This evening my wife and I went to dinner. It was a pleasant Southern California evening with the sun still shining. The wind was blowing but the gusts were significantly less than yesterday. We walked from our home. We decided to go to a sushi restaurant near our house. We were about 10 minutes early and waited outside for the door to be unlocked. The owner came to the door and was washing the door window from the inside; he then opened the door and washed the window from the outside. He said it would be a few minutes more. He then returned to the inside and locked the door. In the meantime, we were getting colder from the wind gusts. The noise of the door being locked clicked something in me. I looked at my wife and said, “How would you like Italian food? The other restaurant is just down the street.” That’s where we went and had a very nice dinner. The sushi restaurant owner could have let us inside, away from the wind gusts, even if the chef was not ready to serve. But, he didn’t; he thought only of himself, not of his customers. He could have said “hello, come inside.” But, he didn’t. I suspect he didn’t know or care that he lost business that night, and perhaps for the future. There are more sushi restaurants in the area.
What are you doing in your law firm that favors your wishes, your desires, your idiosyncrasies at the expense of your clients and prospective clients? As in the case of the sushi restaurant, most often you can accommodate the needs and wishes of the customer and yours at the same time. It certainly would not have caused any problem to let us into the restaurant to sit inside rather than outside. It certainly would not create a great burden to return clients’ phone calls promptly or educate the client about the process he is about to embark on … How much time would it take to ask about the client’s expectations or to tell the client about your expectations (like getting paid timely)? There are other lawyers who do understand their clients’ desires and expectations.
Take care to think about your client and what he expects and whether you fulfill those expectations.
In today’s newspaper, Don J. DeBenedictis, staff writer for the Journal, discusses law schools’ new approach to help law school graduates find jobs. This idea is one of several being discussed to match the supply and demand of legal services. It is clear that there is a greater demand for legal services than is now being fulfilled. However, many contend there is an oversupply of lawyers. Some writers suggest, I believe correctly, that there is not an oversupply, but rather a mismatch between the two.
One reason for the mismatch is that most lawyers seek to work for the smaller percentage of affluent clients. Working for the less affluent client requires a reduced level of compensation. Sometimes it is difficult to match the reduced remuneration working from low to modest means clients with the debt level resulting from educational expenses.
The staff writer discusses law schools in California that are now providing funds to graduates who are willing to work for government or public interest employers. The amount of money received by the graduates is not grand. We’re talking about, perhaps, $15 per hour. However, the graduates are earning enough money to pay expenses and gain valuable experience preparatory for their next job. This program reminds me of one Southern law school that provided sufficient funds to open a new law practice if the graduate located in a rural or other geographic community that needed legal services. Provided the graduate remained in that location for five years, the “loan” would be forgiven.
It seems that any suggestion brings out adversaries. The positive side of seeking to match supply and demand is countered by those who say that law schools are merely disguising their percentage of graduates employed. While this may be true, it is also true that these graduates are employed, just not at a high level of income written about by the sensationalist media. It is also true that American Bar Association statistics separate between traditional jobs and “funded” jobs, thus disclosing the truth of the employment claims made by law schools.
One could also look at this as a postgraduate fellowship. This is an incredibly positive effort on the part of law schools and their funding sources for this program. My congratulations.
