Sometimes during our coaching calls with attorneys, it comes up that the fees collected for the services provided are too low. Typically, when you’re setting fees, are you considering the value of your advice, the experience, the time investment to produce the quality of services and peace of mind clients need…. along with the liability and overhead?

Then we look at the math: overall revenue divided by the number of estate planning “transactions” (for lack of a better word). You do want to make sure that the hours it takes to produce the type of quality work you’re providing along with the liability you’re taking on, combined with the confidence that you want clients to have in you, is incorporated into your fees. You want to look at your “average transaction” amount regularly and understand what is making it fluctuate. You may be offering more trust administration as the years go by, so your fee appears to be averaging higher – causing you to overlook your actual fee for each type of service you’re offering. Average the fees in each category of revenue. If you haven’t changed your fees recently and you see numbers jumping around – you may be guilty of quoting different fees for the same services as different clients come in. Make sure that your fees are the same each time. It’s a common problem to be in front of a client and not feel the ability to quote a specific fee, so you quote some made-up fee that in your own mind will be something the client can say yes to.

It’s worthwhile to really master your consultations so the results are completely consistent. It creates the type of situation that allows you to forecast revenue.

Keep in mind that your fees say a lot about you! If you’re the cheapest guy in town, people will think of you that way. Your fees make a statement in some ways, but they also keep your doors open. They provide for your family. In my conversations with attorneys about why their fees aren’t higher, the answers can be all over the board but generally come down to one common thing.

The attorney somehow doesn’t believe they’re worth a higher fee.

The excuses used before the attorney gets down to the real reason are often along the lines of, “The client won’t pay that,” “I’ll be the highest priced attorney in town,” “I’m just not comfortable quoting that fee.”

The thing is, if you GET comfortable quoting a fee that you’re worth, you can quote that fee just fine. And the truth is, that quoting a higher fee will not change the percentage of retention that you have a habit of achieving. Take a close look at the real reason your fees may not be as healthy as they should be and get those reasons out for a closer look. We do encourage a review of fees and services offered at least annually. Email me directly if you have questions or post your comments on the blog for a discussion if you like!

Jennifer Price
Director, Member Services, Marketing & Recruiting
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com

Do your earnings justify the hours you work? Especially in this economy, the answer I hear from the vast majority of attorneys is a resounding “No!” Particularly if you’re a law firm owner — there’s just too much to do on a daily basis, and inconsistency in revenues is the order of the day.

We learned about the law while we were in law school, but consider everything else that’s required just to keep a law firm afloat. In addition to doing the legal work, there’s a mountain of phone calls and e-mails to return, new technology to figure out, questions from employees to answer, human resources issues to deal with, plus the task of staying on top of developments in the law. I don’t know about you, but they didn’t teach me all this stuff in law school.

Then there’s the fact that, for many practitioners, revenues are becoming more and more inconsistent. Thanks to online sites and fill-in-the-blank forms, legal services are becoming commoditized like never before. This is leading clients away from seeking sound legal advice and toward do-it-yourself solutions.

The response that most lawyers have to this situation is to work longer, harder hours just to try to keep up. The result is diminishing returns when it comes to earnings, leading some of us to wonder if it’s all worth it.

Ready for a surprise? We’ve found that clients don’t care all that much about technical proficiency — they assume that if you’ve got a law degree, you know what you’re doing. What draws clients to a lawyer — and what keeps them loyal — is that they’ve found a trusted advisor who doesn’t just have legal expertise, but who cultivates relationships and consistently delivers on promises.

One of the things you need to do to reach a point where you’re no longer spinning your wheels, is to adopt a relationship-building system for your practice. This means not only remaining in contact with your clients, but making sure that every contact that a client or prospective client has with your firm, exceeds their expectations. From the first phone contact with your receptionist, to what they see when they first set foot in your lobby, to whether or not their phone calls are returned promptly — everything about your firm should be crafted to exceed your clients’ expectations.

For example:

• Every employee needs to understand exactly how each client is greeted, how the phone is answered, how documents are drafted and sent to the client for review, and what happens at document signings. Clear, consistent expectations for these things will lead to consistently excellent client experiences.

• You need a plan for communicating with each client six to twelve times each year. This can be in the form of a blog, newsletters, seminars, or client appreciation events, to name a few.

• You need a system for keeping track of every contact that a client has with anyone in your firm — from the receptionist, to a paralegal, to an attorney.

This may sound like just more extra work, but if you have a system in place for building relationships, and the system is understood and implemented by everyone in your firm, then the guesswork disappears. Like clockwork, every contact a client or prospective client has with your firm will be one that’s geared toward building a long-term, trusted relationship. This, in turn, will lead to less work for you, as well as greater income for your firm.

This is a topic we’ve talked a lot about in “The E-Myth Attorney” and we have also planned on discussing it on a teleseminar coming up on August 10th, let us know if you want registration information for the call (e-mail info@aaepa.com) and we’ll be happy to get the information to you.

Robert Armstrong
President & Co-Founder
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
6050 Santo Road, Suite 240
San Diego, CA 92124
(858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com