Contents: The Lawyer/client relationship: The Winds of change -- Client complaints -- Skills training for lawyers -- A Competitive market for legal services -- Legal professionalism -- Discharging your duty of care: Communicating with your client -- Lawyer/client expectations -- Developing communication skills: The Importance of trust and empathy in communication -- Learning about yourself -- First impressions -- Prejudice -- Creating a rapport -- Preparing for interview: The Interviewer -- The Preliminaries -- Information and research -- An Interview plan -- The Interview room -- Meeting your client -- Making changes -- Information gathering: Introduction -- Non-verbal communication -- Active listening -- Questioning skills -- Finally-a note on note taking -- Advising and counselling: Introduction -- Counselling -- When should advising and counselling begin -- Testing understanding -- Identifying possible courses of action and explaining the legal and non-legal consequences -- Identifying client goals -- Collaborative decision making -- Difficult situations -- Ending the interview -- Summary -- Reflection and evaluation: Learning from experience -- The Interviewer's perspective -- The Client's perspective -- The Observer's role -- Giving feedback -- Guidelines for giving feedback -- Receiving feedback -- Role plays: How to use the role plays -- Communication skillls and career development: Introduction -- Marketing and client care -- Appraisal -- Recruitment interviews -- Postscript -- Appendix A: Costs information and client care code -- Appendix B: Checklist: Factors that contribute to first impressional -- Appendix C: The bad interview: Commetary -- Appendix D: Interview plans -- Appendix E: Active listening exercise: Commentary -- Appendix F: Clear explanations: Feedback and commentary -- Appendix G: Guidelines for giving feedback.