Lucy Gellman Photo
Attorney John Wynne Jr. wants to hear from you— but he’d prefer to hear your voice, not just see your words on his phone.
Wynne isn’t ready to fully surrender to the text-message revolution just yet. He’s holding out for continuing to talk to his clients.
Wynne’s personal injury law firm in New Haven has seen many changes since his great-grandfather began practicing law in 1881.
Over the past 30 years Wynne’s law office has gone from paper to computer to texting. But he is determined not to eliminate a conversation with a client from the mix.
In the past, he said, an advertisement or a television ad would elicit a phone call from a would-be client. That was then.
“Now we get a text message or an email. I respond by saying, ‘Call me. I want to talk to you.’
“Some do. But some just want to do email. But you need to meet the client, at least initially in order to get some information. You need to listen to each other. ”
Wynne said a telephone call has a better chance to produce a natural give and take that leads to information crucial to a case.
He described a recent case: “I have a client who, when we finally started to talk, the case turned out to be totally different. This was a medical malpractice issue and involved a man being treated in a group home. During the conversation he told me that a railing on a stairway had been removed and that was why he fell. If we had not had that personal phone call, I would not have heard about the railing … I wouldn’t have found out what the case was all about.”
Wynne’s grandfather and father also practiced law in New Haven. That began a family tradition that continues in New Haven to this day.
A couple of weeks back, Mayor Toni Harp declared Nov. 17 “Buckley, Wynne & Parese Day” in honor of John Parese, who officially became a named partner and a part of the law firm’s family on that day.
Wynne and his law school classmate John Buckley, Jr., have practiced law for 30 years together. They are personal injury lawyers. They also take cases involving product liability, medical and legal malpractice, auto accidents and insurance litigation. Wynne spoke about the changes he has seen over those times — and his voice-versus-text quest — on WNHH radio’s “Legal Eagle” program. Click on or download the above sound file to hear the episode.
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