How barristers build trust with clients

Your clients’ trust is their belief that you will act in a reliable, consistent, and honest manner.  It’s an assurance that you will deliver on your commitments and act in their best interests.  Trust is therefore an essential element of any successful barrister-client relationship. 

Don’t they trust me already?

You might expect your clients to trust you already. Your professional status, training and qualifications are a pretty good indicator of your calibre after all.

You might also say that the Code of Conduct is their assurance and guarantee of your personal integrity.

Those things might be true in part, but gaining personal trust goes far beyond a reliance on the institutional framework in which you operate.

When individuals interact in a situation where there is a dependency on one to deliver something of value for the other, an element of trust usually minimises feelings of vulnerability in the dependent party.

When your client feels secure in their relationship with you you will have more time to get on with the legal work, since your client won’t need constant reassurance that you have their back.

With this in mind, it’s worth spending some time establishing a foundation of trust from the start.

How to build trust

There are many elements to establishing trust, all of which are grounded in your personal integrity.  If you would like to learn more about ways to build trust, you can think about it in three ways.

1. Establish a relationship
2. Demonstrate your credibility
3. Meet your clients needs

Establish a relationship

Ever wondered what is the difference between a client and a customer? A one-off transaction tends to denote a customer relationship. A client is someone with whom sustained interactions take place.  So many barristers have customers, rather than clients.

If you would like to turn your customers into clients, you will need to establish a relationship of trust. This involves getting to know your client, understanding their needs and building rapport.  

Listening to your clients’ concerns and responding to them seriously is important; dismissing worries (“you leave me to worry about that”) will only exacerbate their anxieties which will return, magnified, later.  It’s very hard to trust someone whom you feel hasn’t listened.

Being open and honest with your client demonstrates your trustworthiness and helps to manage expectations, particularly when the message to be delivered is unwelcome.  Transparency will help to build rapport, an essential part of trust-building.  Trust without rapport rarely exists.

Showing respect is an obvious, but sometimes forgotten, step in building trust.  It may be tempting to speak in case law shorthand to solicitors but excludes lay clients from the conversation. Treat those who pay your bills with courtesy and professionalism to fast-track your trust-building efforts.

Demonstrate credibility

Your clients need to trust in your abilities as a barrister.  You have to show up to each client con armed with knowledge.

You can show your knowledge and experience by ensuring your CV and LinkedIn profile are always up to date. Speaking at conferences, seminars, webinars and publishing articles are good channels for communicating your knowledge.

Providing value not only builds trust but will keep clients coming back to you. This rather vague term is banded around in the legal sector without much to substantiate it. This is the subject of another post, but in short, elements of value include Functional (saving time, minimising risk, improving quality) and Emotional (reducing anxiety promotes wellness, creating enjoyment at work.)

(Who doesn’t remember working with a barrister whose wit and repartee kept everyone going during the tough times?)

Finally, to demonstrate your expertise, try to be proactive in your planning and communications. I once worked with a team of consultants who anticipated every question I might ask and came prepared with examples for delivering each of the options we were considering.  Their preparation gave me confidence that this wasn’t their first rodeo and they were on top of their brief.

Meet your clients’ needs

Every clients’ needs are different even if the laws you apply to their cases are the same. Treating a client as an individual, rather than just another person in a process, will help to build trust.

Meeting client needs always involves listening and understanding to the specifics of their circumstances.  Take the time to listen carefully so you can respond the nuance of their situation so that they feel heard.

Delivering on promises helps to build trust.  If you’ve said you will deliver the skeleton by 10:00, then 10:01 is a broken promise. Next time you offer a deadline, your client will add contingency in their planning and their trust in your timekeeping is diminished.

Part of delivering on your promises is being reliable.  Being reliable is doing what you consistently say you will do, but it’s also showing up in the same way, consistently. If you’ve presented yourself as an enthusiastic, keen and willing partner, you need to do this every time, regardless of how you’re feeling on the day.

Maintaining trust

Equally important to building trust is maintaining it once established, even when the relationship naturally evolves from formal to familiar.  This is where trust falls apart.  Even once you have established a friendly and comfortable foundation for trust you still need to focus on the elements listed above to maintain it.

Finally, the benefits of building trust with your clients include repeat instructions, more word-of-mouth referrals and higher value work.  Prioritise the time to build trust with your clients.  It will pay dividends over many years. Building trust takes time but this article has explained some of the ways you can accelerate the process. 

Heidi Smith
Creator of Jurilogical.com