The 3 Rules of Communication
How We Stay Focused on Your Case
We follow three important rules to ensure we can keep you informed while getting important work done without unplanned interruptions. The 3 Rules of Communication allow us to give 100% attention to your case, and our other cases
Rule #1: We do not take unplanned, inbound phone calls.
Rule #2: We schedule all appointments in advance.
Rule #3: We do not respond to emails immediately.
Why These Rules are Important to Your Case
We value the trust and confidence you have placed in us with your case. We want to do the best possible job for you.
To do the best job possible for you, we cannot have constant interruptions to our workflow. We receive hundreds of phone calls and emails, every day.
We cannot do the best job possible for your case if our time and attention are constantly redirected from working on your case to respond to every email and call.
If we were surgeons performing open-heart surgery, you would not want us to stop the operation to take a phone call. That would be crazy, right? The same idea applies to legal work.
If we are busy working on a trial or deposition, we cannot stop what we are doing to answer a phone call or an email. Even from you! We must give our total time and energy to the client whose case is being presented at trial.
If we cannot dedicate 100% of our time and attention to the trial or deposition we are working on, we can’t do the best job possible for you, or any of our clients. The 3 Rules of Communication allow us to give that attention to your case.
But How do I Access You When I Have Questions?
Our Rules of Communication do not mean that you will not have access to us. You will, but at scheduled times we set aside for emails and phone calls.
If you would like to speak with us, we are happy to set aside as much time as you need, whether in a face-to-face meeting, a phone call, or video conference. Just call and schedule an appointment.
We explain exactly how to do that in the rest of the 3 Rules, below.
Remember, these Rules are designed to help us move your case forward as aggressively as we can. Help us help you by reading and following these 3 Rules of Communication.
Explaining the Rules
Rule #1: We do not take unplanned, inbound phone calls
If you call us without first making an appointment, the receptionist will ask you to make an appointment and will attempt to schedule an appointment at that time.
We schedule phone appointments between 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. in increments of 30 minutes on almost every day, Monday through Thursday, unless we are in court in trial or at a deposition.
You can schedule a time to speak at 4:00 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5:00 p.m., or 5:30 p.m.
If you need more than 30 minutes for our phone conversation, we will be glad to accommodate you and it may be most beneficial to set up a face-to-face meeting. If you have a physical handicap, we will always meet with you at your home.
If a face-to-face meeting is not possible for you, we may arrange for video conference, i.e., Zoom or Skype.
We will make ourselves available to you and answer all of your questions, at scheduled times.
Besides helping us stay focused on your important legal work, scheduling calls also makes sure you get thorough answers. We encourage you to send us an email with your questions after scheduling the call, which we will review before the call.
That way we can have all the answers at our fingertips for the call, rather than hunting around with you on the line.
The email does not need to be formal at all. Just let us know what issues you would like to discuss on the call.
A quick email summarizing the issues that you want to discuss will help us prepare for our phone appointment. Instead of saying that “I will get back to you” with answers to your questions, there’s a good chance we will have the answers for you during our phone appointment.
This will ensure that we are not wasting your time during our phone appointment.
Remember, you can always talk to a paralegal on the case who can provide you with day-to-day details of the case. You will need to schedule a time to talk to a paralegal, as well.
Rule #2: We schedule all appointments in advance
If you think a phone call is a distraction from important legal work on your case, imagine how distracting it is to have a client walk in unexpectedly.
We’re not even likely to be in the office when you arrive without scheduling an appointment. We try cases, which means we have to go on the road frequently—to depositions, to meet with experts, to interview witnesses, to meet with judges.
Even if we are in the office, we are busy working on other projects like preparing for those depositions, expert meetings, interviews, meetings, and trials.
So if you want to meet–in person or by Zoom or phone–just call and schedule it!
Rule #3: We do not respond to emails immediately
Because we are trying to work as efficiently as possible on all our clients’ cases, we do not check our email constantly. We only view emails at scheduled times of the day.
And we set aside time to respond to them with concrete answers. That can take time.
So, if you email us, we will not immediately respond. Which may seem rude or like we’re ignoring you. We’re not. Just the opposite.
Your case and your question is too important to dash off a half-answer as an afterthought.
We each receive well over 100 emails every day (not spam or junk mail, real emails from clients, attorneys, courts, and others in the legal industry).
If we respond to a single email, we will take on average 7-8 minutes of our time, and if we responded to all the emails we receive, it would consume our entire workday.
Responding to emails is not a productive use of our time, time better spent working on getting you results in your case.
Since we’d rather spend our time doing productive work on your case, that is, making sure all of the work gets done on time and pushing your case aggressively to trial, we simply don’t respond to the large majority of emails sent to us.
We may scan your email and note whatever information you gave us. Or ask a paralegal or assistant to respond. In some rare cases, we may respond to your email directly.
The best way to communicate with us is through a phone call or face-to-face appointment.
No matter what, you are important to us and we will make time to answer your questions.
You have my word on it!
William Eadie
Nursing Home Injury Lawyer