Nowadays, to be successful in a world of options and opinions you have to set yourself apart. You need to develop a solid foundation with your clients to increase their confidence in your skillset. Once you have built this confidence, rapport, and client base you will beat the competition.
What does this look like? Practicing law requires a fundamental set of skills. The best lawyers are expert speakers, have ease of communication and excellent reasoning ability to figure out their opponent’s strategies.
Indeed, being a lawyer is a difficult art. From litigating a case in court, filing motions, and writing briefs, to reading and evaluating opposing counsel's argumentations, once you set your foundation and have that first client believe in you, your reputation will precede you. Here’s how we suggest making yourself the best lawyer to excel amongst your peers.
Responsiveness
Perhaps not the most self-evident skill, but one of the most visible and certainly most perceptible by clients, responsiveness is a key factor that differentiates an average lawyer from the best. A lawyer must always maintain ready contact with their clients, fellow lawyers, bosses, and other important figures involved in a case. To do this, a lawyer must be organized. It's no news that running a successful law firm can be stressful and remarkably time-consuming. Today, case management software like Maatdesk has been developed to streamline the day-to-day, to-do appointments tasks, and events. Most importantly it creates a space for you or your attorneys to share safely-encrypted documents, information, important deadlines, calendar events, or statute of limitation reminders.
Being responsive is synonymous with organization and case management software like Maatdesk brings your daily duties all to one place. Easily view appointments or share documents via a client portal to avoid missed events or tedious tasks like having to go drop off documents in person. Stay in the know with your client and provide them a solution to upload requested information from wherever they are or add shared events to their calendar.
Analytical and Critical Evaluation
Attorneys' success relies on critical reasoning. Even before law school, while they practice and prepare to take their LSATs, prospective lawyers are trained to critically look at arguments to see how they may be flawed. They must find implicit and hidden assumptions and, at the same time, learn to expect equally critical responses to their own arguments as well. Trials can also sometimes produce surprising turns of events at trial stages like discovery, witness testimony, and depositions. The best lawyers are always prepared for the surfacing of surprising information in the middle of contentious court procedures. They will have the mental flexibility and quickness not to let a new surprising fact derail their arguments.
Speaking
While attorneys spend a lot of time poring over documents, drafting motions, or researching the law, they must also interact with clients, juries, and judges. Attorneys must be good at speaking in front of large audiences, but they must also communicate important and sensitive information on a 1-on-1 level. The best lawyers can speak well and clearly while processing vast amounts of information. On the same token, they must communicate that information in a way that will keep the audience invested in the argument without getting lost in terms of references they don’t understand.
Research
Every law student knows doing research is fundamental in studying law. Court rulings handed down by judges often rely on the concept of "precedence," on the idea that earlier rulings that have decided similar cases can apply to the one in question. Elite attorneys, therefore, know that adequately researched arguments, based on the proper jurisdictional investigation, as well as an excellent knowledge of the evidence and facts, make or break a legal argument. The validity of the law is in its coherence, in the fact that similar cases will receive similar rulings and that the law applies to all equally.
Listening
The best attorneys are also active listeners. They must hear their clients well and understand the nature of their legal needs. This is as important if not more than knowing how to speak and communicate complex ideas well and simply. Through active listening, an attorney can ask proper questions. Legal issues often turn on small details and technicalities. Being an active listener primes the best attorneys not to miss the smallest of details.
In the same way, attorneys must listen not just to their clients but to their opponents in a court battle. Attorneys need to be aware of the implications of the opposing team's argumentations. As we mentioned above, an attorney must always maintain a critical attitude in light of the opposing counsel's argumentation, and the attorney can only do this when they are active listeners. Indeed, imagine thinking that one can incisively critique another's argument if one is not actively listening!
Maatdesk makes it easier for attorneys to interact actively with their clients by providing both parties with software that facilitates document exchange, case updates, and communications. Attorneys can organize emails according to case, which easily compartmentalizes information to share with their respective clients. On the other side, clients have access to the client portal in which they can see their attorneys' case updates, receive and share sensitive documents, see their past payments as well as upcoming ones, and so on. Maatdesk understands that an attorney's success begins with having a seamless customer relation experience.
Maatdesk is here to make you the best attorney you can be.
As many have anecdotally noted, the lawyer's profession can be stressful. It is characterized by long hours at the office and high-stakes ramifications, but the reward of a client feeling victory over what they may consider the most important thing in their lives is priceless. The aforementioned suggestions are tried-and-true in developing not just high-caliber attorneys but also people with great character. Having this relatability and professionalism will establish that unshakable foundation we mentioned. When you are researched you will shine like the elite attorney you are.
Maatdesk is a partner in your path to success not just providing industry-leading organizational tools but also informative literature to advise on best practices. Join us today and we will surely grow together.
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