In Part One, I told the story from out west of a lawyer who I called Bill. Bill, apparently at the urging of his boss (who had bigger fish to fry), tried to dump a client by making a motion to get off the record a few days before the trial date, and returnable on the trial date. He showed up, having done no trial preparation, and put the client at risk of being ordered to proceed with the trial.
I am going to tell you a true story from out west. The names and a few details have been changed to protect me.
Bill is fairly new to the profession. Bill works for Sue, who has been around quite a while, has a boutique practice, and has made a name for herself handling high profile cases.
If you are not in that part of the legal business which involves representing Banks on lending matters, you may not know that Banks love trust deposits. They pay a ridiculously low amount of interest on them, and while the firm’s mixed trust account (the “General Trust Account”) requires some managing, it does not take much effort to service the individual interest-bearing investment accounts for specific clients (the “Individual Accounts”). It is good business to have.
On the other hand, law firms like bank lending work. Less now than back in the days when it was more profitable, but still.
Early in my career, one of my clients was the owner of a chain of retail bakeries. One day I attended at one of the stores with the President of the corporation, whose name was Stewart. When we were ready to leave the store, Stewart remembered that he was out of bread, selected a loaf, and paid the employee behind the counter for it.
On a clear summer day, my father carefully drove his car out of his narrow one-car driveway past the retaining walls on either side and onto the street. He then turned to the right and parked the car in front of our house. Or so he thought.
After he exited the car, he found out the hard way that rather than put the car in park, he had actually left it in reverse. The car retraced the path from whence it had come until it crashed into the retaining wall on one side of the driveway.
Once upon a time, there was a lawyer whose practice was reliant on one huge client. His junior associate made a mistake on the client’s file. The client demanded that the lawyer fire the associate. The lawyer refused to cast aside a young associate for having made one mistake. The client fired the lawyer. The lawyer lost his practice. The associate lost his job anyway.
Since I moved to the country after spending most of my life in the big city, I fashion myself as something of a country type. I drive a pick-up truck and I listen to country music. So, it should come as no surprise that I am drawing inspiration for this story from Johnny Cash who proudly proclaimed that “I Walk the Line.”
Let me start by saying that I really, really, like accountants. I had deep and valued relationships with a number of accountants when I practiced law, and they were by far my best referral sources. Many became good friends. So, the negative stories which I am about to tell relate to a tiny minority of the accountants who I came across.
I have written before about how lawyers are usually fairly good at dealing with their clients in a truthful manner in the course of providing legal services, but not quite as accomplished when it comes to their marketing. Let’s look at this in the context of the most basic element of law firm marketing – how law firms identify their lawyers to the public.
I expect that “honest” would not be the first word that comes to mind as a general description of the business culture in Canada, or anywhere else for that matter. The idea of “buyer beware” (or “caveat emptor” as we lawyers like to say) is well ingrained in our business culture, and we all expect businesses to create “spin” when they market their goods and services.