How we communicate with Our clients

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Mark Rollins. I’m an attorney here in Washington D.C. and Maryland. Today’s topic I’m discussing communications with clients. One of the big issues that lawyers have and one of the major complaints that lawyers have is clients’ communication with their lawyer. They’re not able to reach their lawyer, or their lawyer doesn’t return their telephone call. At Rollins & Chan, we saw this and we recognized this, and we tried to correct that. What we did is that we made sure that every call that comes in, the call is returned within 24 hours. So I realize you may not get to us immediately, and I understand that, but we will make sure that the call is returned within 24 hours. How do we do that? Well, we make sure that when the call comes in, it’s logged, and the emails are sent out to the partners that calls have come in. The partners each have a duty week, and so they make sure that the calls are returned. So the partner will make sure that they are on call that week and that all calls will be returned. The second way we do that, the way we make sure that communication is kept up to date, is that we use a system called Clio, and under Clio, it’s a closed case management system, which the client will always have access to their file. The files are stored electronically, and every time something comes in from the opposing side or we send out something, it is put into Clio. Clio sends an email to the client, and the client is informed and they can log onto their closed portal, encrypted account and they can see what documentation or what the lawyer has put into the client’s file. So every note, everything that’s placed into the file, the client has access to it. There’s little that the client does not know what’s going on, because they’ll have access to the same documents and the same things that the attorney has access to. It’s just a matter of you logging on and you checking updates. You can also communicate messaging with the lawyer in Clio, in that closed- case management system. So, once a client signs up, he gets a password to Clio, and they have access to their files and the case files. The other and the last important thing is that we make sure that we always have cell phones, and we use text messaging and email. Although we have the closed system of Clio, the portal system, we do use email and we do use text messaging. We’ll rely on those quite often, especially with clients, because we’re in court a lot, and when we’re in court, we find it easier sometimes to text with a client, because we’re sitting there texting right outside the courtroom or sometimes inside the courtroom, letting the client know exactly where we are or when we’ll return their phone calls. I understand that a lot of anxiety is going on with you and with the client, and so you want to know what’s going on with your case. Sometimes you get very anxious and so you want to hear back from the attorney immediately, and we’re able to do that sometimes with email and text messaging. iPhone or Android, we use them both, and so you’ll get messaging back. I hope that helps, and I hope that that reduces some of the anxiety. If you decide to use our firm, it just helps you in knowing how we communicate with you. Thanks.