How Trust And Relationship Building Transform Client Engagement

Forbes

03-07-2025

John R. Kormanik, esq. CEO and Head Coach at John R. Kormanik Coaching.
From my past working in law and my current career as an executive coach working exclusively with outstanding law firm leaders, I've seen up close how trust is essential for driving client engagement. Think about it. Clients often arrive at the lawyer's door drowning in confusion, cloaked in crisis and consumed by conflict. While they're coming to you and your associates for expert legal tactics, cultivating a trusting relationship with them at the same time can pay enormous dividends for your firm.
However, attorneys are trained to evaluate facts, make arguments and generally act in ways that avoid risk. In other words, they're trained to build cases, not relationships. So, they tend to believe it's more important to let their work speak for itself. But in a world of ever-increasing competition, that couldn't be further from the truth.
Relationship Building Is A Driver Of ROI
Relationship building with clients, their team, referral sources and tactical partners is as much of a strategic leadership practice as business development or 'lawyering.' Focusing on these connections can lead to a variety of benefits. For example, it helps create stronger client bonds, greater lifetime value (LTV) and deeper impact.
Establishing a relationship with clients can improve their satisfaction, leading to greater retention. As law expert Heidi Gardner once said, 'The more partners serve a client, the longer that client remains with the firm.' This is vital, considering the cost of acquiring a new client is higher than retaining an existing one. Meanwhile, as research has shown, just a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profits by 25% to 95%. Talk about increasing LTV!
Despite this, most attorneys compartmentalize working relationships as clients, potential clients, the opposition or someone who's not relevant. So, what would happen if we ditched the compartmentalization and simply thought of people as people?
The Shift From Transaction To Transformation
When engaging with clients, most lawyers default to showcasing their well-honed legal tactics. After all, it's tactics that ultimately make it possible to deliver the results the client seeks and remain within the ethical boundaries that govern attorneys' work. Leaning on them is easy, comfortable and safe. However, when we're solely focused on being tactical, we lack the capacity to empathize and connect with others.
Do clients want a brilliant tactician? Of course they do. But I don't believe that's all they want. Clients need their counsel to understand them on a human level and provide space so they can tell their story (even the parts that are legally irrelevant). They want to know that, when you're speaking with them or working on their matter, you're fully present and engaged. Because while the client's matter may be one of many for you, it's one of one for them. Finally, clients crave reliability. Do you do what you say you will do, when you say you will do it?
Each of these things—understanding, presence and reliability—creates trust between your client and you, creating a strong relationship.
Turn Relationship Building Into A Core Leadership Habit
Becoming skilled at relationship building isn't some hack or marketing ploy, though. People have outstanding b.s. detectors. If you want to start thinking in terms of what clients actually want from their attorney, then act in accordance with that knowledge, you have to shift your approach to leadership. It'll require slowing down, being uncomfortable and doing things differently, all in service of your client and, ultimately, your firm.
Here are three key ways to ensure that you and your team are skilled in relationship building:
1. Create clarity. Make certain you frequently talk about the value of relationship building. I find this George Bernard Shaw quote to be a valuable reminder: 'The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.'
2. Walk the talk. Through your actions, demonstrate the importance of relationship building. Additionally, ensure your compensation model identifies and rewards the achievement of KPIs that evidence relationship building. Then communicate the value of the activities to individuals and the firm as a whole.
3. Hire for interpersonal ability. Law firm leaders, whether they're managing partners, shareholders or practice group leaders, should consider the words of J. Willard Marriott, former CEO of Marriott International: 'It's very hard to teach people to smile. That's why we hire friendly associates and train technical skills.' With that in mind, bring on associates who understand the value of, and are energized by, relationship building.
Final Takeaway: Lawyers Who Lead, Win
In the ultra-competitive legal market, shifting your priorities from being the best tactician to being the best trusted advisor who cultivates relationships isn't just fluff. It improves the firm's bottom line. But trust isn't built in your conference room in a single interaction. It's built little by little every day, when you and your associates consistently show up as human beings first, tacticians second.
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