As fellow law blogger Tom Kane discusses, now is the time to think about getting client feedback.  Ask your clients for feedback in early 2007; they probably won’t volunteer the information otherwise.  And, what better way to jumpstart a new year than with some feedback about what’s right–and what’s not?

This can be very helpful with clients from different cultures.  If you have inadvertently committed a cultural gaffe and a foreign client has been offended, he or she may be too polite to let you know.  By graciously asking for feedback in early 2007, and explaining that you are soliciting advice to improve service and client communication, you may uncover some otherwise hidden discontent.  Then take the feedback and read between the lines, given the client’s cultural perspective. Again, the client may express discontent more subtly and indirectly than an American client would.  Better to discover a problem and remedy it than to lose a client.