you improve your skill set.

“Mentoring brings us together — across generation, class, and often race — in a manner that forces us to acknowledge our interdependence, to appreciate, in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words, that ‘we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny.’ In this way, mentoring enables us to participate in the essential but unfinished drama of reinventing community, while reaffirming that there is an important role for each of us in it.”
Marc Freedman, author of The Kindness of Strangers: Adult Mentors, Urban Youth, and the New Voluntarism

Let’s be honest, you will also feel good about yourself because you are helping someone else be successful. With relatively little investment on your part, you will have imparted a great deal of wisdom (presumably) and experience to a less sophisticated, but equally passionate, new or soon-to-be lawyer.

If you have an intern or mentee, legal or otherwise, take advantage of the opportunity to enhance the intern’s experience by giving her meaningful face time, and truly serving as a trusted guide and counselor. If you do not mentor someone, then start now. You will provide that person with knowledge drawn from valuable real-world experience that simply cannot be obtained in the classroom.

Finally, as in-house counsel, it is important that our communities know we are hard working, ethical, caring, responsible, enlightened and decent people. Tell your friends and neighbors about your mentoring activities. Let people know that lawyers continue to work hard to make the world a better place to live. You have another fine tangible example of good work to cite in the ACC Program, of how the legal profession reaches out to the community to improve it. It is a demonstrable example of the value system that we in-house lawyers hold true — opportunity, professionalism, ethics and mentoring.   Through this program, ACC Chicago is helping to make great lawyers who will be noticed. The community deserves to know that we are doing our part!

“The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.” -Plato

*Note: this post first appeared on the Association of Corporate Counsel "In-house ACCess" webpage.  Click on the title to see original.