To Rainmake Means To Create And Cultivate Relationships

Rainmaking relies primarily on two assets: reputation and relationships. Reputation flows from technical legal expertise, which most lawyers expect to develop. However, to be useful, reputation requires appreciation by someone else. Without the involvement of another person, it becomes something of a koan (or irreconcilable paradox) much like the sound of one hand clapping: that is, what good is reputation with no one to recognize it? (Lawyers fall into this trap when they expect that doing good work will be enough to build a successful practice.) And that’s where relationships enter the picture.

Without enough relationships, or relationships of adequate depth, any lawyer will find it difficult to generate new billable work. The contacts most likely to yield that work will vary depending on the practice at issue (CFOs of midsized corporations for tax attorneys; foreign-owned businesses for immigration lawyers), but in general, the more contacts you have in your target field, the more likely you’ll get business from them, assuming that you build relationships with them. Relationships in which others have the opportunity to know, like, and trust you provide the exposure and comfort level that build confidence. Confidence, in turn, prompts contacts to hire or refer lawyers.

Attending rainmaker training or reading books about some aspect of rainmaking (Legal Business Development by Jim Hassett and A Lawyer’s Guide to Networking by Susan Sneider) is certainly beneficial, primarily for learning strategies, being exposed to new tactics, and presenting case studies as teaching examples. For many lawyers, though, that kind of learning isn’t enough. To become highly skilled in rainmaking, some lawyers need to work with a mentor, a coach, or rainmaking group.

Coaches And Coaching Groups Can Help You Become A Rainmaker

Working with a mentor, coach, or a coach-led rainmaking group helps lawyers get objective feedback about their client development goals, develop a strategy for reaching those goals, identify the high-payoff activities that harness the lawyer’s strengths and match his or her preferences, create a step-by-step plan to incorporate those tactics into a routine, and overcome the obstacles that will inevitably arise. By creating a structure in which the lawyer is accountable for the actions he or she is taking, the mentor, coach, or group also creates a structure for success.

Those who aren’t yet ready to engage a coach or coach-led rainmaking group, or who want more assistance than a single mentor can provide, may draw on a coaching approach to progress more rapidly. Setting up a peer group of two to ten lawyers for rainmaking development pays tremendous dividends if designed properly, and you can create a strong group in six steps.

1. Create a structure for accountability and support. Whether you decide to work independently or with a group, setting a specific time to focus on your rainmaking goals guarantees that you will make progress. Plan to meet regularly with a partner or group and agree to hold one another accountable for completing the steps that you identify during each meeting. Because meetings may run off-track without a facilitator, each member should take a turn as leader.

2. Begin by setting your business development goals. Ensure that each member sets a standard by which he or she can judge progress. Perhaps you want to build a referral network, to land $50,000 of client work within the next year, or to grow your book of business to $500,000 before you’re up for a partnership vote. The goal must be specific, measurable, achievable, and time-based.

3. Set a strategy to reach your goal. If your goal is to build a referral network, for example, you might decide to do so by networking and speaking. Consider your strengths and preferences in determining what kinds of activities are most likely to help you reach your goal.

4. Develop a step-by-step tactical approach to your strategy. If your goal is to land $50,000 of billable work, you might start by investigating whether your current clients have unmet legal needs or whether you might take over additional work from another lawyer with whom your clients are dissatisfied. You might elect to reconnect with former clients and contacts and set a regular schedule for doing so. Depending on the partner or group with whom you’re working as you lay your plans, you might want to share only the broad outlines. Working with a mentor or coach will afford you confidentiality that may lead to more profitable brainstorming on tactics.

5. Incorporate education into your meetings. You’ll find many helpful ideas and resources in legal business development books, articles, and blogs. Look into other fields as well, and adapt their approaches to suit your rainmaking goals. Don’t recreate the wheel. Compose a reading list or list of resources that will expand your knowledge of tested business development tactics. If you’re working with a mentor, ask what he or she would suggest you study; if you’ve built a group, rotate responsibility for reporting on a resource or ask each member to bring a new idea to each meeting.

6. Share progress and request help with challenges. Begin each meeting by sharing successes. Although the obvious success is a new client or matter, be sure to recognize smaller accomplishments such as completing a dreaded business development task or attending a networking event. At least once a month, each member should have 10-20 minutes to present a challenge that he or she is facing and to receive clarifying questions and suggestions from other members.

This structure will ensure that you build a high-accountability, high-support group that will help each member progress. Absolute confidentiality is required for success, particularly in an area as sensitive as business development. While the ideal is to arrange a group drawn from a variety of practice areas and preferably broad geography (to minimize the risk of conflicts and the perception of such a risk), doing so is difficult for a member-organized group. Instead, require airtight confidentiality memorialized in a signed agreement, and seek to include lawyers from a single firm or lawyers who know each other well.

Whatever relationship you choose to support the growth of your client development skills, remember that consistency is required, both in terms of meeting with your mentor, coach, or group, and in becoming a rainmaker.

Post from: The Complete Lawyer

No related posts.

Delegating well pays immediate dividends through work product that is completed according to the assigning lawyer’s request. It also opens coaching and mentoring opportunities, whether implicit (the lawyer to whom you’re giving an assignment learns by example how she should delegate work), or explicit (you coach or mentor her on some aspect of the assignment).

Avoid Five Common Mistakes

To delegate effectively, begin by eliminating these five common mistakes:

1. Rushing. Many lawyers first define the scope of a delegated project as they’re making the assignment. When you rush into delegating, you’re likely not to get what you need. You end up frustrated over the time you lost rather than saved. In the end you have to do the work yourself (or re-delegate it), with the added stress of bumping into a deadline because of the wasted time.

2. Delegating too little. Lawyers are highly skilled and self-reliant, and too many of us believe that we should be in control of every aspect of our practices. But here’s some news: you are not the Lone Ranger. Failing to delegate costs you time. What’s worse, if you don’t give your staff and junior colleagues stretch projects that challenge and engage them, they won’t advance professionally. They’ll get bored and probably move on to another position; worse yet, you’ll find yourself surrounded by “zombies” who show up at the office every day but are completely disengaged from their work.

3. Delegating too much. The first problem with over-delegating is, of course, that it presents numerous ethical issues. You cannot delegate legal work to non-lawyers without adequate supervision, and you should not delegate legal work to other lawyers without appropriate supervision.

Even when you’re delegating administrative tasks only, over-delegation results in poor practice management. You should not perform the day-to-day administrative tasks required for your practice, but you must be able to do so if you find yourself short-staffed. This doesn’t mean that you should be as skilled as your assistants at everything from filing to document formatting to mail room procedures, but you should know enough to muddle your way through when necessary.

4. Micromanaging. Micromanaging produces problems similar to those encountered with under-delegating, though the problems arise even more quickly and tend to be more acute. Micromanagement undermines the confidence and morale of the person to whom you’ve delegated because it sends the message that you don’t trust his or her judgment. That person may leave or become a zombie as previously described, but more likely he or she will become frustrated and resentful. Micromanagers often have a reputation as being impossible to please, and those who cannot be pleased often find that those who work with them quit trying.

Equally troublesome, micromanagement prevents people who are doing the work from exercising their own judgment and expanding their professional development. Those who are micromanaged don’t have the opportunity to bring their perspectives and ideas to the table, which means that the micromanager doesn’t have the chance to be wowed by what those who’ve been assigned the work could do if only they had the freedom.

5. Not managing enough. Failure to manage results in the same problems that rushing and over-delegation can produce. You may encounter ethical issues that could have been avoided with proper supervision, and you may not receive the work product that you wanted and expected.

Become An Excellent Delegator In Six Steps

Fortunately, learning to become an excellent delegator requires only two habits: forethought and repetition. Think through the key aspects of any assignment and delegate using the answers to six classic questions: Who, what, when, where, how, and why?

Who has the skills necessary to complete this assignment? Consider not only the most capable candidates, but also how taking on the assignment will affect the candidates’ professional development. Depending on the task at issue, if a potential delegate has been doing the task flawlessly for an extended period of time, perhaps it’s time to give her a more challenging assignment and to pass the task on to someone else.

What needs to be done, precisely? What work product do you want to receive? Describe your desired outcome in detail. Phrasing the assignment and the desired result clearly will ensure that the person doing the work knows what you want to receive.

When is the deadline? One of the key problems in making assignments is the temptation to resort to a non-specific deadline. “Friday” is not an adequate statement of the deadline unless Friday at 11:59 p.m. is acceptable to you. By the same token, “ASAP” is subject to so many different interpretations (from “drop everything and do this now” to “make sure this is done today”) that it’s best avoided. Instead, specify the deadline (“Wednesday, no later than 3 p.m.”) and confirm that the person doing the work expects to be able to meet the deadline you set.

Where and How should the project be completed? “Where” is generally less important than “how,” though if you know that research must start in the library rather than online, be sure to mention that, especially to newer lawyers. When you describe how the assignment should be completed, tread carefully to avoid the risks of micromanagement and insufficient management, and consider the experience level of the person completing the work when you make the assignment.

Why is this work necessary? Sometimes it’s beneficial to provide context and background to orient the person doing the work as to how the project fits into the larger picture. Context and factual issues may change everything—from strategy to the answer to a specific research question. Providing the background is not always necessary, but consider it in each assignment so that you’ll be sure to include the extra information when doing so would be helpful.

Ensure That The Plan Is Being Followed

Thinking through each of these aspects of an assignment increases the chances that you will get the work product that you want, when you want it. You might also consider two additional steps to ensure that those to whom you have delegated work understood the assignment correctly and that it’s going according to plan.

First, ask the person to restate, using his own words, what he understands the assignment to be and what kind of work product he expects to produce. Consider how you phrase this request: “Let’s be sure we’re on the same page” sets an entirely different tone from, “Ok, I want to be sure you understand what I want.”

Second, ask the person doing the work to check in with you a few days into the project. You’ll have an opportunity to be sure that the work is going in the right direction and to clear up any questions. And please note that saying, “Check with me if you have any problems” is not sufficient to accomplish this. Instead, arrange a time (even if it’s just a specific morning or afternoon) for a short conversation.

The check-in conversation also offers an opportunity for coaching or mentoring the person to whom you’ve delegated work. If, for example, you asked a junior lawyer to contact a witness and get certain information, you might find that the questions she asked were narrowly drawn and lacked follow-up—as a result, you got only part of the information needed. Rather than giving in to frustration and venting at the junior lawyer, take the extra five or ten minutes to ask questions to help her understand what information she should have elicited and how she should have done so. Asking questions such as, “What information will we need to support our position?” and “What questions might you ask to get to that information?” will ensure that the assignment is completed properly this time and will also help the junior lawyer understand how to approach the next assignment.

Post from: The Complete Lawyer

No related posts.

Fact #2: Despite the economic climate, some attorneys are growing their practices by bringing in new business and clients and, in some cases, expanding practice areas. These lawyers find more satisfaction because they’re working with clients they enjoy. They have more professional options and security because they know how to satisfy clients, generate referrals, and keep a steady stream of new work.

Fact #3: Rainmakers are the last lawyers to be cut and the first to be solicited for new employment. Client development and retention are key skills in today’s economy. No matter how times may change, if you can generate new work and new clients on a consistent basis, your practice will thrive.

Rainmaking isn’t a skill taught in law school, and far too often, lawyers fall prey to the mystique of the “natural rainmaker”—that if they don’t already know how to get new work, they can’t learn the skill. In fact, many lawyers secretly wish that they could simply provide excellent work product and let others get new business. That’s rarely an option in today’s economy for anyone other than junior associates in large law firms.

Networking Can Be A Natural Outgrowth Of Your Interests

Networking is a time-tested method of developing the relationships that lead to business. Unfortunately, networking often carries a vaguely distasteful image of crowded rooms in which aggressive people force business cards on anyone who will listen to their tales of business glory. Many lawyers (and certainly most introverts) who think of networking in that light shudder and resolve to try something less odious.

A lawyer once contacted me to ask how a nice but socially awkward introvert (her words, not mine!) could begin rainmaking. The lawyer, let’s call her Margaret, described her discomfort with small talk and braggadocio, both of which she perceived to be integral to business development success. Margaret further explained that she felt no desire to play golf and would prefer to make client connections due to her legal skill. Margaret’s quandary boiled down to one key question: “Can I bring in business and still be myself?” Especially because I consider myself to be somewhat of an introvert, I empathized with Margaret’s situation and shared the tactic that has always worked well for me: gaining contacts through substantive working groups of industry and bar associations.

Networking based on substantive work harnesses a lawyer’s technical skill, generates almost endless opportunities for conversation, and offers opportunities for attaining leadership positions. Because leadership creates the perception of expertise as well as increased visibility, lawyers who attain leadership roles have the chance to become known by the members of the association for their expertise without engaging in endless small talk at cocktail parties. Personal contact advances relationships, and using substantive work as a springboard for those conversations may feel more comfortable, especially for introverts and those who would prefer to focus on work. Through the substantive work, relationships grow and develop organically, often into professional friendships based on respect and trust, which sets the stage for client development.

Another advantage of this work is that it’s appropriate for lawyers at any stage of practice. More junior lawyers might take on a role in coordinating and assimilating others’ work, or they might find a way to work with more senior lawyers by writing profiles of the group’s leaders for publication in an association newsletter, for example. More senior lawyers are often in a position to be thought leaders who help shape the direction that the law or practice should take, and they’re often invited to speak or to write for the group. In addition, association work can yield mentorship opportunities that benefit both the junior and senior attorneys.

Post from: The Complete Lawyer

No related posts.

• The Decision: Should I go solo? What are the benefits? Can I hang out a shingle straight out of law school?
• Planning the Great Escape: How do I leave my current position? How do I actually begin a practice? Who will my clients be?
• The Practice: How do I handle clients and billing? How do I manage my cash flow? How do I grow my practice, and what happens if I get more work than I can handle, or if a matter involves an unfamiliar practice area?
• Marketing: Where will I find clients? Do I go with “traditional advertising” (Yellow Pages and billboards) or should I rely on the Internet? Where can I get the most bang for my marketing buck?
• Frequently Asked Questions: How can I compete with other lawyers and law firms? Will clients really hire a new solo? How do I learn the nitty-gritty parts of practice? How do I move from a large firm or government position to solo work? How do I handle part-time work and maternity leave? If my practice doesn’t go well, how do I know whether or when to throw in the towel?

A meaty appendix concluding the book adds a wealth of information and resources. (An index would have been equally helpful). Throughout the book, Elefant’s tone is consistent: she’s a mentor who’s undergone the transition, experienced the challenges, and prospered. By including experiences and tips from other solos, she subtly models one of her key messages: although a solo may be the only lawyer in his or her practice, every solo must have relationships with lawyers who can pass off overflow work, lend a hand with a legal or practice management question, and provide camaraderie and support. Aspiring solos will appreciate the simplicity of Elefant’s advice. For instance, she offers six reasons to go solo (including the desire for autonomy, practical experience, flexibility, and career satisfaction); five common motives for hanging out a shingle (a long-held dream, unhappiness in a large firm, wanting to be a stay-at-home mom, having been fired, and wanting to practice law on one’s own terms); several self-assessment questions to judge whether you have the solo temperament; and a framework for a financial and economic analysis of going solo. She then narrows this analysis to three essential questions:

1. Are you willing to do what it takes to establish your firm?
2. Are you confident with your lawyering skills?
3. Will you regret it?

Elefant also substantively addresses the financial aspects of solo practice. Encouraging new solos not to adopt the billable hour model simply because of its familiarity, she delves into alternative methods of charging clients; how to determine an appropriate fee and how to get paid, as well as how to generate fast cash (through temporary agencies, requesting contract work, approaching legal services plan networks, public appointments, and more); and how to market for direct clients. Lawyers who’ve been sole practitioners for several years will find the marketing chapters particularly helpful. This readable book is an invaluable resource. If you’re wondering whether solo practice might be right for you, if you’re on the cusp of beginning your own practice, or if you’re struggling to make your new solo practice work, you will benefit from Elefant’s concrete, detailed, implementable suggestions. You’ll also be inspired—or reinspired—by your decision. Few books, no matter how useful, are destined to become classics in their field, but Solo by Choice is one of those few.

RESOURCE Elefant, Carolyn, Solo by Choice: How to Be the Lawyer You Always Wanted to Be, Niche Press/DecisionBooks, January 2008

Post from: The Complete Lawyer

No related posts.

Today’s associates must do more, however, beginning with their first days in the firm. Expand Herrmann’s advice to include learning practice skills that will be the foundation of the way you will serve clients and develop new business. Consider yourself an apprentice of the lawyers with whom you’re working and study how they interact with clients. What do clients like, and what raises their ire? How do these lawyers approach business development?

Don’t stop with the lawyers you work with regularly; seek out mentors who will guide and encourage you—and also serve as resources for the questions that you may not want to ask the lawyers who will determine your career advancement. Some firms have started to create programs that treat junior associates as apprentices and invite them to observe how legal work is done. If you’re not working at one of those firms, though, search out your own opportunities.

What to learn from these lawyers? Excellence in client service and rainmaking requires a range of skills and attitudes, of course, but three skills underlie all of the others:

1. Ask Thought-provoking Questions

To serve a client well and to become the kind of advisor to whom a client will turn repeatedly over time, you must know the client’s goals. The same is true in business development: understanding the client’s concerns is a prerequisite for getting the business. Don’t, however, get caught up in asking a brilliant question or a question that reveals how much you know. Instead, aim for open-ended questions that focus on the matter at hand and provide space for a client to move into broader business concerns.

Asking expansive questions allows the client to guide the conversation as he prefers; follow-up questions draw out the necessary information. Depending on the context, the following questions serve as good conversation-starters:

• What are your ultimate objectives?
• How does this matter fit into the broader business context?
• What are you most concerned about?
• What do you need from this situation and what would you like?
• What are the biggest obstacles you see?

Follow-up questions can be as simple as:

• Tell me more?
• What else should I know?
• What’s an example of ___?

Create the opportunity for your client (or potential client) to share what’s on her mind with you. Your goal is to get the facts, understand her concerns, and draw out as much information as possible. Simple questions are usually best. To make the most of this skill, however, you need to master the next one.

Post from: The Complete Lawyer

No related posts.