Commentary: Thank you letters help your firm get the work do

Thank you letters help your firm get the work done

This week we are still talking about the various rules that we have in our firm that enable us to get the work done. You will remember that getting the work done is the third area, of five areas, that make up every business in the world. The five parts in order of how the work-flow process progresses are as follows: clients or customers, administration, getting the work done, billing and collecting.

Last week I told you that we will be revisiting the concept of sending thank you letters to people when files are opened and when files are closed. You may be questioning how this helps you get the work done, but this rule about thank you letters is the threshold in the cap stone to getting the work done.

Remember that we talked about thank you letters when files are opened and closed both in the area of clients or customers and in the area of administration. In the area of administration we talked about these thank you letters when files are opened and when files are closed as the fail-safe concepts. If you look at these thank you letters when files are opened and files are closed as getting the work done rules as well as fail-safe, you can see how a simple concept about being sure that people are properly thanked can be woven into the fabric of what you are doing in your law office on a day-to-day basis.

I think that you can see how the concept of thank you letters to people who refer you business when the file is opened and when the file is closed can serve multiple purposes in multiple areas. Let's explore it further for just a moment.

There are three philosophies that have to do with thank you letters when files are opened and when files are closed, and we should discuss those so that you can how these three philosophies all work together. The three philosophies are as follows:

1. Clients or customer: Sending a simple thank you letter to those people who refer you legal business at the time that the file is opened, and again when the file is closed, is a very important and effective tool for continuing to secure additional legal work for your firm.

2. Administration: If you set up a fail-safe system that does not allow a file to be opened or a file to be closed until such time as a thank you letter is sent to the person who has referred you the legal business, then you ensure that the concept with regard to such thank you letters is implemented.

3. Getting the work done: Setting up a rule to send thank you letters to people who refer you legal business, both when the file is opened and the file is closed, ensures that everybody not only understands the importance of this task with regard to ongoing clients or customers, but they also understand how it operates as a fail-safe system and as a rule of something that needs to be done before work actually begins on a particular client's matter.