Our firm’s “Attorney-­?Client Access Policy” specifies that unless it’s an emerg

Question

Our firm’s “Attorney-­?Client Access Policy” specifies that unless it’s an emergency, our clients can gain access to one of our attorneys either by scheduling a telephone appointment or else by scheduling an in­?office appointment. We do not tell clients we’ll call them back “within 24 hours”. Instead we schedule telephone appointments for a date and time certain.

We define an “emergency” as being a situation where a person’s death is imminent, the police are trying to interrogate a client, or when someone is in the act of doing something that threatens the client’s safety. We tell our clients that if their physical safety is at risk they should call 911 before calling our office. Still, as you should be able to imagine if you’re the right candidate for this position, the occasional worried client does manage to bluff his or her way through and will wind up on the telephone with you.

It’s 3pm on a sunny Wednesday afternoon. The attorney is taking a much­?needed break to clear his head by fishing at the park. He is at his favorite spot and has a cell phone with him in case there is an emergency.

A client calls and winds­?up on the phone with you with the following recitation of facts:

“I’m an important client of the firm, have been for some time. I’m at the bank and have been here for over an hour trying to get them to listen to what attorney told me to do. The bank manager is here and unless he talks to the attorney he’s going to close my account. I consider this to be an emergency and I insist that you get the attorney on the phone right away or at least get him to call me back as soon as humanly possible!”

How do you handle this situation?

Explanation / Answer

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) Since the attorney is on a fishing break and not in the office, it would clearly be a little more difficult to seamlessly communicate with his colleagues. The important thing to do in the situation is to somehow get in touch with the attorney of this particular client. This is because since he is fishing near a lake and cannot properly evaluate the emergency, it would be essential to at least get the client in touch with his regular attorney.

Furthermore, this may not be a situation of life-threatening emergency but, it seems like a situation of immediacy for the client. The attorney could continue fishing and ignore the situation. Although a simple phone call to have the right colleague get in touch with his client could save this person from a lot of distress with the bank.

Therefore, if the attorney knows exactly which colleague of his deals with this client, it would be well and good to call him up or hand over the number to the client. If he might not know exactly which attorney is dealing with this particular client, he could call the office and find out within a matter of minutes and get the right attorney to phone up this client.

This situation could be tackled in a matter of minutes and the attorney could even soon continue with his day of leisure.

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