A Lawyer’s Supporting Role Is Often the Strongest: Showing Up for Clients

Deb Feder | A solid book of business is built on honest, curious conversations that move your relationship with your client toward a ‘thinking partnership.’
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By becoming your client’s trusted “thinking” partner and constant collaborator in the smallest moments and biggest conversations, you forge a relationship beyond the transactional level.

When a client reaches out for advice on a particular problem and hires you, it is cause for celebration. You realize there is an opportunity to build a book of business. You hope the client will entrust more work to you, or ask you to provide a deeper level of expertise. When they do, your role becomes more of an advisor who provides expertise when required. But beyond piecework, being a thinking partner to your client — one who helps them manage and process difficult decisions — takes the relationship a significant step further.

That “In It Together” Mentality

That “in it together” mentality is the cornerstone of creating client relationships that are deeper than any one project. A solid book of business is built off of honest, curious conversations that move your relationship with your client toward a thinking partnership. When you determine that the foundation of all your client relationships is caring about the other people involved, you never have to sell to them. If you have to pitch for work against competitors, your reputation for being respectful, attentive and authentic will precede you. You will still need to answer the phone, help out when needed, and nurture your relationships, but it will all be easier because you are showing up as you.

Knowing when and how to navigate the moments to grow into this role (or allow the role to grow into this relationship) is about pacing (smothering doesn’t work) and presence (being calm and open rather than hurried and harassed).

Client relationships are all about listening and engaging in each step of the conversation, from hello to what a client says and doesn’t say. Each step in the conversation progression allows you to identify opportunities to act (do work for them) and those instances where you should just be present (give them the space to process their decisions).

For example, a lawyer in a labor and employment practice, the advice to clients is inextricably bound up with providing emotional support for those incredibly difficult decisions that directly impact people’s livelihoods. One particularly stressful situation is when a client needs advice and support to implement layoffs at their business.

A client of mine named Jack, who works in labor and employment law, typically starts his conversation with such clients by saying, “I am the lawyer you don’t want to be calling.” Clients who call him for layoff support come into the relationship fully conscious of the fact that things aren’t going well (neither for their individual company nor for their industry as a whole) and that the impact of their decisions goes well beyond their personal welfare.

For this reason, a critical component of Jack’s business development strategy is being a safe sounding board while advising on the situation’s technical requirements. Being efficient and effective opens the door, but being responsive and available as clients make these intense decisions moves him into the role of trusted thinking partner.

That is the role you want to be in as your practice grows.

Present for the Emotional and Complicated Decisions

When you are working with clients at the top of their field or who are working in fast-paced, growing markets, you’re working with people who face complicated questions every day. As they weigh their choices and decide on next steps, clients need advisors to support them. This is frequently the role of the trusted legal advisor.

With a view of the broader landscape their clients are dealing with and the pitfalls they may encounter, the legal advisor also provides emotional support for clients who may be experiencing nervousness. Nerves can look different in a professional context than they do in a personal one. A nervous mother might wring her hands or tear up. A nervous business leader can have big emotions too, but these are more likely to show up as micromanaging, anger, or aggressive behavior, for example. While you need to make sure your technical work is good and your advice is solid, managing the client’s emotions requires you to stay calm. But how do you offer this type of support, which the client may not ask for explicitly?

How to Gain Permission to Become a Trusted Thinking Partner

The easiest way to gain permission to support clients as a trusted thinking partner to lean on is to ask for it. The best approach and the right question to ask depends on the situation. This might look like:

1. The client tries to process their situation by throwing every option (as well as the kitchen sink) at you as they share their problem. Your job here is to help them narrow down the choices and the details they need to decide.

• The question: “What further information would help you process these choices?”
• What it provides: This asks clients to be more specific about what they want and need and is especially useful when it seems the details haven’t yet been fleshed out.

2. The client comes to you for support when it seems clear to you that they don’t have the right team at the table. The truth is, often, the client doesn’t realize what they don’t know because they don’t have access to the right experts.

• The question: “How might pulling in additional experts better support you and your goals?” You might also simply offer to introduce them to colleagues who work in a similar space or have helpful advice that could be valuable to them.
• What it provides: This expands the work you are doing with a client and brings in the whole team to better support them.

Each of these examples provides a simple way for clients to share more about the challenges and opportunities they are grappling with, allowing you to deepen a trusted client relationship, one conversation at a time.

Adapted and excerpted from “Tell Me More: Building Trusted Client Relationships through Everyday Interactions” by Deb Feder (Grammar Factory, 2024).

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