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(Editor’s note: This piece originally ran in the May 26, 2011, issue of the Briefly Legal PDX e-newsletter)

For those still willing to call up the memory, watching first the housing market and then the banking and securities sectors teeter on the brink was a disorienting, and sometimes terrifying, experience. None of us knew then what it would mean for our clients, much less for lawyers.

We have been pretty successful through the fall and very gradual recovery, though. And there are two lessons I have taken from navigating that period. While neither is new, both bear repeating:

鈥� Listen to your clients; and
鈥� Hold on to that broad platform.

My experience has been that lawyers typically are not good listeners, by training or by inclination. We would rather be heard.

Clients, however, love to talk about their businesses, their dreams, their challenges. If we truly listen to them 鈥� and not interrupt or preach 鈥� they can see that our profession is, or should be, all about helping them pursue their dreams and meet their challenges. We鈥檒l be better at that if we understand them and their business. Alternatively, I suppose, you can tell a client all about your latest success and how brilliant you were to achieve it. I know which way works better for the clients we serve.

The recession has famously hammered some segments of practice. For some of those areas, it isn鈥檛 yet clear what the new reality will look like. As a firm with a variety of practices, a 鈥渄iversified portfolio鈥� if you will, we have seen some rise as others have fallen. We have been able to offer some now sorely needed services to clients accustomed to working with us in other ways.

It isn鈥檛 easy to effectively cross some of those market divides, but it is easier 鈥� and more critical 鈥� where our clients face tough and often unanticipated conditions.

Dave Baca is a managing partner at Davis Wright Tremaine.