In scores of Edge legal project management workshops, I have been struck by how imprecisely and stereotypically law firm lawyers describe their customers. To hear them tell it, there's a single monolith out there called, "the client."  They ask sweeping questions like, "What is the client demanding these days?" and answer them with equally sweeping overgeneralizations: "Clients are clamping down on outside legal spend." or "Clients are demanding greater predictability." Full disclosure: I'm occasionally guilty of this myself.  I sometimes say things like, "Project management is not just a set of work processes and measures; it's a communication engine that can significantly improve the relationship between lawyer and client."

At each point during a project, effective communication demands a precisely-identified referent. It requires a clear distinction between client players, their positions, their roles and their interests. Is "the client" a company, its corporate management, its general counsel, its collective legal management or department heads, its worker bees?  Does the phrase include various ancillary stakeholders as well as those directly responsible for legal work?  If your firm is engaged by Amalgamated Widget, are they "the client?"  If the client relationship partner has separate communication pathways with both senior management and the general counsel, who is "the client?"  For the law firm's CFO, maybe "the client" is just an electronic address for the e-billing invoice.  For a senior associate serving as project manager on an engagement, "the client" may be her counterpart on an in-house legal staff.   For a younger associate, "the client" may either be some mystical power figure he'll never meet personally or a lower-level staff lawyer responsible for collecting interrogatory response information.

Above and beyond a client's formal roles and responsibilities, effective client relationships also must consider the personal face of client relationships:  Jack, the golf fanatic. Jill, who hates reading a lot of emails. Sam who goes ballistic over typos in correspondence, or Sue, a rabid Twitter and Facebook fan. Personalizing the client relationship appropriately is a fine art.

 If you don't know who your client is, you don't know who you are accountable to - and your colleagues don't either.  So let's all resolve to be more succinct. Henceforth when you tell me, "We just heard back from the client." imagine I'm in your face: Just which client do you mean?

Process: a series of actions or operations conducing to an end; a continuous operation or treatment especially in manufacture 

Design: an underlying scheme that governs functioning, developing, or unfolding; a plan or protocol for carrying out or accomplishing something

Which do you think will appeal more to lawyers' self-image? Which will help move them further along the road to accepting a degree of systematization in their work?

Maybe we should say, "Welcome to the design era in law." Apply "design" to what your firm does and see whether your lawyers respond much better than to poor old "process."

Much of what law firm leaders are called upon to do involves bringing about change at the individual partner level.  Typically, this means first getting the partners to buy into the need for change at an intellectual level.  Achieving this "cognitive acceptance" is not easy, but the really hard part is then getting those partners to actually change the behaviors that necessitated the change. 

In our work with law firms, partners are invariably bright, hard working and successful.  This is sometimes coupled with a touch of healthy cynicism, skepticism, change resistance and a desire for self-determination.  Why should they change?  They are, after all, already successful doing things their own way.  Add this to the unique aspects of each partner and the situation for each firm and one finds there is no magic cocktail of implementation steps that will work every time for everyone.

Despite these challenges, we have found that that being prepared to respond to a few inherent partner concerns is essential to successful behavioral change. 

·       Give me the facts.  Lawyers are accustomed to digesting complex situations.  The factual basis for the proposed changes should be carefully thought through and communicated.

·       Why should I believe this?  Where others have provided information, or may even have rated performance, it is important that partners feel comfortable with the credibility of information sources.

·       Let me be involved and feel I am contributing.  Successful partners are usually control freaks and like to be involved in the design of changes and their implementation.  In other words, they must be comfortable with the "message" and be shown respect.

·       Can I trust you?  It is vitally important that the right person presents the case for change. This may or may not be the traditional leader of the firm.

·       Does this apply to everyone (or am I being picked on)?  Partners need to know they are not being singled out.  What they are being asked to do is no different than what is expected of every other partner.

·       Will you continue to take an interest or is it now up to me?  It is folly to believe that nodding approval or even enthusiastic acceptance in one or two meetings will result in true behavioral change. It is essential that leaders maintain an ongoing, genuine interest in the change process, most importantly in the person concerned, and provide or facilitate feedback on achievements.

·       Am I now 'branded' or will my turning over a new leaf be recognized?  In the words of the One Minute Manager, "Try to catch them doing something right."  Recognition of achievement and improvement is the glue that can cement the above principles.  A public pat on the back goes a long way to building confidence and trust.

Key to behavior change is the recognition that law firms cannot buy compliance.  Partners' earnings are too high to permit behavior change to be driven by compensation.  Money may reinforce changed behavior but most firms don't have enough money available to get lawyers to do something they are not already convinced they should do.  Unfortunately, driving change is far more subtle and complex - which is why inspiring behavior is the essence of strong leadership.