Law Practice
How Associates Can Make It Rain
Posted Sep 14, 2007, 04:23 pm CDT
By Martha Neil
Become an expert practitioner in a legal specialty. Build relationships with clients. And market yourself.
These are the primary pathways that associates travel to become rainmakers who bring in new business rather than simply servicing other lawyers' clients, reports New York Lawyer (reg. req.) The lengthy article, which is reprinted from the National Law Journal, also provides detailed instructions to associates seeking to transition from worker-bee to queen-bee status by learning to make it rain.
While some associates are lucky and develop a legal specialty with little effort, others have to work to figure out a practice focus. An associate with a general commercial litigation or transactional background can do so, however, "by focusing on a particular type of client that he has serviced—for example, companies in the telecommunications industry," the article recommends. "This associate's niche could be helping telecommunications companies resolve business disputes or enter new markets."
No-fee visits to client offices are a great way to cement relationships, it continues.
Developing a written plan for becoming a rainmaker is also critical, according to the article, which recommends a four-step plan for doing so. Otherwise, it's easy to become bogged down, say, in an almost endless list of potential referral sources, when the associate should be focusing on those with the most potential for sending business his or her way.
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Posted by Ford Harding - 11 months, 1 week, 4 days, 16 hours, 51 minutes ago
Learning to make rain is especially hard for those associates whose utilisation exceed 75 percent. The people must employ two-for-one tactics, meaning that they must combine business development with or tagged to a billable activity. Examples include:
1) Catching a Rising Star: They should develop relationshiiips with people of their own age or younger who show promise of doing well in the future. In five to ten years a good share of these people will become clients. Relationship maintance can be done by dropping by the rising star’s office when in their building on a matter for someone else in the client organization, two brief phone calls and one meal a year.
2) Using work you have done as the foundation for an article or speech.
My book, Creating Rainmakers, describes how leading rainmakers learned to make rain. My blog, www.HardingCo.com/blog Provides practical advice on making rain.