Most Attorney Frustrations Don’t Require Switching Lawyers

If you’re frustrated with your attorney, the solution is usually better communication—not finding a new one. The most common complaints I hear from business owners: “I can never reach my attorney,” “my bills are full of surprises,” “my attorney only tells me what I can’t do,” and “I feel like I’m not a priority.” These are fixable problems once you understand what’s driving them.

Why Attorneys Act This Way

Good attorneys get overloaded with clients. They raise rates hoping to thin the roster, but loyal clients stick around, and the attorney burns out. Attorneys are also trained to be risk-averse—law school and malpractice horror stories make them default to “don’t do that” rather than “here’s how we can make it work.” Meanwhile, business owners want practical solutions, not a list of everything that could go wrong. Add legal jargon and poor communication habits, and the disconnect grows.

Practical Fixes That Work

Unreachable attorney: Set a standing weekly or biweekly check-in call. This gives you predictable access and reduces the back-and-forth of voicemails and emails.
Surprise bills: Ask for a billing estimate upfront for each matter. Request itemized invoices and ask your attorney to flag you before exceeding the estimate.
Risk-only advice: Tell your attorney directly, “I understand the risks—now help me find a path forward.” Reframe the conversation from risk avoidance to risk management.
Not a priority: Ask who on the team will handle your day-to-day work and request that the lead attorney stay involved on strategy. Clarify your expectations at the start of the relationship.

Set Expectations Early

The best time to address these issues is before they start. At the beginning of any new attorney relationship, discuss communication preferences, billing practices, and your expectation that the attorney think like a business advisor—not just a legal technician. Attorneys who understand your business goals deliver dramatically better results than those who only understand the law.

Video Transcript

How Do You Solve the Most Common Frustrations With Your Attorney?

Techniques for Working Better With Your Attorney

If you are frustrated with your attorney, most of the time you don’t need to switch attorneys. You just need some techniques for dealing with that attorney. In this video, I am going to talk about some of the most common frustrations, why attorneys do this sort of thing, and then we will talk about practical solutions for how you can work better with your attorney and help your attorney work better with you.

Who I Am and Why This Matters

My Background Working With Business Owners

I am Aaron Hall. I am an attorney for business owners and entrepreneurial companies. Since 2007, I have been working to improve how I work with my clients. And there are a number of reasons that I have found challenged in working with clients.

Lessons From Managing a Law Firm

Then, when I grew a law firm and managed a team of about 15 attorneys, what I realized is these attorneys were at different levels of both their attorney skills, but also their client skills. And I am talking about client management, communications, setting expectations, et cetera. So we are going to talk about some of these today.

Common Client Complaints About Attorneys

Not Being Able to Reach Your Attorney

Specifically, we are going to talk about the following frustrations. Perhaps you have had some of these.

Have you ever said, “I can never get a hold of my attorney?”

Or perhaps you have said, “My legal bills are unclear and full of surprises.”

Lack of Business Understanding

Another common comment is, “My attorney doesn’t understand my business.”

In other words, the attorney may understand the law but isn’t appreciating the context of the business or isn’t thinking about the issues from the goals and concerns of a business owner.

Here is another one: “My attorney always tells me what I can’t do instead of finding solutions.” The attorney is risk adverse and a pessimist rather than, “Okay, well, what are we going to do about it? Let’s find a solution to these problems.”

Only Reacting to Problems

A similar frustration is, “My attorney only reacts to problems.” The attorney isn’t thinking ahead and being proactive. That is really common.

Not Adapting to How Your Business Operates

Another frustration is, “My attorney is too rigid and won’t adapt to how we work.” In other words, the attorney requires us to accommodate her or him rather than the attorney accommodating our workflow and our processes.

Feeling Like You’re Not a Priority

And finally, clients may feel like, “I feel like I am not a priority. I am always getting passed off to some junior attorney. I feel like I am getting the B team treatment rather than the attorney acting like I am a high priority for her or him.”

Understanding Attorney Behavior

Attorneys Are Human Too

All right, let’s talk about why are attorneys doing this. Are they out to get us? No. There are a number of negative influences on an attorney’s life and on their practice that are driving this. And when you understand what these are, it will inform how to address them with the attorneys. And keep in mind, these are humans. These are people with lives and problems just like you. They are cleaning up after their pet. They get into an argument with a spouse or a loved one. They planned for their day to go a certain way, and then something came up. And so, like you, they are navigating a number of challenges.

Not an Excuse—But Context Helps

Now, that is not an excuse, and as we will talk about, there is some great solutions to resolve some of this, but it helps to have a little bit of empathy for the fact that, yeah, this isn’t a superhero coming in to save the day. We are going to be dealing with some real human flaws and attorneys at different levels of professionalism and experience. So, keep that in mind as we tackle this.

Challenges Attorneys Commonly Face

Attorney Workload and Burnout

One real, honest challenge is the great attorneys can be overloaded with clients. They might simply have too much work. And when they do that, often they will raise their rates, but sometimes the clients still want to stick with them. And so they keep raising their rates in hope of losing some clients. But the clients say, “Hey, this attorney is so good. I want to keep working with this attorney.” And so the attorney is getting burned out and overwhelmed. And they are scattered. They may not respond back timely. So, that is one of the negative influences affecting attorneys.

Next, attorneys are naturally risk adverse because this is drilled into them in law school and every time an attorney reads about some malpractice case where an attorney committed an error, the attorney says to himself or herself, “I am not going to be that attorney. I am not going to show up in the newspaper having committed malpractice. I am going to make sure my clients do everything right.” But the problem with that is the business owner says, “I don’t want to try to do everything right. That would cost me way too much money, and I am not interested in eliminating all possible risk. I don’t have the money for that. Let’s focus on the big risk first, and then we will tackle the next biggest, and then the next biggest, as my budget permits.” And so you have this contrast between an attorney trying to avoid all risk, and clients saying, “No, just advise me on the risk, I will accept some of that risk, and we will tackle one piece at a time.”

Clients are often frustrated by legal jargon and the complexity of the legal explanations provided by their attorney, and one reason for that is attorneys are living in the world of reading cases by judges and interacting with other attorneys using legalese. And although that legalese can make communication efficient when communicating with a judge or an attorney. The attorney has to be intentional about switching and using plain language when speaking with a client. Frankly, some brains just don’t work that way. It is really hard for an attorney to use one language with one group and a different language with a different group. Or, the attorney just might not be thinking about that and intentional about making that switch. So sometimes it helps for the client to just simply say, “Hey, can you explain that to me in plain language? Or, I don’t understand what that term means, can you explain that further to me?”

Bureaucracy in Larger Firms

Another challenge can be firm bureaucracy and firm procedures. When business owners work with a large firm, often they are surprised that the firm appoints two attorneys to the case. A senior attorney and a junior attorney. And that means then when there is a court hearing, the business owner is paying for both attorneys to attend that hearing. And then when the attorneys talk with each other, both attorneys are billing for that time. So, if that is something that you want to avoid, either pick a smaller firm or pick a big firm and just have a conversation about that attorney, about who is actually going to do my work. Are you going to have two attorneys at each hearing? Because I don’t want that. And I also don’t want to be paying for you to talk with each other. Now, the attorneys will say, “Hey, well, you need to pay for that because we are going to give you the efficiency of having a junior attorney at a lower hourly rate and the benefit of having a more seasoned, experienced attorney at a high hourly rate for the complex stuff, so you don’t have to be using the same attorney for both tasks, but occasionally we still need to communicate. So we are collaborating and in sync with each other.” And so the firm might just say, “At times we need to do that. We will do our best to keep it to a minimum.” But having a conversation about that with your attorney can go a long way. Now, if you are working with a mid-size or small firm, you probably don’t have to deal with that.

Attorneys Are Trained to React, Not Prevent

Law School Mentality

You might ask, “Why do some attorneys focus so much on being reactive rather than proactive?” In other words, it seems like the attorney only jumps into an issue when there is a problem rather than helping the business owner avoid that problem to begin with. Here is one of the reasons why. In law school, we were trained to spot issues, identify the rule associated with that, like the law or statute, apply that rule, and then, through an analysis, identify what is the conclusion or the next step here. In other words, the natural way attorneys were trained is to see problems and resolve them. So it is most common for an attorney not to go delving through your whole business and trying to understand all the potential problems but rather only to respond to the problems that you present.

This is why I developed the legal operating system. The legal operating system is something we have implemented with a number of our clients where, just like a business operating system, like Traction EOS, which is my favorite, or Gazelle’s Scaling Up or the Four Disciplines of Execution by Sean Covey, just like the various operating systems that are out there, the legal operating system gives you the tools you need to preventatively identify issues or risks in your company, bring those to your attorney, and prevent them from becoming problems rather than reacting to them.

So it is very natural for attorneys to be reactive because they don’t understand everything that is going on in your business, nor do you necessarily want to be paying for their time to learn all about your business. It is far more effective and efficient for you to be equipped with the legal operating system. So that you have the training and knowledge to spot issues and bring those up with your attorney. That allows you to be more preventative. It allows you to reduce your legal fees and attorney fees on average by 80% to 90% each year.

So if you want to learn more about the legal operating system, the first step is going to AaronHall.com/free. And that is where you can sign up for our free newsletters, if you will. It is actually some training with videos that help you start to tackle some of the problems. Once you have identified it is working well for you tackling some of those problems and the approach I use in training you with those videos, then you can learn more about the legal operating system, but it is kind of a way to vet people so that you can get to know us and we can get to know you before we even jump into the legal operating system, but the issue here is helping you, equipping you to be proactive so that you can get your attorney involved in preventing problems rather than just reacting to problems.

Bridging the Gap Between Law and Business

Why Attorneys May Not Understand Business

Another frustration you might have is that attorneys have a legal perspective, not a business perspective. A lot of attorneys simply don’t understand business, and that is very natural. They were not necessarily trained in that. It can be really hard to find an attorney who is very good at law and also understands business. That also is why we set up the legal operating system because we realized you are the one that understands your business better than anyone else. Which means you are going to be the one best equipped to spot issues that need attention from an attorney, and then when you bring those to your attorney, that attorney can help you navigate the legal aspects of that.

How to Solve Specific Frustrations With Your Attorney

“I Can Never Get a Hold of My Attorney”

What You Can Do to Improve Communication

Many attorneys have their phone on Do Not Disturb, or they are in a court hearing, or they are in the middle of drafting. They can be hard to get a hold of. So what do you do about that? There is some best practices. First, if you leave a message, go ahead and follow up with an email clearly stating what your need is and when you need a response by or how urgent it is if you don’t have a specific deadline. Second, you can loop in support staff, like a paralegal or a legal assistant, so that they, who are often sitting there available, can help the attorney in managing the various priorities and urgencies that the attorney may be facing.

When to Escalate

If you still can’t get a response, it is very appropriate to escalate the issue to the attorney’s supervisor or managing partner. Let’s face it, that feels a little uncomfortable, but it is often better for you to have a gentle, open, and honest communication with the attorney and the attorney’s managing partner rather than going through the whole process of finding a new attorney, transitioning all your work, and getting that attorney up to speed there.

Helping Your Attorney Improve

You are doing a service to the attorney by helping your attorney work through an issue. And by the way, you are probably not the only client experiencing this frustration. So you are actually helping that attorney to grow in this area with all of his or her clients. And finally, if for some reason none of that works, then you might need to set consequences. And I think it is very kind to communicate to the attorney if we can’t get this resolved, I am going to need to find legal counsel who can accommodate our needs.

Communicating Expectations Early

And sometimes you will find that an attorney is just so buried in work that they might be relieved that one client goes elsewhere, but that isn’t the best way for attorneys to approach it. Obviously, if they are buried, it is better for attorneys to communicate expectations. And when you go through this process, essentially what you are saying to the attorney is, “I have expectations. Can you fulfill these expectations, or do you have a different perspective? Let’s talk about this rather than just ignoring me.”

Avoiding the Problem Altogether

Now, if you haven’t had these problems yet or if you are concerned they might happen down the road, there are some things that you can do that prevent these sorts of problems. First is just talking about your expectations in advance. For example, you can ask, “What are reasonable response times? Should I expect a response within two hours, 24 hours, or a few days? What is typical?” By having that conversation, you can understand how the attorney works and talk about whether this is the right fit for both of you.

Staying in Touch

You might consider scheduling regular check-ins with the attorney. Often that is once a month. Maybe it is at your discretion. Maybe you want to have a standing meeting. It really depends on how many legal matters you have going on. But if you are feeling out of touch and like the attorney is just off billing stuff and doing stuff, feel free to ask for that communication meeting. Often attorneys are hesitant to do that because they are concerned that it would lead to billing more time. But you might be thinking, “It is worth it. I am already spending so much money. I would like at least a few minutes to know what am I spending it on. Why does this need to be done? What is everything that is happening out there?” And so, it is your right as a client to determine if you would like to have communication meetings.

Communication Preferences

Another thing you could consider is determining whether communication will generally be by phone, email, or both. And when each vehicle is preferred, some of my clients prefer a phone call. This typically is the CEO who is going a hundred miles an hour. They don’t have time to keep up with their emails. And if they do, those emails need to be short and to the point. Other business owners appreciate a thoughtful, detailed email so they have time to process it, think about it, and then have a conversation. So by having a conversation with your attorney about whether you like phone calls or emails and whether those emails are just bullet points or detailed, that can help the attorney accommodate to your preferred communication method.

Handling Urgent Issues

You might also talk about, “How do we deal with urgent stuff? What is the best way to get a hold of each other if something is really urgent?” Maybe it is a text message, email to an assistant, phone call to an assistant, or something else.

Clarify Billing Practices Early

Another common frustration is, “My legal bills are unclear or full of surprises.” I remember I got a legal bill from an accountant one time. It was for three months worth of services. And it was all one big chunk with a total price on it. So, they didn’t say, “We did this, this, and this, and here is the cost associated with that.” It was literally three months of services summarized and a price. That was quite frustrating for me. Because how am I supposed to figure out, “How much each task is taking and whether I want the accountant to do each one of those tasks?”

Avoiding Surprise Charges

A similar issue arose when I sent an accountant a quick question. I said, “Hey, do you know the answer to this question?” The accountant wrote back with a full memo summarizing tax law and then billed me an hour for researching and drafting that memo. In my head I was just thinking, “Do you know off the top of your head the answer to this question? If not, I will look it up myself.” And by the way, it wasn’t an issue that I wanted to spend a one hour of fees on. It was a $50 issue.

Communicating Scope and Expectations

So, that was on me. I should have communicated that a little better. But the takeaway here is to have a conversation with the attorney about how the legal bills work. Is the attorney billing fixed fees? And if so, what is the scope of work within that fixed fee? Or, most attorneys bill by the hour, but are they billing in tenths of the hour? Which is 6-minute increments? Or quarters of the hour, which is 15-minute increments. And if you say thanks and respond to an email, are you getting another full increment charged on your invoice? Or is it only substantive emails? Or if the attorney leaves you a voicemail message or if the attorney tries to call you and you don’t pick up, are you getting charged for that? It helps to just have conversations about that.

Billing Practices Vary

You might say, “Well, what is typical out there?” Well, I have seen across the board, some attorneys say, “You know what? I am only going to bill if I am actually providing value. There is some sort of substantive progress accomplished with what I did.” On the other end of the spectrum, the attorney bills every little single thing. I try to focus more on value, but there is a best practice, which is always put on the invoice what you have done for the client, even if you are not billing it.

Transparency in Invoices

So say, for example, I get a quick text message from a client, and I send a quick text back. And it took literally 15 seconds. I will do my best to log that so that we have a record of it and the client knows, “Yep, that was done, but I also discount it.” Whereas if a client asks a legal question by email, and I have to take a few minutes to analyze that and maybe a few more minutes to draft a response, I will typically charge for that. But if I am concerned that the client doesn’t want to be billed for it or thinks that it is going to be a very quick response, or maybe it is not an issue that is going to provide much value. I typically will ask the client in advance, “I estimate it will take 10 minutes to prepare a response to this. Is that okay?” But having that conversation in advance with an attorney can be helpful in setting your expectations and thus avoiding frustrations later.

Requesting Detailed Billing

I also recommend every client ask for a detailed breakdown of the time an attorney spent or every item that is being billed. This idea of throwing it all into one big chunk for an extended period to me is very unhelpful. Now, it is common practice if an attorney is working on 20 things in one day, you don’t want 20 itemized time entries. That typically is merged into a single entry for a particular day. But where you have something spanning multiple days, I find it is very helpful for everyone to have that itemized.

Budget Discussions With Your Attorney

Finally, one way that you can prevent frustrations is by having a conversation about budgets. What is the attorney’s estimate will be involved in legal fees for the next month or the next few months? Now, a lot of attorneys get pretty apprehensive or nervous about that question because they often don’t know yet how much time is going to be involved.

I will give you an example. The attorney may not know how much time is going to be spent in negotiation on a contract. Will it be one hour or ten hours? Well, it really depends on how reasonable the other side is and how many issues end up being fought over. Likewise, if you are in a lawsuit. The attorney may not know, “Is the other side going to file a motion? Is the other side going to serve you with a discovery request?” A discovery request can take 10 hours. So, because the attorney doesn’t know, the attorney can be very apprehensive about giving any sort of estimate.

A Practical Way to Get Estimates

Here is what I would recommend in that scenario. Say, based on what you do know, what do you expect will be coming up, and roughly how much time or legal fees will be involved in that? And you could say something like, “I understand you don’t necessarily know everything that is coming up in the next month. But from what we know about now, can we at least talk through what is that? And do you have a general sense on how much time or work is involved?”

Why Estimates Are Difficult

I will tell you a little story. Sometimes my wife will ask me, “How long is it going to take you on the document you are working on?” And I say to her, “I honestly don’t know. This document might be 20 more pages. So it could be I am done with it in 40 or 50 minutes. But it could also be I run into a problem that involves other sections, and all of that has to be reworked, and that could add hours.” So even with my own spouse, sometimes it is really hard to figure out, “Is this work going to take an hour or four hours.” And so admittedly that is the nature of the project. But at least having a conversation about it between client and attorney can benefit both sides to reset any unreasonable expectations. And that helps everyone avoid frustrations.

“My Attorney Doesn’t Understand My Business”

Why Full Business Understanding Isn’t Always Practical

Third, another common frustration from business owners is, “My attorney doesn’t understand my business.” So what can you do about this? Well, first, you are always going to be the expert at your business. You can do your best to communicate to your attorney what is happening in your business. And I think that is a great idea to do that. But I have found that it is not worth having an attorney become an expert in your business because of all the time that it takes for that attorney to understand all the challenges and issues of your business. A far more effective and efficient approach is to use the legal operating system, which we produced, in order to spot the issues in your business that you need to discuss with your attorney.

How You Can Spot Issues Without Being a Lawyer

Now, how do you do that? Because you are not an attorney. How are you going to be educated and equipped with the ability to spot legal issues within your business operation? Well, that is where the Legal Operating Systems training comes in. We have a few hours of videos that helps train you, as a CEO, to spot those issues so you can discuss them with your attorney. And what is great about this is then you start learning the language the attorney speaks, and no matter what attorney you work with, whether it is your current attorney or your company’s next attorney, you are equipped to efficiently communicate what you need to those attorneys, and what we have found is the people who have gone through this have reduced legal fees for the company by eighty to ninety percent as they have implemented the legal operating system.

Why It’s More Efficient This Way

Not only are you saving legal fees, but all the distraction of all the legal problems. And you are being equipped as a CEO, as the leader of your company, to understand and spot legal issues so you can communicate them. So what is the takeaway here? It does make sense to communicate to your attorney. How your business works and some of the basic contours of your business so the attorney can be aware of how to resolve and spot legal issues, but ultimately the only way that I have ever seen for a CEO to effectively work with an attorney and drive down the legal costs and distractions is for the CEO or COO to become trained in on how to spot legal issues so that the company leadership can take those issues to the attorney.

Communicating About Business Challenges

Now when it seems like your attorney doesn’t understand your business, one obvious answer is mention to the attorney, “It seems like you don’t understand some of the challenges we are facing on the business side.” And then explain those challenges or those processes to the attorney. That is a gentle way of helping the attorney expand her or his context so that the legal solution can cater to the goals and concerns of the business operation.

Keeping Attorneys Updated on Business Changes

Finally, you can prevent problems by telling your attorney about changes in the company that are coming up. Are you launching a new product? A new service? Hiring new people? Or making a significant change in the way the company operates? All of those are opportunities to talk with the attorney and spend five minutes explaining what is happening, and hopefully your attorney has some knowledge to identify legal issues that are present in whatever you are talking about.

The Problem With Specialization

One of the problems I have found is that often attorneys focus on their practice area. So if you have an employment attorney, that attorney might not be thinking about the trademark or copyright issues. Or if you have an IP attorney, that IP or intellectual property attorney is not thinking about employment law or contract law or compliance with tax law.

So, that also is why we developed the Legal Operating System. It allows you as a business owner to learn more about the law in all of these areas so you can make sure you spot the issues to then present to your attorney. And if your attorney says, “Hey, I don’t have experience in trademark law or tax law.” That is okay. At least now you know we have a need. Our attorney can’t solve that need. We need to find a new attorney or perhaps a CPA who can help out with that particular issue.

How to Learn More

Again, if you want to learn more about the Legal Operating System, step one is sign up at AaronHall.com/free. That will allow us to get to know each other. We don’t offer the legal operating system generally to the public. It is offered to people who we have gotten to know, and the first step of that is signing up at AaronHall.com/free.

“My Attorney Always Tells Me What I Can’t Do Instead of Finding Solutions”

The Issue With Risk-Only Thinking

Fourth, you might be frustrated because your lawyer is always telling you what you can’t do instead of how to solve the problem. This is fairly typical because lawyers have become really good experts at identifying what should not be done because it would break the law. But it takes a shift in the paradigm or mindset of the attorney to both identify what can’t be done and then how do you overcome that obstacle. Or, in other words, how do you achieve the business goal while accommodating the legal concerns?

Talk to Your Attorney About Risk Tolerance

One of the best tips for clients or business owners in this area is to have a conversation with your attorney about the fact that you accept some risk. Let’s face it, every day you are having to make risk assessments. You have decided to tolerate many risks. For example, your accounting is not perfect, but it is pretty good. It is as good as it needs to be for the purposes you have. Now, if you were doing a public company report to your shareholders, that imposes a heightened level of scrutiny and formality. But when you are a private business owner, you don’t need that level of detail in your accounting records. Likewise, your attorney does not need to pretend that you are a public company where you need every legal detail addressed, and you must avoid all sorts of risk. You have to be practical here. And so you can tell your attorney, “Please, be practical. Prioritize the risk, help me understand the risk, and then we will proceed with some level of risk.”

Helping Attorneys Get Comfortable With Your Approach

Now, a lot of times, attorneys are really apprehensive with that. And what I advise attorneys who are apprehensive to do is make a memo to file. You simply make a note that on this date, “I spoke with this client. I advised of these risks, and the client decided not to address those risks in a perfect way, rather to do an alternative approach, which is more cost-effective.” It is absolutely okay. Clients have every right to accept a degree of risk, and when you help the attorney think through this issue, even new attorneys can get comfortable with the fact that the risk is not on them for malpractice. You have accepted the risk as a business owner, and you are not going to come sue them later because some problem arose.

Why Over-Documenting Can Raise Costs

I had one attorney tell me he changed his entire law firm’s procedure so that anytime a client calls them with a question, the attorney has to generate a memo or write up a memo afterwards explaining to the client what the attorney advised. Why? Because one time a client said, “Well, you never told me that.” Now, what is the problem with that? Every single client in the firm who thinks they are now paying for a 5- or 10-minute phone call is also paying for a 20- to 40-minute drafting of a memo. The cost to all those clients went up substantially. In my mind, that is not necessary. It is just important for the attorney to make a note so that if they get sued for malpractice later, they can say, “Hey, I have a record from that date. I advised the client of these risks, and the client accepted those risks and decided to proceed.” I wanted you to understand how the attorneys are thinking about this so that you can speak a little bit to the angst that is arising in them and let them know, “It is okay. I am not going to sue you for malpractice. I am understanding there are all sorts of risks, but I have a limited budget. I can only tackle the big risks right now. Let’s focus on those.”

Ask for Options, Not Just Answers

Another simple little trick is ask the attorney for options instead of a single answer. The idea is to help the attorney realize that there are multiple options available, each with a different degree of risk. So you are not looking for the one silver bullet answer that gets rid of all risk. You are asking for options and any risks associated with those options. You can also ask for the costs associated with those options because sometimes an option might be very expensive or very cheap. And so it might make sense, “Hey, let’s do a few of these things if they don’t cost a whole lot.”

Some Attorneys Just Don’t Get It

I will admit some attorneys just don’t get it. They are way too technical. They are not business-minded. And you will find among many business attorneys, only a segment of that is business-minded. Often these are the partners of the law firm, the founder, or the one who is leading the law firm. They get it because they have learned business concepts by running their business. But that also means you are typically paying quite a premium for a business-minded attorney. And for that reason, a lot of times my clients will utilize me as the business-minded attorney, and then we will delegate out to a lower-cost attorney specific problems or specific projects. We will delegate to a technical expert, but that expert will work on that issue. Maybe it is litigation or filing a patent or filing a trademark, so you have your general counsel attorney who is business-minded, but that attorney is not so scarcity-minded that they need to keep all the work themselves. Instead, they are willing to delegate to other attorneys who are niche experts so that you are leveraging the low rates of the technical niche expert while getting the benefit of a business-minded attorney helping you navigate the company.

“My Attorney Only Reacts to Problems. I Need Someone Thinking Ahead.”

The Cost of Being Reactive

Fifth, you may experience this frustration: “My attorney only reacts to problems. I need someone thinking ahead. I need somebody who is preventative.” There is an old saying, perhaps it was Mark Twain who said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” In other words, it costs a lot less to prevent problems than the cost of solving or curing those problems later.

Why Most Attorneys Are Trained to React

So what do you do about the fact that most attorneys are reactive because they are just going from one problem to the next, and that is how they were trained? As law students, they were trained to solve problems. As attorneys, clients present problems, and they solve them, and then they move on to the next one. And that is fun. It is very satisfying for attorneys.

Helping Attorneys Think Proactively

But the business owners want an attorney who will think ahead. What do we do about that? One option is to invite an attorney’s input by sharing about what you are going to be doing in the future and asking open-ended questions. Asking the attorney, “What issues do you spot that might come up in the future?” And when I talk about spotting issues, that is actually the terminology used in law school. You need to spot legal issues before you can resolve them. So, getting the attorney to shift away from just solving problems or resolving issues and instead to spotting the issues is a way that you can help substantially reduce legal problems and legal fees.

Use Strategy Sessions to Spot Issues

Some of my clients have even scheduled strategy meetings where we spend an hour talking about what is coming up in the next six months. And they ask me to spot all of the issues associated with all of these changes. Some changes are good, like, “Hey, we are launching this new thing. We are going to do a merger. We might be selling our company, etc.” Or it might be tough stuff like, “I am not sure if we are going to be able to pay our bills, or we are starting to have problems with a big customer or client, and they are getting further and further behind on their bills. What do we do about that because our cash flow is getting tight?”

Reduce Problems With Proactive Planning

Having those periodic big-picture conversations allows an attorney to spot the issues for you and then talk about the options to resolving that. That is something we have implemented in the Legal Operating System. That is the system we have established so that clients and other businesses throughout the country can work better to spot issues in advance through training. And then there is a process for talking with their attorney to make sure 90 to 99 percent of those legal issues are dealt with preemptively so you are being proactive in avoiding problems rather than solving the problems after they have arisen.

“My Attorney Is Too Rigid and Won’t Adapt to How We Work”

Why Attorneys May Seem Inflexible

Number six, “My attorney is too rigid and won’t adapt to how we work.” This is a common frustration. And there are two parts of it. First, attorneys are notorious for being arrogant, having egos, thinking their time is so precious, and they are going to work how they are going to work. It is a lot of arrogance and ego. And then you also have all the unfortunate pressures of firm bureaucracy and software to manage projects, etc. And so, unfortunately, there are a lot of constraints that limit how attorneys can work. But these are constraints attorneys could get out of and could resolve, and you don’t have to just accept it.

The Need for Deep Work

Now the other side is, there are some challenges attorneys take that there may be no resolution for. For example, when I am working on a contract for a client or drafting a memorandum for a lawsuit. I need some deep work focus time. I shut off all alarms, I tell my assistant I am not available, and I just hone in on doing that deep work. Now, most clients are pretty understanding. They don’t need something turned around in two hours. So, most of the time, attorneys can adapt to how clients work.

What You Can Do

So what do we do about this? How can we get your attorney to work better with how you work?

Give Constructive Feedback

First, giving feedback and just sharing, “Hey, due to our circumstances, this approach isn’t working out for us, like getting back to us two days later, isn’t working out for us. We generally would like a response the same day or, if it is end of the day, you know, the next morning.” But because we are moving quickly, you might tell your attorney, “We need more responsive emails.” Even if it is just saying, “Hey, I am not going to be able to get to this right away. Is it urgent, or can I get back to you tomorrow?” Sometimes attorneys are apprehensive to say that because it now takes time to even think about that. And the attorney may not know what tomorrow looks like for them because they are juggling so many urgent matters for clients. But when a business owner asks the attorney that, I think it goes a long way towards avoiding frustrations and fostering open communication.

Some Attorneys Just Won’t Adapt

You will also find that some attorneys are just very flexible and some aren’t. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” As the saying goes, or put another way, some people are just inflexible. And maybe they are worth tolerating for that because they are so good in everything else. Or maybe it is time to get another attorney. But I love the idea of giving the attorney a chance to become flexible before striking that attorney off, and then you have to go through all the work of onboarding with a new attorney and getting that attorney up to speed.

“I Feel Like I Am Not a Priority. I Keep Getting Passed to Junior Lawyers.”

Why Work Is Delegated in Law Firms

Number seven, “I feel like I am not a priority. I keep getting passed to junior lawyers.” This is usually a problem in a large or mid-sized firm. And it happens for two reasons. One, the attorney has a legal duty, a fiduciary duty to you, to not work on stuff that a lower-rate attorney could do. In other words, the attorney has a duty to minimize what you are paying by delegating work to a lower-cost attorney, thus maximizing your money. So that is one reason.

The second reason attorneys often do this is they are busy. When an attorney has multiple attorneys under them, one of their jobs to the firm is not to do everything and burn themselves out and then also leave those junior attorneys with less work.

Most firms only work where the managing attorney of a particular project, client, or area is delegating to the lower-level attorneys. And honestly, the amount of work is never perfectly fit to the resources that are available. So sometimes there is too much work, and so it is not getting done right away. And sometimes there are too many attorneys and not enough work. And that is a problem for the law firm because now they are spending money on law firm salaries without enough money coming in. So frankly, it is always a challenge for those managing attorneys. Those are the reasons behind it.

What You Can Do About It

First, start with the conversation. Address the fact that you have concerns around how they are staffing your matters and that you are concerned that, for example, it doesn’t have the level of legal knowledge needed to resolve the issues or the work is being delegated to a lower-rate attorney who is spending so much more time on it that you are actually paying more than if the senior attorney worked on it. Now, your perception on that may or may not be true, but having a conversation about how your issues are going to be resolved and how your work’s going to get done helps avoid some of those frustrations.

Ask for Consistent Staffing

Another tip is to ask the attorney who is managing your matter to assign consistently the same people so they can get to know your business in your legal context when working on your legal issues. That allows you as an attorney to build some rapport and relationship and trust. It allows the attorney to build knowledge on your particular business. And all of that improves efficiency and trust, reducing legal fees and reducing frustrations.

Insist on Introductions to Junior Attorneys

Another tip: If an attorney is going to be working on your matter, you can insist on an introduction to that attorney before the work is done. Sometimes you can just tell there is not good chemistry there, but you can only tell that by an introduction with that attorney. Sometimes you will get introduced to a junior attorney who has better chemistry with you than the senior partner who is handling your work. And you might decide, “Hey, I just want to work more with that junior attorney.” You don’t need to feel bad about that because normally the senior partner is still being compensated for the work being done by the junior attorney. In other words, usually the senior partner gets a percentage of all work done by the attorney who is under her or him.

Why Being a Small Client Can Be a Problem

Now let’s face it. Sometimes you are not getting attention from the firm because you are a small fish and they are dealing with whales. That is often the case when a smaller business works with a large law firm. That large law firm might be serving major corporate companies that we have all heard of. Mercedes, Apple, Dairy Queen, etc. And so, those corporate clients are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month with the firm. From a business perspective, that unfortunately means those big clients are getting prioritized over you. And your work is being fit in when they have capacity.

Choosing the Right Size Firm for You

So often it makes sense to pick a firm that is the right size for your type of company. That means that you are going to not just be a little fish, but you will be the right-size fish for that firm, and they will give you the attention that you deserve and you have every legal right to that you just simply may not get when there are too many other big clients vying for that firm’s attention.

And by the way, that doesn’t mean that you will necessarily get lower-quality attorneys. In fact, many outstanding attorneys are either solo or small firms because they want to have the environment that that fosters and being able to work more with clients and have a long-term relationship, or they want to work with smaller businesses and medium-sized businesses. They don’t want to be dealing with the NASDAQ and publicly traded companies, which are often the clients at the large firms.

Final Thoughts

Why Attorneys Aren’t Perfect

So today we have talked about a number of the common frustrations that business owners, CEOs, and COOs face. I explained why attorneys do this. Why they are so frustrating at times. And again, it is not because they want to be, but it is external pressure, internal pressure, lack of training, and just doing things the way they have always done them or the way that was reinforced up until this point in their career.

Fixing the Relationship vs. Switching Attorneys

It’s Expensive to Keep Changing Attorneys

Because it is so expensive and costly to transition from one attorney to another, I presented a number of tips, techniques, and tricks that you can use to work better with your attorney and really help train your attorney to work better with you. By following the tips in each one of these areas of frustration, hopefully you can work with the attorney that is already serving you. You can help that attorney become a better fit for you and avoid the frustration of training in a new attorney and getting to know that attorney’s new processes.

Don’t Fall Into the Trap of Attorney Hopping

There is an old saying, “Sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know.” In other words, every attorney has problems. They vary in size and frequency, but every attorney has problems. And if you can keep working with the attorney you have by working through those problems, you are often in a far better position than switching from attorney to attorney to attorney. Because what I have seen is often clients go to another attorney, and although that attorney doesn’t have the same problems as the last time, now you find some new problems that attorney has. And so they leave again because that attorney’s not perfect. And they leave again because that attorney’s not perfect. And the whole time that client is getting frustrated and having gaps in legal support and investing in each new relationship a lot of effort getting that attorney up to speed.

So, rather than jumping from attorney to attorney to attorney, hopefully the tips presented here can be helpful to you. And if you would like to learn more about the Legal Operating System and get other tips just like this, you can sign up for our newsletter at AaronHall.com/free. It is designed for CEOs, COOs, and other leaders of midsize companies whose midsize generally tend to 250 employees. And the idea is to equip you with knowledge and tips from experts so that you can avoid problems, minimize legal fees, and minimize all those frustrations that distract you from doing what you love in your business.

My hope is to help you build a business that thrives and leads to the flourishing of you, your family, your team, and the people you serve.

I am Aaron Hall. I am an attorney for business owners and entrepreneurial companies. If you would like other practical tips like this geared to midsize company CEOs, feel free to follow this channel and click like on this video. So the algorithm will give you more videos just like this.