Consistency and Time
To understand how lawyers viewed the lawyer-client relationship, it is important to identify those features they considered necessary for its good health. In interview, lawyers held personal factors as more important than strictly legal consideration.
These included developing good rapport, honesty, accessibility and communication. The ability to individualise service is key. The lawyers claimed to hold a particular conception of contact and access to be crucial in dealing with clients. This is the ideal by which lawyers provide consistency in representation to the client and, thereon, affording them the time they desire. The lawyer works for the client. Accordingly, an overwhelming 35 out of the 35 lawyers expressed sentiments similar to the following:The lawyer-client relationship is at the root of everything we do. Clients have to trust us and be able to have confidence in us. So much of our work is repeat work, clients who keep coming back to us. We do see ourselves at the heart of the community here and our reputation is important. Word of mouth, recommendations, people who keep coming back. Clients know they can rely on us.
(Leo, senior partner, Radcliffe and Musk, INT)
Some clients just can't be pushed through quickly. For whatever reason, they need more time. They need a solicitor who can spend time with them, go over their case and, maybe as important, get to know them as individuals. Because that's what they are - individuals. No two clients are the same... ideally, the solicitor will have time to build up that relationship.
Some clients just require more time than others. Suppose you’re dealing with someone whose first language is not English, a simple process could take forever. Supposing you’re dealing with a client who is educationally disadvantaged, or has a learning disability, as opposed to a client who is able to do a lot oftheir work himself, and comes in with a chronology the first time he sees you.
They’re chalk and cheese. It is not like making widgets within the car manufacturing industry, where I know that every widget looks exactly the same and takes me five minutes to make. Because people aren’t the same.(Bobby, partner, Sosig and Sage, INT)
These features were considered particularly important by my lawyers for the role they played in developing ‘rapport’ with clients. Some 25 out of the 35 lawyers - across the firms - displayed these views, said to be necessary in order that the client would trust them. This can be seen in these examples:
Building that relationship with the client is the most important part ofthe job. I think it’s number one to be honest. If they don’t trust you I don’t see how you can represent them to the best of your ability. I see my role as obviously having to build that trust up. I have to make the client comfortable in my presence, to feel some sort of rapport.
(Laura, solicitor, Swining MacSage, INT)
It’s about a personal bond, really. The actual offence might be quite straightforward but it’s a social thing, I suppose. They need to feel that you’re on their side and that you’ll help them. They may look back on it - they may be guilty - but it’s still about showing them that you’re there for them... I think it’s important to build up rapport.
(Dick, partner, Swining MacSage, INT)
Most lawyers thus emphasised the role contact and access played in establishing what they considered to be the foundations of the lawyer-client relationship. One police station clerk, Johnny from Radford Hope, aptly articulated this approach as signifying a display of respect:
You’ve got to have trust with a client. He’s got to have faith in you. You have to build up rapport, so you need to spend time with them, you have to. You’ve got to treat them with respect. At the end of the day, it’s all about respect. My father always told me to respect other people and that’s what I try to do with my clients.
(Johnny, police station clerk, Radford Hope, INT)
Many lawyers professed this approach as an ideal to strive for, albeit one they saw challenged by external pressures.