Tips For In-House Counsel On Relationship-Building

// It is true that once you are in-house counsel for a company, you don’t have to develop business or find clients. But I don’t think it’s true that relationship-building ends. Arguably, it can be just as important to your effectiveness as a lawyer and to your career. It still boils down to trust — and whether your internal clients trust your judgment and advice. Here are a few tips for building relationships at your company.

Schedule One-On-Ones And Listen

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Whether you are brand new to the role of in-house counsel at a company or have just met someone new regardless of your tenure, take the time to schedule a 20-minute coffee chat with someone you’d like to get to know better. Start off easy with how long they’ve been with the company and learning about their role — what do they do, what are they currently working on, what is their favorite thing about the work and what keeps them up at night. Take notes. While you should introduce yourself, my recommendation is to do your best to listen and learn instead of talking about yourself. After the chat, follow up with an email thanking them for their time. And in case this isn’t intuitive, don’t just do this with those “above” you in an effort to get ahead. People can see right through that. Your approach should be genuine curiosity about anyone you get to work with. Of course, you don’t have to do this exclusively through coffee chats. You can start building rapport right away with each interaction you have with a client by showing interest in them as people and doing what you can to be helpful.

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Be Helpful

The most obvious way to be helpful is to answer the legal question directly asked, as promptly as possible — which is a given — but my example about being helpful comes from my experience in both retail sales and as a waitress. People remember and like you more if you are able to provide individualized service, anticipate their needs and give them what they want or need before they even have to ask. So as a lawyer, a good response is “yes, you can do X.” But a better response is “yes, you can do X, and here are some ideas on how to make X happen.”

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Don’t limit yourself to just being helpful when it comes to legal or business advice. We are all people first, right? If appropriate (don’t be creepy!), you can also be helpful personally.

Examples of how this can show up:

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• Providing out-of-town or visiting clients with a list of great restaurants near where they are staying
• Sharing employment law articles or courses with SHRM credit with your HR clients (bonus if free!)
• Taking the time to provide positive feedback to a manager on a specific job or well-executed project

Follow Ups And Check Ins

As with any relationship, following up and checking in from time to time is essential to building trust and maintaining the relationship, even if they are no longer the business unit you support. At a minimum, you need to deliver on what you are asked to do, but even better if you can follow up afterward to inquire on whether you can help with anything else or whether they had any questions, and if appropriate, for feedback on how you could better serve them. It’s also a great way to verify that your legal advice was followed, or if it wasn’t followed, you can better prepare for any potential risk, if necessary. Checking in is mostly informal though, showing up in small talk — where you show interest in a client by remembering that they enjoy horseback riding and asking if they have gone riding lately before jumping into the business at hand.

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Meyling “Mey” Ly Ortiz is in-house at Toyota Motor North America. Her passions include mentoring, championing belonging, and a personal blog: TheMeybe.com. At home, you can find her doing her best to be a “fun” mom to a toddler and preschooler and chasing her best self on her Peloton. You can follow her on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/meybe/). And you knew this was coming: her opinions are hers alone.

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In-House Counsel, Meyling "Mey" Ly Ortiz