Lawyer Humor, Only Slight Exaggeration

This just came in my email. Like hundreds of thousands of other American Bar Association (ABA) members, every Friday I receive the ABA Journal e-Report.

This semi-joking article from that publication takes on something I have always wondered about.

Why do law firms think clients will be impressed by their excessively lavish offices, given that the source is revenues from the very same clients they’re trying to impress?

Or if the firms are doing it because the lawyers themselves enjoy luxury, not to impress clients, why don’t they see how it looks through clients’ eyes?

The article, “Opulence Avoidance” makes the following point, but with humor worth reading in full:

Clients are a lot less impressed with your décor than I am, because, well, they’re paying for it.
It’s a lot easier to have appreciation for, say, an original vase found amid the ruins of a Mayan village when I know I’m not the one who you must bill for the next three years to pay for it.

And I hate to be the one to break it to you, but clients don’t choose their lawyers based on their eye for the aesthetic.

In my tenure as in-house counsel, I never once said to my boss, “Sure, this firm has little experience in complex mergers involving financial institutions, but did you see the way they used light and contrast in their atrium? It’s to die for, girlfriend!”

Well said. . .

border="0"/>
Accountant Careers.co.uk provides accounting jobs in the UK via its employment Web site.