Are your Attorney-Client Meetings as efficient as they could be?

When it comes to interactions between attorney and client, nothing could be more important than efficiency. Clients require time to work with their attorney, but a single attorney could be representing over 100 clients at a time. Therefore, it is so important for each meeting to be extremely efficient. Not only does efficiency translate into happier clients, it also creates more productivity, more profitability, and a better working environment.

Saving Money on the Bottom Line

Today, clients expect more from their attorney, but they also want to save money in the process. This means that each attorney, and firm, needs to reevaluate the way they approach each case, and the amount of time dedicated to each attorney-client meeting.

What can be done to elevate the efficiency of attorney-client meetings? Even though every client is different, there are some things the attorney can do to increase the efficiency of their business meetings throughout the day.

Add Video Conferencing to Your Options

By adding a video conference app to the tools used daily, attorneys can provide their clients with valuable face time, while still controlling the schedule. Not only does this provide face time, it also provides a method of meeting with clients face-to-face while saving the client drive time, and reducing their financial impact. Choose the right video conference app for your company, and ideally one with cloud-based capabilities such as BlueJeans, and recommend it to clients as a means of face-time communication.

Avoid Multitasking

It is very tempting to multitask during meetings. It makes you feel like you can accomplish twice the amount of work. However, while you are multitasking, you are not able to dedicate your attention to the larger task at hand. You may think you can pay attention during a meeting while you are sending a quick email, but you would be amazed at how much information you miss during the few moments it takes to compose the email. Not only will you miss important parts of the meeting, but your email probably won’t be very good either.

By dedicating your full attention to the most important task at hand, you can ensure that each task is handled efficiently and effectively. Each client deserves your full attention, because they are paying for it. So, make sure that you are not distracted during client meetings.

Take a Fresh Look at How Meetings Are Handled

Being an attorney is a pretty autonomous world. However, the way meetings are handled, even by the best of attorneys can be problematic. Discuss with partners, or other law firms, how meetings are handled, and what they feel is most effective.

By handling meetings in a structured, focused manner, you can better control the time constraints on the day, and accomplish more. If necessary, create a flow chart for the way meetings should be handled and what questions should be asked. This ensures that you hit all the important points needed to successfully handle a client’s needs. By creating a list of questions to ask before the meeting, you can control the direction of the meeting, as well as how long the meeting lasts.

Align Your Approach with Client Goals

Every law firm wants to ensure their client’s happiness. They also want to maintain their productivity level and efficacy level. By tailoring services to each client’s individual needs, you will be surprised at how much time can be saved in the day. Even when tailoring your services to the client’s needs, you must also control the path that each meeting takes, as well as the amount of time dedicated to each interaction.

Increasing Overall Efficiency

One of the most important things a firm can do to increase the efficiency of attorney-client meetings is for every attorney to utilize various tools that are at their disposal. These factors may include allowing less complicated cases to be handled by junior level attorneys at a lower billing rate, referring cases to outside law firms.

Efficacy through Staffing

By staffing the right people for the job at hand, and managing the staff in a careful, focused manner, a firm can remain driven and efficient. To ensure the firm is efficient, choosing a highly-focused specialty will allow quick action without interference. Attorneys will become more efficient with a specialty, which saves time in researching, and allows them to act based on their knowledge of the subject at hand.

Focus on the Right Strategies

By focusing on the right strategies, attorneys can focus their energy on productivity goals and prevent any risk of them becoming side tracked by methods that are less effective. Clients are looking for firms that are easily able to understand their case, by focusing on strategies that work, attorneys can help more clients in a short period of time. This increases revenue while keeping individual bills lower.