Standards for legal professionals responding promptly to clients?
<p><em>As an example</em>, <a href="http://www.padisciplinaryboard.org/for-attorneys/rules/rule/3/the-rules-of-professional-conduct#:%7E:text=A%20lawyer%20should%20promptly%20respond%20to%20or%20acknowledge%20client%20communications.&amp;text=The%20client%20should%20have%20sufficient,and%20able%20to%20do%20so." rel="nofollow noreferrer">The Rules of Professional Conduct</a> for the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania state:</p>
<blockquote>
<h3>1.4 Communication</h3>
(a) A lawyer shall:
<p>...</p>
<p>(4) A lawyer should promptly respond to or acknowledge client communications.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>&quot;prompt&quot; and &quot;promptly&quot; are used quite liberally in those above rules – dozens of times.</p>
<p>And yet there is no definition, explanation, or even rough description of what promptness might mean concretely or in detail.</p>
<p>Are there any more concrete, specific, and explicit standards, whether formal or informal?</p>
<p>Are there even any definite <em>examples</em>?</p>
<p>I'd imagine, absent some narrow, and <em>extreme</em>, circumstances, a legal professional responding within five (5) minutes of a client's communication would be definitely prompt.</p>
<p>But what's definitely <em>not</em> prompt? And does that depend on the form of communication? Are legal professionals <em>less</em> obligated to respond, let alone promptly to emails versus phone calls? Is there a hierarchy of promptness expected?</p>
<p>Are there any practical standards, e.g. with regard to malpractice?</p>

<p>Absent a definition in the document, courts apply common English definitions.</p>
<p>Looking at several dictionaries, prompt means an act that is done quickly, without delay, readily or immediately. None of these provides a definitive time frame so prompt would need to be interpreted in the context of the circumstances by what a reasonable person would expect.</p>
<p>For example, for a request like &quot;May I meet you at 4pm today?&quot;, prompt would mean any time before about 3pm.</p>
<p>However, for &quot;Please review this 586-page contract and its 13 attachments and give me a detailed summary&quot;, prompt means before August.</p>

professional-ethics