Estate Planning Feedback for the Solo Law Firm
Feedback is one of the most important parts of client collaboration. Not only is it important to receive insight, but it’s key to make sure the feedback process is an easily accessible part of the client experience.
Roll Call! How many of you are solo lawyers or lawyers at small law firms?
So far, 2023 has been a year of me working as much on my law practice as in my law practice.
When you don’t have a team of paralegals, assistants, and secretaries making the world go round, client collaboration becomes a one-on-one experience.
I am constantly learning and want to always improve my services for new and returning clients. Since Addie Prewitt Law is a solo law firm, it’s important that I play multiple roles when it comes to making these improvements.
This year, I’ve created processes for marketing my estate planning services, for work/life balance, and especially, for my clients’ satisfaction with my services.
After welcoming several new clients this year, I’ve been eager to hear about their experience with my estate planning services.
Which got me thinking.
I want to make sure my estate planning clients are getting what they need (and then some) from Addie Prewitt Law. As a solo lawyer, it feels important to listen to my clients and learn everything I can from them.
While I’ve always had some sort of estate planning feedback form, I recently revamped it to (hopefully) better capture the full experience of my clients.
Instead of requesting a grade like the diligent law student of yesteryear, I’ve found myself much more interested in the journey my clients have taken.
I was much more interested in things like:
What was their experience prior to seeking estate planning services?
How did things change once they finalized their estate plan?
What could I do to better their estate planning experience?
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I want to know the answers to questions like:
How did you feel about working on your estate plan?
What were your expectations before our collaboration?
How does having an estate plan change your general outlook on life?
I want to hear about the journey my client goes on when working on their estate plan and what it’s like for them to take this trip with me.
I find that questions like these get to the core of what I’m doing with my solo law firm: bringing peace of mind to Louisiana professionals and their families.
Not only do I get feedback on my performance, but I also get a deeper insight into the lived experience of my clients.
During this feedback process, I get to hear everything that happens from before a client’s Strategy Session all the way to the signing ceremony. These insights into the entire estate planning process are invaluable to my work as an estate planning lawyer and a small business owner.
Google reviews satisfy the algorithms.
They also typically center my performance in these client collaborations. This is great and I would never complain about a good grade (once a law student, always a law student). But, I know that when I click on the link to leave a Google review, you’re typically staring at a blank box. It can be difficult to generate the right words at that time. Often, it gets put off and more often than not, never completed. (
I totally get it.
The feedback form of my dreams centers the journey of my client as we design their estate plan together. It might ask a few more questions, but it’s asking about what you thought of your own experience.
I want to know how my estate planning clients feel at different points of our collaboration.
I want to know how much they value the experience.
I want to know what I could do better to further their return on investment.
I find that this kind of deep dive into my client’s experience is incredibly formative for the future of Addie Prewitt Law.
I need to know what my clients felt every step of the way.
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This reminds me of an early era of my law career, when I worked for Ernst & Young in New York City for 3 years.
At EY, we had quarterly reviews. At a particular time, early in my time there, I was working for a, let’s say, very demanding partner on an $11 billion transaction in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis.
Maybe it was because I was young, maybe because of the hard-to-please leadership, but this particular experience was a s*** show.
We’ve all been there, right? Working so hard day and night to bring order to seemingly unending chaos.
I remember that this particular partner, who no one was super excited about working with, was in charge of my work on the project. Essentially, I drew the short straw and was assigned as their right-hand man.
From the beginning, I decided that I was going to put my head down and do whatever it took to get through this giant project. I worked my ass off. I missed holidays, left vacations early, got very little sleep, and always with my Blackberry under my pillow.
But, it seemed that no matter how hard I worked or how much effort I put in, this partner was never satisfied.
As it turned out, this nightmare marathon coincided with our quarterly review process. These reviews were done by our direct superior giving each of us a grade between 1-5, with 5 being the best you could do.
And, guess who was in charge of doling out feedback for my review? Yep, everyone’s favorite partner.
With bags under my eyes and my nervous system fried, I received a 2.
I still get a little irked thinking about it.
But at that point in my career, after all that effort, I was crushed by that 2.
I knew the number didn’t reflect the quality of work I’d done. I knew that this was a ‘lesson’ from an ornery superior.
Now I can see it for what it was - their attempt to mold me into his vision of what an EY partner should look like.
Other partners tried to cheer me up by encouraging me to “not concentrate on the number” and to simply take the feedback and improve what I could.
But, I managed to finish that project, improve what I could, and learned to gauge my success in other ways.
Maybe because I’m still irked at that 2, but I do want to say that at my annual review that year, done by all of the partners, I received a 4. Seeing that I was a newly promoted manager, this was a very high grade.
I’ve grown a lot since my New York City days. But, no matter who you are or how hard you work, receiving feedback can be really scary.
It requires being vulnerable.
It requires admitting that you don’t have all the answers.
It requires faith in the person giving feedback and trusting that whatever they say is important and should be applied to improving your own work.
In creating a feedback form that centers my client’s experience, I’m hoping to broaden the impact of what feedback can mean for my business.
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I work hard for my clients and do everything in my power to create successful and pleasant collaborations.
That will never change.
But, I’m learning that it’s important to check in with my clients not just about what they thought of me, but how they’re able to use the estate plan we created together.
How can I make these estate planning services clearer or more valuable?
When I get this kind of personal feedback, I can apply it directly back into my business and further enhance my clients’ experience. It makes my job that much clearer and everything I do so much better.
Plan Today for Peace of Mind Tomorrow
Recently, I started working with someone on a business succession plan.
A fellow Louisianan, this client and I have known each other for years. I’ve been a big fan of her work and was excited to get the chance to collaborate on this plan together.
In reviewing documents in a meeting, I asked her a question that I usually ask, “why did you decide to work with me on this project?”
She named some mutual colleagues of ours, referred to some word-of-mouth recommendations, but then said:
“I wanted to work with you because I knew you wouldn’t make me feel stupid for not knowing some of this stuff.”
I have to admit that I was moved by this comment.
It is really important that people feel comfortable with me, and that they can trust me to help them through processes that are complicated and not common knowledge.
It’s why I write this blog, it’s why I focus on my newsletter, and why I offer 60-minute strategy sessions to potential estate planning clients.
I want my clients to feel like they fully get what’s happening. I thought about how I would have missed this valuable piece of feedback had I been narrowly focused on getting a grade at the end of our collaboration.
I am grateful for my clients and their trust in me.
I am grateful that I can have a rapport with new clients that leads to incredibly honest and helpful feedback. I trust that accepting feedback and really listening to my clients’ experiences is going to help me grow my law practice to its fullest potential.
It’s always a good time to plan for your family’s future.
So, here goes.
If you have worked with me or just want to beta test this feedback form, go ahead and click this link and fill it out. I would love to hear what you thought about the estate planning process. I would also love to hear what you think of the feedback form itself!
If you’ve been reading these blogs and/or are a newsletter subscriber, I’d love to hear back from you, too! (Shoot me an email with any feedback you have for me.)
I want to figure out the best way to help my clients through their estate planning journey, so your feedback is invaluable to me and my law practice.
I might not be reinventing the wheel when it comes to Louisiana estate planning.
But, I know that listening to my clients and taking their insights in order to improve the services I provide is as valuable as anything I can offer as a lawyer.
It’s because of the feedback I’ve already received that I have implemented an estate planning process that focuses on making sure you really understand what’s going on. I provide information in new ways, illustrating where your assets and property will go when the time comes. I offer videos reviewing lengthy and dense legal documents. I work with clients in their 70s and 80s, but also forward-thinking Louisianans in their 30s and 40s.
Any technology that I use is incorporated seamlessly. You don’t have to be a tech-native whiz kid in order to interact with the systems I have in place. Rather, you are given the information you need and answers to questions you’ve been asking for years.
When you work with Addie Prewitt Law, you don’t get passed off to a paralegal or an assistant. You get to talk to me directly, we collaborate together on creating the best estate plan for you.
When it comes to estate planning, there is no crystal ball. But, I try to make sure the estate planning process is one where you feel comfortable asking questions, bouncing ideas, and getting to the core of what you want.
And, when it’s all said and done, I can’t wait to hear how the process was for you.
Happy Planning!
Take Care,
Addie
Are you ready to create an estate plan that’s right for you?
FAQ
Q: Will leaving a Google review really help Addie Prewitt Law?
A: Yes! Google reviews satisfy the algorithm and give others searching for an estate planning lawyer better insight into working with Addie Prewitt Law. If you want to leave a Google review, it would be a huge support to the online presence of Addie Prewitt Law. If you want to leave a Google review, you can do so here!
Q: What do you do with the completed feedback forms?
A: Mostly, I learn from them! Once a feedback form has been submitted, it gets sent to my inbox. I read through them and take notes on what info has been provided. If the client has given me permission to do so, I utilize their feedback as testimonials on my website and across social platforms. I only include their first name and don’t include any photos. But, having first-hand accounts of estate planning experiences really helps others decide on who to hire for their estate planning work. I want to provide honest accounts from my clients and hope to attract new business that wants to be part of Addie Prewitt Law.
You can use this link to fill out the estate planning feedback form now!
Q: Which documents will I likely need to create a complete estate plan?
A: It can vary from client to client, but generally, folks looking to make an estate plan can count on needing some, if not all, of the following documents:
Last will and testament
Living trust
Beneficiary designations
Financial power of attorney
Advance healthcare directive/healthcare power of attorney
Insurance policies (health, life, car, home, etc.)
Titles and property deeds (car, home, boat, rental property)
Proof of identity (social security card, prenup agreement, birth/marriage/divorce certificates, etc)
Digital logins and passwords (yes, all of them)
Funerary instructions (although I believe these should be given directly to your loved ones prior to your death.)
Take a look behind the legal curtain.
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Take a deeper dive into Lousiana estate planning with more posts by Addie Prewitt Law:
It’s important to me to make Louisiana estate planning as simple as possible.
You can create a last will and testament, sign a power of attorney, and even write down your final wishes. But, if you don’t approach your estate plan with a big picture strategy, you might just miss the mark when it comes to creating the best estate plan for you and your family.
The first step of any estate plan is knowing you have to put one in place. So, since you’re here, you’ve already done the first (and probably the most important) step.