Though it shouldn’t, it still surprises me when I hear feedback from clients of law firms about a particular issue.
If anything it seems to be becoming more frequent. We hear “war stories” from clients who talk about contacting the person dealing with their issue at a law firm, only to find that person is no longer there.
There has been no communication either from the solicitor or the firm as a whole. At best the client has to then provoke a response by the firm to allocate to another lawyer, and spend some time “re-educating” the new person responsible for their matter.
Put yourself in the client’s shoes. It’s irritating enough to have to spend additional time; additionally it doesn’t feel as though the law firm particularly values the relationship with me. So it’s not surprising that the client then often says that they are either less likely to give the firm work in the future, or that while they will instruct it in other areas, they have lost confidence in one particular practice or team.
We’ll shortly produce an article on how to deal with the root causes of this problem.