Law360 Canada (September 22, 2026, 10:42 AM EDT) --
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| Norm Bowley |
The chief difference between outstanding lawyers and those who just schlep along is how they prioritize the work and the clients they take. Many of us never think much about that, particularly if you live under the gun of monthly targets or run a dump truck practice. But if you look around you at the maestros of the profession, it always seems that they are working on interesting, consequential and financially rewarding matters. This is no accident.
Getting interesting, consequential and financially rewarding work doesn’t just happen. You need to triage incoming clients and their work using two measures. The first focuses on profitability; the second has to do with reputation-building opportunities.
Vanz Studio
The
ABCD Grid is a triage tool, a simple way of assessing your clients first for profitability and second for the strategic value of the work they bring. It’s perhaps my favourite tool in consulting and in coaching, and it’s straight out of Economics 101.
Clients
Let’s first consider the profit-based triage of the clients who come to your door. All of us have a general sense that some clients are a delight, both because they pay well and they’re great to deal with, but we need to be much more strategic than just assessing “nice.”
From an economic point of view, optimum clients are those who pay well for work that doesn’t stress you or draw heavily on overhead, and those who pay well for work you love doing are the “most optimum.” These are your A clients. They’re gold, and you should treat them accordingly. That’s the easy part.
And then there are the clients from hell that only serial masochists should take. These are the D clients, the ones who come to the first meeting with 12 boxes of exhibits and online legal research, having already exhausted their first seven lawyers. If you have any, get rid of them (in compliance with law society and court rules), and after that, just refuse them. If you have to fire one, be very, very careful, but very, very definite. D clients are often dangerous and if you don’t disengage wisely and carefully, they can and will hurt you. You’re prudent to discuss this with someone you trust.
The tricky part, until you get used to it, is deciding between your B clients and your C clients. B clients are not highly profitable, one by one, but they aren’t demanding and mostly the work you do for them is routine and much is handled by assistants. Serving them is like selling hamburgers — you don’t make a lot of money on one, but it’s not hard to sell a thousand hamburgers, and this is excellent cash flow. And by and large, B clients are nice people that your staff loves to deal with, and that’s a great thing for morale and team spirit.
The other thing about B clients is that they sometimes turn into A clients, or they send you A clients. The young couple you help incorporate a pizza parlour may just turn that into a province-wide franchise operation. The lovely folks for whom you did a simple estate plan have a daughter who just opened a dental practice, right in your wheelhouse.
The C clients are the conundrum, at first. Yes, they’re high cost and usually high maintenance, but they pay some big invoices and the cash flow is nice. Sure, they are high maintenance, but you feel they’re worth the grief because of the money.
But “cost” is not just financial overhead. Cost includes risk, cost includes stress, cost includes missed opportunities, cost includes reputation. C clients are demanding, they want the work done yesterday, not just once, but all the time. They grind down your staff, they call you at home and on weekends, they just “happen to be in the neighbourhood” at your cottage, and they’re always trying to cadge a little free work. It’s always a haggle.
But the greater risk with C clients is that they are not loyal, and they don’t really appreciate what you’re doing for them. They can turn on you in a flash. How many hours does it take dealing with a law society complaint to erase any profit you may have made?
As a rule, ditch your C clients. (I must admit I have an accountant friend who took on the occasional C client to teach his juniors client management skills, a kind of boot camp thing. I’m not sure I agree, but it is an argument.)
Reputation
But that’s not the whole story. Triaging clients on an economic basis is one thing, but an equally important analysis is triaging clients on a reputational basis, that is, with an eye to enhancing your professional reputation. Over your professional lifetime, nothing is more critical than growing your reputation, and clients are the canvas upon which you paint your reputational masterpieces. From this perspective, then, what is critical is selecting clients based on their bringing work where you truly get to shine, to demonstrate that you are a leader in your field.
(Parenthetically, we need to keep in mind that my C client may not be your C client. I may not want an axe murderer hanging around my waiting room, but if you’re a criminal specialist, the axe murderer with an intriguing Charter argument might be exactly what you need to establish your credentials as the “go-to” person on that issue.)
Whether the analysis is done from a commercial prospect or a reputational prospect, the easiest way to rid yourself of D and C clients is to make yourself too busy for them — busy serving your precious A and B clients. It’s a virtuous cycle: the more you shed the C clients and the D clients, the more you will be able to practise enjoyable, profitable work for clients you enjoy, and the more you do that, the better you will become in your field, and the more you do that, the better will be the clients who seek you out.
Life’s too short to do it any other way.
In Norm Bowley’s third career, he speaks, writes and consults on matters of professional success and happiness. norm@purposeful.ca.
The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, Law360 Canada, LexisNexis Canada or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
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