Manage a client complaint - and keep your footing.
It’s a busy Tuesday morning, you have three client calls to return, a load of new emails to sort through and a hearing to prepare. Then your heart stops: an email from your regulator. It’s a complaint from Mr Jones, that difficult client who has been griping about your bill and accusing you of all sorts of things. Your morning grinds to a halt and a sense of panic rises. ‘I’ve never had a complaint before! How can he complain after I got him a such a good result with so much against him? How much time will this waste? What if other people find out? What if I lose my PC? What will I do?’
As someone who has read over 14,000 complaints about lawyers (and dealt with or supervised a lot of those!), I understand how much complaints can throw a lawyer off their game. They can provoke all kinds of emotions – anger at the client, resentment towards the regulator, shame, sadness, and fear of the unknown. They can undermine your confidence and stop you from getting on with servicing the 90% of matters in your practice that are going well. Most lawyers prize their professional competence and skill, and a complaint can really put a dent in that.
If you get a complaint, you will need to manage your emotions, your perspective, your time, your opportunity costs as well as the issues raised.
Manage your emotions.
I think many lawyers go through their training with the impression that the regulator is punitive and nit-picking: put a foot wrong and you’re done for. No wonder a complaint provokes so much fear. But don’t buy into the fear. Look at the stats: the vast majority of complaints are resolved or result in no further action or a minor finding in the worst case. There is a constructive way through this.
Managing your emotions is also important from the perspective of how you respond to the complaint, regardless of whether it’s been escalated to the regulator or not. So many matters end up with the regulator when a lawyer responds defensively or angrily with a client who has raised a concern or objection. When the matter is first raised, you’re likely to need a bit of space before you can have a constructive conversation. So if you’re conscious that your emotions might cloud your response to the issue, take a step back and ask for some time before you write an angry screed or have a heated conversation.
Manage your perspective.
Hard as it may be, think about the client’s perspective, because it will help you to take what they say with the necessary grain of salt. The vast majority of people who make complaints to the regulator are involved with a legal matter infrequently, or maybe this is the first time. The more emotional the matter, the less they are likely to understand about your role and the way the matter will unfold. The experienced lawyer knows that things can often go awry in the course of a matter, but the average client doesn’t, and, relating it to other, simpler services they’ve retained in the past, they may think it’s your fault. You are providing a very complex consumer service to someone with little bandwidth to understand what you’re saying to them, and sometimes it’s very difficult to get across what it is you do. It’s not necessarily that you’ve done something wrong, but it maybe the communication didn’t happen as well as it could have.
The regulator’s perspective is that they have limited resources and they are likely to want to focus on areas of highest consumer harm. They will want to resolve the vast majority of cases where a settlement can be reached and any problems on your part can be easily remedied.
The perspective of your future self is important too. Will you regret investing too much angst and time on something that could have been more easily resolved? Could you have been open to a really useful insight that will help you in the future?
Manage your time and opportunity costs.
Many lawyers spend hours on a lengthy and laborious response to what may actually be a fairly narrow issue that can be addressed with a specific response. For example, you may have done a terrific job on a matter that turned out to have been a lot more difficult than it looked at first blush, but you didn’t update your costs disclosure in a timely manner. The real focus in dealing with the complaint needs to be on the late update and the consequences of that. As you would for your own client, narrow your focus to the real issues at hand.
In the vast majority of cases, this isn’t going to be your career on the line, so don’t feel the need to justify your actions in the entire matter. Consider the opportunity costs – all that time in preparing your response could have been better spent dealing with clients who appreciate your help and care, and who will happily pay for your work and effort on their behalf.
Manage the issues.
When a client makes a complaint, they can often come up with a wrong diagnosis and ask for remedies that are not justified in the circumstances. The regulator’s judgement about the issues is what matters. They will be looking to establish the facts, and then looking for regulatory breaches, whether the conduct alleged could amount to a disciplinary breach, areas for correction and improvement, and in most cases, avenues for resolution. The schemes for regulating lawyers are administrative law. The regulator is bound to act within the bounds of their regulatory remit and the principles of administrative law.
Get some help.
Ask a kind and experienced colleague for their perspective, or you could make an appointment with me for some help with crafting your response.
A complaint is not the end of the world. You can get through this setback with a strengthened perspective and a deeper set of skills to manage your practice and yourself.
