A client sends an email to her lawyer about a matter that has suddenly become urgent. The lawyer has seen it. The matter is being handled, but there is no meaningful update yet, so a response can wait until there is something useful to say.
Three days later, the lawyer may feel that little has changed. While, the client may be experiencing something quite different.
She knows the matter is still being considered, but she does not know what is happening behind the scenes, whether the issue has become more complicated, or whether her matter has slipped down the priority list.
The lawyer knows what is happening inside the matter, but the client can see only what happens around it.
That difference is easy to overlook. It is also where communication begins to acquire a meaning of its own.
What the Client Cannot See
Much of legal work happens out of sight. A lawyer may spend hours reviewing documents, testing arguments, considering precedent, speaking with colleagues, anticipating the other side’s position or deciding that the most responsible course is to wait. Much of that work may be essential to the quality of the eventual advice, but the client rarely sees it.
What the client encounters is the meeting, the call, the email, the advice and the next step.
This creates a peculiar problem for a profession built around expertise. The person receiving the service often cannot directly assess much of the work that produces its value.
Clients therefore make inferences from what they can observe.
→ A prompt response may suggest attention.
→ A carefully explained delay may suggest control.
→ A lawyer who remembers a detail from an earlier conversation may signal that the matter has been understood in its wider context.
The reverse can happen too. An email that says only, “We’re looking into it,” may leave the client wondering what that means. A meeting in which the lawyer repeatedly checks the time may create an impression of limited attention, even when the advice itself is excellent.
None of these behaviours carries a fixed meaning. Context matters, and people can misread each other. The interpretation happens anyway.
Research into lawyer-client interactions offers an instructive insight. Clients who perceived their lawyers as better at understanding their perspective tended to report greater trust, which was associated with greater willingness to disclose information and better understanding. The lawyers’ own perceptions of how they were communicating perspective-taking and empathy did not always align with their clients’ perceptions.
That gap is important because a lawyer can believe that a relationship is working well, while the client is experiencing something rather different.
The Signals Around the Advice
Consider two lawyers advising a client on the same regulatory problem. Both reach the same conclusion, identify the same legal risk, and recommend waiting another week before taking action.
One writes: “We need another week. I’ll update you when I know more.”
The other explains that the regulator has requested additional information, that this has altered the timing, and that the client will receive an update by a specified day even if there is no material change.
The legal position is identical, but the client’s experience of uncertainty is different.
The second lawyer has made part of the invisible process visible. The client knows why the timing has changed, what is being done, and when the next point of clarity is likely to arrive.
Professional communication is therefore also a question of signalling. Preparation can signal attention; timing can suggest priority; the way uncertainty is handled can communicate control; and the manner in which difficult information is delivered can shape whether the client experiences the relationship as dependable.
A partner who arrives at a meeting having understood the papers has communicated something before speaking. So has one who asks the client to repeat information already provided.
Similarly, a lawyer who says, “I don’t have an answer yet, but I know what we need to establish,” gives the client a clearer sense of where the matter stands than one who simply avoids the question.
These signals do not determine the quality of legal expertise. They influence how that expertise is experienced.
The Communication Shadow
Every lawyer has what we could call a Communication Shadow. It is the visible layer through which clients interpret the invisible work of their lawyer.
The shadow develops through presence, pace, process and posture. A client may notice how attentively a lawyer listens, how quickly important matters are acknowledged, how clearly the process is explained, and how the lawyer behaves when circumstances become difficult. These observations may never be consciously catalogued, but together they form a pattern.
A single interaction is unlikely to define a relationship. Repeated experiences can.
An occasional delay may mean nothing. A recurring pattern of unexplained delays may gradually suggest something about attention or priority, regardless of what the lawyer intended.
The same applies inside a law firm. A firm may describe itself as highly responsive, while clients repeatedly encounter unanswered messages, unexplained hand-offs and uncertainty about who owns the matter. With the passage of time, the firm’s stated identity and the client’s experienced identity can begin to diverge.
This is where reputation becomes more interesting. Reputation is often associated with expertise, credentials, notable matters and public visibility. Those are important markers of professional standing, but another layer develops through repeated interactions.
Clients form impressions about whether a lawyer understands what matters to them, whether difficult news will be addressed directly, whether they will know what happens next, and whether someone will take ownership when a matter becomes complicated.
Those judgments may never appear in a client survey. They can still influence whom the client calls the next time.
When the Lawyer and Client Receive Different Messages
A lawyer may have perfectly good reasons for remaining silent. Facts may be incomplete, a negotiation may require discretion, a legal position may still be developing, or confidentiality may constrain what can be shared.
More communication does not necessarily reduce uncertainty. Sometimes it simply adds another fragment to an incomplete picture. The more useful question is what the client can reasonably infer from the communication that does occur.
That becomes harder as legal practice moves further into digital channels. Email, messaging platforms, video calls, and automated systems have expanded the places in which professional signals appear. Response time becomes visible, as does who responds and whether a partner joins a difficult conversation or leaves it entirely to someone else.
AI adds a further complication because it can now produce a polished update, summarise a complex matter, or draft apparently thoughtful correspondence in seconds.
But the client may still be trying to answer a more human question: Does my lawyer understand what this development means for me?
As routine legal communication becomes easier to produce, the experience surrounding expertise may carry greater weight. Words can be generated quickly; the trust created through a professional relationship still depends on how those words are experienced.
What Does Your Practice Quietly Say About You?
A lawyer’s most consequential communication may sometimes be the one they never intended to send.
It may be contained in a delayed response that was never explained, a meeting where the client felt genuinely heard, a difficult development communicated before it became a surprise, or a junior colleague who could clearly explain what would happen next.
With time, these experiences form a pattern, and that pattern becomes part of how clients experience the lawyer.
The Communication Shadow is therefore less a technique than a way of seeing. It reminds lawyers that they see the work behind the curtain while clients see the signals around it, using those signals to make sense of expertise they cannot directly observe.
For an experienced lawyer, the more useful question may be: What does the way I practise law teach my clients about me?
A lawyer’s reputation is not only built through the advice they give, the judgments they make, and the outcomes they help create, but also shaped by everything that happens around that work. Even when they are not speaking.
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