As I write this, I am staring at a jar of pickles; a large jar of dill pickles, tasty dill pickles.

If you have attended a continuing education conference, you know that typically the conference room is surrounded by tables occupied with legal support vendors such as court reporters, retrieval companies, life planning experts, legal-nurse consultants, and technology firms, just to name a few.

Vendor’s typically have a bowl on the table where attendees drop business cards to enter a prize drawing. Generally, the prizes are a bottle of wine or liqueur, an iPad, a basket filled with BBQ supplies, a gift card or other generic prizes.

T-Scan’s door prize is a a large jar of tasty dill pickles.

Our door prize is different and stands out in the crowd, as does T-Scan.

An Unlikely Comparison: Pickles and Record Retrieval

Giving away a jar of pickles is different. A pickle door prize is so different in fact that watching the reactions on people’s faces is half the fun. These reactions fall into four categories:

I Hate Pickles

When we first started giving out a jar of pickles, we had no idea just how polarizing a dill pickle can be.

Inevitably, at least one or two people during a conference will come up to our table not to enter the prize pool, not to inquire about our services, but to specifically let us know just how much they hate pickles. Some people really hate the pickle – particularly the dill pickle – and are not shy in saying so.

After they get that off their chest, they tell us about someone close to them – a brother, a spouse, or a child – who loves dill pickles. This realization that while they do not like pickles, but know others who do, often leads to the realization that even though they do not use retrieval services themselves, they have a colleague, a paralegal, who does need retrieval services. Or, their hatred of pickles leads them into discussing how they hate gathering medical records themselves. So, we have a conversation about retrieval services.

By the end of their time at the table, they will still hate pickles, but now have a new resource for gathering records.

I Love Pickles

More often than not, people love, love, love, dill pickles. We have paralegals, attorneys, claims adjusters, husbands, wives, and kids come up and enter in the sincere hope of winning a jar of pickles. I have even had my picture taken for newsletters with the winner of the pickles so that she would have a keepsake. In the process of discussing our mutual love of pickles, more often than not, we get invited to present our services at their office. All because of a jar of pickles.

Sense of Humor

The legal and legal support industry, can be a stressful environment. Everyone has a deadline that is either right around the corner or was missed. Everyone has someone demanding work product or resolution immediately.

In our stressful environment, a sense of humor is a must. If a jar of pickles sitting on a table during a continuing education conference does anything, it does confer humor. An overwhelming majority of people appreciate the sense of humor about it all and come up to tell us so.

Relieving stress, a client’s stress, is exactly what we aim to do every single day. The jar of pickles illustrates this better than any other door prize.

No Humor

Once in a while, someone will look at the jar of pickles and just not get it – or worse, be offended. Sometimes, even the best efforts cannot make someone happy. It is a lesson and a warning.

There is one person I see from time to time who has never understood the jar of pickles. I have seen this person stare at the jar from across the room, nonplussed and utterly confused. It is a reminder that sometimes, while we inherently understand our reasoning and processes, others do not.

T-Scan strives to be a transparent legal service. That person staring at that jar of pickles reinforces our desire to always keep communications between the client and T-Scan open, detailed, and clear.

Now, if I could only get that person to talk to me...

The Side Compliments the Main Dish

In the end, that jar of pickles illustrates our service model. Sure, you can have a sandwich without a pickle on the side. You can have a hot dog without relish or a burger without pickles.

But, why? The pickle compliments the main dish.

T-Scan handles the labor-intensive task of gathering records. Paralegals, attorneys, and adjusters need the records we retrieve to perform their various duties and serve their clients – our role is to support. Our service is a piece of the puzzle that completes the plate.

We are not the main course of litigation work, though our service ties the pieces together just like pickles. Our service compliments your work. Sure, you can retrieve records on your own, making the calls, sending the faxes, double-checking the provider costs, cutting the checks, organizing the record in preparation to working the case, but why? Don’t you want to be able to just focus on the casework? T-Scan record retrieval compliments the role of our clients as they serve their own.

Besides, we really do relish retrieving those records (see, what I did there?).