We’ve all had important interviews with influential people, and it is likely that most of us have relied on a tape recorder as back up. That being said, technology doesn’t always work the way we’d like it to. Maybe you’ve forgotten to press record, had a battery die, or conducted an interview with a soft spoken individual rendering the recording virtually impossible to hear.
In today’s blog, the Honourable J.E. Côté provides tips for conducting and recording client interviews efficiently and effectively.
Happy reading!
Some interviews are very important. When you interview a new client for the first or second time, often you are focusing on temporary issues. For example, whether to act, whether any steps are urgent, and how you will secure payment. You subtly assume that nailing down all the details of what the client knows can come later. Yet when you come to prepare for trial after a few years, you realize that you went into the detailed facts only at the initial interviews, but your notes of them are brief and hard to understand. Yet your client may be your most important witness. And some details may well have faded from his or her memory.
Obviously you need better ways to record the details of important interviews in your office.
Possible Ways to Record Interviews
What is the best way to make and keep such records?
No method is perfect.
- Handwriting is slow, and often hard to read. It is performed in front of the client, which makes the client more self-conscious, and less relaxed.
- Sound recordings are sometimes hard to hear, especially if you do not use very modern high-quality digital equipment. Recordings are always laborious to transcribe, even if your assistant plays back on a machine with proper foot controls. Without such foot controls, the work is very frustrating. Furthermore, you will want the client’s consent before mechanically recording him or her, and the microphone will remain in view. That inhibits relaxed speech even more than do a pen and pad of paper.
- Taking notes using the keyboard of a computer is a little better, but it is still not that fast. Especially if you do not keyboard very efficiently. It can be even more obvious and intrusive. Sometimes it is not much better than pen and paper.
- Using dictation software would not work well, as the computer software would not be used to your client’s voice, and the computer might interrupt.
- You could ask the client to go away and produce a full narrative in writing, either with a computer or with a pen in a notebook. Some clients can do that well, but most do not. And they will never know what topics you want to emphasize, or what is of little relevance.
Furthermore, any simultaneous method which you operate will distract your mind. It is like your university days: taking very full lecture notes hindered your paying full attention to the lecture. If you try to take full notes of an interview, you will not have a chance to notice gaps or obscurity in what your client says, let alone ask the client to clarify them. Listening to and watching the client, and thinking about what to ask next, keeps you fully occupied. Trying to write or keyboard as well, is serious overload.
The Best Compromise
There is one other way to make a record which can work well. Bring someone else to the interview, and have him or her take notes. That person can take them in pen, or with a quiet keyboard: whichever works best for the note-taker. A verbatim record is not necessary. If the note-taker is intelligent, he or she will get down the important points. Complete sentences are not needed. The notes can be proofread and expanded after the interview.
The person whom you bring to take notes may be an articling student, a paralegal, or an experienced legal assistant. That person will need a little advance instruction from you, until he or she gets used to this role.
Introduce the note-taker to the client. Ask the client whether it is o.k. for that person to attend the interview. Say that that person will keep the matters confidential the same way that you will. Ask the client if that person may take notes. Rarely will the client object to this procedure.
Then have the note-taker sit in a place which you have carefully chosen beforehand. You do not want the client to focus on the note-taker furiously scribbling. As with other methods, that would distract and inhibit the client. So the note-taker should not be right in front of the client, e.g. sitting beside you at the desk or table. But on the other hand, many clients will be nervous about having someone sitting behind them, or sitting far enough back that the client cannot see them. So the best location is off to one side. That way, the note-taker is not hidden, and the client can look over at the note-taker if desired. But the note-taker is far enough to the side that the client will not readily look at the note-taker, and will soon forget the note-taker. Especially if no noisy keyboard is used.
If you have confidence in the note-taker, you need take very few notes yourself: maybe just an address or a phone number. Or a reminder to diarize or check something. Since you are not a scribe, you are free to converse more spontaneously with the client and can pay very careful attention to what the client says and what he or she omits.
Conclusion
Have you tried this method? What do you think? Let us know on Twitter: @lesaonline
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