The Attorney-Client Relationship: 2025 Guide + Tips

Clients trust their attorneys with their most consequential problems. The stakes involved can include loss of freedom, financial ruin, or a forever-changed relationship with a family member. Even cases dealing with lesser issues require emotional and financial investment from clients. If the legal action is voluntary, clients wouldn't absorb the cost unless they were deeply attached to a specific outcome.

In this article, you’ll learn about the attorney-client relationship and why building a good rapport with your clients is critical to your law firm. We'll also share five effective client relationship strategies you can implement today.

The Attorney-Client Relationship

The attorney-client relationship is established when an individual or group requests legal services from an attorney who agrees or appears to provide those services. The U.S. legal system supports full trust between client and lawyer in several ways. Two of the most impactful are: 

• Attorney-client privilege

• The enforcement of professional ethics for lawyers

Guaranteeing the confidentiality of client-lawyer conversations promotes client honesty. That honesty, in turn, allows the attorney to provide better advice. Mandating professional ethics also helps clients feel comfortable that lawyers will handle their cases with the utmost integrity and care.

Professional ethics for lawyers are largely defined by the American Bar Association's (ABA) Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Those rules cover a wide range of topics, from confidentiality to the avoidance of interest conflicts. Rule 1.4 deals entirely with communication, and appropriately so. An attorney's daily handling of information can either support their client’s trust or destroy it.

Why Is Having a Strong Lawyer-Client Relationship Important?

Strong attorney-client relationships theoretically contribute to a better, more functional legal system. Full trust between lawyer and client prevents feelings of neglect for the client. The lawyer also realizes business benefits from that positive client experience—specifically, more positive reviews and referrals.

Prevents Feelings of Neglect

FindLaw reports that "neglect and lack of communication" is one of the most common legal ethics violations.

Several factors can prompt clients to feel neglected. One is the natural slowness of the legal process. You have experience with the slow-turning wheels of justice, but your clients may not. If your clients don't believe you are working diligently on their behalf, they're likely to blame delays on you—even when they’re beyond your control.

Another factor is the difference in perspective between the lawyer and the client. Your client is involved in one case while you are working on several simultaneously. The division of your time and attention is a reality, but one that should not be highlighted for your client.

Regular, ongoing communication with your client goes a long way toward building that solid working relationship. Attorneys who communicate consistently simply don't have clients who feel neglected.

Get More Positive Reviews

Positive reviews drive more business for your law firm. In a survey by iLawyerMarketing, 84% of respondents said they wouldn't hire a law firm unless its online review scores were 4 stars or higher.

When you routinely cultivate meaningful attorney-client relationships, you lay the groundwork for positive reviews. Clients who respect you and the work you do will happily share their good experiences—especially if you ask them to.

Those positive reviews can bring new clients to your door and help you convert more prospects.

Gain Referrals

The way you interact with your current clients can act as an audition for future clients. If you treat your clients respectfully and handle their cases with integrity, that's what they'll describe to their friends and family. If you don't touch base often and fail to return phone calls, friends and family will hear that, too.

A reputation for integrity will earn you referral clients. A reputation for poor communication will not.

Attorney-Client Relationship Tips

Building and cultivating attorney-client relationships that invite positive reviews is easier said than done. It's best to tackle this challenge from multiple angles, including improving your client intake process. Use the following six strategies as a framework for building better attorney-client relationships.

1. Focus on Communication

You likely check in with clients when you have an update or when you need their input. But what about the rest of the time? If you looked through your client list today, could you identify some that have experienced long periods of silence from you?

• Develop a cadence for reaching out to clients periodically. It's acceptable to tell clients there are no updates on their cases. This at least keeps them from wondering what's happening. You can also use that time to ask if they have any new questions or concerns. This simple check-in shows clients you are making time for them.

• Offer convenient methods for secure communication. From user-friendly client portals to secure text messaging, ensure that your clients can connect with you based on what feels most comfortable to them.

Want more advice on using effective communication to provide exceptional client service? Read our guide, "Lawyer Communication: How to Communicate With Clients," which provides a wealth of fresh communication tactics to help you boost your practice.

2. Don't Overload Your Responsibilities

Taking on more business is great for your bottom line, but not when you spread yourself too thin, and your clients pay the price. An overloaded schedule works against your ability to serve each client thoughtfully and completely. Below are a few ways you can free up more time to focus on client service:

• Invest in a full-featured time tracking system. Tracking time by task improves your sense of how long different actions take to complete. Watch that data over time, and you may learn that you've been consistently underestimating your commitments.

• Prioritize and delegate tasks. When possible, delegate administrative tasks to paralegals or legal assistants to prevent overloading your schedule. 

• Automate essential tasks. When you automate scheduling, document creation, and even billing and invoicing with legal software, you can increase productivity without increasing your workload.

3. Listen to Your Clients

You may have experienced not being heard by a service provider. If so, you know it's incredibly frustrating. It feels as though your provider is just working on autopilot without regard for your needs.

For any lawyer-client interview, ask detailed questions, probe with follow-up questions, and take notes in their client file. You need to know what motivates them and their primary concerns. Armed with that information, you can interact with them on their terms and give them more appropriate legal advice.

It’s important to know, too, that a client's mindset can change over time. Listening responsibilities don't end after the intake meeting. Be present and attentive in every client interaction for the duration of the lawyer-client relationship. Attorneys who follow that advice will naturally earn the trust of their clients.

4. Manage Expectations Around Outcomes

Your clients will willingly express their concerns, and you should do the same. Openly give your client feedback on the case, both the good and the bad. If there are risks or weaknesses, and there always are, you must communicate them. In the context of lawyer-client relationships, unfounded optimism doesn't serve anyone.

As the adage goes, it's better to under-promise and over-deliver. Over-promising only invites disappointment.

5. Be Transparent With Billing

Your invoices are an important way to communicate with your clients since they document your work, how long it took, and what it costs. Whether you like it or not, clients will use that information to assess your value and either conclude that it's money well spent or feel buyer's remorse.

The good news is that you can influence the emotional impact of your legal invoices. Clear, detailed task descriptions show value and build trust. A consistent invoicing schedule demonstrates professionalism, and online payment options show that you value your client's time.

You can easily incorporate those features into your billing system with technology. Legal billing software digitizes and integrates time and expense tracking, customer payments, and accounts reconciliation. With an all-in-one payment solution, customer invoices are created directly from a time record, which streamlines invoicing and makes it easier to bill on a regular schedule.

6. Get Personal

Gain deeper insights into a client's objectives by understanding their personal life and circumstances beyond the legal case. Chances are, you'll gather some details that are directly or indirectly relevant. At a minimum, you'll better understand their situation and needs.

Future references to any personal information you gather also foster trust and good feelings—especially if it's unrelated to the case. Asking how your client's daughter managed her first week of college, for example, shows that you listen. It also demonstrates that you view your client as an individual, rather than a case to be won.

Start Improving Your Attorney-Client Relationship With Help From LawPay

The efforts you direct toward improving the quality of your client relationships will be rewarded in the form of satisfied clients, more positive reviews, and an increase in referral business. You'll also prevent inadvertent ethics violations involving neglect and lack of communication.

And don't overlook the importance of transparent, regular billing.

To learn how LawPay can streamline your billing efforts and contribute to more complete invoices, schedule a demo today.