Thinking of overwhelming this morning because we woke up at about 4:00 AM to the tornado siren outside our house. A few minutes later we, along with the dog were huddled in the closet and heard and felt a tremendous wind going over our house. Just a couple of minutes later it was quiet again.

One of the great joys I have working with law firms across the US and Canada is the opportunity to meet and learn something new from outstanding lawyers.

One example is Pierre Raymond, one of Canada’s leading M&A lawyers, and  the former chair of the well known Canadian firm, Stikeman Elliott. Pierre and I served as a panel sharing ideas with the Stikeman Elliott associates.

I enjoyed listening to Pierre and asked him to share some of the same ideas with you. Here is Pierre’s guest blog.

When I talk about Business Development to articling students, associates or junior partners, my mantra is always the same, irrespective of their seniority:

1. Get known by as many potential clients as possible;
2. Earn the trust of the potential clients; and
3. “Ask for the order”.

Throughout our career, everything we do in Business Development revolves around these three directives.

1. Get known by as many potential clients as possible: the lawyers senior to you in your firm when you are starting your career and members of the business community when you are a partner.

As an articling student or junior associate, your very first aim ought to be: every associate senior to me and every junior partner in my firm (they are your first pool of clients and will remain so for numerous years) knows (i) that I exist and (ii) that I am eager to work, not only for the lawyers of the firm in general but specifically for him or her.

There are may ways to achieve this goal, here are a few thoughts. You ought to look for a way to distinguish yourself from the crowd: make the first move.

You would be surprised to know how impressive it is for a “senior” to be politely approached by a younger lawyer who introduces himself or herself to me, for example, in an elevator, the lawyers lounge, an office get together, a retreat or (the best) who knocks on my office door and who tells me unequivocally something like “my name is x. I understand you do public M&A and, next time there is an opportunity, I would be very interested to work with you and learn from you”.

Sounds corny? Wrong, big time wrong!

Let the older guy (me) tell you: it is hard not to be impressed by the forthrightness and desire to work shown by a young lawyer who approaches you in such a way. The next time that I am looking for help, do you think that I will be leaning towards asking the articling students/junior associates who wait in their office for seniors to knock on their door to give them work or towards asking the fellow who “got himself/herself known” to me and “asked for the order” a week or two before? Don’t be shy, your seniors will truly be favourably disposed towards you as a result.

2. Earn the trust of the potential clients: being socially apt is useful, but the lawyers senior to you/the external clients will not handover to you the file/ business they are responsible for unless they think you are smart, knowledgeable, reliable and will bring value to the resolution of the matter.

This is not just a fuzzy concept you read about in books (or blogs). As you work on a file for a senior or for an external client, -every day-, ask yourself if you are, at this very moment, earning the trust of your client (internal or external) as a result of

(a) the quality of the work you do for your client this very day,

(b) the timeliness of your deliverable,

(c) the way you summarize verbally your findings, etc.

Every day, be aware of that. Each of those item is an opportunity to earn (or loose) the trust of your client. Don’t miss it.

In my view, one of the best Business Development tools per se and also a great tool to develop your business development abilities is to give a substantive presentation to your practice group or to an external client. Every year, you should participate in two or three of such presentations.

By doing so, you obviously touch on the first two segments of the mantra. But, as or more importantly, such presentations are hard to beat at demonstrating your substance on a particular topic, and in general, hence at gaining the trust of your potential clients.

Of course, giving a presentation can be intimidating at first. But cut your teeth with your practice group, then move on to the whole section. Also, you don’t have to do it all by yourself.

Share the presentation with someone else, it will dilute the stress. Same for client presentations or even lunches with clients, bring someone from another section. It will make the presentation or the lunch livelier and the clients will feel that they got insights from two lawyers with two different backgrounds instead of only one.

3. Ask for the order. Lawyers usually agree with the first two segments of the mantra but are often shy to “ask for the order” explicitly. They push back and say to me “I don’t need to be that outright, the client must know that this is what I am looking for”.

Obviously, you need to be polite but leave the ambiguity at home and you must hear yourself say: internally:

“Do you think that I could be on your team for your next litigation file?”; to an external client:

“Would you retain me and my firm for your next acquisition?”

Doing anything less than that will raise doubt in your clients’ mind as to your determination or you will give them an easy excuse to use someone else who is more insisting (and your internal or external competitors will not be shy, trust me!)

By the way, senior associates and junior partners also ought to knock on their seniors’ doors to get better known (as suggested in 1. above for articling students and junior associates) but principally to “Ask for the order.

Senior associates and junior partners are usually not very keen to do this and say to me:

“I can’t go and knock on doors of lawyers senior to me and ask outright for work, the seniors will think that I am not busy” (and hence that I am probably not a good lawyer in the eyes of the lawyers who generate work in the office).

This is simply paranoia or a bad excuse! Again, the seniors are really pleasantly impressed to see the juniors eager to work and proactive to fill their plate. And, by the way, all seniors have had (and more than once!) a slow period and they will probably secretly think that they should have done then exactly what you are doing now with them!

You can’t get yourself to admit to seniors that you are not busy? Say a white lie (and if you are busy, you nonetheless need to plant the seeds for when you will experience a slow down, say the truth):

“I am quite busy these days, but I would really like to work with you/but we haven’t worked together in a long time. Can you keep me in mind in the near future ?”

Note that I said “Can you keep me…” and not “Please keep me…” Subtle pressure will not hurt!

To sum up, if you look at the Business Development tool kit, some of its tools can, at the outset, be intimidating as they require time, commitment, social skills, etc. But other tools are immediately accessible, numerous small steps that you can easily insert in your everyday routine.

Yes, it requires stepping out of our comfort zone, but ever so slightly. Really. And, as it is for any other matter in our life, stepping out a bit of our comfort zone is…fun and tremendously rewarding professionally and personally.

Pierre Raymond

 

 

A lawyer I coached recently went in-house with a well known corporation. I asked him what he knows now that he wished he had known when he was in private practice. Here are his tips:

Tip #1: Spell my name correctly. That goes for both me and my business. I will likely be forwarding your e-mail or letter to someone else. I will not do that if you cannot get my name or my business’s name correct.

Tip #2: I am looking for expertise when I hire outside counsel. I have l been practicing law for many years and probably have some basic knowledge on most subjects. When I see your bio and you have seven things (unless they are related) as your area of practice, I will move on and assume you don’t specialize in my area of need.

Tip #3: Get to know my business beyond a superficial level. Pay attention to my industry. That sounds egotistical from a client standpoint, but it will do you well in the long run. The better you know my business, the better advice you will give.

Tip #4: Don’t take me for granted. Don’t assume that because I have hired you, I will always hire you for other work or the same work. You may never know how many other firms would like me to hire them for your work. You ought to be routinely reaching out to me to see how things are going.

Bonus: If you are hosting me, don’t prominently display competing products. I get that not everyone buys my company’s products, but it is annoying.

My 2015 Business Plan:

My plan 2015 has many similar goals to past plans, most of which focus on getting in front of current and potential clients. But, this year’s goals will be achieved in somewhat different ways than in the past.

In 2011, Lamson, Dugan and Murray partner, Craig Martin, wrote: A 2012 Business Plan to Get in Front of Existing and Potential Clients. I asked Craig to share his ideas with you on his plan for 2015.

Relationship Building:

This year I will be serving on the Boards for both the Cornhusker Chapter for Associated Builders and Contractors and the Omaha Chapter for the National Association of the Remodeling Industry These board positions should provide excellent opportunities to build relationships with industry members.

Industry Presentations:

 I will continue to provide Lunch & Learns for clients and friends in the construction industry. This year I have also been invited to present at a bonding company’s regional meeting for its Midwestern clients. I am also looking into providing a webinar for ABC National. Blogging. I will continue to blog twice a week on the Construction Contractor Advisor , writing about construction industry trends and topics of interest. Blogging has become a tremendous resource for new clients. My goal this year is to be named in the ABA Journal’s Blawg 100.

While this year’s plan is not full of new ideas, it is so rewarding to reap the benefits of previous year’s business plans. If I had not made it a goal to become more involved in industry organizations, I never would have been asked to serve on these boards. If I had not been presenting to industry members, I never would have been asked by a bonding company to speak at their regional meeting. And, if I had not been blogging, I would not have generated nearly as many clients or gotten to the first page of Google for Nebraska Construction Attorney searches.

A couple of months ago I received an email from Frank Strong, Communications Director of LexisNexis. Frank wanted to provide me access to the LexisNexis Law Practice Management Software in the Cloud. Frank sent the PR piece and a blog: 10 Reasons to Love LexisNexis Firm Manager for Law Firm Practice Management . I suggested that LexisNexis do a guest blog for you to learn more about the Practice Management Software.

Guest blog by Loretta Ruppert is the Sr. Director with LexisNexis Firm Manager. Loretta brings experience as a previous business owner and legal technology consultant, a manager of professional services for a CPA firm, an accountant, and a subject matter expert for developing back-office software. Probably most relevant, she is a former law firm employee and user of law firm practice management and financial systems. Find her on Twitter @LorettaRuppert.

The “cloud” is something approaching a nebulous term that has nonetheless worked its way into the lawyerly lexicon.

According to a recent LexisNexis Firm Manager survey, 40 percent of small law firm attorneys say they are already using the cloud; 50 percent say they are more likely to use cloud tools, and 72 percent say their firm is more likely to use cloud tools this year than they were in the last.

So it’s a done deal then isn’t it – everyone’s going cloud diving? Not exactly. The cloud comes with reservations – and specifically the top two reservations from the same survey results are 1) security and 2) ethics.

Law firms considering the cloud would be well advised to vet the security of any cloud provider. This is both a matter of IT security and policy. With regard to IT security, firms need to ensure the technology they select affords them the data protection they expect for storing confidential client files. By contrast, policy centers on data ownership – and assurances that what a law firm puts in a cloud – may also be taken out should it choose to leave.

As for ethics, at the time of this writing thirteen states, though not all of the original colonies, have published cloud ethics opinions. The ethical standard across most of these consists of “reasonable care.” That is to say for example, that an attorney has taken reasonable care to ensure the vendor provides preservation of confidentiality or has taken adequate measures to inform the client of cloud-use for matters the practice undertakes.

5 tips for evaluating the cloud

Despite the enthusiasm for the cloud, reservations remain. Often the anecdote to reservation is education and understanding. To that end, if you or your firm is considering the cloud, here are five tips for evaluating the cloud.

1. Identify a business need. Having the latest and greatest tools might win popularity points, but it’s not the basis for pragmatic business decisions. The first step to deciding whether or not a firm needs the cloud is to identify a problem you are trying to solve – and mapping that to the solution that will solve that problem. In the aforementioned survey, the two single largest benefits small law firm attorneys identified were a) mobility and access to data from anywhere and b) disaster recovery and back up storage.

2. Understand data protection. Attorneys need assurances that the vendor they choose will safeguard their data with the same level of caution lawyers do. Standard requirements for any confidential data sources ought to offer encryption, security testing and third-party validation of those tests. The location of the data centers where law firm information might be stored is an important consideration given the rules governing who has access can vary from country to country.

3. Examine the data policies. The terms of service (ToS) should be crystal clear to an attorney putting their faith in the cloud. It’s not just a question of technology, but also one of policy. For example, a law firm should ensure that it maintains complete right of ownership of any data in the cloud.

4. Explore service level agreements. Any tool chosen is of little value if it cannot be used when an attorney needs it the most – a challenging client call is one where your matter information is stored safely in the cloud but you are unable to access the data. Especially in a profession like law, the service needs to work when and where you work. Guarantees of the service’s performance and evidence that the vendor itself has a data recovery plan in place are among the minimum requirements a law firm should expect.

5. Consider future functionality. Especially with small, but growing law firms, attorneys should consider the service provider’s ability to scale with the business. Sometimes this means more than the ability to handle a greater workload, and also includes future uses – such as integrations with email and the typical calendaring programs. Even if today, the only business case for the cloud is to share files securely, or to back up data, it’s worth considering the vendor of choice’s capacity to support future needs.

* * *

Outside the legal industry, even consumer-software is increasingly moving towards cloud models. Within the legal industry, nearly 40 percent of respondents believe that cloud-based tools will eclipse the pervasive traditional premise-based solutions. The tips offered here are a good starting point for evaluating whether or not that’s a path that fits the needs of your practice or firm.