By Kristina Schneider, Practice Success Coach
As an attorney, your time is important and there are a lot of people out there who want free legal advice. It is a common practice for many estate planning attorneys to offer a free consultation to prospective clients, so those who are insisting on charging a fee for initial consultations are creating a barrier to entry and eliminating potential new clients who otherwise seek attorneys not charging for their initial meeting.
Over the years, I have heard a number of common mistakes made by estate planning attorneys with respect to how they handle and manage initial prospective client meetings. Here are the top six mistakes that I have identified attorneys make with respect to prospective clients.
MISTAKE #6: Having Non-Attorney Staff Members Meet with Prospects.
Lately I have seen a trend around non-attorney staff members meeting with prospective clients. Some call these positions “Intake Specialists”, but it involves a non-attorney speaking with the prospective client to get an idea of what the client is looking for, what their interests are, and explaining the benefits of working with the law firm. Many of these non-attorney staff also end up quoting the fee (or worse yet, a range for the fees) to the prospective client. For those prospects who are merely price shopping, this initial meeting which comes at no cost to them, gives them just enough information to make a purchase decision. While this model works great for certain types of law, such as personal injury, DUI and family law, with estate planning, this model has a number of disadvantages to it. For one, estate planning has become a commodity and for many prospective clients, regardless of wealth, they are price shopping and are trying to find out where they can get the cheapest service while perhaps not resorting to cheap, low-cost internet, DIY-type websites.
The attorney has a certain level of authority with a prospective client and the goal is to develop trust and rapport with the attorney, which can only be done with the prospective client somehow being in front of the attorney. Another potential risk of this model is that there is no way to prevent the non-attorney staff from potentially engaging in the unauthorized practice of law. All it takes is one simple question from a prospective client that the non-attorney staff member knows the answer to, and now potential legal advice (and potential confusion around representation) may now be an issue.
Many of the firms that I have seen try to implement this non-attorney staff person handling initial meetings with prospective clients have had a hard time retaining those employees long-term and the result is that the attorney often gets dragged back into the process again anyways or struggling with new leads while trying to find, hire and train a new person in this position that becomes a revolving door for the firm.
MISTAKE #5: Violating Anti-Solicitation Rules.
While jurisdictions vary with respect to the ethics rules around solicitation of services, the American Bar Association’s Rule 7.3 makes it very clear that solicitation of clients is prohibited. Something as simple as a client referring a friend or family member and providing you with their loved ones’ contact information, you are in violation of the anti-solicitation rules if you reach out to that referred individual first and without their initiation of contact. Sometimes referral sources, such as financial advisors, do not understand these rules by which you are governed, so it is important that you educate your referral sources and ask that the prospective client be the one to initiate contact. Even an e-mail initiated by a referral source with a prospective client copied may be deemed a violation if the prospect does not reply or initiate additional contact with you, which can be challenging if the referral source prompted you to reply or take action.
MISTAKE #4: Breaching Client Confidentiality.
Another common mistake that we see with prospective clients is the potential breach of client confidentiality. This could come in the form of disclosing a client’s name to another client without permission. Sometimes this can happen unintentionally through conversation and without much thought. Whenever possible, be sure to clearly get permission from clients to disclose their name, such as with marketing materials (testimonials, reviews) and when reaching out to prospective clients who may be familiar with your client(s).
MISTAKE #3: Charging a Fee for Initial Meetings.
One of the biggest mistakes that estate planning attorneys make is charging a fee for initial meetings. Oftentimes the fee for initial meetings may be applied should the prospective client wish to proceed with any services. However, while those willing to pay a fee for an initial meeting are certainly more serious candidates, without any other lower barrier to entry to gain access to the attorney and learn more about his or her services, there’s a lot of potential business being missed because many estate planning attorneys offer free initial meetings. Unless your calendar is packed with paid consultations and needs some kind of safeguarding, the practice of charging a fee for initial meetings is a sure ticket to losing business to the firm down the street with not such a high barrier for entry.
MISTAKE #2: Offering 15-Minute “Discovery” Phone Calls.
Another common practice is for attorneys to hold “discovery” calls by phone for 15 minutes to serve as a way to screen prospects. There are a number of issues with this model. For one, it rarely every goes exactly 15 minutes, so they end up taking 30 to 45 minutes. Second, 15 minutes is rarely enough time to build up enough value for your fees, which most people end up quoting at the end of the discovery process. We discussed quoting fees, particularly in ranges. Prospects either hear the lowest number or the highest number and both are bad, because it’s typically the prospects who require the higher fee who end up stuck on the lower number and the person requiring the least who decided against moving forward because you were “too expensive” because all they heard was the higher number in the range. Lastly, while Zoom meetings are slightly better than telephone calls, there is nothing that can replace both the investment in both parties’ time (prospect and attorney) than a face-to-face meeting in order to develop trust and rapport. The conversion of leads is the first step in how a law practice generates revenue, so it is important to have an effective and efficient process for handling and converting these leads into paying clients, which brings me to…
MISTAKE #1: Not Driving Prospects to Attend a Seminar First.
It is no secret that our recommended process for handling all prospective leads is to have them attend a seminar first before coming in to meet with an attorney. We don’t just drive leads to our seminars through our direct marketing of the seminar. Essentially, anyone reaching out to the law firm about its services—website, Google search, referral source, or other means—will be pushed to attend a seminar before coming in for their free 90-minute consultation with an attorney. The majority of Phil Kavesh’s law firm’s prospective clients attend a seminar, which they’re incentivized to attend by letting them know by attending the seminar, they will qualify for a fee discount. We explain at the seminar why we are extending to them a discount on their fee by sharing that by attending the seminar, they have saved the attorney considerable amount of time having to essentially give the same information from the seminar in multiple one-on-one meetings. This process not only ensures that you have enough time to properly build up the value of your services, but do so in an effective manner which includes visual aids, a way to incentivize leads to take action with a discount and to not procrastinate by giving a deadline, and much more! Seminars help ensure that the attorneys’ meetings are productive and help generate revenue with serious, pre-screened leads and keep the face-to-face interactions with the attorney and avoid any potential malpractice!
In conclusion, a prospective client who has had face-to-face time with the attorney and has spent enough of his or her own time invested in learning, understanding and fully educating themselves on what it is that your firm has to offer will always be a far more qualified lead than by engaging in any of the other models and potential mishandlings of prospects as noted above. This is a model that has worked for Phil Kavesh for over 40 years and one that we are continuing to see work for many of the attorneys we work with and who are growing their practices overnight with seminar marketing!
RELATED PRODUCTS
If you would like more information about how we conduct seminars and would like assistance in developing a more effective model for how you handle prospective clients, consider getting The Ultimate Estate Planning Seminar Starter Kit. If you purchase this product between now and September 30, 2024, we will extend to you a special discount and a FREE bonus—three 60-minute coaching calls with our Practice Success Coach, Kristina Schneider!
For more details, click here and enter the promo code SEMINARKIT.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kristina Schneider is a Practice Success Coach at The Ultimate Estate Planner, Inc. She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Pepperdine University in 2004 and was hired right out of college to work for the Law Firm of Kavesh, Minor & Otis, coordinating and facilitating Philip Kavesh’s “Missing Link” Boot Camps while also providing administrative support to Mr. Kavesh as his Executive Assistant for over seven years. Through her direct hands-on experience in Mr. Kavesh’s law firm, Kristina has assisted numerous estate planning professionals through The Ultimate Estate Planner and, equally as important, many of their staff members, in the successful implementation of Ultimate Estate Planner’s products and systems. She is currently pursuing her MBA degree from Pepperdine University Graziadio Business School. You can reach Kristina at (424) 247-9495 or by e-mail at kristina@ultimateestateplanner.com.