Dealing with your lawyer means more than just the legalities. Your relationship with your lawyer should be one of trust and transparency. Helping clients achieve their best outcomes depends in great part on candid conversations, hard questions, forthright responses, and trust. At Hamlin | Cody, no matter what your issues are, we’re prepared to forge a relationship as your trusted advisor and deliver you our expertise premised on transparency.
The Benefits of Transparency
Transparency in law or business is the simple idea that there be openness and honesty throughout the process. Transparency helps foster trust between all parties. When people are transparent, they create an environment of understanding, which leads to better communication and collaboration with others. That’s true of lawyers and their clients, business partners, trust administrators and beneficiaries and so many others. Transparency helps ensure that everyone understands what is going on and can make informed decisions on how to move forward. The benefits of transparency in law extend far beyond simply building relationships between lawyer and client. Remaining transparent can often lead to improved outcomes for respective parties, clients, fiduciaries, business partners and the like. Keeping current, sharing important information, and explaining particulars so that everyone is on the same page keeps things moving forward. Access to information and unambiguity are keys to a successful relationship and often the basis of dispute resolution. When parties have a clear view, better and more informed decisions can be made to advance the parties’ goals. Time and expense can be saved, and resolutions can be reached more readily.
Examples of Transparency
Some law firms are making efforts to be more transparent with their use of technology and electronic record keeping not only streamline processes but also making materials more readily obtainable and visible to their clients. Hamlin | Cody has long maintained systems in place that make its work product readily available to its clients and better prepared for litigation and discovery. We preach what we practice. In a recent matter involving a power of attorney ordered by the court to provide a multi-year accounting, concerned parties were uncertain what the fiduciary had done over several years. They wanted the fiduciary to come forward and simply be transparent. We reviewed the matter and agreed, full transparency was a must. When the fiduciary later shared in proper form an accounting with some supporting documents, we were on the way toward resolution. Though after a number of years the fiduciary had lost papers and recollections also faltered, ultimately his full transparency with clear explanations and candid acknowledgments led to a successful end to the parties’ dispute.
Increasing levels of transparency can genuinely be beneficial for clients, whether they are the recipient of that transparency or the provider. Undertaken properly – allowing honest information to pass through from party to party, partner to partner, fiduciary to beneficiary, and client to lawyer leads not only to improved relationships but also better outcomes and stronger results. At Hamlin | Cody, we understand the importance of creating an open dialogue with our clients and closely working together toward a successful resolution. We also understand how that kind of dialog can also work between parties in or on the verge of dispute. Contact us today if you’d like our assistance to bring greater transparency into your legal proceedings.