The Gazette 1988

MAY 1 9 88

GAZETTE

and regular review to keep our existing clients alive and service them regularly. I am sure that all those who at- tended the seminar will remember Robert Parsons showing us the "gratitude curve" illustrating the philosophy that you must always bill a client immediately the work is finished. It is simply no use at all waiting for three months to bill. By then clients believe they do not owe you the money at all and then the only way to collect is to write letters wh i ch say, " N ow we are very, very, very, very, c r oss !" He said you must bill at the peak of the client's gratitude. Somebody asked the question, "Wh a t if the client is u n g r a t e f u l ?" Robe rt Parsons answered "Bill at the top of the ingratitude curve — it's not going to get any be t t e r !" John Loosemore began t he a f t e r noon w ih " Bu d g e t i ng for Profit" and showed very simply how we should begin to ensure that our practices actually make money! He said that our banking arrange- me n t s we re a v i t al pa rt of profitability and yet many firms were losing tens of thousands of pounds a year on their banking deal. He urged us to have a very close look at clearance terms wh i ch were agreed w i th our banks and rates of interest earned and paid on client account. He said that he felt that Irish banks ought to pay interest on current client account moneys, as they do in the United Kingdom — this would save enor- mous administration and effort on the part of the profession and, even more i mpo r t an t, wo u ld allow solicitors to see clearly the monies on wh i ch they should be receiving interest. He added that banks often " f u d g e d" the issue w i th regard to interest and charges and most solicitors simply did not know on what basis they were paying. He went on to talk to us about some standardisation of legal work that has occurred in his own Executorship Accounts Are a major headache for many solicitors We specialise in them W. A. Hennessy & Co. Chartered Accountants 5, Leeson Park, Dublin 6. Tel: 971237 Telex: 265451 MONREF G Ref: EIM 656

wiser than in the United Kingdom in that they had spent a great deal of time thinking about these issues and planning for them before the wind of change actually hit. He went on to say that the great malaise in the profession in many jurisdictions at the moment is the inability actually to take decisions. He said that many partners' meetings consist of matters merely being brought forward repeatedly and, although ideas are generated, nothing ever gets done. He urged us at least to take one or t wo ideas away from the seminar and make some actually happen. He warned against complacency and the view that the kind of competition wh i ch has hit lawyers in the United Kingdom will not touch Ireland. He said that the " f r i e n d l y" building societies had turned out to be not quite so friendly and were now looking at the legal market w i th eager eyes. He said that our day too would come and pointed out that already accountants and banks were taking work wh i ch was properly ours. He brought a sobering note to the talk when he said that solicitors in the United Kingdom had decided, when there was no other com- petition, to practise on themselves and had entered into a destructive price-cutting war. He commended the Irish Law Society because, in its consideration of whether to allow advertising, it had, in any event, set its face against price ad v e r t i s i ng. He ad v i s ed t he profession in Ireland to stand firm on that issue. He said there was a new breed of client — more sophisticated, more consumer- minded, less loyal and more likely to change solicitor midstream. He said that the task, above every- thing, was to protect existing clients and to begin to develop from that base. He went on to take us on a fascinating journey into our dead file rooms and asked us to consider the banks of files wrapped in brown envelopes stacked along the damp walls. He told us that we were making files dead and storing them in that way at the same time as our competitors in the large institutions were striving to get clients' names on their computer data-base in order to keep them alive for ever! He urged us never again to make a file dead but by systems of diary

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practice by the use of precedent letters and forms, interview sheets and progress sheets. He said that such a system not only helped in efficient training but acted as a useful "aide memo i r e" to ex- perienced solicitors. It allowed matters to be supervised properly, particularly when a solictor was sick or on holiday. It also ensured that nobody missed either legal or commercial aspects of a trans- action and, most important, helped firms avoid negligence claims! When the speaker turned to computers many feared that they were in for a "hard sell". They were wrong. Mr. Loosemore urged us first to have a manual system wh i ch worked effectively before considering computerisation. He said t hat many compu t e r i sed conveyancing packages sold in the U.K. were merely "glorified word processing" although some more sophisticated " e x p e r t" systems were being developed. He urged the value of a good debt collection package, saying that this could be a fantastic entrée to commercial wo rk as it had been in his own practice

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