How Lawyers Build Trust With Clients: Executive Presence for Lawyers Part 6
Updated: Nov 4
This is Part 6, the final issue in a series on Executive Presence for Lawyers. If you missed the earlier issues, start with what executive presence actually means, or jump to gravitas, strategic communication, delivery or composure. This issue covers trust, the one that ties the other 4 together.
Key Takeaways
Trust isn't declared. It's tested.
Clients watch how you handle small problems before they hand you big ones.
Being right isn't enough.
Trust comes from the same reliable behavior, repeated under real pressure.
Speed is the return on trust.
When clients stop double-checking you, that's the sign you've earned it.
Executive Presence for Lawyers: What an F1 Pit Crew Knows About Trust
1.8 seconds. That's the world record for a Formula 1 pit stop, set by McLaren's crew in 2023. Four tires off, four tires on, car back on the track. Faster than most people blink.
About 20 people work on that car at once. Jack operators front and back. A wheel gun on each corner. Someone pulling the old tire, someone fitting the new one. Someone telling the driver exactly when it's safe to go.
Each person has one job. And in those 1.8 seconds, nobody checks anyone else's work.
Think about how strange that is. 20 people at full speed around a car that could hurt someone if a single job goes wrong. No verification. There's no time for it.
How Lawyers Build Trust With Clients: Tested First, Then Earned
That crew doesn't start at 1.8 seconds. They start in practice, running the same stop hundreds of times before race day. Every rep gets reviewed frame by frame. A dropped nut. A late jack. A wheel gun a fraction of a second slow. All of it gets caught in the garage, not on the track.
Early on, someone checks everything.
Somewhere in those hundreds of repetitions, the checking falls away. Not because anyone stopped caring about precision. Because each person proved, over and over, that their one job gets done right. Once that's proven enough times, nobody needs to verify it. They trust it, and they go full speed.
That's what trust actually looks like. Small proof, repeated, until the checking isn't needed. Then speed.
Want to know where your own executive presence stands? Take the free Lawyer to Leader Assessment.
Why Clients Don't Buy Answers. They Buy Confidence in Your Answer.
I spent nearly two decades as the client. What I was really buying from outside counsel wasn't the answer. It was confidence that someone who understood my world was in my corner.
Every time a client brings you a real problem, they expose something. Their risk tolerance. Their pressure. The thing they're actually worried about. That's their practice rep. They're watching how you handle it before they hand you anything heavier.
Most lawyers think they build trust by being right. Being right matters. But it isn't what trust is made of. Lawyers build trust with clients the way that crew built it: the same reliable behavior, repeated, under real conditions and real pressure.
And once it's there, everything gets faster. The client who used to copy three people on every email starts calling you directly. Their questions get sharper, because you're speaking the same language. That speed isn't a shortcut. It's the return on trust you earned the slow way first.
A Trust Check for Lawyers: Are You Still in the Garage or on the Track?
Pick three working relationships: a client, a partner, a business leader. For each one, ask honestly: are you still in the practice phase with them, or have you earned race-day speed?
Signs you're still in the garage: they check your work, they copy other people on emails to you, they ask you to confirm things you've already confirmed.
That's not an insult. It's information. It means you haven't finished proving something yet. The fix isn't getting defensive. It's tightening the same bolts, reliably, every time.
Executive Presence for Lawyers: How the 5 Elements Fit Together
Five issues ago, this series started with a piece of feedback that means well and helps nobody: you need more executive presence. The point was to take that vague note and turn it into something you can actually work on.
Gravitas was about saying less and meaning every word. Strategic communication was about attaching your idea to something already moving, instead of pushing it uphill alone. Delivery was about what happens in the pause, not just the words around it. Composure was about splitting what's genuinely new from what you can rehearse. And trust ties them together. It's what you build every time you get the first 4 right, in front of the same people, over time.
You don't need to become a different person. You need to practice a specific, learnable set of behaviors. You already have what you need to start.
FAQ: Trust and Executive Presence for Lawyers
How do lawyers build trust with clients?
Through small, repeated proof. Handle the small problems reliably, every time, and clients start handing you bigger ones.
Why isn't being right enough to earn a client's trust?
Clients assume you know the law. What they're judging is whether you understand their world and act the same way under pressure.
How do I know if a client trusts me?
Watch for speed. Fewer people copied, more direct calls, shorter questions. If they still double-check your work, you're still in the practice phase.
Up Next: Four Questions That Get Law Firms on a Client's Short List
That wraps the Executive Presence series. Next week: the 4 questions most firms never ask their clients, and why GCs keep calling the firms that do.
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Jonathan Cullen
Want to see where you stand on executive presence? Take the free Leadership Assessment at jonathancullencoaching.com or book a free discovery call with me here:
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