Talking to a lawyer to get legal advice can be a daunting task. Lawyers can be short in their conversation, stern in their tone, and pointedly direct in their questioning. This can intimidate even the boldest of the bold, but it shouldn’t. A little understanding of lawyers helps explain why they act the way they do. Here is a bit of this explanation and some tips for talking with lawyers about legal questions.

Be punctual and flexible
Lawyers earn their living by selling their time. At any given time, any one lawyer will usually have multiple projects for multiple clients. Time spent waiting for a client to arrive, is time lost. This usually happens when the lawyer is not able to begin working on another project if the client is expected to arrive any moment. This directly impacts the law firm’s earnings if he is not able to spend the time working on another project.

Given the high expenses lawyers must pay (such as legal advertising costs, expert costs, legal research costs, etc.), lawyers are very sensitive to time issues. This is particularly true for lawyers who spend a lot of time in court, as litigation lawyers spend their days trying to meet strict deadlines. The courts often sanction lawyers for missing deadlines. Lawyers are used to this treatment and they may have the same expectations for clients.

Punctual clients are good clients. This means clients who arrive early, who are patient, and who are flexible. This also means clients who promptly call to reschedule meetings. This courtesy allow the lawyer to plan out their day, which makes them more profitable and more effective at their craft.

Be prepared and organized
Lawyers spend their time researching, writing, talking with others about legal issues, and talking with prospective and actual clients about legal issues. The first four tasks are often time intensive and viewed by lawyers as being mandatory to achieving appropriate legal results in cases.

One might think lawyers would love to spend hours talking with and billing clients for providing legal advice rather than doing the legal work, but this may not be the case. There is a balancing act whereby lawyers are expected to deliver results, and spend time with clients explaining the law. The attorney who spends too much time talking with clients may he has too little time to work on delivering the desired result. This puts added stress on lawyers.

Thus, unfortunately, talking with clients is often viewed by the lawyer as a distraction. This is especially true if the client is not prepared to discuss their legal questions when they meet with the lawyer. Clients should review the facts and any evidence they have prior to meeting with their lawyer. This also means having any documentation in order and ready to be reviewed. This will help the lawyer communicate effectively, yet briefly. This too makes the lawyer more profitable and effective at their craft.

Expect to be asked hard questions
Lawyers are also officers of the court, in addition to being businessmen. The lawyer needs to find and prosecute meritorious claims. This helps the lawyer earn a living and build a solid reputation. As lawyers filter prospective clients and client claims, it is often necessary for the lawyer to ask the hard questions. Client sensitivities should be set aside if at all possible. This can allow the lawyer to get to the heart of the matter and craft defenses or strategies for any harmful or difficult issues from the start. It is often better to discard void legal theories up front, so the lawyer can focus on the pertinent legal theories that will produce the desired results. Clients who are prepared to answer these difficult questions up front can prove to be invaluable in this regard.

Conclusion

These tips should help clients discuss any legal question with their lawyer. A little understanding of why the lawyer is the way he is and common courtesy can go a long way in dispelling any fears about talking with lawyers.

One of the keys to succeeding in information product creation is to break the process up into discrete steps. This frequently isn’t an instinctive reaction for the typical information marketer. Especially on the internet where small sized learning products are the norm.

However, it is extremely important to your ultimate success. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you don’t do this you probably won’t succeed… even when you are starting out let alone as you move forward.

Your product creation system should do this for you if only to help you to understand the overall task.

But why?

In this article, I’m going to ignore chunking and focus on the practical aspects. That’s not to say that chunking isn’t important. It is. It’s important to understanding and to learning the process. But while you can use the same chunks as you move forward, long term your focus needs to be on the operation of the system not the understanding of it. Unless of course you are constantly training new people!

So why is chunking important to long term use of the product creation process? (Yes, I know systems design uses a different term for this process but I’m not teaching you systems design. So I’m going to use the word learning content designers use.)

The first reason that having individual discrete tasks is important is one of schedule estimation. Frequently it is very difficult to estimate how long the total task of creating a product will take. After all, the size and type of the products matters as does the number of products in your product funnel. And those are just the most obvious elements. However, estimating a discrete task is often much easier. The total can then be estimated as the total of the discrete tasks.

Secondly, scheduling a large task can be problematic. However, by segmenting the task into a number of discrete tasks, you gain a much greater flexibility in scheduling. Not only that but as your business begins to add people you are able to schedule multiple people to the product creation.

Finally, segmenting a large task into smaller discrete tasks allows you to have much better control over the product creation. This affects two different areas — status and quality.

By segmenting your process into discrete tasks you are able to schedule and record the progress at much more detailed level. As a result you are more in control of the status of the product creation. You know what everyone is doing. When they should complete it. And how much it should cost. You also know exactly what has been done.

You also improve your overall quality. Instead of waiting until everything is done you can check quality as you go. This allows you to immediate react to low quality products without absorbing their costs. This means that you have less rework and your rework costs less. And if the product is not going to meet its quality requirement you will know about it in time to stop the development, change the requirement or fix the product.

There are some very successful home based business opportunities out there. For one of the most exceptional choices, surf right onto Steve’s Website and read what he has to say. For more in depth information, it’s important that you sign up for his list so you can fully explore his business in a box program.Every new and established home based business requires a blueprint to be successful. The blueprint is the business’s framework and direction. It’s the overall structure and plan that needs to be followed to ensure adequate profit and a smooth flow of positive customer and client interactions and suitable everyday transactions.It’s exciting to know that this program has been established for new people to join. It has an exclusive blueprint that you can learn more about by visiting the site and signing up.The blueprint for a home based business, if laid out right, will ensure its successful start up and operations. It’s a sort of formula for establishing the correct methods, strategies and concepts for everyday, ongoing operations.A blueprint for a home based business usually starts with the business model. Next, is the business mission. Then what’s required is a proven pattern for success.The money that needs to be raised is determined as part of the blueprint. Every home based business needs money for an operations area, which could be as simple as furnishing a home office.But this aspect is extremely important, since you’re going to be working in that environment for many hours a day. If you’re operating a service oriented business, you’ll have expenses for the telephone, perhaps the Internet, employees, and even operational supplies, which will vary from each different home based business.The blueprint also will forecast your income and expense projections for the first year or two of operations. This can be easily calculated for a given home based business by studying the financial pattern of past successful businesses in the same operational area of focus.Another element that the blueprint takes into consideration is your cost of acquiring clients. These consist of the specific, individual expenses that a home based business incurs by contacting customers for potential sales leads.This cost can be substantial if not planned out correctly. But with the best business programs, these expenses can be minimized.The projected future profit of the business spanning five or more years should also be a significant consideration in the overall blueprint. This is important because sometimes the longer a business is operating the harder it can be to sustain it, as more and more costs mount from different areas.The best blueprints leave nothing to chance. Every aspect and angle is covered, from something seemingly as nominal as the monthly Internet bill to high utility costs to operate the home based business.