Two BC projects go national

by Mayland McKimm

Perceptions about our profession are created one lawyer and one client at a time.

At the December 11, 1999 meeting of the Provincial Council, the British Columbia Branch of the Canadian Bar Association voted overwhelmingly in favor of your Branch commencing a public awareness campaign on behalf of all of us.

Through the hard work of Ed Macauley and Jim Herperger, the Branch has committed to spend $50,000.00 this Spring to promote public awareness of the role and value of lawyers. This will come from existing resources. It was clear from our survey last year that while members want us to deal with this issue, a special branch levy is controversial without a proven “product” upon which to vote. We will spend the next 18 months developing that product.

As a result of our leadership here in British Columbia, the CBA National office has agreed to pay for the capital costs to purchase the print rights to a proven campaign. This greatly reduces the cost to the Branch and allows us to devote more of our budget to actually publishing the ads, initially in several community newspapers. The campaign will run as part of a larger program, including media relations, Law Week, public forums and other activities designed to heighten awareness and profile of our profession.

The difficulty will be in measuring in any meaningful way the results of the campaign. Given our limited resources, we will have to rely on feedback from you. In a larger campaign we can budget market analysis into the cost. Our decision was that it was more important to get the campaign started and give all of us a sense of the sort of product that can be produced. With this information, we can then make a more effective decision as to what we want to do with the idea in the future.

What the Branch does will be irrelevant, however, unless each of us commits to deliver good service when a client walks through our doors. The reality is that perceptions about our profession are created one lawyer and one client at a time. That is why the Branch’s Communications Committee invested a significant amount of time in a client relations project, led by Dan Milden, to develop new materials to help every lawyer refresh their enthusiasm for, and commitment to, client relations. The National CBA liked the new kit so much that they have agreed to publish it free of charge for every member in an upcoming issue of The National magazine.

The value of client relations is clear: the time required to inform a client of the process involved, and the ongoing status of their file, is small compared to the benefits. An informed client will be prepared for the outcome and is less likely to take issue with fees charged. An informed client is also more likely to be satisfied with the entire experience and more likely to refer other clients and to have a higher opinion of the legal profession in general.

We also do ourselves and our profession a service when we ensure that our clients understand that the opposing lawyer has a position to take and argument to make, and is required to respect and follow instructions from their client. Finally, we need to ensure that our clients understand that the Justice, arbitrator or decision maker hearing the matter may well not decide in our client’s favor, and be certain they understand why. At the end of the day our clients will be happier not only with us, but with the entire system that serves them.

To receive the respect we are entitled to as professionals, we must act as professionals. The Canadian Bar Association can help, but ultimately the responsibility for earning public respect rests with each of us.

This article was published in the February 2000 issue of BarTalk. © 2000 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved.