In this economy, many lawyers are facing an unanticipated fork in the road. Layoffs leave some lawyers contemplating an exit from the profession, others considering whether to launch a solo practice, and others still looking to shift practice areas in hopes of finding a new position. I recently watched a video of a presentation for […]
This week’s rainmaking activity focuses on publications. A “slow yield” activity that’s critical for growing substantive legal skill and reputation for expertise, every lawyer should have a few publications to his or her name. Your task this week: select an issue on which you’d like to write a practical article and a publication in which […]
How do you ask for business? We all know intuitively (or through training) that those who don’t ask typically don’t get business. However, many lawyers are leery to come out and ask for business explicitly, and rightly so. Asking can disrupt a relationship if the answer is “no,” and, under some circumstances, asking can even […]
Studies show that a prospective client must be exposed to you 7-9 times before they’re ready to hire you. (Those statistics are not specific to law, granted, but I have no reason to believe they’re off the mark for lawyers.) The reasons are simple: most potential clients don’t have a current legal need, are already […]
Do you know how to get the most from your sponsorships? Getting in front of a group of potential clients can mean different things to different people. These are some of the considerations I recommend you evaluate if you’re contemplating taking on a sponsorship: Who will be present? Potential clients or referral sources are good; […]
Have you ever been in one of those deadly conversations in which a lot of words fly about and yet nothing happens? Or when decisions are made and strategies are crafted, but everyone sitting around the table knows that nothing will actually change because everyone is talking around the real problem? What a waste of […]
I’m on vacation this week, sort of. By “sort of,” I mean that I’m more or less alternating vacation and work days. Today is a work day; tomorrow, I’ll be out playing. The image to the left? That’s where I spent part of Saturday and Sunday, reading some of the books that have been on […]
I gave a 1-hour presentation about rainmaking last week in the Chicago office of a large law firm, and following the presentation, a lawyer approached with a question: Is it ever too late to rebuild professional relationships that have languished? The short answer is that it depends on the relationship. The deeper the relationship, the […]
At last week’s ABA meeting, I attended an interesting business development program titled Making Rain in a Drought. Although the presenter had generated a full presentation with PowerPoint slides, the audience began asking questions fairly quickly and their questions became the focus of the program. One question struck me particularly. A woman stood and asked […]
I presented a Presidential Showcase Program at the ABA Annual Meeting today, titled Seven Secrets Every Lawyer Must Know to Thrive, Even in a Recession. Mark Hansen of the ABA Journal posted a short summary of the program. The presentation garnered some good questions from the standing-room only crowd.