Dedication to Excellence
In this office, we are dedicated to the concept that the most important consideration in your legal representation is quality, and the second most important consideration is personal service and attention. Any law firm can dedicate itself to quality if the lawyers are willing to make the substantial effort and devote the time necessary to constantly study the law and its very latest changes and to organize their office practice and discipline themselves to be certain that the product produced for the client is a quality product.
If you have arrived in this office with your most important consideration in your legal repre-sentation being its cost, then you have accidentally wandered into the wrong law office. We do not mean to suggest that we are uncon-cerned with the cost to our clients of the legal services we provide. It is, in our view, the third most important consideration. We strive to maintain the highest ethical standards in our practice. The Rules of Professional Conduct which must be adhered to by every Florida lawyer include a prohibition against charging a "clearly excessive fee". We go even further and subscribe to the standard that we will not charge a fee which is not reasonable. In fact, it is our firm policy to discuss our fees with every client during the initial conference. However, as we said, in this office we do not consider the amount of the fee as our most important concern. For example, we could deliver legal services at a lower price than we do by sacrificing quality or service. We simply decline to do so.
There are discount stock brokers; there are low-priced legal clinics (and lawyers); there are cut rate HMOs; there are many options for those who consider price as the preeminent consideration, are willing to sacrifice service or who cannot afford quality.
Since we are a small firm, it is easier for us to provide personal service and attention in delivering legal services than it might be for the large law firm with even larger staffs of associates and legal assistantswho must be "thrown" at each legal problem to justify their continued employment. So often in that environment, the personal touch is lost somewhere within the system.
We think you will easily be able to see quality in the legal product we deliver. It is evident in many obvious ways such as our concern with the appearance of our documents. We invite you to compare our documents with similar documents produced by other offices. But our quest for quality does not end there. Documents must not only appear to be quality, they must contain quality. We also invite you to ask other lawyers about our professional reputation. In fact, we are known as "a lawyer's lawyer". We count many local lawyers and several judges, among our clients. In every in-stance we believe you will be satisfied with your inquiries, your observations, and with the product and service you receive from this office.
In the south Florida area where most people are new-comers, often, the reputation of a busi-ness is judged, at least in part, by how long it has been operating in south Florida. Rohan Kelley’s grandfather began practicing law in 1912, his father began practicing in 1941, he began prac-ticing in 1965 and his sons began practicing in 1997; in each instance, in Ft. Lauderdale. This family has been at this business in south Florida for four generations, with no end in sight. Here today and gone tomorrow is not something that applies to this family.
Finally, may we end where we began. In this firm, quality comes first.
The next page, reproduced here with the au-thor's permission, is an allegory (but a true story) which exemplifies this firm's dedication to quali-ty. This was originally published in the September 1992 issue of the American Bar Association Journal. Its author, James E. Brill is a solo practitioner lawyer in Houston, Texas. Just from reading the article, we know that Mr. Brill is also dedicated to delivering quality in his law practice.
Long After the Price is Forgotten
Quality is what lingers in clients’ minds
BY JAMES E. BRILL
A grocer named Aaron Pasternak told me a story about bananas that has a lot to do with law practice. Aaron's first-quality bananas sold for 30 cents a pound. He carefully weeded out those that had been bruised and put them on a separate table, posted a sign that identified them as "seconds," and reduced their price to 10 cents a pound.
He sold lots of bananas from both tables but found that he got lots of complaints about the 10-cent bananas not being of high quality.
He tried to explain that the bruises on the bananas reduced their quality and that led him to reduce the price. Nevertheless, in an effort to satisfy his customers, he would replace the bruised ones with those of top quality. It did not take long for him to realize that he was now losing money on the good bananas, and so he stopped discounting the price on the bad bananas and simply began to discard them.
It was this experience that led him to develop a guiding philosophy: The quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.
Law practice is a lot like the grocery business. Our clients will remember the quality of our services and the quality of their experience with us long after they have forgotten the amount of our fees.
As professionals, we have an obligation to provide the highest quality services to our clients. Many services relate to repetitive transactions that are completed with a brief conference and the preparation of a routine document. If that document is a deed, it would need a grantor, a grantee and a description of the property. If we omitted one of these elements, it would not justify a lower fee but would require a correction.
The point seems clear — we must discard our "seconds" and provide only the best quality of which we are capable. In my document example above, the client only needs a deed not a treatise on conveyancing, but the deed itself must be properly prepared.
Don't Shortchange Clients
If we hope to maintain our exclusive franchise for meeting the legal needs of the public, we cannot short¬change our clients by providing inferior service for a lower price. Michelangelo could have used a roller on the Sistine Chapel, but the world would have been shortchanged if he had.
Clients are not interested in legal theories — they are interested in solving problems. They do not want to know why not, they want to know how.
Clients want lawyers who are concerned about their problems and who care about them. They want honest lawyers who have good reputations. They want prompt, businesslike lawyers. And somewhere after they get all of that, clients want lawyers who charge reasonable fees. Basically, the clients are more interested in the quality of their experience and of our service than they are in the price.
What is quality law practice? Avoiding grievances? Avoiding a malpractice suit? The absence of complaints? Competent service? Certainly quality encompasses all of those, but I submit that quality law practice means matching your services to your client's expectations. We deliver quality when we provide value for the client as the client defines value.
Within reason, it is the client who defines quality. Within reason, the client--like the customer--is always right. Within reason, the lawyer should go out of the way to please the client.
With that in mind, we must help our clients articulate their desires and expectations, ensure that those desires and expectations are realistic, and take prompt and appropriate action on the clients' behalf.
Every lawyer must be familiar with well-settled principles of law and perform reasonable research. Every lawyer must exercise reasonable professional judgment, be technically skilled, organized and efficient, and with all of this, every lawyer's service must be delivered in a timely and cost effective manner.
Every client is entitled to expect this minimum level of competence in dealing with a lawyer.
Aaron Pasternak died a few years ago, and I at-tended his funeral. His admirers filled the room to overflowing. The eulogy was a moving and meaningful tribute and mentioned a number of his friends by name: Integrity, Kindness, Honesty, Compassion. It was a most appropriate display of affection for a man who knew and taught me about quality being remembered long after the price is forgotten.
