Great expectations

Clients rightly expect that should something serious happen to their solicitor’s firm, their legal issues will still be managed with little or no interruption.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) also expects this from the firms it regulates by way of an effective business continuity plan. So at this historical juncture, when the world and its lawyers are by now experiencing collective lockdown fatigue, it’s good to be reminded that clients are, in fact, a very satisfied bunch.

A recent report on the findings of the biggest ever legal needs survey carried out in England and Wales showed solicitors topped the chart for client service satisfaction (90 per cent) – ahead of all other professional advisers. The study was based on YouGov data collected early last year from 28,663 individuals. But that was last year when the business world was operating as normal.

Then the pandemic-induced lockdown hit. More than nine million UK employees were furloughed; house moves were paused; the courts closed their physical doors; face-to-face client meetings were banned; and remote working became the norm. Meanwhile, the death rate soared; and at 5pm sharp, we collectively downed tools and tuned into the daily Downing Street briefing. It’s hard to remember what normality even looked like.

A new world

Clients’ legal problems have not been subjugated by covid-19. Individuals and businesses – both existing and new clients – continue to need a lawyer. But have client expectations been heightened? And how are firms managing those expectations while operating in an exceptionally challenging environment?

One of the first things FBC Manby Bowdler did once lockdown was announced was to focus on its internal and external communications, says partner Charlotte Clode. She explains: “It was really important that clients knew we were still there for them… Equally, we needed to make sure that our teams were equipped to respond to client demands so we brought forward the launch of a new intranet that was in development which has helped manage ways of working.”

Clients’ expectations for the legal work, she says, have been varied according to different departments. “In some areas it could wait”, she said. “There’s been no point rushing through paperwork for mergers and acquisitions when many businesses put their own plans on hold. But our family team has been hugely busy, with multi-day trials running remotely and urgent financial settlements needing to be sorted.”

She goes on: “We have picked up the phone to bereaved families, to business owners on their knees, to employers facing truly difficult decisions. And we have listened.” At the start of the pandemic, the firm also launched its Ask FBCMB campaign with a message that the firm was ‘here to help’. 

Clode reports that this has resonated both with its existing clients and new instructions since March. Head of client development at Birketts, Alison Sparrow, observes that the immediate response of many firms was to “bombard clients’ inboxes with webinar invitations and coronavirus legal updates, rather than asking them how they were doing, listening to them and asking them what they need now”.

But she says the firm knew from the outset that it shouldn’t assume that what was driving clients before the pandemic was the same now. “We had to understand what was important to our clients in the current climate, acknowledging that the role of ‘trusted advisor’ has never been so important”, she adds.

So the firm quickly adopted a co-ordinated firmwide programme. The lawyers telephoned all their key clients and intermediaries, with the focus on understanding their immediate and longer-term challenges and how the firm could best support and work with them. Sparrow explains: “Intelligence and future actions have been recorded centrally to ensure that important information is being shared with relevant colleagues and that we are actively following up where we have made commitments to do so” – an approach attracting positive feedback.

Notwithstanding the restrictions necessitated by covid-19, Sarah Godley, director of operations and marketing at Biscoes, reports that clients are respecting the new boundaries. For instance, the firm has implemented attending appointments in the office, which are arranged by a prescreening telephone consultation with the client followed by an appointment with their lawyer.

She says clients’ expectations are “realistic” and several clients were even surprised that the firm was still able to operate as a business during the lockdown. “You will still have the range of clients expectations that you would have had pre-lockdown, ie; expectations of immediate responses, updates and emergency appointments, but this was all managed by our lawyers in some occasions outside of the usual working hours.”

Meaning of time

Those ‘usual working hours’ have been consigned to the proverbial bin for many a lawyer. Time has taken on a new meaning as the weeks have worn on, as Matthew Duncan, a private client consultant at Druces, has found.

“As clients have realised that I no longer have the two-hour commute into the office, they have taken to calling me earlier in the morning and later in the evening than they would have done prior to the lockdown as they know I am at home and not commuting.

“Weekends are also no longer sacrosanct as days merge into one another with the concept of a working week disappearing with it. Clients themselves also find it easier to call outside the normal core hours of the day when they have their own daily challenges and work to do, so a call to their lawyer is often after they have dealt with their daily routine.”

Julian Hawkhead, senior partner at Stowe Family Law, says this new way of working requires new boundaries to be set. “Homeworking has brought a different framework to our daily lives”, he comments. “Commuting from our bedroom via the kitchen to our home office or dining table has required a change of mindset to try to maintain as healthy a work-life balance as possible. 

“With clients now more likely to have access to their lawyer’s mobile numbers it is easy to call out of normal working hours and when one day blurs into the next, it is easy to assume that when you send an email, the recipient has nothing else to do than respond immediately to that email.”

But the firm has found clients have been understanding and not expecting a 24-hour service. “They have also been patient if there have been unavoidable delays due to the challenges of working at home”, he adds. “I’ve lost count of the number of video conference calls when a child or partner has drifted onto the screen and then wandered off again but it’s part of home life and we’re all human. Our clients have recognised that this is our way of life and I think it has helped many clients to ‘meet’ their lawyers in less formal environments.” 

Legal services Duncan says calling clients via Zoom has made obtaining instructions so much quicker than having to set up meetings in the office. “Clients are experiencing in many ways a more responsive and efficient service”, he adds. He can quickly get hold of clients to talk to them which means he can turn the work around more promptly; but it is not without its challenges. “Where documents can be emailed or scanned, clients are happy”, he says.

“But where documents need to be physically sent out, and there are signing formalities that have to be adhered to, this can cause frustration for clients.” From the start of lockdown, the issue of wills execution was well-documented and remains unresolved. Duncan says clients “cannot understand” why the formalities cannot be dealt with via conference call or dispensing the need for witnesses altogether. 

“I have found myself conducting signing meetings in gardens and viewing the signing of wills through open windows to assist. But for clients who are self-isolating or live too far away, where witnesses are needed, this is providing particularly challenging.”

Then there’s the issue of the time lag as covid-19 peaks in different countries. The UK is at least a fortnight behind mainland Europe in easing lockdown restrictions. This is presenting new challenges for clients based elsewhere in the world as they come out of lockdown.

“A client in Cyprus cannot understand why I am not now back in the office”, says Duncan, “and is frustrated that he cannot fly to the UK to meet with me as he prefers meeting face-to-face to discuss matters.”

Remote courts

The quick switch to remote court hearings has, for the most part, proved successful despite lingering concerns around various elements, such as the inevitable technical hitches and the adverse impact on some litigants in person. Hawkhead has found that the court system has gradually adapted though many hearings were initially adjourned causing delays to the progress of cases.

But he comments: “While this has caused frustration everyone accepts that while there may have been a delay in reaching a resolution, there have been far greater problems in the world. The team at Stowe Family Law and our clients have been able to retain the perspective to recognise this.”

In family practices, practitioners are continuing to deal with clients’ heightened emotions which may be even more exacerbated by the prevailing restrictions. Many cases need to be resolved quickly but not every case is suitable to be heard remotely. The guidance from the president of the Family Division is clear that the decision whether to proceed with a remote hearing or to adjourn is a judicial one – but there has so far been a lack of parity in the exercise of this discretion by different judges.

Hawkhead highlights a particular challenge – the impact of delay on cases needing a quick resolution. “This particularly applies in children cases where arrangements needed to be made and delay could prejudice the relationship between parent and children”, he comments.

“Naturally, this has caused upset and frustration for clients and the court has tried to focus on prioritising the urgency of cases.” There is also the potential costs implication for litigation clients. At FBCMB, Clode warns that the inevitable delays in the courts and re-timetabling of cases for some weeks, if not months, can “mean extra cost for clients so we expect this will need to be managed carefully, very few businesses or households will not have felt the pinch of the pandemic financially”.

However, she says by keeping clients up-to-date and communicating what’s happening with their case regularly – “briefing them about what’s going to happen as far as we could” – has meant that even if there’s been no progress, they have been able to understand why. Coming storm Further uncertainties have also been triggered by the pandemic including questions over the housing market, the values of investments and future employment prospects.

Hawkhead has found from talking with clients that these uncertainties have “caused some people to pause and reflect on whether they should take action or whether they should stay put and ride out what is believed to be an impending storm”.  He says the hiatus caused by covid-19 and lockdown has proved to be “a great leveller”.

In the early days, most of the firm’s enquiries were from parents who were being denied contact with their children because of concerns over infection and compliance with the government guidelines. “It was a challenge to discern between those who had genuine concerns and those who were using it as an excuse to frustrate contact”, he comments.

On the financial front, there was an increase in enquiries from people who had entered into an agreement before covid-19 but were now worried about whether they could fulfil their payment obligations. “This was because of a sudden change in circumstances caused by the lockdown”, says Hawkhead, “or because they believed it was no longer a fair outcome.” Sensible conversations around the timing of payments were required. 

He ponders whether there might soon be a case where it is argued that recent events were “unforeseeable and fundamentally undermined the basis of the settlement so that it justifies the settlement being overturned and the need start to again”. But he says it has previously been very difficult to persuade the court to do this. The increased flexibility flowing from wholesale homeworking has helped service many a client’s expectations.

Birketts’ litigation team is, for instance, seeing an increase in virtual mediations; meanwhile, the family team is “conscious that some clients are locked down with the very person that they need to talk to their family lawyer about”, says Sparrow They are also juggling home schooling and homeworking which makes it difficult to speak privately with their lawyer.

So one of the lawyers has flexed her hours and now offers weekend and early morning appointments which clients are starting to take advantage of. Sparrow observes: “A new client was very pleased to book an appointment for 6am. Ultimately we want to be viewed retrospectively as having handled this situation well, in an empathetic, decent and collaborative manner with a sense of ‘in it together’.”

Hawkhead believes this relationship will further mature as a result of recent events with “a greater degree of collaboration and flexibility in the way we work together”. There are also the cost savings to be had. “The need to attend meetings in offices and hearings at court has been replaced with video conferences which in turn provides cost savings to clients and enables them to be more flexible and be in more familiar environments.

Quite a few of our clients have reported feeling less stressed about court hearings because they have not needed to attend the court building and felt more at ease being able to be participating in the process while in more familiar surroundings.”

“As each week passes”, he adds, “there is a clear emphasis to adapt to these new ways of working and not go backwards.” Clode highlights a particular lesson for FBCMB: discovering how resourceful its people are. “We have done drive-by signings of documents; returned children to parents effectively over Zoom and helped manage complicated employee furloughing while having some of our own team on furlough too.

“We also learned that it can really be good to talk – we had one divorce which didn’t progress because the clients had spent so long in lockdown talking – they’d effectively mediated themselves out of a split.” The long-term I wondered if the inherent relationship between lawyer and client is being enhanced by these conditions – where they are simply having to ride the storm together. It emerges, from hearing solicitors’ accounts, that the lawyer’s status as trusted advisor has edged, in many cases, beyond trusted advisor to friendship.

Duncan, for instance, has noticed that clients have become friendlier during the lockdown. “[They are] more enquiring about my personal life and how I and my family are coping with the lockdown. Clients themselves are obviously having to cope with being at home and have the same challenges, home schooling, lack of broadband connectivity and trying to find practical ways of dealing with issues. This has led to more camaraderie between us. Calls now often have more ‘chit chat’ than previously”.

Such a palpable enrichment of the solicitor/client relationship must be cherished by the profession – and not allowed to fall by the wayside as normality gradually returns.  

Nicola Laver is editor of Solicitors Journal and a non-practising solicitor