Why you should use questionnaires to monitor client feedback

Client questionnaires should be a part of the ordinary lawyer-client relationship. They are a useful way of obtaining client opinions of certain non-legal issues involving representation.

Client questionnaires make a lot of lawyers very nervous: they enable clients to provide direct feedback on their services. No one really wants to have criticism of their actions, and lawyers are certainly no different.

In the majority of instances of lawyer malpractice, there is no actual lawyer error. Instead, the issues often involve the failure of the lawyer and firm to successfully meet or exceed the client’s expectations, to communicate effectively with the client and to ensure the client is involved in important decisions made for their benefit.

It is therefore important to determine through the client questionnaire process how the lawyer and the law firm have come across to the client. A successful lawyer-client relationship includes the ability of the lawyer and staff to properly communicate appropriate issues to the client and provide the client with a sense of competency on everything involved in that relationship.

Part of the resistance to the usage of client questionnaires relates to the question of the substance of the inquiry. Properly-constructed questionnaires should be used to obtain feedback from the client in areas that are corollaries to the actual legal advice given. The questions involved should not relate to issues of legal strategy or knowledge, but rather to client perceptions of the lawyer and firm.

Developing questionnaires

The client questionnaire process may be administered in any number of ways, but preferably by administration of the firm. ?It should be part of the peer review process, which was discussed in my ?last column.

The subject matter of client questionnaires will of course vary, but what follows are some examples of the kinds of things that can and should be discerned. Some of the questions may be handled in a numerical progression, providing the client with a choice (for example, of one to ten in determining the level of satisfaction). Some questions might be more open ended.

Many of the questions relate to other issues involved in the lawyer-client relationship, including the substance of fee agreements, for example, or the issue of whether conflicts determinations were handled appropriately and with dispatch. All kinds of interesting information can be derived from these questionnaires.

• There should be a recitation of the name and substance of the matter and a confirmation of the scope of engagement (what the firm was supposed to accomplish in the opinion of the client).

• There should be a query to the file as to the beginning date of the assignment, including the date that the fee agreement was set for the client and the actual date that representation began.

• There should be a query as to the billings on the file. Have bills been sent on a timely basis and were they generally fair and appropriate to the assignment? Did the client have complaints or suggestions about the billing process?

• There should be a query as to the client’s perception of the general responsiveness of the principal, associate and/or staff involved in the matter. Did they return calls or emails? Did the client come away with a feeling that the firm’s lawyers and staff cared about the outcome of the matter?

• There should be a query as to whether the principal appeared to understand and appreciate the nature of the engagement demonstrated through the strategy the lawyer utilised in undertaking the representation.

• The questionnaire should communicate a general sense of whether the client was satisfied or unsatisfied with the overall file handling. Were there things that could have been accomplished which were not? Would the client recommend the lawyer and/or the firm to another company or individual?

• Did the principal or other lawyers and staff appear to enjoy adequate support for their work on the matter by the rest of the firm?

• Are there any suggestions for improvement in the file handling or any other aspect of the relationship? Would the client use the firm again?

These kinds of questionnaires enable not only to a better comprehension of lawyers and their support within the firm, but also to a far better understanding, from a marketing perspective, of how the firm can improve its services and how it is perceived by clients. Through their usage, the principals and administration of the firm will come away with a far better understanding of the lawyers, the firm itself and the client community.

Tom Berman has been advising law firms on practice management and professional liability issues for over 20 years ?(www.bermanassociates.net)