How to Deal with Difficult Clients in Estate Planning and Elder Law Guest John B. Henry, III

Navigating the intricacies of estate and elder law requires more than just legal proficiency. It demands a profound grasp of client relationships and the tools to manage them effectively. In this enlightening episode, we sit down with John B. Henry, III, a distinguished attorney from Texas, to uncover the secrets to building a thriving estate planning law firm.

Ever found yourself grappling with challenging clients? John delves deep into the challenges of managing demanding clients and how his compassionate yet firm approach has made all the difference. He shares invaluable insights on understanding client pressure points, from defining the scope of representation to effective communication and setting clear payment terms. He enlightens us on how his practice aligns with his values and the communities he serves, offering a fresh perspective on how to tackle challenging clients, emphasizing the importance of being adequately prepared for such scenarios.

But what truly sets John apart is his strategic use of tools like email marketing and welcome kits to set client expectations and foster stronger relationships. Coupled with the role of regular team meetings, he outlines a recipe for legal professionals to transition from mere representation to champions for their clients' rights.

For estate planning or elder law attorneys yearning for success, this episode is a treasure trove of actionable insights. Join us as we demystify the world of estate and elder law, emphasizing the paramount importance of client relationships and community alignment. Don't miss out on John's expert tips to elevate your practice and better serve your clients.

Find the Law Office of John B. Henry, III, PLLC online:
https://www.johnhenrylaw.com
https://www.instagram.com/johnbhenry.iii
https://twitter.com/Johnhenrylaw

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/t0zdnNPzN8M

Video version on YouTube
Book your free Discovery Call with my team.

Transcript

: 0:00

Before we dive into today's episode, a special shout out to our sponsor, QuidProQuo. Are you a law firm looking to scale or sell your practice? Qpq's expert team can help you unlock your firm's full potential. Stay tuned for valuable insights brought to you by QPQ.

Jennifer Goddard: 0:14

Hello and welcome back to the Marketing LawCast. I'm your host, Jennifer Goddard, and I'm here today with my guest, John B Henry III. He is an estate and elder law attorney in the state of Texas, and just give us a little bit about your background, John.

John B. Henry, III: 0:32

Absolutely so. As Jennifer shared, I'm an attorney in Texas. My practice focuses on helping all parts of the family tree through trust in the states and disability planning, and so we have an office in Houston, specifically in Bel Air it's a sub-city of Houston and we also have another office in Rockwall, which is east of Dallas. I myself, I'm a double board certified attorney. So I'm a certified elder law attorney by the National Elder Law Foundation and I'm also board certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in estate planning and probate law. So what that means to most people, what does that mean? So it means that I'm one of 20 attorneys in the state of Texas that hold both of those certifications, and so for me it's a years-long journey and a blessing to say that I think about planning comprehensively for all those parts of your family that could affect the will or the trust or the guardianship or the probate that may be necessary along your life journey.

Jennifer Goddard: 1:35

And so you have two offices there is you and someone else another attorney in your office.

John B. Henry, III: 1:43

Yes. So I have an of council that has a tax auditing, trust administration background that just helps us on our more complex planning in a few other areas of practice. And then we have our firm administrator, who's my sister, who I attribute, through God's grace. The development of my firm and her perspective in different industries has been vital. And then we have our senior managing paralegal, several other paralegals, file clerks, a receptionist who I like to also call mom, who is our pinch hitter. She's so overqualified but helped us during the pandemic when we realized that a lot of people were going virtual right and the phone or virtual receptionists were overloaded. They were understaffed but a higher volume, and she stepped in during the pandemic and has been phenomenal ever since. So I get to say hello to my mom every day and it's a privilege.

Jennifer Goddard: 2:43

Awesome and I was meeting a team like that. I was going to ask you, you know, how do you keep up with two offices? And I think you kind of just told me you have a great team.

John B. Henry, III: 2:52

That's absolutely right, along with the business processes we continue to look at to make sure that they are centered around our values and the fact that we remember that we're human. I think that's the other part in developing a law practice. Maintaining it is remembering that you and Evergrande around you as human, and that has to be part of your calculus, otherwise, math is wrong.

Jennifer Goddard: 3:19

You know, john, I met you just about a month ago at the Texas chapter of NALA there in Galveston and you were speaking on the topic of how to deal with difficult clients, and that will be kind of what we're going to delve into in this interview today. But one thing I always like to ask everyone that I interview who is an estate planning or elder law attorney, because it's such a niche how did you come to choose to go into this field?

John B. Henry, III: 3:50

Sure. Well, in short, it's a blessing to say it's the place where I found myself aligned with my values, with the communities that I wanted to serve. Just about me personally, I have a very, very large family. When I say large, I mean immensely large. On my dad's side alone, I've had two cousins a couple generations back that had 22 children each. I've had relatives that was recognized as the oldest living person by the president in the United States in 2000. She lived to be approximately 109 years old, and I've had multiple members of my family live over 100. And so it is something that it shapes my vision of the world that people are both young and old, disabled and not disabled, and all those are labels and we have to move beyond those to see people as people. And I think that's my chose this practice area because it is certainly of service to a community of people.

Jennifer Goddard: 4:53

One of the reasons I love to ask that question is it seems like in the state planning and elder law I find that every attorney has a personal story and what I've kind of learned through the years is that this isn't just a practice area, it's not just a career path, it really is a calling.

John B. Henry, III: 5:13

I think that's absolutely right and it's one that when you answer it, it is self-fulfilling. It's so fulfilling. I think that's why we can turn back to it over and over again when you see the results. I helped a client recently with a trust matter who has been disabled since she was a young adult. The trust, even though it's well-funded there are newities coming in in a few years they were just cutting her at the knees in her budget. I'm just physically disabled. I understand the issue of federal law, but I need more to live my life the way I want to. We went through her trust agreement. We went through her financial statements and I gave her different points to address with her trustee on her own and she came back and said you know what I feel empowered now. Having days like that make it amazing to be a trustee in the state's lawyer.

Jennifer Goddard: 6:11

Absolutely. When you're in the spills, where you're very personal, your relationships with your clients are very personal. People talk about this being a transactional practice, and it is, but it's also very personal. That leads me into our topic for today, which is how do you deal with difficult clients? Can you tell me a little bit about how you came about that people asked you to speak on this topic and how it came about to having a plan? Here's how you do it.

John B. Henry, III: 6:46

Frequently I'm asked to speak on topics of practice, development and technology by Texas NALA, which is the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys. They said, John, we want you to talk about how do you deal with difficult clients? I'm very fortunate to have my firm administrator, who's also my sister, who gives me a different perspective and really helps us develop processes and procedures to deal with things that are really misalignments. That's how I chose this topic, which was to dissect the idea of difficulty. What does that mean? Is it because the client is difficult? Is what they're dealing with difficult or complex? Is the way that, or are the ways that we are handling it assisting with segmenting out the difficulty and giving a pathway not that will be less difficult, but maybe at least manageable, as we navigate through those worlds of disability and death and administration of estates.

Jennifer Goddard: 7:53

When we talked about this. You have basically five pressure points that you've identified in client relationships, whereas sometimes things can go awry and that can result in this concept that someone is difficult. So you want to walk us through that.

John B. Henry, III: 8:13

Sure. So my five pressure points are, the first being client status. Should someone be a client I think that's an ongoing question from beginning to end of a relationship. Now, sometimes we can't, because of ethical rules, decline further representation and there are absolutely valid reasons why you shouldn't, or the rules are the way they are but it is an ongoing question for us to assess, to determine that alignment with our core values and these other areas that I'll talk about, which is the scope of the representation. Sometimes people come to us and things can morph over time, and are we then agreeing to assist someone with a trust-related matter when they came to us for guardianship, and have we documented that scope of representation change and did we give them an accurate expectation, like we did with the guardianship in the beginning? Because sometimes that is kind of, when we have that change in the scope of representation, sometimes we don't go back to reiterate what we might otherwise do in the beginning, which is that expectation setting, that documentation, and so we want to make sure that we do that. And then communication the rules require that we do and it's reasonable that we do, but do we tell people what's in our sauce? How do we communicate and how do we expect our clients to communicate is another part.

John B. Henry, III: 9:39

Definitely another pressure point is payment. Payment is different from the fee we said. Payment is what we are intending to collect. And then the last one is participation. I think in developing my paper and presentation for Texas NALA, it really there are a lot of revelations for me personally, or ongoing revelation. You know our rules are meant to regulate in terms of rules of disciplinary or professional conduct, to regulate us as lawyers, but we don't also have, then, a set of rules or expectations or environment settings for the client, and so, as we are navigating these client relationships, it's, I think, required of us to then define what does client participation look like? Should a client review their email every three to five days because you probably might send them something? Or their client portal? So those are the pressure points that I talked about and I think are critical in any client attorney relationship.

Jennifer Goddard: 10:40

So when we run into one of these pressure points where things are feel like they're starting to go awry, what are some of the steps that we can take to kind of either get things back on track or, if we have to move the client along to someone else?

John B. Henry, III: 10:59

Well, I think the first is to determine our mindset. I talked about this and I talk about this quite frequently is sometimes the difficulties we're led to is because of a mindset issue. Sometimes are we acting as the tour guide on a hop-off bus and clients can go here and there and experience it, and then, when they don't end up on the end of the tour you're on, then is that because of our mindset? Because we do want to create these client experiences that give clients that room to be people. I'm very big about that, remembering that people are people. Even in the midst of the formality and the regulations and the rules and the law, people are people. However, sometimes we have to sit back and say is it a mindset issue with this particular client? Have I approached the director of my ship the right way? That's the thing I think. We begin with our mindset and then call your hand on it.

John B. Henry, III: 11:58

The second is then you look at your policies and procedures and determine well, has a client been checking their portal or been checking their email? Have I been getting the documents back, the responses that I need? As you go through these pressure points, you're saying, okay, is this aligning with my policy, my procedure. If it's not, I think then that gives us something discreet to touch and feel, because that's often in difficult client relationships. We can not unlike a client. We can attorney and go inside of ourselves and go here, there and everywhere, because I love to say clients will client anytime, they can client when a client wants to client, but as attorneys we can do that too. We do need some touchstone of how to determine difficulty. Looking at your policies and procedures on payment, on communication, on participation, makes it specific. It takes us out of that more emotional world of they just did this or didn't do it and I am just utterly frustrated. Then you have tools then to communicate with your client on either modifying the relationship or terminating it.

Jennifer Goddard: 13:13

When we talked about this earlier, you mentioned that sometimes, when you find a misalignment, you have a team meeting about this. Can you talk to me about that?

John B. Henry, III: 13:27

We have a team meeting or committee meeting from beginning to end. We have them throughout the life cycle of the case. That could be determining alignment in the beginning and the intake process. We looking at these pressure points and then determining should we have this client retain us in the very beginning, but it could be in the middle when a client has fallen out of alignment with these core principles or issues. Then we have a meeting, a status meeting, about that client and how we want to approach it.

John B. Henry, III: 14:02

If definitely, we communicate that to clients from the beginning potential client stage to the very end of the client relationship, so that the clients know that it is a formal approach that we take and that it's also thoughtful. I think that's the other thing that sometimes we are dealing with public's perception that the lawyer just is going to do something and just be a lawyer and just say he doesn't want to, he or she or they don't want to deal with it, and in that way in our firm, then it makes it something that they understand. Oh well, that's very thoughtful. There's a committee of people and it's not just the attorney who says he's had his fill, and so that is our approach that we take.

Jennifer Goddard: 14:49

So in your practice, where do you find that the biggest or the most likely pressure point where you're going to have a misalignment?

John B. Henry, III: 14:59

I think frequently it is on the issue of communication. And well, communication and participation, it's going to be those two. I won't say one or the other, but communication and participation are intertwined. And as a law student, working at least late, one of the things that I came up with and it's in our contracts, you must participate in your representation. A lot of times people will come to us in these very difficult situations or important situations if it's planning for trusts or estates, and think that the lawyer will just do it all. And I think that is having that participation policy and communication policy helps to put those two things in alignment. And then it also helps you to see when clients kind of maybe aren't aligned with those two things. So I would say it's communication and participation.

Jennifer Goddard: 15:54

So what do you do differently? If you're kind of thinking about dealing with difficult clients, how can I avoid these things coming up and somebody you know sort of becoming the relationship becoming difficult? What are the things you can do proactively to avoid that?

John B. Henry, III: 16:14

So one is to do your case audits. You know that's something that you should be doing. At some firms it's weekly, some by weekly, some monthly. I think that you begin with what is manageable to you in your practice. I think that's one of the biggest steps that you can take in firm development is beginning with what you can do. It's great that we hear about communications policies and participation and case auditing, but in you're saying I can't do it weekly, maybe I'm not staffed to do that, but begin with something. So I think it's the case auditing, because then you'll see patterns and then with that you should have some concomitant or related process that says well, they've fallen out of alignment. How do I address that? How long do we let it go on? What is our firm rule? So that's the next phase of that is to say what is my rule, so that people will know and you can already have it pre-drafted this is our policy and participation and communication. They're sensing and seeing something that falls outside of it. We encourage you to go along this way because you came to us to achieve this goal.

John B. Henry, III: 17:24

And then the next step in it is when do you actually suspend someone? If they've fallen completely out of alignment, say this is going to stop and we cannot move forward. And then you have to determine next, is that something you can move forward with and if so, under what terms? And then how do you engage the client directly with that? It's often of client in-person client meeting. Those are powerful because people don't have to do as much in person as they've done before. Sometimes people just need to see you face to face. But if that's not possible, certainly a client phone call where you talk about it discreetly and directly and note that in the client portal and file we've gone over this. This is what we decided to do and this is how we will move forward because, remember, if it's out of sight, it's out of mind, and that certainly applies in client relationships.

Jennifer Goddard: 18:15

I think. A lot of times I find that we're afraid to have that conversation. Maybe we don't admit it, but there's that gut feeling that I don't really want to confront that. How do you overcome that? How do you kind of make that work?

John B. Henry, III: 18:36

So one, like I said earlier, I'm there, I'm blessed to have my sister, who's a firm administrator, and to have her say hey, we have a policy. So one is the policy right. So with certain things you have to have the standing rules. If it is payment, this will be addressed, let's say, in five days or three days or on the day of on communication, within a week someone will receive a discreet message of this kind. So then it takes out of that nature where I think some of it is a client perception that you're just coming up with things right. And then there's that flexibility because then, well, it could be anything. Then, well, no, we have a firm policy right. So that is something as a touchstone in the client relationship. Then someone understood you took the time to think about them and that it isn't something that is just being manipulated as to how you see it, although you should if it needs to change. But you begin with this issue. It's the same day, this issue, maybe five days, and then you come up with what does that look like? Is it a message in the portal? Is it a phone? Is it an email? Is it a client meeting? So that way you disarm this idea of I'm afraid because I don't know what to do. No, I know exactly what I'm going to do. Here's the plan, so what we decided to do.

John B. Henry, III: 19:58

When this happens and then you have a playbook right and I think that's the other part that's fearful is that you're then reaching into something you probably weren't prepared for.

John B. Henry, III: 20:08

We don't leave law school and sometimes working even at large firms, you're not prepared initially with those type of tools because it's viewed as someone else's role and someone else's job. But I think in this I'm still I'm a proponent. I'm going to say violate your own firm role. I'm not saying that you know if a firm says it's for someone else in the firm to handle, but I think that you have to develop this framework of if this happens with a difficult client or client relationship. Here are the rules that I'll follow. And if it's not for you alone to say you should handle it that way, propose it to your managing attorney, your partner, the firm committee, say, hey, I want to do these things internally, I want to be proactive so that I can maintain healthy client relationships, and sometimes maintaining that relationship is terminating that relationship. But I do want to have some framework that I see, our policies don't necessarily address.

Jennifer Goddard: 21:04

So if I'm an attorney, that's maybe never had to. I shouldn't say nobody. I shouldn't say that, not that I've never had to build a difficult client, because I think everybody has had to build a difficult client at some point. But I've never had a policy, I've never had a protocol. Where do I start?

John B. Henry, III: 21:24

You start with. Well, I'm a little old school so I say pen and paper, but you can start with your one note, your ever note, whatever it is that you use and say start with payments, start with communication, start from the very top, say, if someone does, my policy is that I want clients to respond in less than three to five days, or maybe a week, depending on what you do. That's up to you, and then I will respond in this manner of time. I think that's the other thing about communication and participation. You need to let your clients know how you will participate and how you will communicate, because often people have this idea, because of the advances in technology dealing with people in the financial services industry that are backed with a different level of funding and staffing, that you can respond in the same day or 24 hours, and sometimes you just can't. Right, you are human. You are likely going to have more than a handful of clients to adequately fund your practice. So then you have to think well then my participation, my communication, will look like this For me internally it helped me to segment out my time where I do, let's say, guardianship on Monday, ultra-long Tuesday, and I let clients know that that's what I say letting people know because I have family from Louisiana what's in the gumbo, but what's in the sausage, what's in the spaghetti? How do I make it? How do I get there? Right, and then you have to put that same sauce together for the client, right? So when I message you, it's not hot potato, I need something back from you with this within three to five days, right. And so that way your client knows how to participate, knows how to what is good communication? So you start from that top level and maybe it's something just as simple as my response time is this, your response time. Is that? Right, and it's something then you develop over time. Response then, maybe in advance. So what's the next step on something like this, if a client isn't a trustee or guardian or administrator, maybe they do accountings.

John B. Henry, III: 23:31

So then I spent time going through the code and then developing well, what does participation look like? Right, remember that methodology pedagogy problem we have. Well, the code says an inventory is due in 90 days. Okay, do you want your client to give you the worksheet to draft this inventory on day 89? Right? So then you take those responsibilities and then you say, in this type of case, participation then looks like I want worksheets for this and this and this within 30 days. You can supplement it. I understand you may not have everything, but logistically I need to have these things internally by this deadline because I'm kind of human the court is staffed by humans and so for this to be drafted, reviewed and me to sit down with you, I then need this amount of time to do it Right, and so some of it. It's really going to help you in your own journey to develop.

John B. Henry, III: 24:27

I maybe you've never thought, oh shoot, the law is not a checklist. I shouldn't be saying 90 days, or discovery maybe have to respond to in 30 days. Well, when does the client have to get me their responses? When do I have to get it back to them? And so some of that is we have that backlogging when we look at the procedure, procedural codes and the estates and trust codes. That will happen as a matter of just logic, because they start collapsing at certain times where things are then do together. So then we have to sit back and say, oh well, now I can see my participation in development has to operate on a different time timeline for me to comply with these deadlines, these expectations.

Jennifer Goddard: 25:14

So you're suggesting that it should be written out?

John B. Henry, III: 25:18

Absolutely.

Jennifer Goddard: 25:19

And is it something that you sit down and do at once or is it something that evolves over time? You're constantly kind of working it and massaging it.

John B. Henry, III: 25:30

Yes, so it develops over time and so don't be afraid if it's just a one sheet or it's a one email, it's a one message and you say here's when you respond, here's how I respond, here's when I develop the case and this and so on, and maybe it's two or three lines, but those two or three lines can be the difference between hundreds of phone calls and maybe a hundred phone calls, right, people asking for an update. But when do you update clients? Maybe for and again, in the beginning. You have to remember and always remember you human, but maybe incorporating a client update, and maybe in the beginning, maybe you can only do it in a month, right, but then your clients will know and expect this is when I will get a formal update outside of the other communication you do. I'm going to do a top down review and give you this is where you are those two tools right there took our firm from.

John B. Henry, III: 26:24

We had, and admittedly we do have, a number of clients, but I think it was 1500 to 2000. No, it was over 2000 phone calls in one month to about 200. Wow, those basics of here's when you're going to hear from me, here's when I'm going to generally do this can just decrease the amount of those not unnecessary because people it's necessary that people understand where they are. But it becomes unnecessary when you give them an expectation of when they're going to receive it. Right, them meeting clients and so and clients will, honestly, will vibe with that.

John B. Henry, III: 27:03

They'll say, okay, well, my attorney will update me every two weeks or every week or every, and I know that's when I'm going to get this. I know I will still get and I would put in there in that message. You will still get other communication, probably from other people. But I think the other thing and I know it's a lot and the third thing I would do is address Does that apply to every member of your firm? Right, because sometimes people may be able to reach your assistant more frequently than you, right? That's another development in the communication policy for an attorney is to say, and at the point in my practice where I can't take unscheduled phone calls or I have to put unscheduled phone calls at the end of the day every three days, right, and knowing that you can do that and that's still healthy and good communication.

Jennifer Goddard: 27:50

And how do you communicate that to the client? I mean, is this on the intake? How do you get everybody on the same page?

John B. Henry, III: 27:59

So it begins by we have an addendum, so it is in the intake process. Our firm talks a little bit about that, the intake specialist. They will just give a little bit about our process and that's a very big selling point to a lot of people. Like, oh, they're thoughtful about how I'm going to hear from them, when I'm going to hear from them, and then they have a whole page in their contract about how that works. So it's an addendum to our client agreement that says communication policy and that's all. It's about Participation policy and that's all it's about.

John B. Henry, III: 28:30

Now some people it's doing a welcome letter or you know something on Canva, and so it's a welcome kit, right, and so they distill that into something visual because not everybody likes to read a lot of words. So maybe you begin with like a Canva presentation. That's a welcome kit. That's maybe three slides, maybe five, and send it to new and existing clients. Here's our new policy. It is effective as of this state, and so a welcome kit can help do that. And remember, you want to send that. If you have the ability to use MailChimp or other mail or marketing tools, send that to your existing clients, maybe once or twice a year. Remember, this is our policy. It's great to hear from you, love. You want to know about the kids, but remember these things about our process, and so that nurtures that healthy idea.

Jennifer Goddard: 29:24

That is. That's great advice. That's really a great idea. Well, we're kind of starting to wrap up here.

John B. Henry, III: 29:31

Ron.

Jennifer Goddard: 29:33

My biggest takeaway is the idea that dealing with difficult clients begins with the mindset. Am I on point there?

John B. Henry, III: 29:44

You are on the point, you're on the head of the point and all around the point. That is it. It's the mindset you have to determine how will I operate and speak about my process, my procedure, my firm, and know that sometimes that mindset may have to shift with certain clients. Some clients do need the firm director of. I'm the pilot A to B. This is where we're going. Y'all enjoy the ride. Here's the liberties. You have to move about the cabin and that's it. Other clients don't need necessarily that type of specific and very forceful handholding. Your process should be that clear and specific, but others may, you may be able to use a more gentler approach, but I think always reviewing your mindset and having some general way that you approach the client relationship is absolutely right from the beginning.

Jennifer Goddard: 30:35

Awesome. So, John, if you would share your website in case people want to find out more about you or maybe reach out to you through your website?

John B. Henry, III: 30:43

Absolutely so. It's wwwJohnHenryLawcom and you can find my firm there and we are working on we haven't released it yet, but we are going to be starting a CLE series beginning here in Texas that talks about and addresses this issue of how do we translate and educate our staff and our clients on the idea of client education and firm education right, so that we can kind of add on the practical element of implementing the law into our legal education process. So you will find a link to that next year on our website when it is released.

Jennifer Goddard: 31:26

Terrific. So if you guys want to follow John, you can find his website at wwwJohnHenryLawcom, and then I'm sure from there you can find all of your social media connections and we will have that in the description for the interview as well. What an absolute pleasure it has been to visit with you today, john, and I'm looking forward to having you back on the podcast to talk about some of these other practice management issues.

John B. Henry, III: 31:52

Absolutely.

: 31:54

That's a wrap for today's episode, and a big thank you to our sponsor, QuidProQuo. Qpq is your partner in law firm success, offering expert guidance on scaling, selling and optimizing your practice. With a team of experienced professionals, they bring real world insights to the table. Are you ready to take your law practice to new heights? Visit their website at wwwQuidProQuoLawcom to learn more and start your journey toward a thriving and valuable law firm.