In this podcast, attorney Chelsea Bishop of Mazow McCullough discusses the importance of effective communication between lawyers and clients. She shares her preferred methods of communication, including in-person meetings, phone calls, and video chats, and emphasizes how listening and setting clear expectations help build strong client relationships. Chelsea also highlights the significance of keeping clients informed with timely updates and explains her approach to managing client expectations, especially when they might have unrealistic hopes for their case’s outcome. Effective communication, she notes, plays a key role in ensuring clients feel supported and informed throughout the legal process.
John Maher: Hi, I’m John Maher. I’m here today with attorney Chelsea Bishop of the law office of Mazow McCullough. Today we’re talking about client communications.
Welcome, Chelsea.
Chelsea Bishop: Thanks, John. I’m happy to be here.
How do You Prefer to Communicate with Clients?
Maher: Yeah. So Chelsea, how do you prefer to communicate with clients, and why do you feel that effective communication between a lawyer and a client is so important?
Bishop: I personally, to answer your first question, I really prefer meeting with clients in person if I can. If not, a phone call is fine. I just think you learn a lot more from a face-to-face interaction with someone. You get a real sense of who they are and what matters to them, which is really important for me as an attorney.
I need to get a sense of what the issue is, why they’re coming into the office, and again, what’s important to them, what they want the outcome to be. I think I make better human connections with my clients when they’re able to come in person and sit in the office, and we can kind of understand each other on that level.
What Other Communication Methods Do You Offer?
Maher: Barring meeting in person, do you sometimes do Zoom meetings or something like that where you can at least see the person’s face and get to have a face-to-face conversation, even if it’s over the internet?
Bishop: Yep, absolutely. Yeah, I do a lot of Zoom calls, especially when we’re prepping clients for depositions. I also open that option up. I think sometimes people are from different places in Massachusetts. I’m also able to practice in Connecticut and Rhode Island, so a lot of times my clients who are from those states in-person interaction is really inconvenient, and so we try and do our best to make that possible for them to be able to interact with us in any way that’s most convenient for them. So video call, phone call, those are definitely things that we make available to clients as well.
Maher: There’s probably a good idea to meet with people in person to begin with so that you can start that relationship, and then follow-up calls after that you can just do over the phone or online.
Bishop: Exactly. Yeah. We’re right in downtown Salem and a lot of our clients that are local, they do prefer to come in just because they do make relationships with the attorney working on their case and the paralegal. Oftentimes, the paralegal is the one that’s communicating with them on a regular basis. So if they’re local, we find actually that they prefer to come in, which is great.
But yeah, like you said, if that initial meeting is in-person, that’s awesome, and it kind of establishes that relationship, and then going forward, people have busy lives, so being able to do a phone call or a video call or shoot them an email. I like to, on that vein, shoot clients an email or a text message just to see, “Hey, what’s a good time to call this week?” Just because again, I know people are busy, and they’ve got busy lives, and so we want to make sure we’re not just cold calling people if they’re in the middle of a business meeting or at their kid’s soccer game or something like that.
Maher: Right. Right. Maybe not the right time to talk about their case.
Bishop: Exactly. Sometimes you have to be in the right mental head space.
Process for Explaining Complex Legal Concepts
Maher: Right, right, right. What’s your process for explaining maybe some complex legal concepts and procedures to clients in a way that’s easy for them to understand because not everybody went to law school?
Bishop: Sure. Sure. Yeah. When it comes to explaining complex legal processes and concepts, I like to do a lot of listening initially, because I think sometimes people aren’t sure exactly what their question is. There might be compounding questions. So I like to listen to the client; hear what are they concerned about? Are they worried that they’re going to be in a deposition? Are they worried that they’re going to have to be in court? Are they okay with both of those things, but they want to know the likelihood of success of their case, which is usually what people want to know?
I, from there, listen to the overall issues that they want to focus on, and I break it down into underlying questions. So, start simple. Tell them exactly what they can expect, how our firm likes to approach cases. We like to make sure that the client knows we’re going to try and get the best result possible for them in the least amount of time. We really value efficiency. And I think explaining that to someone initially puts them at ease, and they’re better able to listen to the more in-depth or complicated legal explanations.
Keeping Clients Well Informed
Maher: How do you ensure that clients are kept informed of any significant developments in their case, whether that’s positive or negative? What’s the best way of making sure that they’re kept up to date?
Bishop: I think this is a really great question and one that I put a lot of stock in. I think client communications are kind of the whole ballgame. I think you have to be very communicative with your client.
I had a class in law school; I believe it was a family law class, and they had an attorney from the BBO come to class and talk a little bit about… The BBO being the Massachusetts Bar organization that oversees all of the attorneys in Massachusetts. And they said the number one complaint that they get from clients, where clients are calling their hotline to complain about their lawyers, that there’s a lack of communication. And that really stuck with me.
I think it makes sense. I think if you are involved in a lawsuit, it’s obviously not going to be a fun experience. It’s usually you’re coming there because you have an issue, obviously. And so, being kept in the loop as to the things that are going on in your case. Whether that’s good or bad, being informed and knowing what’s coming down the road or what you can expect or how certain case developments affect the case going forward, I think that’s super important. And if I was part of a legal case, that’s what I would want. So, I keep that in mind with my clients, make sure that I keep them informed no matter what it is.
Looking at Communication from the Client’s Perspective
Maher: Right, and I think it’s good to look at it from their perspective, like you’re busy every day. You maybe have multiple clients, you’re doing things, you’re going to court, you’re doing depositions, you’re constantly busy. And then you also know how long things are going to take. You know that, okay, I just talked with this person today. Now the next step is not going to be for a week or two from now. But meanwhile your client is sitting at home, maybe they’re out of work because of an injury or something like that. And they’re just sitting there wondering what’s going on, and a week is going by, or two weeks is going by, and that’s forever to them.
Do you find that you need to get yourself in the headspace of the client and understand that for them a week or two might be a really long time, whereas for you, it flies by?
Bishop: Yeah, I think that’s a really great point. I find myself in that situation a lot. There’s people that have had these catastrophic injuries that have happened, and so they are unable to work, and it’s really important that they get either the compensation for their injury or get some kind of result.
One of the things that’s really great about Mazow McCullough is we have a policy in place where no matter what, every two weeks, the client is either checked in with by the attorney or the paralegal on the case. If something’s going on in the case, obviously we’ll do more frequent updates. But even if something’s not going on, if you’re just checking in, a lot of times before we even send out a demand, the client has to finish treating.
So, a lot of times we’re waiting for the client to finish up that treatment. And every two weeks, a paralegal or an attorney will reach out to the client and just say, “Hey, how’s it going? How’s your treatment going? Did you see a new provider?” To make sure we’re requesting all those records and getting a full scope of the treatment and the injury that the client is suffering from.
How Fast do You Return Phone Calls?
Maher: Right. When a client does pick up the phone and give you a call, maybe they leave a message or something like that, and they want you to get back to them, what’s a typical timeframe? Are you able to get right back to them that day?
Bishop: Yeah, usually unless I’m in court or taking a deposition, or I’m away from the office, I’m able to get back to them that day. I have a personal policy of a 24 to 48 hours I’ll give a follow-up call to the client. Usually that’s even sooner. If it’s to an adjuster or opposing counsel, it might be in that 48-hour window. But yeah, I really think it’s important to reach out as quickly as possible.
And going back to something you mentioned earlier. One thing that I find really helps me is right after something happens that the client should be on notice of, so let’s say we get a settlement offer from an adjuster, right after I get off the phone with the adjuster, I make a point to give the client an email and say, “Hey, I have an update on your case. We got an offer from the adjuster. What’s a good time to reach out?” And just send that email right away so that they know, hey, this major development has happened in your case, and we should talk about it. So I find that that’s a really good policy, and it’s one that all the attorneys here at Mazow McCullough, from what I’ve seen, also tend to do.
Setting Expectations with Clients
Maher: How do you set expectations with clients, and how do you handle a situation where maybe a client has an unrealistic expectation about the outcome of their case?
Bishop: Yeah, that’s another great question. I think people are coming into their case, and they know the impact it’s had on them, and part of my job is to really take that in and understand that impact and listen to my clients and capture that in the best way possible.
Another part of my job is to bring knowledge to the client. I think honesty is the best policy. I think what I try to do is explain the facts of the case. So talk about the things that they’ve explained to me that I think make their case really valuable in the eyes of the law. And also, on the flip side, make clear some of the facts that are less helpful to our case.
I tend to assure clients just because a fact isn’t necessarily helpful to their case; it doesn’t make their overall case invaluable, or it doesn’t mean, hey, we’re going to have a bad result, but here are the things that are going to be challenges going forward and the things that we’re going to kind of be up against. I think it’s equally, if not more, important to let the clients know that stuff up front too.
Maher: All right, well, that’s really great information, Chelsea. Thanks again for speaking with me today.
Bishop: Yeah, no problem. Thanks, John.
Maher: For more information, you can visit the website at helpinginjured.com or call 978-744-8000.
