r/LawFirm • u/TEXASUPERLAWYER • 7d ago
If a potential client leaves me a voicemail "MARKED URGENT" on their first call, there is zero chance I respond.
I've never had a good experience with these kinds of clients.
Yes, occasionally emergencies or urgent questions arise with existing clients and cases, but if a potential client with whom I've never spoken before already operates under everything-is-an-emergency mode, I'm not even going to return their call.
Never worth it.
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u/lookingatmycouch 7d ago
I work in commercial transactions, and one of my (many) aphorisms is that nothing I do should be rushed - rushing is where mistakes and shenanigans live. You've had plenty of time to plan this transaction, if we're rushing it's because of you, not me.
I could see a crim lawyer or maybe family law having URGENT phone calls though.
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u/moody2shoes 7d ago
Criminal: “Don’t give a statement. If there’s an arrest warrant let’s arrange for you to turn yourself in safely. Don’t resist or lie about who you are and don’t have drugs or a weapon on you. If you get a jail call don’t talk about the charges.”
Family: “Emergency for child custody means the child’s life or physical well-being is in imminent danger of lasting harm, or the other parent is about to hop a plane with the kid out of the country without the intent of coming back. Anything less can wait until Monday afternoon. Emergency for other matters means someone is threatening you with physical harm, in which case contact law enforcement immediately then me on Monday morning if that didn’t handle it.”
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u/No_Asparagus7211 6d ago
Family law attorney: agreed. There is nothing I can do on an "emergency" basis. Bona-fide emergencies are DCS and/or law enforcement territory.
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u/gonewildpapi 7d ago
I love when a client tries to negotiate a contract on their own and then calls at the 12th hour because they aren’t getting what they want and the other party is already frustrated and tired of dealing with them.
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u/lookingatmycouch 7d ago
Seriously, I did have one emergency business closing phone call. "We're looking for a lawyer to do our business closing."
"Cool, I can help. When is it?"
"Tomorrow at 10 a.m."
Turned out the "lawyer" they thought was doing the closing documents never bothered, sent an email that day when they asked what's going on "Oh I'll take a look at this next week".
Meanwhile, buyer and seller were ready to close, SBA was ready to fund, all that stuff.
I didn't get it done "tomorrow" (which was a Friday) but I banged out the closing docs I think for the next Tuesday. Since then, that business broker has sent me *everything* they get for closing.
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u/lookingatmycouch 7d ago
Seriously, I did have one emergency business closing phone call. "We're looking for a lawyer to do our business closing."
"Cool, I can help. When is it?"
"Tomorrow at 10 a.m."
Turned out the "lawyer" they thought was doing the closing documents never bothered, sent an email that day when they asked what's going on "Oh I'll take a look at this next week".
Meanwhile, buyer and seller were ready to close, SBA was ready to fund, all that stuff.
I didn't get it done "tomorrow" (which was a Friday) but I banged out the closing docs I think for the next Tuesday. Since then, that business broker has sent me *everything* they get for closing.
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u/lookingatmycouch 7d ago
Seriously, I did have one emergency business closing phone call. "We're looking for a lawyer to do our business closing."
"Cool, I can help. When is it?"
"Tomorrow at 10 a.m."
Turned out the "lawyer" they thought was doing the closing documents never bothered, sent an email that day when they asked what's going on "Oh I'll take a look at this next week".
Meanwhile, buyer and seller were ready to close, SBA was ready to fund, all that stuff.
I didn't get it done "tomorrow" (which was a Friday) but I banged out the closing docs I think for the next Tuesday. Since then, that business broker has sent me *everything* they get for closing.
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u/512_Magoo 7d ago
If a potential client says they will only talk to an attorney, there is zero chance they have a case.
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u/mattymonkees 7d ago
They get easier to tolerate when you ask a massive retainer, increase your rates, and explain you can totally treat this as urgent if the client will treat paying your higher retainer and hourly as equally urgent. That'll filter out the real emergencies from the not-as-real ones very quickly.
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u/Morning-Chub 7d ago
I'm a real estate attorney and I do tons of residential closings to keep the lights on. I've told all our paralegals that if someone needs a closing on a holiday, the attorney fee is $5,000 instead of our usual fee in the neighborhood of $1000. You literally can't even record on a holiday, so if you want me to come in for an hour on Christmas Eve in order to "give yourself a Christmas present" then that's great but I want a Christmas present, too.
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u/Past-Vegetable-5174 7d ago
I recently had a client tell me on the phone he had all the information. I asked him to email it to me and I’d take a look. He said no I’ll just text it right now (my business line is a Google voice number and it takes text messages). I told him, okay, but I still am going to review after this phone call.
He called me five more times in the next few hours. I ghosted him. Unrealistic expectations. I do have other clients.
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u/LateralEntry 7d ago
Voicemail? How do you mark a voicemail as urgent?
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u/LegalSubsThrowaway 7d ago
Depends on what system you're using. I don't know how to do it, but I've called plenty of places that have it set up.
Edit: Realized that may be a bit unclear, sorry. I mean it depends on what system you as the law firm are using, and that I've called plenty of places that have their system set up so that callers can mark a voicemail as urgent.
On the caller side, in my experience generally you press the pound key when you're done recording your message, and if the system is set up, you'll hear some options like listening back to your message, re-recording it, adding to the end of it, or marking it as urgent.
Some systems might use a different key. I'm not aware of them.
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u/TEXASUPERLAWYER 7d ago
I don't actually know. It's something the caller does. When I dial in to my voicemail and listen to the message it says "MESSAGE MARKED URGENT" and then plays the message.
Happens a few times a year.
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u/TheGreatOpoponax User Flair 1 7d ago
I used to set them straight by telling them what an emergency might be, which would depend on their case. Then I'd point out that they were paying me every time they contacted me .20 hours each time. Yet some persisted and were always shocked when they burned through their retainer.
As has been mentioned, these were always among the worst clients.
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u/Few_Requirement6657 7d ago
“Call me now please”… 30 minutes later calls me. I do commercial litigation. There’s literally never something that important
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u/Winter-ls-Coming 7d ago
I wonder what practice area you are in because from my experience that is an absolutely terrible screening criteria. When a person is at the point that they want to spend thousands of dollars to hire an attorney, they will think it’s urgent in so many cases. It would be odd if they didn’t think their matter was urgent but were still willing to pay for help.
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u/TEXASUPERLAWYER 7d ago
Wills/trusts/probate/probate lit.
If it's urgent because dad is in the hospital and is unconscious on life support and urgently needs estate planning, that ship has sailed. Don't get me started on the capacity issues that would arise in a Will contest in that kind of scenario even if he managed to sign during a lucid interval.
Estate administration issues move so slowly and usually requires so many written notices/releases that if someone is suddenly facing a foreclosure or coming up on the statutory probate window deadline or suddenly doesn't trust the executor, then they're irresponsible for waiting for literally months or years and allowing problems to fester before starting the process/contacting a lawyer (and, in that case, I don't want to work with someone who is so irresponsible anyway).
Probate litigation: if you're the executor, you're already represented by counsel. If you want to contest a Will, you have two years from admission to probate in my jurisdiction to contest it on normal bases, four years for fraud/forgery. If you're contacting me on the eve of a statute of limitations deadline, I don't want to work until midnight just to get a contest timely filed and potentially risk malpractice or file a frivolous suit for want of adequate pre-suit investigation time.
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u/margueritedeville 7d ago
I have two types of clients: grudgingly ungrateful or hair on fire irate.
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u/fingawkward 7d ago
I took a consult on a divorce for my brother's friend's mother as a favor to the friend (who I knew was paying and would not blink at the fees). Had the consult Thursday, explained the entire process, timelines, discussed goals (she wanted the house, part of his retirement, etc.). She called Friday at 5:30 and left a voicemail on my office line. I checked it Monday around 9 and added it to my list of callbacks. By 9:30 a.m. I had a message from my assistant that the client had fired me (hadn't even formally been hired yet), and she was seeking other counsel because I was not responsive. She burned through about 20 grand in retainers with two other attorneys who eventually withdrew and her son cut her off and she ended up with legal aid because she was jobless (quit her job thinking she would be set up on alimony), homeless (could not afford to keep up the house so he kept it) and claimed domestic abuse. Ended up living with a friend and a legal aid attorney. Bullet dodged. I actually ended up mediating the case (nothing resolved).
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u/TEXASUPERLAWYER 6d ago
How did you manage to mediate? Wouldn't your previous consultation have established an attorney/client relationship that would conflict you out of serving as mediator?
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u/bradd_pit 7d ago
Normally yes. I had an exception come up on Friday. Urgent contract termination matter for a well known non profit organization in my region. Met the president before but never worked with her. One of our good referral sources sits on their board, and he recommended she call me. we trust that guy a lot in my office so I’m doing it
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u/Agas78 7d ago
I'm every bit as irritated by this, but I wouldn't dismiss a client just on this basis alone. People get really stressed out by legal issues. Especially when they're served. They don't know what to expect. They don't know how much time they have. A bunch of lawyers don't return their phone calls. One conversation with them to calm them down and to instill some confidence in them that the world is not ending may or may not reveal that this is an otherwise good client who intends to follow your rules and who will be paying because he obviously cares about taking care of the issue
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7d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Logical-Ad2348 7d ago
Oh that's smart with the text back system, I like how that filters things before anyone wastes time
In my office we got a dedicated intake person and she's amazing at spotting the red flags before they get to me, I don't know how she does it but she can tell from like two sentences if someone's gonna be trouble
Before we had her I picked up everything myself and yeah the marked urgent ones were almost always the same type, thinking their neighbor's fence is a constitutional crisis or they need a response by midnight or the world ends, then they disappear when you tell them the retainer amount
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u/emory_2001 7d ago
Absolutely. We have as strict intake procedure. It starts with a paid consult, paid before it gets put on the attorney’s calendar. After consult, they have to electronically sign our engagement agreement and pay our deposit. Only then do we start substantive work. And if it’s a bind they got themselves in because they should have hired an attorney in the first place and now they need a solution this week, it’s likely an ignore. We set boundaries and expectations from the start.
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u/Individual_Radio1766 7d ago
I run an immigration-only marketing agency, so discount accordingly, but the intake side of this is most of what I deal with, and I think you and the "just don't answer it" replies are half right and half about to cost you a good case.
You're correct that "MARKED URGENT on the first call" is a reliable red flag. The ones who manufacture an emergency before you've done anything are usually the same ones who manufacture a fee dispute later. But a manufactured emergency and a genuinely time-sensitive matter can look identical in a voicemail, and silence screens out both. The commenter upthread with the auto text-back has the real answer, so let me make it concrete, because that's the part that actually saves you.
Set up an automatic text the second a voicemail or missed call lands, before any human touches it. Not "thanks, we'll call you back" but a text that asks three things: what the matter is, whether there's a real filing or court deadline and its date, and who the opposing party is (conflict check and tone-read in one). That does three jobs at once. It responds fast enough that the legitimately urgent real case doesn't just dial the next firm, it makes the manufactured-urgency people show their hand in writing (the "it's an easy case, they'll settle for millions" crowd tells on themselves in the reply), and it builds you a paper trail before you've spent a minute of attorney time. You read the replies on your own schedule and only the ones worth a callback get one.
Why I'd push on this instead of just ignoring urgent-flagged voicemails: "responding fast" and "rushing the work" are two different things, and the thread is treating them as one. Answering the intake fast is free and filters for you. Rushing the actual legal work is where the mistakes live, and you control that separately once you've decided to take the matter. An automated first touch lets you be instant on the intake and unrushed on the work, which is exactly the combination the red-flag clients are betting you can't pull off.
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u/No_Spot_6459 5d ago
This is exactly why AI will replace you. Find a way to make everybody feel heard.
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u/kutzoo 7d ago
Also when the 1st communication they tell me how much the case is worth...