DLA Piper: how to serve your client and focus on value.

Speaking to senior partners at DLA Piper in Frankfurt, I posed a question: what is the right kind of available for your client?

You ideally want to provide a concierge service, and instant response has come to be expected post Covid, whether it is urgent or important. If you don't provide that, your competitors will. My view: I think we need to get real that instant response culture is often a way of offloading our anxiety on to each other. We are all guilty of it. 

The cost is that you're glued to your in tray and constantly subjected to a world of distraction. 275 times a day according to Microsoft. You will be pulled into reacting to low priority requests that make you feel good and deprioritise what will actually advance the client and the firm's long term interest. Critically, you have no time for deep focus where you provide lasting value for your client on the live project. Everyone loses. 

I encourage partners to co-design a system of reliable availability in advance with their client. Clients don't need an instant response to confirm receipt of an email because they have developed 'meta trust'. They know the partner is looking at their inbox at set times of day, and can be assured their team is on it. If it's truly urgent and important, they can always call them. It's also okay to just call them if their feeling anxious. That's where great client relationships are built. 

Curious how other lawyers and consultants manage this conundrum. It's not easy, but there is agency.

Big thanks to Jon Kenworthy, Alex Dumbrell, Lucy Blessett, and Virginie Benítez for being generous with your briefing time and encouraging with your presence when the tech failed and I had to improvise without any slides 🫠 Very grateful to Jess Bone and Andrew Stoney from JLA Speakers for our ongoing collaboration. One of the best bureaus to work with.