While law firms have long competed on expertise and reputation, today’s clients increasingly remember how they felt during the experience. Drawing parallels with hospitality, this article explores how empathy, anticipation, and human-centered design could redefine professionalism in the legal world. As competition intensifies and AI increasingly automates routine legal tasks, the true differentiator is shifting toward the quality of the overall client experience — the clarity, empathy, consistency, and sense of care that surround the legal expertise itself.

1. A First Scenario: The Meeting You Dread

(Consider the following story as a starting point for reflection.)

It’s an early Monday morning and you’re trying your best to start the week on the right foot. Unfortunately, your manager had appointed you to meet a new law firm to discuss a complicated contract issue at work. You already know what you expect… a busy office, busier building, and that quiet formality many corporate offices seem to share.

When you finally get there, the glass doors slide open automatically. No one looks up. The receptionist buzzes you in efficiently, her attention split between multiple calls.

– Good morning, I have a meeting with the corporate team, you say, hoping for a hint of direction.

She gestures toward a grey sofa in the corner. You sit there, surrounded by silence and fluorescent light, next to an aging coffee machine that hums in the background. You debate if the extra caffeine is worth the risk.

Your lawyer eventually appears and walks you into a small, airless meeting room. For the next hour, you listen to an avalanche of legal jargon – maybe you understand two words out of a hundred. When it’s finally over, you leave more confused than when you arrived, but relieved that at least they seem to know what they’re doing. The only clear thought you have: next time, please let someone else from the company attend this meeting.

2. Client Relationships in Law Firms

Law firms differ enormously in how they choose to build and manage their client relationships. Although this sector revolves around delivering legal expertise, the interaction itself—and the trust built between the lawyer and the client—can become just as important as the legal outcome. In that relationship, several elements shape the client journey: the level of formality, the transparency with which information is shared, the clarity of communication, and the kind of leadership displayed in each case.

Drawing on Laura’s solid legal background — including five years of law studies and practical experience in law firms — she observed a wide spectrum of communication styles, which we contextualize in this article through the lens of client experience and hospitality. Some firms and lawyers adopt an approach that is strictly formal, sometimes impersonal, and often filled with highly technical language. Others make a conscious effort to help clients understand their case, showing a genuine desire to accompany them in a more personal and accessible way.

Communication often breaks down not because of what is said, but because of what is left unsaid: the lack of clear, continuous updates on a case’s progress, timelines, consequences, and costs. This becomes even more problematic in sensitive areas such as criminal law, where emotional reassurance and clarity are crucial.

In many firms, formality still prevails over warmth, with processes that can feel rigid or bureaucratic—requiring endless documents to open a file or focusing exclusively on the technical aspects of the matter while overlooking the client as a whole person. This often means missing an opportunity to understand the client’s deeper concerns and to lead their legal process with true empathy.

That said, there are also lawyers—and entire firms—that approach their client relationships very differently. They pay attention to what truly matters: the human side of services, and the experiences that are built around the legal relationship beyond its formal structure.

3. Where the Real Competitive Advantage Lies

Looking beyond the legal industry, hospitality offers a powerful framework to understand what client experience truly means. As Pine and Gilmore (1999) describe in The Experience Economy, services—including professional services—are valuable not only because of efficiency or outcomes, but because they design memorable, emotionally resonant interactions and engage with customers in a personal way.

In hospitality, every interaction—from a greeting to the lighting of the room—is designed to anticipate needs, create emotional and physical comfort, and communicate care. This approach is built on true attention to detail, where small thoughtful gestures form the foundation of trust.

This philosophy provides a mirror for professional services like law: both deal with people in moments of uncertainty, both require expertise that inspires confidence, and both have the opportunity to transform a service into an experience that lasts in the mind of their guests or clients.

4. Lessons for Law Firms

To illustrate how hospitality’s principles can manifest in law’s unique context, here are five key recommendations for law firms.

4.1 Personalized Service

When it comes to personalization, the best hotels rely on techniques that allow them to know their guests: their preferences, habits, and stories. They also train their teams to understand who the guest truly is and what they need in specific moments.

Lawyers can do the same from two complementary perspectives. The first involves understanding not only who the client is or which company they represent, but also what they seek emotionally. Seeing the person beyond the case—their aspirations, fears, and values—allows lawyers to adapt communication and guidance accordingly.

At the same time, just as hospitality uses small personal gestures to create memorable experiences, lawyers can pay attention to tangible, seemingly minor details that reflect genuine attention. Remembering a client’s preferred communication channel and how frequently they like to receive updates can transform professional interactions into personalized moments of connection that go far beyond the legal service itself.

This can be operationalized through a simple client profile sheet or CRM note where preferred communication style, update frequency, and key emotional concerns are recorded systematically and used by every lawyer interacting with the client.

4.2 Anticipation

In hospitality, every detail is designed to anticipate a guest’s needs before they are even expressed. Law firms can apply this principle by creating meaningful touchpoints that go beyond the expected lawyer-client interaction. When lawyers know their clients well, they can foresee their need for clarity, reassurance, or confidence—especially during complex or stressful processes.

Simple gestures like sending a short case timeline before an important meeting or proactively clarifying next steps can make clients feel guided and supported. Anticipation becomes not a luxury, but a form of emotional intelligence: the difference between a transactional relationship and a partnership built on trust.

Firms can embed anticipation by creating standard pre-meeting and post-meeting checklists that ensure clients receive timelines, summaries, and clarification before they ever have to ask.

4.3 Trust Recovery

Mistakes are an inevitable part of any human service. Within hospitality, however, they are not seen as the end of the relationship but as opportunities to demonstrate care. Hart, Heskett, and Sasser (1990) showed that, in rare circumstances, a well-executed service recovery can generate higher satisfaction and loyalty than if no failure had occurred. This “service recovery paradox” only emerges when the response is exceptionally timely, generous, and empathetic—conditions that make clients feel genuinely valued.

Translating this idea to the legal field reframes the lawyer–client relationship from one that merely avoids errors to one that intentionally rebuilds confidence when setbacks occur. Because trust is the foundation of legal advising, a transparent explanation, a sincere apology, or a proactive solution can transform a difficult moment into evidence of professionalism and integrity.

This aligns with the argument of Heath and Heath (2017) that memorable service is created through “peak moments.” A service failure creates an emotional low point; when handled with remarkable empathy and ownership, it can be elevated into a meaningful high point that strengthens the relationship. While such outcomes are not common, they illustrate how law firms can gain competitive advantage by borrowing the emotional craftsmanship of hospitality—knowing how to turn a potentially damaging moment into a proof of reliability.

A simple three-step recovery protocol (acknowledge, explain, propose solution) can be trained across teams so that every lawyer responds to setbacks with the same clarity and ownership.

4.4 Service Environment

In hospitality, the physical and sensory environment in which service unfolds is never neutral. Both in physical and virtual spaces, everything is intentionally designed around clients’ real needs. Every light, material, scent, and sound contributes to what Berry and Carbone (2007) call experience clues, which are subtle signals that can make or break how clients feel.

This logic applies to professional services. The environment of a law firm—from its layout and meeting rooms to its website and digital platforms—can amplify a client’s experience or diminish it. When these elements are aligned, they project order, clarity, and calm, fostering confidence and transforming what could be perceived as a cold, intimidating experience into one of reassurance and trust.

Even small, low-cost upgrades—such as warmer lighting, clearer signage, or a more welcoming reception script—can dramatically shift how clients feel the moment they enter.

4.5 Institutionalized Empathy

Finally, empathy, which is often seen in professional services as a personal trait people possess in various degrees, is intentionally cultivated in hospitality as a collective skill. It is designed, trained, and measured through practices, rituals, and feedback loops that ensure every guest feels seen and understood.

Law firms can do the same by redefining empathy as a core element of professionalism rather than a “soft skill.” This means training people for emotional awareness, responsiveness, and clear communication in a culture where transparency and care are rewarded. By institutionalizing empathy and emotional intelligence across all levels of the firm—from the front desk to the partners—firms can create real consistency in the service provided and strengthen trust in the lawyer-client relationship.

In hospitality, empathy is not treated as an individual personality trait but as a human skill that can be taught, rehearsed, and embedded into the culture—what psychologists call a collective capability. It is supported by shared scripts, emotional agility, and team-level norms that help staff regulate their own emotions while responding to guests with clarity and care. Drawing from Susan David’s (2016) work on emotional agility, this means cultivating the ability to notice emotions accurately, name them without judgment, and act with intention rather than impulse. For law firms, framing empathy this way shifts it from something “nice to have” to a disciplined professional practice. When a firm builds common habits around listening, anticipating client concerns, and communicating transparently, empathy becomes consistent across touchpoints—not dependent on which lawyer happens to be in the room. This turns emotional competence into a reliable part of the firm’s service architecture and a subtle source of competitive advantage.

Firms can incorporate a short empathy micro-training into onboarding, use simple reflection prompts in team meetings (“what might this client be feeling?”), or practice role-plays for difficult conversations.

5. A Better Scenario: The Meeting You Remember

(Here is a contrasting story that illustrates what exceptional client experience can look like.)

Even though your meeting with the law firm is still two days away, Melissa from the firm calls that afternoon to prepare. She wants to confirm whether you know how to get there, if you’ll need parking, and whether you have any dietary restrictions. You hang up thinking—this feels… unusual.

When the day comes, she’s already waiting for you in the building lobby. We thought it might be easier to meet you downstairs, she smiles. For a moment, you feel like a VIP.

She guides you upstairs through softly lit hallways where the air smells faintly of pine—like the forest hike you took last summer. The reception area feels calm, elegant, and surprisingly human. She offers you the coffee she’d promised over the phone, served with a small cookie and the firm’s signature spoon. You take a sip and feel your shoulders drop.

Your lawyers greet you soon after, by name, and invite you into a warm, sunlit meeting room with natural light and soft chairs. They start by asking you what’s worrying you most about the case before diving into documents. Each explanation is clear and visual. You leave the meeting not only understanding what will happen next, but feeling reassured that you are in caring and competent hands.

As you step into the elevator, you feel more like a guest of honor than a case file.

Conclusion

In the end, the difference between the two client stories—the grey lobby and the warm welcome—is not about décor or coffee, but about the behaviors that communicate that the person behind the case matters.

Recognizing clients’ humanity means understanding that people rarely remember the clauses, contracts, or legal processes, but they always remember how they were treated, whether in a hotel lobby or a law firm boardroom. The law may operate on facts, but as Brown (2018) argues, trust is built on boundaries, reliability, accountability, vault (confidentiality), integrity, nonjudgment, and generosity. In both hospitality and law, these are the foundations that make clients feel safe, respected, and understood, and that ultimately turn corporate interactions into meaningful experiences.

Perhaps that is hospitality’s lesson for the legal world: the next competitive advantage may not come from AI, legal innovation, or pricing, but from the simple and human art of hosting.

References

Berry, L. L., & Carbone, L. P. (2007). Build loyalty through experience clues. Harvard Business Review, 85(2), 115–120.

Brown, B. (2018). Dare to lead: Brave work. Tough conversations. Whole hearts. Random House.

David, S. (2016). Emotional agility: Get unstuck, embrace change, and thrive in work and life. Avery.

Hart, C. W. L., Heskett, J. L., & Sasser, W. E. (1990). The profitable art of service recovery. Harvard Business Review, 68(4), 148–156.

Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2017). The power of moments: Why certain experiences have extraordinary impact. Simon & Schuster.

Pine, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (1999). The experience economy: Work is theatre & every business a stage. Harvard Business School Press.

Dr. Andreea Antonescu
Visiting Professor, Les Roches Global Hospitality Education (Crans-Montana, Switzerland)
Les Roches