Our number one goal is satisfied clients, and the roadmap to client satisfaction incorporates well-established, consistent service standards. These standards inform the focus and training of our people, and represent our commitment to long-term client relationships. We want every interaction with our firm to exceed previous expectations of outside counsel – creating the basis for trusted collaboration on our clients’ most critical legal challenges and business goals.
Our Client Service Standards are based on candid feedback with our clients about what matters most to them in their law firm relationships. At Lathrop GPM, the voice of the client is our true north star.
Client Service Standards
We Are Accessible
Our clients have our desk and mobile numbers, ensuring that we are available for those urgent calls that need to be made after hours, early mornings, or on weekends. We understand that legal challenges don’t always neatly fit into routine office hours, and that having legal counsel accessible when you need them most offers peace of mind. And for maintenance issues, we are happy to craft a regular meeting cadence that best serves your needs.
We Understand Your Business
Our clients are often responsible to internal business departments, and need legal advice that is business-oriented. We will take the time to meet your internal teams and executives, learn what hot-button issues keep you up at night, visit your facilities, keep up with your industry, and understand your business’s risk tolerance. We will also provide you with advice that you can easily share with your business teams.
We Tailor Communication
Whether our contacts prefer emails, phone calls, Zoom, or in-person meetings, we strive to meet clients’ individual needs for best communication practices. We will ask your preferences about communication methods and preferred frequencies, and will share those preferences with the full client team so that all attorneys you have contact with are working from the same playbook.
We Are Proactive
Our legal teams proactively share alerts and newsletters about timely regulatory and legislative issues, landmark court decisions, and industry forecasting to help your business look around corners, anticipate challenges, and assess risk.
We Meet or Exceed Deadlines
We promise a same-day response to your email or call. We understand the sense of urgency around many legal issues, and will collaboratively establish expectations regarding responsiveness. We will calendar out key deadlines and report regularly on progress against them. Our goal is for you to always feel like our most important client.
We Staff Effectively
Our goal is always to engage the most cost-effective level of timekeeper for your matters, with partner oversight and associate and paralegal involvement wherever appropriate. We will check in regularly to ensure staffing satisfaction. You will always know more than one attorney to contact with questions, which also aids continuity of representation over time.
We Are Transparent
We will be candid and accessible about fees, staffing, and matter/budget status. We are always willing to discuss alternative fee arrangements that would best suit client needs, as well as legal project management tools that can help us be as efficient, transparent and collaborative as possible. We tailor progress reports to your internal needs and deadlines.
We Offer Resources
While you may only need legal representation for a one-off matter, many of our clients have ongoing and varied legal needs. We will make sure you know our bench strength in multiple areas – and make introductions as needed – so that you have knowledge of our full roster of resources should you need them. And we will ensure you know the junior attorneys poised to become the next team leads – we are always investing in the future of our firm and our client needs, across offices and practice areas.
We Seek Feedback
For decades, Lathrop GPM has promoted a firmwide culture of client service excellence based on ongoing and in-depth client feedback interviews. These formal feedback discussions review satisfaction across a range of metrics, including matter outcomes, communication and responsiveness, budgets and fees, and benchmarking against other law firms. We use this feedback to constantly improve our services, always ensuring that our work is guided by the voice of our clients.