Sigrid Caroline Schroder - Clear Counsel®

Clear Counsel®

GUIDANCE FOR LAWYERS

Who Need to Understand Their Clients

(Even When Their Clients Think They Already Understand)

Pertinent Questions

for

Pertinent Decisions and Strategy

I Help You Understand:

Product - Business Model - Business Plan

Industry Sector - Competitive Horizon

Prior History - Regulatory Framework - Risk

Technology - Science

Organizational Cultures

International Contrasts

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I KNOW WHAT WAKES YOU UP AT NIGHT, . . . OR WILL.

ASSESSING YOUR CLIENT'S BUSINESS

What are your clients' products and services? You have a lot of clients; how well do you know each? There is only so much time in the day to market, learn new law, and work. I can help you understand the new client fast and help you keep on track with your existing clients so that you anticipate their needs. Don't miss issues and don't miss facts.

Can you describe in detail one particular particular product or service, or, say, their newest planned product or service? Do you take them to dinner but never go to the plant or never see what is sitting out on the lab bench or is scribbled on the whiteboard? Would you understand your client's current progress much beyond last year's brochure or catalog list? Do you really have time to figure it out or in crisis where to start? How do you explain to the client when you have not understood the underlying basics or the non-attorney staff(the client's or yours) have missed both the legal forest and the trees? I can cover it while you are still figuring out where and to whom to look for other answers.

Image © Sean Gladwell.Fotolia

STRATEGIES FOR FIGURING OUT WHAT IT IS THEY'RE DOING

Many of your clients are out there competing in the steeplechase, ignoring risks at breakneck speed. If their horse lands on them, it does not much matter that they are wearing their helmet: they're likely to get crushed. Meanwhile they are very determined not to tell you exactly what they're doing, lest you say "no"--and if you are outside counsel, lest you start billing them by the hour. Meanwhile, most of your contacts within the corporate client are safely siloed in little boxes. A lot of complexity they may well miss, sa,y for instance, the unexpected future economic consequences of trying to lay off staff at that subsidiary they are planning to start in France. Or they fail to understand that the collaboration they have planned will leave them with no ability to patent the intellectual property and thus no means of turning the costs they are sinking daily into future profits. They're apt to say, "Oh, you're the lawyer, you'll think of a way to do it later." Well, from day to day, option to option, they're busy generating bad facts, and you will have to think of a way to get through to these people before bad facts can swallow them--even as they hide out from you and in-house counsel.