Have you signed up for the Lateral Link Rainmaker series? Our first session will be on Thursday at noon CDT. I hope you will participate.
If you want to get prepared for our June 13 session. I recommend that you take the Gallup StrengthsFinder survey to find your Top 5 Strengths. Knowing them will help you prepare a plan and use your time most wisely. I wrote a blog about it. Click here and if you get a chance click on the link to the report that was done on my Top 5 Strengths. You’ll find it near the bottom of the blog. If I had known them when I was a young lawyer, I would have saved lots of wasted time.
You will also want to print out the 2019 ATTORNEY BUSINESS PLAN TEMPLATE and have it available for our June session.
Ir rarely place associates because I don’t personally know very many. But, if you are a law firm associate, I hope yoi will join me over the next year.
Do your partners tell you:
“We just want you to do good work.”
In other words, the last thing on earth they would want you to do is to spend time building relationships with clients and potential clients. You’ll be okay for a few years, but you have no security. When the economy tanks, firms lay off associates and income partners who “just do good work.”
What is the problem with just doing good work? When you were in law school, generally the best that can be said is that you were taught through the Socratic Method “to think like a lawyer.” You were not been taught what it is like to be a lawyer and were not taught to “think like a client.” Yet, everything you do as a lawyer, even dull and boring document reviews, you are doing for a client.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with firms whose leaders wanted their associates to learn about client development. Many of those firms started programs early in the associates’ careers. I had the opportunity to coach many of the associates as they moved toward partnership. Many of the associates I coached are now top rainmakers in their law firms.
I want to help you develop your client development skills. As I hope you know, you can join me once a month for the next 12 months in the Lateral Link Rainmaker Series. It’s free. Join me and we’ll focus on these three main areas:
- Developing plans with written goals for their non-billable time. Effective time planning and time management is the starting point for successful client development.
- Writing, speaking and networking skills. Lawyers need to become visible and credible to potential clients. I see many articles and blog posts that are intellectually stimulating, but not likely to be read by potential clients.
- People skills and relationship building. Your young lawyers need to know how clients select lawyers and what clients want. They need to be taught to ask good questions and actively listen to answers. They need to work on building relationships by developing trust and rapport. This skill is increasingly important as email, text messages and social media become more popular.
I know first hand from my experience working with associates throughout the United States and Canada that when they figure out what will work best for them, they are more energized about client development. Please join me and I’ll help you figure out what will work best for you. I hope you start on May 9.