Toronto Estate Law Blog : Toronto Estate Lawyer : Hull & Hull Law Firm : Trust Mediation and Succession Planning : Serving Ontario, Ottawa, Mississauga, Hamilton

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

“If parents pass enthusiasm along to their children, they will leave them an estate of incalculable value." - Thomas Alva Edison

Sometimes, unfortunately, the enthusiasm left behind when a parent passes away is the enthusiasm for litigation with one’s family. In this context, it is important for a lawyer to manage his or her client’s expectations in order to prevent that particular brand of enthusiasm from reflecting back on the lawyer.

Dan Pinnington, in a recent post on Law Pro’s “Avoid a Claim” blog, comments on the importance of discussing and managing expectations at the very beginning of a matter to make sure new clients have reasonable expectations. This is one of the most effective things a lawyer can do because a client with unrealistic expectations is probably not going to be happy, regardless of how good the results.

No matter how much we believe in our clients’ cases and want them to get the whole enchilada, whatever that might be, it is almost always better to under promise and over deliver. Perception is reality and at the end of the day your client will be measuring your performance based on a minimum standard of the results you said you would achieve in that first client meeting. As I always say, expectations are the leading cause of disappointment. Manage the expectations and you can manage (or avoid) the disappointment. 

For more on this topic, see this podcast by Ian Hull and Suzana Popovic-Montag on managing the expectations of a surviving spouse.

Sharon Davis - Click here for more information on Sharon Davis.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Certainly a firm's wills bank has traditionally been seen as a capital asset that generates work in the manner of files being opened both as estate solicitor and, oftentimes, executor. A recent e-bulletin released by Title Research elaborates on this basic premise to provide some interesting thoughts on the untapped marketing potential of an existing estates and trust practice.  

The author, Alistair Moyes (a consultant with U.K.-based Marketlaw), notes that "the value of the potential clients generated by a probate matter is increasing as the competition in the legal services market accelerates.... The question is how to retain them as clients and gain their next matter."  Because "people tend to go back to the last lawyers they used or had contact with" and because "probate (& wills) is third behind residential conveyancing and divorce (& family) it should be seen as a valuable access point to the profession and one that needs to be carefully managed to retain and gain clients within a firm." 

Essentially, an estates and trusts practice should look to its existing clients as being the source of future work after the Will or Power of Attorney has been drawn.  The key, therefore is to enhance the loyalty of the client to the lawyer.  The starting point is to "maintain a current, regularly maintained database of past clients that can be used to send them information about the benefits of your services."  Thereafter, regular (even as little as every 3 or 5 years) communication with these clients to remind them to update their will if required is a simple way to remain top of mind and show an interest in maintaining an ongoing relationship.

In addition, Moyes notes that any new legal developments can provide an opportunity to remind clients of the benefits of your services. "Writing to executors with brief details of their responsibilities can identify potential new clients." And suggesting your firm as an executor, when explained carefully to the client, similarly provides the potential for new work.

David Morgan Smith  - Click here for more information on David Smith.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Law firms, such as ours, tend to emphasize the benefits to clients of their respective area of specialization. The common pitch to prospective clients is that there is less of a learning curve on each file and, as a general proposition, most problems have usually (with some variation) been seen before.

However, the flip side of specialization is that it may not always best serve the client who presents a hybrid problem spanning two or more areas of law .  In such circumstances, counsel need to candidly assess to what extent their area of specialization may limit their ability to serve their client.  On the other hand, because certain areas of law tend to overlap with considerable frequency, the client who seeks specialized advice is well-served when such counsel recognize this fact and adapt accordingly. 

Certainly, the practice of estate litigation can often overlap with family law litigation.  Take , for example, a beneficiary designation dispute.  While at first glance an estates issue, the existence of a separation agreement and its impact on the dispute inevitably gives rise to legal issues where family law counsel will have considered the issue from their own perspective.  So, too is the decision facing a surviving spouse as to whether to elect under the Family Law Act on the death of his or her spouse. Again, responsible counsel have an obligation to best serve the client.

Continuing Legal Education plays a role as well.  For instance, the Ontario Bar Association has in the past run a program entitled "Kissing Cousins."  A joint venture of the Family Law and Estates and Trusts Sections of the OBA, the mandate of this program has been to highlight practice issues in which estates and family law issues overlap.

David M. Smith

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

I recently came across two entertaining and informative blogs about practice management for lawyers and law firms.

David Bilinsky is a practice management advisor and staff lawyer with the Law Society of British Columbia. He writes and lectures on the subject of legal practice management and his blog,  http://thoughtfullaw.com covers topics such as record management, technology, and law firm strategies.

This month, he wrote a series a blogs on the security of electronic documents that many lawyers will be interested in reading.

Allison Wolf's insightful blog, www.thelawyercoach.com, discusses business development and legal marketing ideas for lawyers. Wolf, the founder of her own company that coaches lawyers on business development, offers her advice and links to the most recent articles on this subject.

Both blogs also comment frequently on personal development of lawyers and what lawyers can do to renew themselves and their legal practices.

Thanks for reading,