BIFF for Lawyers and Law Offices: Your Guide to Respectful Written Communication with Clients, Opposing Counsel and Others

(Paperback)

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This book provides a simple and proven method for lawyers to use in ethically responding to hostile communications, correcting misinformation by others, and initiating productive correspondence. The BIFF Communication method can be used by all law office personnel (paralegals, administrative assistants, receptionists, and others), with 30 sample responses to common situations involving hostile or misinformed emails, text messages, and other forms of communication. BIFF stands for Brief, Informative, Friendly, and Firm.

The BIFF Communication method can also be taught to clients to help them write friendly and concise responses in their legal cases, saving lawyers time and reducing the escalation of unnecessary conflicts in their cases. This book explains how to coach office staff, clients and their family members to use the BIFF Communication method, including ten easy key questions to ask when reviewing their correspondence. While this method is designed primarily for written communication, this approach can also be used in verbal conversations, to be efficient and respectful.

The book is divided into five sections:

1. Learning the BIFF method
2. Correspondence with clients
3. Correspondence with colleagues
4. Correspondence with staff and between staff
5. Coaching staff and clients in the BIFF method.

Each sample scenario provides a hostile correspondence received by the lawyer and/or staff member; then gives a tempting response which is not quite a BIFF (analyzed using the BIFF Checker); then gives a communication that is a BIFF.