TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN THE LEGAL ENVIRONMENT

The law firm environment is the perfect forum for applying TQM because of the TQM focus on the client. TQM looks to the client to provide the definition of "quality" and then creates a management environment and organizational structure to meet client-defined expectations.
Of course, all businesses are client-centered in that they depend upon the goodwill and satisfaction of their clients to survive. The practice of law differs, however, in that lawyers are something more than simply providers of a service. They are counselors, business advisors, advocates, sometimes psychologists, and often mentors. The law firm client does not simply receive a standard service that the firm provides to all of its clients; the law firm client receives a service that is unique because every client's needs must be individually assessed and met. This type of service involves the client (or should involve the client) to a more intimate degree than most other businesses because the client and the client's specific needs and goals define the service to be rendered.
TQM teaches the lawyer how to relate to his/her client to determine what the client seeks to achieve and the kind of result the client desires to obtain. This prevents the lawyer from gathering the facts and forging ahead with his/her own agenda thinking that the client would want what the lawyer would want if the lawyer were in the client's shoes.