For example, as soon as some consultation calls are answered, they ask how to apply for a birth certificate. How to settle in? Is this a legal issue? No. What if this is not a legal issue? Did you tell the parties in one sentence: This is not a legal issue, don’t ask me. Is it over? So back to the question of what is the purpose of customer consultation, the customer does not particularly need an answer. What he needs is how to do it and how to solve his own problem. This will tell the parties that this is not a legal issue, and which department you should go to and contact. Especially in radio consultation and some telephone consultations, we often encounter such problems. At this time, lawyers should not be too utilitarian. If they think it is not a legal issue or their client, they will soon become impatient. Law firms should have social responsibilities and be socially responsible. Addressing someone by name is a form of trust. You should tell him where to go and point out the solution.
2. Consultation on how to deal with legal issues
First, what is the legal issue being consulted? For example: divorce disputes, labor disputes...
2. What legal relationships are involved in consultation? For example: creditor-debt relationship, contract relationship, loan relationship...
Third, what legal elements are involved in this case? What are the requirements? For example, in a divorce case, the legal requirements are whether the relationship has broken down, whether there is a dispute over child custody, property issues, credits and debts, etc.
Fourth, reveal all elements in the legal relationship. Any case, such as a marriage case, a work-related injury case, or a labor dispute case, must have its own legal requirements. The narrative process of the client is usually disorganized and he is unable to fully present the elements of the case. In this case, in order to reveal all the elements in the case, it is necessary to inquire about the incomplete elements of the parties one by one in order to understand the overall framework of the case.
Fifth, find solutions or ideas for the parties involved.
From the client's perspective, when a client is in a paradoxical or dilemma situation, he or she will usually spend money to hire a lawyer. Obviously, what the client needs when hiring a lawyer is a way to solve the problem. He needs to know how to solve his problem. A lawyer who can only "follow the script" will definitely be very disgusted with his client.
The above steps are actually the consultation in the narrow sense I mentioned earlier.
3. Quickly determine the financial status of the parties involved in the conversation.
The judgment of economic conditions mentioned here is not a snobbish behavior, but one of the necessary skills for lawyers. Because if the financial situation of some clients is not very good, the lawyer's quotation is too high and the client cannot afford it. The other category is the parties with very good economic conditions. If your quotation is too low, he will look down on you. He will think that your knowledge, your basic skills, and your value can only be this way.
This point is very subtle and requires careful observation and careful consideration by the lawyer. The fees for lawyer services are closely related to the lawyer's basic skills and his or her own value. Therefore, in this case, it is necessary to have a general grasp of the client's economic status.
4. Lawyer consultation should always be self-centered and avoid being led by the client by "one question and one answer".
For the person involved, all the questions he asks are unknown to him, but not all the answers are useful to him, or are what he needs. His problem is "original" and illogical. At this time, lawyers should proceed step by step and ask questions selectively. Just like the old Chinese medicine doctor mentioned above, the old Chinese medicine doctor will take the pulse first, then explain what the problem is, and then prescribe the right medicine. Only when a real lawyer understands the ins and outs of a question can he answer it in an orderly manner. Therefore, lawyers must be "I"-centered, and questions and answers are usually dominated by the client. This will only make you passive, and it will be difficult for the person involved to convince you. In addition to the disadvantages mentioned above that "one question and one answer" may lead to conflicting answers and waste time in understanding the case, you may not be able to answer legal questions that are standard outside your major, which is of no significance to solving the problem.
5. What the parties want is not legal answers, but ideas and methods for solving problems.
When receiving consultation, we are facing the client, the person who needs to solve the problem, not the law student, so you don’t need to blindly talk to him about the law, but tell him this How to handle the case. What can I do? To what extent.
6. How to answer inquiries from public media such as radio and television stations or legal hotlines when interviewing parties?
In the face of this kind of public media, we have the obligation to popularize the law and promote the spirit of the law and legal common sense. In the radio consultation, the host asks you a question, and he definitely doesn't want you to simply give the answer in one or two sentences. The answer is often clear and ready. As a lawyer guest, what you have to tell the public is why the answer is this, that is, the laws and regulations, legislative background, legal culture, social background, social phenomena and values ??behind it.
7. How to answer questions in unfamiliar fields?
In the process of receiving the client, if you encounter a problem in an unfamiliar field, do not deal with the client or blindly refuse, otherwise the problem will always be your blind spot and you will never know how to solve it. Lawyers are not omnipotent, so in this case, you can tell the client frankly that I cannot answer you responsibly, or that this is my weakness. Can you wait to check the relevant information and consult with professionals in this field before answering? Many lawyers may think that this will make the client doubt their ability, and may even make them unable to answer the questions raised by the client. This is a very narrow idea. If you think so, it only proves that you are not confident. A truly reasonable client will never look down on your professionalism because of a lawyer's candor. On the contrary, I will only be moved by your seriousness and responsibility, and I will trust you even more.
8. "Specialize in the profession" and insist on doing professional business.
Professional lawyers, especially young lawyers who have just started to live independently, have a common mentality: as long as they have business, they dare to take on any case, regardless of whether they are good at it or not. This is very wrong. First of all, it is difficult for lawyers in non-professional fields to do professional business well. Secondly, the efficiency is greatly reduced.
There are young lawyers around me who have encountered such problems. Once, a young lawyer took on an administrative litigation case and was still out of town. The case was not his own expertise, but he took it on alone. At that time, the customer was charged 5,000 yuan. After taking over the case, he went back and forth, but the result of the first trial was not ideal. It may be that the person involved exerted pressure. Finally, he took the case to discuss with the administrative lawyer. The lawyer saw that the lawsuit was not easy to fight, but there was still hope. He negotiated with the client and charged 50,000 yuan. Finally, the case was overturned in the second instance.
This simple example tells you that you should never do things beyond your capabilities for the sake of imaginary benefits. Maybe you feel that you can get all the benefits by handling it alone, or you feel that when you finally get a case, you need to share it with others. This is the most wrong idea and very harmful. Going back to the case above, the 5,000 yuan from the case is still in another place. I suspect that in the end, he didn't even have enough money for the round trip fare. Compared with 50,000 yuan, even if the old lawyer has more money, he still has less money, and the final result will be better than if he charges 5,000 yuan. On the one hand, as a non-professional, you may not know how difficult it is at all, so you cannot grasp many problems, and the most important thing is that the results are not ideal. On the other hand, if you have worked with other lawyers on your case, the other lawyers still know it. Next time he encounters your own professional case, he will naturally cooperate with you. This is a mutually beneficial process, and everyone is a winner. If you insist on going your own way and insisting on being a "cure-all" lawyer, you are destroying your future. Your case sources are not getting wider, but getting narrower.
9. How to make a commitment to the parties and make a prudent commitment?
Lawyers cannot "engage in litigation" because the factors that affect the final outcome of the case include law, evidence, social impact and many other factors. No lawyer can control the final outcome of the case, so it is forbidden to make 100% judgment on the parties. commitment. But this does not mean that the development of the case is unpredictable and completely untraceable. You can make a conditional commitment to the parties when the evidence is sufficient and the facts are clear. For example, tell the parties: If this case meets what conditions, what kind of certainty will it have; or from a legal perspective, what kind of outcome should this case have. The purpose of this is to give yourself a way out. After the case is over, no matter what the outcome, the parties will not point the finger at you. This just shows that the success or failure of a case does not lie in the victory or defeat shown in the judgment itself, but in whether the final result is recognized or accepted by the parties. Even if the verdict is lost, the parties will still be grateful to you. This is a sign of a successful case.
10. Details determine success or failure
Lawyer is a profession with high threshold. In addition to a solid legal foundation and a sound knowledge base, it also requires keen insight. If in a case, the lawyer cannot grasp the development trend of the case well or have insight into the relevant details, or any development of the case is only based on the ideas established at the beginning, it is very likely that the entire case will be misjudged due to a moment of negligence. trend, the final result may be the opposite. At this time, lawyers are required to be very serious and carefully grasp every link and detail related to the case, so that the results analyzed from an overall perspective may be the most comprehensive.