Client Care and Cross Selling for Lawyers

This course is practical and tailored to life in legal practice. The first part focuses on what clients expect from their legal advisers, which is not necessarily what the legal education system teaches. The second part is concerned with retaining clients and generating repeat instructions. The final part looks at ethical cross selling – how to market other parts of the business without being pushy or awkward.

On completion of this course, delegates will:

• Be able to state the main reasons why clients take work away from law firms
• Identify the most effective ways to become a trusted adviser, the kind of lawyer who generates client loyalty
• Be able to formulate a strategy for keeping in touch with clients without being intrusive
• Be able to state what ethical cross selling means
• Have a clear strategy for cross selling the work of other departments to clients

Topic 1: Client Care Basics

• Introduction – what makes for effective client care?
• Why do clients typically change legal service providers?
• Aim: to show the areas where law firms fall down in their client handling skills

Topic 2: Video Case Study

• Video: “Client and Professional Working Together”
• Group discussion – how did the firm in the video almost manage to lose a key client?
• Aim: to show how client care is the responsibility of the firm as well as of individual fee earners

Topic 3: Putting a lawyer and Client Relationship Management strategy into place

• Group discussion on ways that we can stay in touch with clients, and nurture the solicitor/lawyer client relationship without being intrusive
• Aim: to give delegates the tools to craft an individual approach for different clients

Topic 4: Obtaining client feedback

• Group discussion – how would you typically get client feedback after cases?
• Aim: to highlight the importance of obtaining feedback and to illustrate different methods to achieve this

Topic 5: Cross Selling

• Tutor presentation – the difference between ethical cross selling and trying to squeeze more money out of clients
• Breakout discussion – what cross selling opportunities is the firm missing?
• Aim: to give delegates the confidence to explore cross selling opportunities with different clients

Admitted in 1988, the trainer has many years of experience as a practising solicitor in planning and environmental law. He has worked at the Treasury Solicitors Department and three City Law firms, including Dentons. Since 2006, he has been in business as a trainer and consultant.

The trainer has worked across Europe and Asia to assess and deliver training for a variety of organisations including Baker & Mackenzie, Reed Smith, Addleshaw Goddard, Hogan Lovells, WS Atkins, Cambridge University, and the Civil Service.

The trainer has designed and delivered a range of courses including; Negotiation skills, writing and drafting, presentation skills, project management for lawyers, people management (including appraisals), managing across cultural boundaries, recruitment and interviewing, and equal opportunities.

Cross selling makes commercial sense. The general view is that it costs around seven times more (in terms of time and money) to win work from a new client, rather than getting repeat work from an existing one. Yet many lawyers are reluctant to pursue cross selling ideas, possibly through awkwardness or not wanting to come across as pushy or greedy.

The key to this is to cross sell ethically. Any cross-selling suggestion must be for the genuine benefit of the client, maybe in terms of costs or providing a more streamlined service. This ethical approach removes awkwardness from the conversation and allows us to explore further business development ideas.

But to be able to cross sell, you first need to have the client’s faith and trust. That is why this course focuses first on how to be a trusted adviser – if you are a trusted adviser then cross selling will follow quite naturally.