BIFF for Lawyers and Law Offices

Your Guide to Respectful, Written Communication

by Bill Eddy and Rehana Jamal

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Overview

"BIFF for Lawyers and Law Offices" provides a simple, proven method to help lawyers and clients ethically respond to hostile communications, correct misinformation by others, and initiate productive correspondence. This method can be used by all law office personnel to help communication be brief, informative, friendly, and firm (BIFF).

Description

This book provides a simple, proven method to help lawyers ethically respond to hostile communications, correct misinformation by others, and initiate productive correspondence. This method can be used by all law office personnel including paralegals, administrative assistants, receptionists, and others. "BIFF for Lawyers and Law Offices" provides 30 sample responses to common situations involving hostile or misinformed emails, text messages, and other forms of communication. This method will help lawyers' communication be brief, informative, friendly, and firm (BIFF). The BIFF method can also be taught to clients to help them write friendly and concise responses in their legal cases, which saves lawyers time and reduces the escalation of unnecessary conflicts in their cases. This book explains how to coach office staff, clients, and clients' family members to use the BIFF method with ten easy key questions to ask when reviewing their correspondence. While this method is designed primarily for written communication, this approach can also be used to make verbal conversations more efficient and respectful. Each sample scenario in the book provides a hostile correspondence received by a lawyer and/or staff member, followed by two possible responses: one that is BIFF-approved and one that is not. The book is divided into five sections: 1. Learning the BIFF Method 2. Correspondence with Clients 3. Correspondence with Colleagues 4. Correspondence with Staff and Between Staff 5. Coaching Staff and Clients in the BIFF Method

About the author

Bill Eddy is a lawyer, therapist, mediator, and the co-founder and training director of the High Conflict Institute. He was the Senior Family Mediator at the National Conflict Resolution Center for 15 years, a Certified Family Law Specialist lawyer representing clients in family court for 15 years, and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker therapist for 12 years. Currently, he serves on the faculty of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine University School of Law in California and is a Conjoint Associate Professor with the University of Newcastle Law School in Australia. He has been a speaker and trainer in over 30 U.S. states and 10 countries. He has authored and co-authored sixteen books and has a popular blog on the Psychology Today website with over 5 million views. Bill lives in San Diego, California with his wife.

Co-author Rehana Jamal is a conflict resolution specialist, mediator, and lawyer. She has always been fascinated by the way in which people interact, particularly in the way they communicate and navigate difficult conversations. This led her to pursue an undergraduate degree in psychology and, thereafter, a career in law and conflict resolution. Part of her work is to create and implement conflict resolution programs in schools and help reimagine a world where communities integrate conflict resolution as a guiding principle. Rehana holds an LL.M. in dispute resolution from Pepperdine Law School, a J.D. from Cardozo School of Law, and is a member of the New York State Bar. Her B.A. is in psychology from Barnard College, Columbia University. She has tremendous experience and passion working with people from different cultural, sociopolitical, and economic backgrounds.