Your Client Wants an Answer Now. What to Do?
"We often get calls from clients who want instantaneous answers, and they'll send a complex document, that's been created by someone else's lawyer, and you're looking at it on your iPhone," Murtha Cullina's David Friedman said.
April 26, 2019 at 12:55 PM
7 minute read
Lawyers know all too well that job demands for attorneys can cause increased levels of stress that lead to serious health problems. But what happens when client impatience, combined with the increased speed of communications, leads to errors affecting the bottom line?
It's a very real problem affecting attorneys at all levels, according to David Friedman, litigation partner in the Stamford office of Murtha Cullina who said in an interview this week that the modes of communication people use today can contribute to costly errors. He noted that client demands for instantaneous answers, combined with technology that allows lawyers to give them, creates an environment in which mistakes can easily be made.
“We often get calls from clients who want instantaneous answers, and they'll send a complex document, that's been created by someone else's lawyer, and you're looking at it on your iPhone,” Friedman said. “It's difficult. You're struggling to read it, enlarging different parts of it, and it's hard because you're not looking at the whole page. You don't necessarily pick up everything you're supposed to pick up and you may miss some critical things that you wouldn't miss at your desk. I've seen a few cases and situations where the problem was the lawyer was using the iPhone to look at complicated documents.” With the smaller format, cellphones don't always pick up the red-lining, or corrections, that invariably appear in certain documents in desktop mode, making review even more difficult.
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Trending Stories
- 1The Law Firm Disrupted: For Big Law Names, Shorter is Sweeter
- 2Wine, Dine and Grind (Through the Weekend): Summer Associates Thirst For Experience in 'Real Matters'
- 3The 'Biden Effect' on Senior Attorneys: Should I Stay or Should I Go?
- 4'That's Disappointing': Only 11% of MDL Appointments Went to Attorneys of Color in 2023
- 5'You Are Not Alone': 120 Sex Assault Victims Plan to Sue Sean 'Diddy' Combs
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250