Knowledge
Justifying Meetings
I hear from clients in law firms that they don't have as much meetings with their clients as they used to. They see two reasons: Internet and budget. With Internet, it becomes really easy to give and discuss instructions, tranfer documents, and interact in real time. No meeting needed. And it is free.
On the contrary, meetings are costly. The bill includes the time spent at the meeting, but also the travel time. It takes no calculator to figure out that meetings are increasingly perceived as a luxury, dispensable item.
At the same time, nothing can replace meetings. Interactions during meeting are potentially richer and broader than anything on the internet. Meetings allow to see the blood and flesh, to assess the personality, to "feel the vibes", and to discuss a lot of issues that nobody would ever touch upon on the Internet.
So, the first challenge is clear: lawyers must make meetings worth the money so as to be able to convince their clients that meetings remain a valuable, win-win option.
The good news is that meeting management skills can be learned and really make a difference. But there is a second, more difficult challenge. Sometimes, the meeting is ineffective not because of the lawyer, but because of the client. The client may be confused, unfocused, ill prepared... The question for the lawyer becomes then: How to react when my client is mismanaging a meeting? Should I interrupt and (try to) take the lead? Should I make a diplomatic suggestion? Should I just attend and wait? Not an easy call. Meetings are indeed a relationship thing, and it takes two to tango (not to mention multi-party meetings). Maybe we will see one day an innovative chief legal officer inviting his external advisors to a workshop to explore practical ways to make meetings more valuable...
Antoine Henry de Frahan | 19 September 2006 |
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