I remember being told the story of an old time lawyer who would wear a tie, albeit sans suit jacket, when mowing the lawn. The reason was that a lawyer was a lawyer, a professional, at all times, no matter what he was doing. As a matter of dignity, he should always comport himself as a lawyer. He should always behave like a lawyer. He should always wear a tie. I don’t know what happened when the old time lawyer went swimming.
We’ve moved beyond those days, where others are impressed with our dignity as demonstrated by our lawn-mowing attire. Not to the point where we can walk into court in flip-flops, and blaming jurors for thinking we’re so not admiring our brilliance while overlooking our lack of self-respect, but to the point that we can dress as we please after hours without fear that we’ve single-handedly undermined the profession. Unless, of course, you learned to be a lawyer online.
Susan Cartier Liebel, shopkeeper at Solo Marketing University and Legal Rebel, offers a parable.
Let me set the stage. We are in the middle of historic snow storms in the Northeast. Everyone is bundled up for arctic chill. Outrageous outfits, hoods, boots. Nothing even really matches. It’s about keeping warm.
Add to this I just had oral surgery which has left me with a goose-sized egg on my jaw in brilliant hues of purple, black, green and yellow. I also can’t speak very well. (Ergo, why I am not at LegalTech in New York.)
So, today I finally ventured out to the supermarket to stock up on food because of another ‘dangerous’ monster storm coming. I confess, with everything going on I looked like a battered Walmart shopper.
So, Walmart shoppers, you now know where you stand in the scheme of grand appearances. Bear with me, as Susan uses quite a few words to tell her tale. At checkout, Susan was overcharged, and questioned it, reaching the exalted level of the 19-ish year old manager.
He told me in a very annoyed and condescending voice the sale price was from last week and shouldn’t have been there but he was going to give me the sale price anyway. What a guy!
We walked over to customer service where the customer service person looked at my face. She did that barely discernible stare for a second and then looked away. The manager started to explain what was going on. He was explaining the problem incorrectly which would have resulted in the wrong credit. I kept slurring, ‘excuse me’ but he kept talking and talking with his back turned away from me. Finally I tapped him on the back and said, ‘Hello? I’m talking to you?’ He continued to talk like I wasn’t there. I was getting highly agitated now.
Wait for it…
And as my husband likes to say, ‘you don’t want to get my wife mad.’
I refuse to offer any sexist commentary with regard to this brutally common affectation, and suggest the reader draw her own conclusion.
Finally he left and I started to explain the problem correctly. The customer service person started to talk to me very loudly and slowly as if I were both deaf and incapable of comprehending. Now I’m seeing red. She was doing some convoluted math to give me the credit but kept coming up wrong. I explained the right way to do it. She told me she can’t do it my way. I said fine and then asked her just to see if when she did it my way we came up to the same number. We eventually did. There was no pretense of politeness on her part. No ‘please sign here’ or ‘please swipe your credit card.’ She just bossed me around like a subordinate. After the transaction was completed she dismissively said, ‘have a nice day.’ And then as I was walking away (drumroll, please) she muttered under her breath, ‘uppity white trash.’
Outrageous? Yes. Unwarranted? Absolutely. Lesson?
Yes, this is still a marketing lesson.We are correctly or incorrectly perceived, judged, and treated as we present ourselves. I looked bruised and battered and dressed to unimpress.
As solo practitioners you don’t have the luxury of not dressing appropriately and presenting appropriately in public ever because everyone you meet is a potential client or referrer of clients. They will make snap assessments about you whether you like it or not. Better they make a snap positive assessment.
This is where the marketing perspective differs from the substantive perspective. The problem here, according to Susan, is that she didn’t dress to impress either a 19-year-old Sam’s Club (I’m guessing here) manager or his chargé d’affaires, the customer service rep? That’s not the lesson I see at all.
That’s not to say that there isn’t a lesson to be had. Indeed, there is, and an important one to boot. Lawyers are persuaders, communicators. Communication is a two part process, sending and receiving. We can send a message any way we please, but if it isn’t effectively received by the other party, the one who we need to persuade to see things our way, than we’ve failed to properly communicate.
We do this with judges. We do this with clients. We do this with juries. We vary our words, tones, logic and examples to suit the people we seek to convince. What happened to Susan wasn’t a matter of her unimpressive attire, but her unpersuasive manner. She was going to let them have it her way, perhaps because she was “agitated,” and they made her “mad.” By her choice of words, it appears that she was all about the sending part of communication, focused solely on herself, rather than the receiving piece. She forgot that the point is to get the other person to do what she wanted them to do.
It’s a common error, but one that renders lawyers who fail to recognize it remarkably ineffective. It doesn’t matter how angry you are, unless your only goal is a nice, cathartic rant. If you’re happy enough to vent your spleen and get nothing out of it, then self-obsess and have a nice day.
if, on the other hand, your purpose is to persuade another person to do something, than your focus has to be on them. Who are they, and what do they need to hear to be convinced that you are right? This is the substance of what lawyers do, regardless of whether you’re in a bespoke suit or blue jeans.
So Susan was shabbily dressed and the girl muttered “uppity white trash.” If she had dressed more lawyerly, the girl would have muttered “scum-sucking shyster.” It’s easier to blame it on the clothing than to be an effective lawyer. Lesson learned.
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I have a friend that’s looking to hire an associate. He says the way he teaches his associates is through memos. I looked at him funny – memos? Who learns through memos? Adults learn (and by learn I mean know what you are talking about) in different ways and we need to adapt to the learner in order to get what we want. Terribly manipulative, isn’t it? I ain’t giving away my secrets (and don’t you dare either) but sometimes the best way is to make that 19 year old manager (and kudos to her for achieving that at such a young age) feel like she is smart and her job is worthwhile and that there is nothing more that she wants to do than to do everything she can to make it right for you. But what do I know?
I wrote this post a little more than two years ago, and it still holds true. One the most influential books I read in college was The Essential Chester I. Barnard. Sadly, I don’t think it’s available anymore, and my dog-eared copy will remain in my library. Chet was the genius behind the notion of getting people to do stuff by making them believe that it’s what they want to do.
Parenthetically, a large number of people that I meet who figure out that I am blind (the white cane does not always alert them) then talk in very loud voices as if I were deaf. Perceptions overcome facts all the time.
And as I am well aware, you can hear perfectly. You just choose not to listen.
Blaming the suit is the easy way out. Persuasion is a skill that takes years to learn, and decades to master. Controlling one’s emotions in the face of adversity is something probably no one – other than monk – ever masters. Most of us, if we’re really good, are able to mitigate our emotions’ destructiveness.
Shopping for a new suit is easy. And fun. Go me!
Sorry — just a little — to seem to take the side of the Marketeers (who always do seem a little mickeymouse to me), but seems to me that style of dress has a lot to do with “personal branding”, and setting expectations, in or out of the practice of law.
Which, is, honest, why I wore those awful Hawaiian shirts for all those years — when I was up at the Capital, not officially representing GOCRA, I didn’t have a lot of time, and needed to stand out. (Friends, supporters, and those not connected with the Dramamine Lobby will be happy to know that I’ve traded them in for an Indy Jones hat and a fringed leather jacket.)
As important as knowledge, skill, and commitment? Obviously not — but any poker player knows that you take any edge you can, when you get it.
Not to undermine your side-taking, but every effective lawyer uses any edge he can get. What he doesn’t do is blame the edge for the failure of the core. Or lack the capacity to tell which is which.
Personal branding? Sure. I’ve got mine and most have theirs. As Scott says, the fact that you wear a Hawaiian shirt doesn’t mean you get to be a dick and get your way.
Whenever I read the phrase “personal branding,” it makes me wince. Is it just me, or do other people think of rawhide?
I’m no fan of that silly university, but while reading, I couldn’t help wondering how this post would go if the people “handling” Susan were actually the slackoise it sounded like they might be.