Every day, we get calls where a client insists on speaking to an attorney. Sometimes they are new potential clients and sometimes, they have been a client for a long time. We strive to return every call every day and make our attorneys as accessible as possible. But where you find good lawyers, you find very busy lawyers. And where lawyers are busy, efficiency matters. So when is it ever appropriate to call and demand that an attorney get on the phone?
Perhaps an analogy is appropriate here. Do you ever call up the doctor’s office and demand to speak to the doctor right now? Do you ever walk in and demand to see him immediately? Have you ever seen a doctor without some person that works for him take your vital signs and triage you? Lawyers, the good ones that are busy, don’t work any different than doctors. The job of the lawyer is to diagnose and treat the legal problem. To diagnose each problem, he or she needs some basic information. And every second spent getting basic information that the lawyer’s staff is paid to obtain, is a second less that the lawyer can concentrate on hearings, trials, depositions, and other important “treatment†for the solution.
So next time you call a lawyer’s office, instead of saying “I want to talk to a lawyer now,†perhaps you would actually get quicker diagnosis and treatment, if you would allow the lawyer’s office to work as efficiently as it is designed to do, and allow the assistant, receptionist, or paralegal to get the basic needed information so that an efficient solution can be provided.
