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November 13, 2005
"Bombarding Your Clients with Paper"...Or Falling Trees Need to Be Heard
Chapter K of Jay Foonberg's book, How To Get and Keep Good Clients says that you should do just that: bombard the client with everything in the client's file. While Foonberg talks about "bombarding with paper" in a number of respects, I agree especially on client files.
1. It's the client's file anyway, not yours. You don't own it. And I think that the client is entitled to a copy of it as you create it. I don't mean just letters, contracts and final pleadings. I mean everything. (The only exception is handwritten attorney's notes--and sometimes we send those.) So send everything else. Send copies of e-mails, memos to file, research memoranda, cases, anything typewritten, even if the client complains.
2. In brutally honest moods, I tell associate lawyers, "if the client doesn't see or hear it, you never did it, and it did not occur." Kind of like the tree falling in the woods. If you don't show and tell the client what you are doing, and do that as you are doing it, there's no reason for the client to appreciate you, your work or your firm, or pay your bill.
Posted by JD Hull at November 13, 2005 06:29 PM
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