The Legal Pad

Killer Fruit

So, we all eat at our desk, right? It's summer! How about some fruit?

Berries of all sorts are in season. Raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, huckleberries, blackberries, etc. Spend a few moments of your time when you get home with those berries and give yourself a healthy boost the next workday. Plunk them into a sandwich bag the night before and take them with you to work.

Get a cantaloupe, cut it up into chunks right into one of those little food keepers and grab it in the morning on the way. To pick a good melon, press the bottom part where the melon was attached to the stem and it should "give" to your touch. The smell, of course, is also a good indicator.

Did you know that ALL forms of fruit count toward a serving? It can be fresh, frozen or dry. How about a package of frozen berries to keep in the work refrigerator? Frozen seedless grapes are great! Wash them, pull them off the stems, put them on a cookie sheet the night before and bag them up and take them with you too!

Don't have time to fool with fresh fruit? How about a couple of bags of dried fruit? Cherries (expensive) are great, but so are apricots and cranberries.

Don't you just love those cranberry guys on those commercials? At their website -- you can become a member of The Cranberry Club. Don't like cranberries? You can join up to be a member of The Grapefruit Club if you'd rather. Justin & Henry, the cranberry guys, say all your friends will be jealous! Here's the link right here:  http://www.oceanspray.com/

To learn about the benefits of red cherries try: http://www.choosecherries.com/index.aspx

Try some fruit! You'll impress all your co-workers with those "good for you" snacks and throw some guilt toward those who raid the community candy jar.

The Dress Code

I was visiting with an attorney at a bar meeting that I attended to promote the bar's Lawyer Referral Service. I told him about our new blog project and the audience we were hoping to reach.

He said if you're looking for ideas about what to write that he'd like to see an article about dress code policies.

From the tone of his voice, my gut told me there was more to this story. So, I asked him to tell me what was going on, and he did.

He told me some of the female staff members in his office have been walking around barefoot (shoes under their desks) and now they were wearing low-cut and revealing tops. He told me it made him pretty uncomfortable. He told me he thought some of his clients were uncomfortable too.

I asked the lawyer if he talked with his staff about this. His face turned beet red. He said he tried and it didn't work. He told me (in almost a whisper) that his staff said he was, "making too much of a fuss".

He said, "I just don't know what to do now. Do you have any ideas?"

To be honest -- my immediate reaction was, "What? Are you kidding me? Too much of a fuss? You're the boss -- you're the person who signs their paychecks!"

But, when I saw his face, I realized my knee-jerk reaction didn't help him at all. Light bulb -- I got it now.

I asked him if he would give permission for us to write about this in the blog and he said he didn't mind.

Sometimes we need to look at a situation from a different perspective. So, here's another way to think about the dress code...

My co-worker, Mary, shared a story with me about her daughter. Her daughter was going to theatre camp and was really excited about that.

The camp leader held an orientation meeting and announced the rules to all the campers. One of the camp rules -- they were not allowed to come to theatre camp wearing flip-flops. The camp leader told them they could wear sneakers or shoes, but there will be no flip-flops in her camp. The reason? She told the kids that if they wanted to be professionals -- that professionals do not wear flip-flops.

Mary's daughter told her mom about the meeting and Mary asked her daughter what she thought about that. She said she liked that rule. She wanted to be a professional actress someday.

So, what do you think about dress code policies? Is there a policy at your work place and do you follow the policy? What if you were the client coming into the law office -- paying the fees -- and the person who worked in that office greeted you in a low-cut blouse or was barefoot? What do you think?

The Missouri Bar Lawyer Referral Service

Two important things to know about The Missouri Bar Lawyer Referral Service

1. Feel free to provide callers with the bar’s Lawyer Referral Service telephone number 573-636-3635 -- if you or the attorney you work for have determined that it would be better to pass on this particular case. Maybe there’s a conflict of interest. Maybe the caller’s problem doesn’t fit in with the firm’s practice.  The Missouri Bar Lawyer Referral Service will match the caller with an attorney who can help.It doesn’t cost anything for attorneys to join The Missouri Bar Lawyer Referral Service. 
2. Just read how the service operates, by clicking here, then fill out the online form, letting us know what your preferred areas of practice are. We’ll make sure that any referrals are in those areas. Please read carefully the agreement with the bar’s Lawyer Referral Service.  We do require a small percent of the total fees generated on referred clients.

Oohey-Gooey, Sweetie Greetings...Be Polite and Real, Not Over the Top

I don't like to talk to people who are scripted. Do you? What I mean is that a lot of people aren't allowed to be themselves at work. Instead, they have to say things that their company has trained them to say. Here's the problem, and it's one everyone who works with the public has to deal with. Your boss expects you to act a certain way. Because you are getting paid, and because you want to continue to get paid, you act that way.

For instance, if a client walks into your office and politely asks how you are, you don't unload on him or her with a "Lousy. My kids don't listen to me and my stomach is still churning from the chicken I ate for dinner. Thanks, and how are you?"

Instead, you say something like, "Fine, and how are you?"

It's a convention, and in most cases, it's probably a pretty good one. Not many of us really care to hear about the aches and pains of everyone we run into during the course of a day.

But the other day, I walked into a bank, and was treated in such a phony, oohey-gooey way that instead of being grateful for being treated graciously, I felt suspicious. I had cashed a check and on my way out instead of the usual, "Thanks and have a nice day," I was treated to a gushing, "You have a great day today." Somewhere behind the big, strange smile, there might have been an ounce or two of authentic feeling. But that was mixed in with a couple gallons of a sweet and gooey, poured on heavy, synthetic greeeting.

I guess the bank officers had started a new campaign and changed the script, making their employees address customers in a new over-the-top style. I would have preferred a more genuine, "Thanks for using X bank." It would have been enough. I want to know that when I'm spending my money for a service or a product that someone speaks on behalf of the proprietor and thanks me for doing so. They don't have to go over the top -- just a simple acknowledgment is enough.

How about you? Are you sincere when you talk with your firm's clients, or are you practicing your acting skills?

How Did The Legal Pad Begin?

I get some very interesting telephone calls from all sorts of people in all sorts of situations. My job is never boring -- always entertaining. Every day is different -- depending upon the phone calls that come in.

My name is Suzanne Creech. I'm the Coordinator of The Missouri Bar Lawyer Referral Service. I'll be doing a lot of the writing for this blog. Occasionally, Jack Wax will also be doing some of the writing -- he's the bar's Media Relations Director and the supervisor of the bar's Lawyer Referral Service.

I answer the phone for the referral service, referring potential clients to lawyers. I try to treat the client as if I were the customer on the other end of the line. When you've been on both sides of the customer service fence, you realize that you can have either a positive or negative impact on people.

I've always been curious about how solo and small firm practitioners handle their own phone calls. Do they screen all their calls? Who does this? How many calls do they get a day? How do they handle irate callers? What do they do when they can't help someone?

We decided the best way to find out would be -- to ask. We began this project with a survey of solo and small firm attorneys to get information about how they handle their calls and customers. Then we sent a letter to a random number of lawyers and asked them to pass a web address on to their support staff where they could go on-line, take a survey, and tell us what they thought and how they do business.

There was an option on the survey where, if interested, support staff who completed our survey could sign up for a quarterly e-newsletter. After much discussion about the kinds of things we could publish in the e-newsletter, we decided to broaden the scope of our new "mission" from an e-newsletter to a blog.

Lots of searching through blog directories revealed a noticable lack of blogs that directly related to clerks, receptionists, administrative assistants, secretaries and office professionals who work in law firms.

This was an unexpected surprise! So...we decided to develop a new and unique blog community -- a resource for all those folks who work "on the front lines" in the office -- a place where office professionals can read and comment about the work they do and the things they care about.

Welcome to our little place on the web -- The Legal Pad!