Super Lawyers - New York

WHAT’S THE BEST ADVICE
YOU’VE RECEIVED? AS TOLD TO ERIK LUNDEGAARD

The client gets an impression
of you and your office in the
first 15 seconds.

As elder law attorneys, my partner [Ellen Makofsky] and I always understood that we could better assist our clients when they were comfortable with us. We designed our office with that in mind and instructed our staff accordingly.

We got a boost in this regard after we attended
a NAELA [National Academy of Elder Law
Attorneys] meeting 10 to 12 years ago. One of
the speakers there told us something we haven’t
forgotten. I call it the 15-second rule. The client
gets an impression of you and your office in the
first 1 5 seconds of contact—whether on the phone
making the appointment or upon entering your
office—and if this impression is negative, it’s
almost impossible to change.

JUDITH RASKIN / PARTNER, RASKIN & MAKOFSKY,
ELDER LAW/ESTATE PLANNING & PROBATE
Marriage is not a covenant
or contract; it’s a continuing
negotiation.

I got [this advice] way, way back when I was young and falling in love with some girl, and we were engaged, and I guess my father was trying to talk me out of it—probably. He wouldn’t come out and say, “Hey, don’t marry her.” I was a kid, just out of the Army. He was a lawyer, but never went into a courtroom, a real estate lawyer, and he said, “Don’t forget, son, marriage isn’t a contract; it’s a negotiation.” I never forgot that— and it turns out I didn’t marry that girl.

But in my career it’s actually helped. Meaning:
If indeed we’re not going to court, and I got a
receptive attorney on the other side, and we’re
talking settlement, and … well, you know me
already. I’m not the bow-tie type of lawyer. I’m not
stiff. I like to do negotiations while we’re breaking
bread. I try to get away from the formality of two
people on one side of the desk and two people
on the other side of the desk. Sometimes we’ll
have a cup of coffee, sometimes a pizza, things
like that. And I will tell a lawyer, or a client, in a
four-way meeting, if all of a sudden we’re bucking
heads, I’ll then say, more or less in a jovial
fashion, “Listen: Marriage is not a contract; it’s a
negotiation, and a continuing one.”
Now just as a sideline, as a joke, “If it’s a
continuing negotiation, how come, in my own
marriage, I’m always losing?”