Excited Utterances

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Notes from Rainmakers

One of my favorite stories from a rainmaker: when he was a young associate at a well-regarded firm, the managing partner sat him down one day and told him: son, you will never have to worry about bringing in clients. It is my job to be the rainmaker. I take care of my team. Later that day, the managing partner fired half the firm. That was the moment the rainmaker realized that his book of business was his own responsibility and was not to be left in the hands of others. He went out and started networking and never looked back. Today, he is the managing partner at a successful law firm. Here's what I've heard from other rainmakers: There is no substitute for being a great lawyer. Expertise and client service are non-negotiable - you must deliver results. Be friendly. People want to work with people they like. No one wants to work with a jerk. You want people to respect and like you. If you're not failing, you're not succeeding. Not every pitch will be successful...

The Science of Happiness Explained

I'm at the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) 2018 Annual Conference in New Orleans, and almost skipped the keynote session - because an hour-long talk about happiness sounded irritating. But actually I didn't want to strangle the speaker at all. The Happiness Professor as she is known, is Catherine Sanderson . She teaches at Amherst College and has degrees from Princeton and Stanford. She presented research from the field of positive psychology that looks at the factors that do (and do not) predict happiness, and provided practical ways that we can increase our own psychological well-being. Things we think will make us happy, but really don’t: Money . (Note: for people worried about survival, this doesn’t apply.) But beyond that, the more of it one has, the more one wants. Climate . Not convinced about this one. As a person who has been living in Florida for 6 years, from Canada, I can tell you that she may have gotten this one wrong. Life event . In oth...

How to get listed in Best Lawyers

The deadline for the next edition of Best Lawyers is coming up on April 15, so here's the rundown on this publication. It is entirely based on peer review, which means that the listings are based on votes by lawyers. But only lawyers who are already listed are eligible to vote. So, you'll need to first get on the ballot, and then do some campaigning. Here's how to approach it: First, you need to get nominated . Nominations are open to anyone, but they ask that lawyers not nominate themselves, so the easiest approach is to have your marketing person nominate you. They can find the link here . Once that's done, you will be on the ballot for voting. One nomination is sufficient. The ballot . I mentioned above that only currently listed lawyers are eligible to vote. But there's a catch: not all lawyers are listed on every ballot, so lawyers can't choose exactly who they vote for. The ballots are designed based on the voter's geographic region and practice a...

How to create and implement a community program at your law firm

Here's how to launch a successful community initiative at your firm. Make sure you have genuine support from your firm's decision makers. If they are not truly behind the effort, you won't get very far. E verything you do should be strategic – partner with client charities, align with your firm's mission and core values. Define how you will measure your community program's success, and track it. Community is a very broad concept so start by organizing your initiative into 3 main categories: giving (i.e. financial donations), hands-on involvement, and pro bono. GIVING - Determine an annual budget, identify the organizations that you plan to support, and amount to allocate to each. You may want to support organizations in which your lawyers hold board positions. You could survey your team for organizations they already support. Or, consider forming an internal committee who will consider sponsorship requests on a case by case basis. As mentioned above, look...

The good news is, legal marketing is all the rage

Is it just me or is legal marketing the hottest topic on the internet these days? Here's a roundup of recent law firm marketing and business development headlines. An article in The American Lawyer by Jennifer Scalzi thoughtfully points out that an effective marketing and business development team can help to identify a firm's true differentiators, implement effective client programs, and hold lawyers accountable to their business plans. But there's a catch: lawyers have to empower their M&BD teams and get out of their comfort zones to make it happen. This requires hearing things they may not want to hear. For instance, a client program may yield feedback that is not all glowing. But, as the author wisely notes, it is in this state of discomfort where opportunities lie. A National Law Review article addresses how firms can use culture as a business development tool. While this article reads more like a plug for an upcoming Thomson Reuters conference than a th...

Book Review: Accelerating Lawyer Success

What does success look like in law firms? The authors, frustrated with the abundance of anecdotal evidence and lack of empirical evidence to answer this question, set out to solve it with research. Their findings are based on studies including a comprehensive, 75-item survey completed by 343 lawyers at U.S. AmLaw 100 firms. They examine, among other things, the differences between lawyers who made partner in less than 10 years and those who didn't. Accelerating Lawyer Success: How to Make Partner, Stay Healthy, and Flourish in a Law Firm. By Lori Berman, Heather Bock, and Juliet Aiken. The authors have uncovered the recipe for how to make partner in less than 10 years. In short, it involves hard work and quality work, strategic relationship building, planning, help from mentors, and a mind-set of being the master of your own fate. You gotta build relationships strategically, invest in them, and leverage them. You need goals, to make plans, and to stick t...