Editor's Note: This story is adapted from ALM's Mid-Market Report. For more business of law coverage exclusively geared toward midsize firms, sign up for a free trial subscription to ALM's weekly newsletter, The Mid-Market Report.

As soon as it became clear that the staff and attorneys at his law firm were going to need to vacate their offices and spend an extended stretch working remotely because of COVID-19, Jim Jarrell, chief marketing and business development officer at New Jersey-based Norris McLaughlin, gave a simple piece of advice to the firm's lawyers: call your clients.

The personal outreach began to bear fruit immediately, according to Jarrell.

"In some cases, they called their client and the next day they got a matter—that was the case with one of the senior litigators," Jarrell said, adding "One of our real estate lawyers called a client and had a great conversation—an hour later their invoice was paid."

Much has been written and many a seminar has been presented with the goal of helping lawyers and their clients to better communicate with each other.

But at an unprecedented time in history that has left even the most brilliant business minds unsure of how to proceed and what the future may hold, better communication between lawyers and their clients has quickly graduated from aspirational to indispensable.

Now more than ever—arguably even more than during the Great Recession—clients need to know they have counsel they can trust and rely on, and the firms that will come out the other side of this economic slowdown stronger are the ones who use this difficult time to strengthen those relationships.

"By and large, for the middle market and small businesses, nobody's known what to do," Jarrell said of the coronavirus' impact on business operations and the economy. "The smartest people in the market are suddenly novices to business. It's been a real opportunity for us to take a leadership role with our clients and it's an opportunity that, quite frankly, we wouldn't have gotten if not for the pandemic and the shutdown. It's created such a vacuum of knowledge and comfort."

But an understanding of how to seize that type of opportunity does not always come naturally to attorneys. That's where business development, marketing and client relations professionals can be of assistance.

Dawn Sheiker, director of client relations at Delaware midsize law firm Morris James, said she has also been advising the lawyers at her firm to keep in close contact with their clients regularly during the COVID-19 outbreak.

When it comes to litigators, for instance, "the first and best thing to do is to call your clients and ask, 'Has your litigation strategy changed?'" Sheiker said.

If their business has been interrupted, clients may be looking to stay certain pending matters or fast-track others. They may also be more willing to settle certain cases than they previously had been, Sheiker explained.

In addition, Sheiker said, "that call to check in might reveal that they're facing some insolvency issues, which might enable you to get them to a bankruptcy attorney at the firm or to get them to business folks to help them do their [Paycheck Protection Program] application."

The overarching message to clients, Sheiker said, needs to be: "Should you be in trouble, we have your back."

Sheiker has also encouraged the lawyers at her firm to be proactive during the slowdown in addressing even more delicate subjects with clients, such as billing and collections, in an effort to get out in front of issues that could become more problematic if left unattended.

"They should be asking, 'Do you need slow-pay options?' and 'How can we help you maintain cash flow for your business while recognizing that we as a law firm are also business and need to maintain ours?'" Sheiker said.

Recognizing that many attorneys are hesitant to make those phone calls, Sheiker encourages rehearsing those conversations ahead of time with client relations professionals.

"Just like you practice before a job interview or before you go to court or before you propose to your wife, practice your conversation with your client," she said.

And while COVID-19 has put a premium on lawyer-client communication, Jarrell and Sheiker stressed that the lessons attorneys are learning now are ones that were important pre-slowdown and will remain applicable long after the quarantines lifts.