Whenever an awkward comment is left behind at SJ, I try to take a look at who wrote it and why. This comment was particularly odd, so I checked out the website included in the link to see what the writer could possibly be thinking when he decided that linking his name to a peculiar comment was a good idea.
The “about” link at his website caught my eye, where he wrote that he started his firm without a single client and now had 500 in a mere few years. Obviously, he believes this to be the sort of thing worthy of promotion or he wouldn’t mention it.
Cars are often advertised on television as being the “most popular,” apparently intended to convey the message that if lots of other people like it, you should too. Sure, it will chase away the buyer who wants something different, or the buyer whose purpose in life is not to be one of the crowd. But most people aren’t unique, and want nothing more than to be utterly common. That’s fine. If it were different, it would be impossible for others to stand out.
But does asserting that a lawyer has 500 clients serve the same purpose? It immediately said two things to me. First, that the lawyer is high volume, low price. Big numbers only appeal to someone for whom volume is seen as a positive.
The other message it sent to me was that this lawyer had so many clients that the time he could give to any one was extremely limited. That, of course, is the low price give-back for high volume, there being only so many hours in the day and too many demands on one’s time. It told me that this was the lawyer to use if I wanted my matter neglected. I’m not saying this lawyer neglects matters, but that this was the message he was sending.
There are some historic notions about volume. If memory serves, it was Tom Waits who wrote the immortal words:
Gonna go to McDonalds Hamburgers
Gonna wait on line
Gonna order me a million burgers
Watch ’em go outside and change the sign
Or, if that’s too obscure a reference, there’s always Sophie Tucker’s Fifty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong, or its subsequent fifty million flies variation.
The idea is that if a lot of other people think something, so should you. In this case, if 500 consumers of legal services have chosen to place their trust in this lawyer, then he must be the right lawyer for you. The “wisdom of the masses” is a powerful tool.
The question remained, however, whether the “wisdom of the masses” that worked for Japanese cars and seared pink slime was similarly desirable for lawyers.
I’ve known some high volume criminal defense lawyers who made a ton of money. Some, the ones who gave a damn, eventually found it problematic, as they have no more hours in the day than anyone else, and when a case demanded more time than they had available, things became untenable. You can’t be on trial for a month when you have 50 cases a day on the calender. You can’t prepare for a trial when you have 50 cases on the calender. Something has to give.
Some of these guys had breakdowns. Some of these guys gave up caring and just made their problems go away. Some lied to clients. Some lied to themselves. Some watched in horror as their house of cards collapsed.
Maybe selling yourself by saying you have 500 clients seems like a good thing at the moment. Maybe it’s not quite true. Maybe you’ve had 500 clients over the years, but never that many at once. Maybe it’s a bit of exaggeration intended to make you appear more desirable to potential clients, while the reality is that you’re sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring. The truth isn’t necessarily apparent on a website.
For some lawyers, representing a select few clients is how they prefer to function. They charge more, often substantially more, but they never take on more clients than they can handle, providing as much time as needed to their cases. These are the lawyer for the client who seeks the best legal services, rather than the best prices. These clients aren’t interested in hearing that they’ve got to plead out because the lawyer doesn’t have the time to do their work, devise a defense, investigate, research, prepare and try their case.
Think about the message you’re sending when you make claims about yourself and your practice, and ask yourself whether this is the message you really want to convey. Which lawyer are you?
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I have a special practice. I handle one client. Now you have my number – I’ll wait for your call. By the way, I admire your pictures very much.
It’s the difference between shopping in a boutique and shopping at Wal-Mart.
+1 You have to love someone who can work Godfather dialog into a comment.
This brings to mind the issue of public defenders immediately. I know the poor, heroic, and bedamned bastards at the public defenders office would love to manage a lower caseload, and if a counselor says or implies that they match a PD office’s caseload, I’m running far, far away. Even though I only make around 16k a year plus a military disability pension, I would happily sign over that pension for a few years to get a competent attorney who could properly manage my case and give it the time it deserved. BTW, love your blog. I am a law student, and started reading blawgs as an alternative to actually studying, but they provide a much needed release from case law, provide very good information, and help shape the kind of lawyer I really want to be (assuming the legal profession exists as an option at all for non T1 graduates by the time I’ve passed the bar exam). Keep up the good work!
Ironic that PDs desperately try to reduce their overwhelming (and impossible) caseloads while private lawyers want to puff their numbers of clients for marketing purposes.
So it’s “over the [three] years”…at least that’s what the “about” page in question says now. Is that not what it said two days ago?
I’m glad to learn the message has been changed since I read it, though 166 clients a year (which of course falsely assumes that it’s evenly spread out) still screams high volume.
[I’ve altered my original comment because I don’t want to suggest that the lawyer isn’t a good, honest lawyer. I don’t know him and have no idea whether he’s billiant or horrible. This is about the marketing message, nothing more.]
Stick a fork in Hull McGuire PC. As Scott well knows, on clients, we snipe. We choose. We go after at most 2 new clients a year after we research them like you would research a stock. We consider it a success if we get one of them as a client in 18 months after the first face-to-face meeting. The rest is repeat biz. Rather be a street person than market or practice any other way. Just one possible way to look at volume in clients.
PS to my earlier (likely below) comment and re: Godfather Perfection. The Other Dan rocks like 100 packs of north Georgia wild dogs. I would have his children in a heartbeat. That’s all.