Non-litigation business mainly includes consulting, book agency services, sp
Non-litigation business mainly includes consulting, book agency services, special legal services, legal advisory services and others. Compared with litigation business, non-litigation business requires higher communication skills. The following is what I collected for you. Welcome to learn from it.
First, professionalism is fundamental.
Occupation is the root, life is the foundation, and lawyers should grasp the root in practice. Profession is the basis for lawyers to settle down. Being unprofessional may not only harm the client's interests, but also kill himself, especially non-litigation legal services.
For lawyers, dedication is the premise of work and the basis of winning respect. Only majors can solve practical problems, win customers and realize equal and barrier-free communication with intermediaries.
Professionalism is not only reflected in the final provision of legal solutions and the thorough settlement of legal disputes, but also in the customer's sense of experience, self-participation and customer feedback and evaluation after legal services.
In the process of non-litigation legal service, due to the long project cycle, complicated participants and many archival materials, higher requirements are put forward for the professionalism of lawyer communication. To achieve professional communication and exchange of non-litigation legal services, lawyers need to express accurately, ask appropriate questions, listen sincerely, refuse skillfully, record comprehensively, answer professionally and give timely feedback.
In fact, this is a very high requirement, which cannot be achieved overnight. It depends on the cultivation of profound legal theory foundation and the accumulation of rich project experience.
But from the perspective of subject cognition, what customers can only see is your professional behavior displayed to the outside world. In other words, in the process of communicating with customers, it sometimes seems that majors are more important than majors. So, how do you look professional?
Formal dress, shoes, tie, professional smile, elegant movements, standardized files and standardized emails can all add points to your professionalism.
Second, self-confidence is an area.
Self-confidence can create an atmosphere and help you retain customers. Self-confidence comes from professional ability. In order not to get stage fright in front of clients and cooperative organizations, lawyers must be required to have a solid theoretical foundation and rich project experience.
But sometimes some lawyers, especially young lawyers who have just entered the business, seem too insecure, which directly leads clients and other intermediary structures to doubt their professionalism. In fact, most of the work of non-litigation service is standardized, formatted and stylized. As long as enough efforts are made in advance, general legal problems can be dealt with.
In the process of specific non-litigation service, young lawyers do not forget their humble position, are generous and decent, dare to speak and ask questions, show their professional quality and spiritual outlook through words and deeds, accumulate trust in trivial matters, and actively show the elegance of the team and law firm.
Third, peace is like water.
The communication between lawyers and clients must be polite and peaceful. It's normal for clients not to understand the law, and there must be various irregularities in the entrusted matters, otherwise what do you want your lawyer to do? Never get angry or even quarrel with customers because they don't know the law.
There is no need to do this, and the social effect is not good. Besides, being angry is to punish your ignorance of customers, which is not worth it! Legal persons are used to making judgments on specific issues, such as right and wrong, good and evil. Influenced by this professional habit, some lawyers tend to fall into "bipolar thinking" when dealing with non-litigation practical problems, which is very harmful.
Client enterprises in non-litigation services always have various legal problems and defects, which is exactly where lawyers are needed. Non-left-right thinking is not conducive to communication with customers and affects lawyers' judgment on the contribution that can be made to the standardization of irregular matters.
This requires us to treat customers and businesses with a peaceful attitude, be good at seeking common ground while reserving differences, be good at picking up and filling gaps, be good at filling gaps, and be good at resolving contradictions instead of creating contradictions. At this time, a peaceful mind and a peaceful working method, just like water, can fill the gap with softness and create more supportive atmosphere for our work.
Fourth, dedication is like an ox.
A good lawyer should be able to worry about what the client is anxious about and what the client has not thought of. You should carry forward the spirit of the old ox, continue to work hard, and don't always let clients run after lawyers, otherwise the lawyers may bear all the responsibility for not doing a good job in the end.
Since it is always inexplicably held accountable, we might as well take the initiative to attack, establish a strategic position, grasp the overall nature from the customer's point of view, foresee and proactively guard against various possible risks, and proactively propose problems that other cooperation agencies have not discovered in advance. This will not only effectively avoid the risks brought by endorsement documents, but also make customers feel that lawyers have invested a lot of effort in this project, so as not to make them feel that money is wasted.
In the process of non-litigation service, you may encounter clients who hide something, don't tell their lawyers the real information, and don't realize that lawyers are here to help them. At this time, we should also take the initiative to find problems through various channels and conduct investigations. This is the requirement of lawyers' diligence and the embodiment of professionalism.
5. Efficiency is life.
The task given by the parties must be answered in time, preferably in writing or by leaving a mark on the email. Although the timeliness of non-litigation items is not as strong as litigation, there are still time nodes, so we should try our best to communicate and reply in advance.
For example, in the New Third Board business, with each additional fiscal year, the related materials and subsequent disclosure costs will increase a lot, and the related filing documents will be revised. The capital market is changing rapidly. For customers, time is money and efficiency is life.
Therefore, perhaps your untimely reply may leave an irresponsible impression on the customer or intermediary, which may seriously lead to the cancellation of the entrustment. If it is lighter, it will increase the communication cost and increase the difficulty of work.
Sixth, learn to refuse reasonably.
What lawyers can and can't do; Clients often don't know what to do and what not to do, but lawyers must have a steelyard in mind. After the client and the lawyer are familiar with each other, it is easy for the lawyer to do something that is not stipulated in the contract or that the lawyer can't do. At this time, lawyers must learn to refuse.
One can avoid wasting time; The second is to show professionalism, reflect the value of lawyer service, and avoid giving customers the impression that any employee can do lawyer work; Third, reduce the risk of practice.
This also reminds us that lawyers should not get too close to their clients in their practice. If they get too close, their awareness of risk prevention will be reduced or deviated. This is a very dangerous thing. It is easy for the other party to ask you to do something that a lawyer should not do, so it is not easy for you to refuse.
The customer is God, and it is not easy to refuse God. We must take care of each other's feelings at the right time and for good reasons, and inform other alternative ideas. Whether to refuse or not is also divided. If the quality of customers is high, there may be many cooperation opportunities in the later stage, so it is best not to refuse.
If it is a one-time transaction, customers with less money and poor quality can be simply decisive. In practice, the situation is generally complicated, and lawyers must know the risks and benefits and refuse to accept the standards.
Seven, the work should leave a mark.
In the process of non-litigation legal services, the specific communication methods that may be adopted are of course various, which can be e-mail, email, WeChat, QQ, mobile phone and telephone.
Due to the inconsistency of specific occasions, communication methods and communication contents, each communication method may be adopted because of its unique advantages in specific occasions. However, it is best to send important documents or information in writing or by email.
Wechat and QQ are easy to lose, and telephone and mobile phone calls cannot be fixed unless recorded, so it is not recommended to use them. There are lawyers in the team who use WeChat to adjust files with customers. Later, I accidentally emptied the mobile phone cache, which led to the file not being found back, so I had to ask the customer to provide it again, which was very passive and embarrassing.
Generally speaking, in the process of communicating with customers and other subjects, try to leave traces of work in the form of words, pictures, sounds and videos. , convenient for storage and query, it is best to make a project log or work log. The specific reasons mainly include the following four aspects:
1 for your reference afterwards. Non-litigation cases have a lot of materials and a long time span. After all, human memory is limited. Moreover, a lawyer often has to follow up several projects, and many things are easily confused or forgotten. Working papers and emails can help him recover his memory quickly.
It is convenient for colleagues who later joined the project to get started as soon as possible. In practice, due to the long time and great pressure, the non-litigation items are often replaced, and the newcomers and the elderly are often unable to connect in an orderly manner. By reading work emails and papers, newcomers can quickly understand and join the project, effectively saving time and labor costs.
3 to prevent other subjects from being picky for no reason. In the capital business, in fact, part of the work of the three intermediaries is overlapping or interrelated, and the harmonious and orderly state is mutual cooperation, mutual reference and mutual discussion. However, when mistakes occur, it is not excluded that they will blame each other, especially our lawyers are the most vulnerable party.
In addition, customers' employees' own mistakes in the docking process may also be blamed on the intermediary for no reason. Keeping enough working papers is the most effective strategy to deal with unreasonable criticism.
4. Help show the results of your work to the parties. It is natural to charge the client's lawyer service fee, but the client always feels that the lawyer has not done any work and the money is reluctant.
In fact, we work overtime every day, check laws and regulations, retrieve cases, do files ... seriously and diligently. To get rid of this sad and helpless passive situation, we must visualize our work process and effectively display our work results, and working papers and work emails are the most favorable evidence.
Eight, pay attention to the details.
Details determine success or failure. For non-litigation legal services, the control of details directly determines the lawyer's sense of participation and the customer's sense of service experience.
The negligence or mistake of a small detail may directly lead to increased difficulty and rework. According to the communication of team lawyers, the important details mentioned are summarized as follows:
1 Determine the specific handover person and contact person. Defining the specific contact person or contact person with customers and intermediaries can improve communication efficiency, avoid running around and reduce mistakes.
2 control your emotions. Non-litigation projects have many files, many trivial matters and long deadlines. Coupled with the urging of customers, the arrogant attitude of brokers, the club's uncooperative, negative energy burst. This requires lawyers to have strong emotional control ability. Only by controlling your emotions can you achieve effective communication with customers and intermediaries.
Step by step. Non-litigation projects generally have many stages. Take the listing of the third board as an example. We will try our best to make adjustments, share reform, filing, auditing and listing. Each stage has its specific work content. If we are greedy and aggressive, we will only make a mess of our work.
4. Explain the modification and risk warning. When modifying the contract, it must be considered that the customer may not understand the law, so it is best to explain the reasons for the modification and the possible legal risks caused by not modifying it.
5 Post-confirmation and feedback. After the relevant documents are sent by express or e-mail, please confirm by phone or SMS to ensure receipt. After the end of legal services, we should communicate with customers, get feedback, find out the shortcomings, and further improve the quality of legal services.
6 understand the customer's work habits. Each customer or customer's employees may have different work habits. In order to ensure timely and effective communication, the choice of specific communication methods for lawyers must vary from person to person.
For example, some people don't need a work email, and prefer to use QQ email or WeChat. Some people don't check their mailboxes in time, only once every half or once a month. In this case, we can't communicate with them through work mail or email.
7 view the file. Submitted documents must be reviewed repeatedly to avoid low-level errors. Maybe your legal mistakes can't be discovered by others, but if there are typos or overlapping word, customers can see through them at a glance, and the consequences can be imagined.
It is suggested that all documents should be checked by more than two people before submission. Better print it out and check it again. Sometimes there are inconsistent electronic manuscripts and Yin Gao columns.
Nine, don't go astray.
Lawyers must distinguish the background of clients in order to make different responses and treatments. Specific enterprises may be state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, foreign-funded enterprises and individuals.
There are some differences in thinking, attitudes, procedures and risk points of different subjects in dealing with problems: state-owned enterprises are arrogant, inefficient, have many approval procedures and are afraid of taking responsibility; Private enterprises are uneven, focusing on quality and low price; Foreign companies pay attention to practical results and deal with business departments more; Personal anti-risk ability is low, evidence collection ability is poor, and it is easy to repeat. In view of these different situations, the focus and emphasis of lawyer service are bound to be different.
Pay attention to business purpose, business risk and transaction background. Any non-litigation legal service, customers have their own business purposes.
The services provided by lawyers should not be limited to the handling of legal affairs and the simple prevention of legal risks, but should combine the client's business purpose, comprehensively consider legal risks and commercial risks, and put forward their own independent opinions.
In practice, large-scale projects, such as IPO, New Third Board, mergers and acquisitions, etc., are not easy to be ignored because of the huge amount of bids and full interviews. In contrast, it is easy to ignore the business background in some small things, such as modifying the contract.
Without considering the equality of both parties to the transaction, the particularity of the industry, the existence of other special purposes and other details, I simply put forward my own revision opinions from the perspective of risk prevention, and finally gave up because it did not meet the needs of customers.
In the process of legal service, lawyers must pay attention to customer background, business background and business purpose in communication, which can improve the efficiency of communication, show the professionalism of lawyers, truly meet customer needs, solve problems and promote transactions.
X. Dialectically understand the relationship between the principle of legal compliance and the principle of facilitating transactions.
The conflict between the principle of legal compliance and the principle of facilitating transactions is a difficult problem that non-litigation lawyers have to face and solve. Lawyers often have little problem in judging and grasping the legal compliance of the matters involved in the project. In practice, they tend to be cautious because they pay too much attention to the prevention of legal risks, thus losing some clients and the source of the case.
In fact, legal compliance is not monolithic. At some special moments, compared with the huge economic and social effects that may be brought about by facilitating the transaction, some small violations of laws and regulations may be ignored or can be saved by remedial measures. This is the key moment for our lawyers to play their role and create value.
At this time, it is necessary to make an appropriate tilt to facilitate the transaction, and through legal and reasonable remedies, the disagreement will be merged and the disagreement will be merged, and finally the purpose of the transaction will be achieved, and the lawyer will also earn a service fee.
Of course, if the violated laws and regulations are principled and bottom-line provisions that cannot be remedied, at this time, lawyers must perform the duties and missions of legal intermediaries, state their negative opinions in a timely and proactive manner, and remind them of risks.
Therefore, the correct way to deal with the relationship between the principle of legal compliance and the principle of facilitating transactions should be: when the principle of legal compliance can be loosened, the principle of facilitating transactions should be applied first; When the principle of legal compliance is insurmountable, stick to the bottom line of legal compliance.
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In fact, non-litigation business is closely related to litigation business, and lawyers should comprehensively use litigation awareness and non-litigation methods. Do non-litigation with the consciousness of litigation, and fully consider the risks and consequences that may be generated or brought by the opinions issued;
Non-litigation is adopted to conduct litigation, and the refinement of non-litigation is introduced into the litigation process to enhance the customer experience of the parties, judges and arbitrators. Finally, the overall improvement of their own and team's business capabilities and business volume in litigation and non-litigation fields will be realized.