Satisfaction is our reward
You'd better hope you never need a lawyer. In the first place, they cost a fortune. They earn their money selling a load of hot air. They love court cases that never end, so that they can make as much money as possible out of you. And they like nothing better than to put their massive egos in the spotlight. It's mostly criminals and people who know they're in the wrong
that have to hire a lawyer to get them out of trouble. If you get into a dispute the best thing to do is just to get through it as well as you can using your own common sense. So why did I become a lawyer then?
Depending on who I'm talking to, I don't always like mentioning that I'm a lawyer. I know that if I do many people who don't know me so well will immediately, and unfairly, classify me as a money grabber who tries to help criminals get out of paying for their crimes. On the other hand, one of my daily activities is breaking down prejudices. This applies equally to the inaccurate ideas about my profession held by many people. In fact, I and many of my colleagues believe that ours is a great profession that allows us to achieve positive, realistic and fair results for our clients who have become involved in a dispute against their will.
Unfortunately, the lawyer's negative image is in large part due to a small number of criminal defence lawyers who regularly appear in the media. However, the majority of the almost 13,000 lawyers in the Netherlands focus their activities on different fields of law, different types of conflict situations and different clientele. Lawyers can specialise in employment law, divorces or corporate law, or even in IT law, telecoms law or media law. They certainly don't always act for hardened criminals; their clients are more likely to be hard-working business people with small or medium-sized companies, multi-nationals, personal injury victims, victims of crime, quarrelling spouses, employees and company directors. In short: people like you and me. Research has shown that in our modern society the average person engages a lawyer 2 to 3 times during his lifetime.
Unavoidable
It's a fact that anywhere where people live together, work together and have to share common interests, conflicts are unavoidable. Luckily, the vast majority of these conflicts can be resolved by the parties involved. However, sometimes people lack the skills to bring the conflict to an end on their own. Often the problem that caused the conflict seems too complex. As a lawyer, the first thing I can do for a client who calls on me for help is to act as a sparring partner. Have you thought of everything? Have you got your facts together? Have you taken account of the arguments the other party will use? The key to thinking about your own position is trying to understand where the other party is coming from, with your own lawyer in front of you playing devil's advocate. This is the only way to identify the established facts that are relevant and the arguments that will prove infallible. The lawyer must then, in accordance with his own code of conduct, remind himself and his client that an out-of-court settlement is often preferable to court proceedings. After all, most parties involved in a dispute are ultimately aiming for a speedy practical resolution to their dispute rather than a time-consuming procedure with no certainty as to the result. A good lawyer realises this and will aim in the first place for such a speedy, practical, amicable solution. Luckily the great majority of disputes can in practice be resolved with the investment of a reasonable, cost-effective amount of time.
Some of the lawyers who want to distinguish themselves from the herd by putting their client's interests first (and achieving the quickest possible practical resolution of their dispute situation) have got together to form the Viadicte Foundation. This foundation awards a quality mark to law firms that satisfy certain exacting quality requirements. As part of this cooperation, lawyers work to improve the quality of the service they offer. In doing so, they never lose sight of their clients' interests and continually seek ways to achieve client satisfaction.
Inventorising risks
We believe that with shrewd and critical questioning all the relevant facts should be revealed in a first interview, following which our lawyers should not only be able to reach a satisfactory assessment of the methods we can use to work together with our clients to achieve a successful result and the likelihood of achieving that result, but they should also be capable of inventorising the risks involved and explaining these to the client so that they can be taken into consideration when working together with the client to draw up a plan of action. Agreements over fees should be clear from the start, with the costs involved being in proportion to the benefits expected. Once the dispute has been resolved, our clients receive an evaluation form allowing them to indicate the extent to which they are satisfied with the various aspects of the service provided and the result obtained.
Although, as you can see, we do our very best to ensure that our work results in satisfied clients, I hope for your sake that you never need to call on the assistance of a lawyer. Nobody wants to be involved in a dispute. I'm completely aware of that. Should you ever be unfortunate enough to become involved in a serious dispute, my colleagues and I will be here for you to make that unpleasant situation as painless as possible and to get the best possible result for you.
