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February 22, 2006
"Lawyers As Trusted Advisers"
Clearly, I'm having post-envy here, and wish I had written the above-entitled post but Arnie Herz at Legal Sanity did instead. If you are relationship-driven in your approach to clients--which is just about the only overall model I can come up with--and you seek true partnership and "consigliere" roles with your best clients, you should read Arnie's post "Lawyers As Trusted Advisors". This man not only thinks before he writes, he gets it.
Posted by JD Hull at February 22, 2006 04:37 PM
Comments
JD,
Unfortunately, clients and markets are smart enough to understand that they don't want lawyers as trusted advisers.
There is a lawyer and sociologist named Mark Suchman, he used to teach at Wisconsin and now is on the West Coast, who has written very extensively on the fact that over time lawyers relationships with clients must deteriorate, because clients learn to do more and more for themselves. His best paper was delivered in about 1992 to a Bar Program in Chicago. Unfortunately, after the whole MDP fiasco with the ABA I gave up on all such stuff and pitched the paper, or I would send it to you.
The basic idea is that the more clients can do for themselves, the less they need lawyers and the more task specific lawyer client relationships will become. He really paints as excellent picture of what the practice has become and where it is headed.
Posted by: Moe Levine at February 22, 2006 07:20 AM