The first step in helping a client is the find out what the client wants. How do you do that? Well, for starts, ask them. But after you ask, don’t assume that because you went to school for seven (at least) years to get your law degree, that you know everything. After you ask, it’s time for you to sit back in your chair and listen…really listen. If you start running off at the mouth, your prospective client is going to have a bad first impression of you. You don’t want to dominate the entire conversation. You want to take in as many facts as you can.

Don’t ask leading questions. You can’t fit every client into a perfect mold. You have to take the cases as they are, warts and all. Ask the client questions like, “tell me what’s going on?” Open then door and then get out of the way. Sometimes the client may just fill you will irrelevant facts that you don’t need to know, especially at this stage of your representation, and this is where you will need to rope them in. I have been very guilty of letting clients talk and talk – too much. However, you really need to find that perfect balance where you can determine the relevant facts that determine exactly what type of matter you’re dealing with. By knowing exactly what services you are providing, you can draft better contracts and charge more exact fees. When you take off into some representation not knowing exactly what you’re doing for the client, you may overcharge, or even worse, undercharge for your services. And once you have that contract with the client, they are not going to want to pay you any more money when the representation has concluded.