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JEAN LAWLER:
Well hello, I'm Jean Lawler and welcome to my podcast–ROADS TO Resolution ~Closure and ~Certainty. As a mediator, I am very honored to be invited into other people's lives for a few hours, lives like all of our lives that are shaped by the many roads that have brought us to our “today”, roads leading to the unexpected, and roads leading to the promises of “tomorrow”. And with that in mind, if you want to be a mediator, let’s jump into the “part two” here of my suggestions and my comments on setting up your office and starting your mediation practice. And, in particular, here, I would be talking about client-facing office operations.
In “part one”, I did mention, for example, social media and the phones, and things like that. Let me go back and talk to you about them now, in terms of the client-facing aspect. I think that I left off with phones in the “part one”...
So someone calls your office, I mean, there have been studies done on this, like how many times a phone should ring or not. And good client service ultimately is the key. Okay, no matter how big or small your particular operation is… So with your phones, it’s very important that when a caller calls, I think it's very important that they talk to a live person and not to an answering machine. And not, you know, “press 1 if you want Jean, press 2 if you want Joe, press 3 if you want Suzy”, you know, whatever it might be. I think that it's so well worth it to hire some sort of virtual receptionist, if not a live one, but certainly a virtual receptionist is fine. I personally use Call Ruby, callruby.com. I’ve used them now for more than five years and they’re fantastic. They’ll actually do chatting, they’ll take messages, they'll return calls. They’re like the person that’s sitting at the reception desk in your old law firm, maybe, or like your secretary who’s sitting there. They can, you know, look at calls that come in, know if they are junk calls or not, and whatever it is. But the bottom line is: someone gets a personalized, you know a real person to talk to. And I think that’s so important, so I highly recommend that, and for the price that you pay, it’s much less than hiring any staff.
I mentioned before office supplies, like business cards, note cards. The look of those–that’s your view, that’s how the outside world sees you. It should tie in with your website, of course, your YouTube channel if you’re doing that, your LinkedIn, if you’re doing that, Clubhouse if you’re doing that. Having notecards to send to people to tell them what you’re doing. Things like that. I did that, and I have those and I use them. I did order letterhead at one point. You know, old habits and traditions die hard, but I can tell you, I wouldn’t spend money doing that again, and I would suggest you don’t. Holiday cards, I think you do both paper and electronic.
The address…What address do you have? If you’re setting up your office in your home, maybe, especially now in this time of online mediations and all. You know, I don’t think you really want your home address out there. So what do you do for an address? Do you have a place that’s not a PO box, but is a physical address? …Would be something that I would recommend. Certainly there are places that you can achieve that by even having then conference rooms available, if you wanted. Spaces, Regus, WeWork, things like that. There are also companies where you can get an address and then they handle your mail virtually so you would get an email every day with photocopies of the fronts of your mail, and they would deposit any checks you received, or whatever. So there are various options about for mail services.
Networking and marketing, social media…You know, these are all things to think of. Restream is a wonderful, wonderful app if you’re going to do any sort of video or podcasting. Zoom, of course, seems to be the primary choice in the United States for mediations, but again, I would recommend that you have at least one, if not two others available. There are people who can’t use Zoom, so again, the client service. Immediation is another platform that I subscribe to and have available for use. It’s wonderful for so many reasons, but it's in particular wonderful, I think, because people can take care of doing their settlement agreements. You can upload a draft and then the attorneys can work on that live, right then and there. So, you know that is, that’s one thing that’s important.
To the outside world you may get a question of whether or not you have professional liability insurance. You may not, but for that aspect of it, you know, look to–if you’re a lawyer–look to your bar association, or other associations. The Association of Attorney Mediators does offer a package–liability and cyber policy that comes with the membership at no extra charge, so I highly recommend that.
Banking, you know, making, I mentioned that previously, but making life easy for your clients, your consumers, the lawyers who are hiring you, that’s just so important.
Conference room space…That’s an outward looking thing. I worried, well didn’t worry, but that was a major focus for me originally. Now with online mediations, it’s not so much, but think about conference room space. I know mediators, again, using WeWork, which I did for a number of years, Spaces, Regus, court reporter offices, or the attorney office, itself. There are just so many things, and again, don’t forget your online calendar. That is front and foremost.
Your email block signature. You know, that should match your look itself. That’s client facing. That’s what they see with every email they receive from you. Make sure that the name that you characterize yourself with isn’t just “mediator” or “attorney”. Say what kind of a mediator you might be, or an arbitrator, whatever it is. Have your contact information there. Have the link to LinkedIn, which you definitely need to be on, a link to your website, and then if you do have an online calendar, have a link to your online calendar.
And then ultimately when you do bill clients, you’re going to want to make sure that your bills look good and are easy to handle, which comes back to emailing them with the proper W-9 form, the invoice, and then providing them with a place to go, if they do want to pay by credit card or ACH, as opposed to a check, if you’re willing to take that.
So, those are just a few more things for the client-facing office operations. There are just so many to talk about. If you have any questions as you move along in setting up your office, please feel free to reach out. And thank you so much for being here today. I’m Jean Lawler, you can find me at LawlerADR.com, you can follow me on LinkedIn, you can follow ROADS TO Resolution ~Closure and ~Certainty on YouTube, the YouTube channel, or on my podcast. Thanks so much. Bye bye.
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