alt.legal: Building Your Book: If You Don't Do This, Don't Bother
Entrepreneur Ari Kaplan explains how his new technology can guide you down the path to riches and independence, but only if you embrace accountability.
Ari Kaplan
Have you lost weight? Last week, ATL featured an excellent article on the art of business development, by a true pro. Perfect timing. This week I sat down with alt.legal entrepreneur Ari Kaplan, who promises that his technology can guide you down the path to riches and independence, but only if you embrace accountability.
Whether you want to stay on the traditional Biglaw path or venture into the wild world of alt.legal businesses, only one thing is certain: we all die in the end. Also pretty certain (and more relevant to this column): to be at the top of your legal game, you will need to build your own book of business.
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The good news is, the basics of business development can be taught (email me for book recommendations, and might I add, you are a very, very good-looking reader). Moreover, the basics can be understood in much less time that it took you to learn Con Law (though I bet you learned Con Law in no time at all).
The bad news is, while the rewards of success could be life-changing, results can take years and not even your boss will encourage your efforts. Moreover, unlike most of the work you do as a lawyer, it is it very difficult on a day-to-day, or even month-to-month, basis to see that this “work” is paying dividends. I put “work” in quotes, because if you are used to spending days on end locked in your office, writing fifty-page briefs, it will not feel like work to routinely get lunch/coffee/cocktails with a law school friend (unless your law school friend is Ted Cruz). But it is work, it is valuable, and you need to stick with it to win.
So how do you ensure you’re treating business development like it’s your job, when technically, it isn’t? To answer this question I sat down with a leading legal-industry analyst, Ari Kaplan, and chatted about his business-development software platform (called Lawcountability). In essence, Kaplan created a virtual boss, but instead of being a rude taskmaster, this one is the coach you’ve always wanted, who only cares about helping you become the best version of yourself. Since the platform’s launch it has been adopted by lawyers at major firms like Ogletree Deakins and Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan, as well as a dozen law schools.
Like many we have interviewed in this column, Ari spent most of his career as a practicing lawyer, with McDermott Will & Emery in New York. He also is the author of The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development (affiliate link to the second edition, releasing next week). Finally, he is the principal researcher for a variety of benchmarking reports in the legal industry, so his knowledge of legal and alt.legal runs deep!
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Enjoy the interview below!
Joe Borstein: What is Lawcountability?
Ari Kaplan: If the modern lawyer is a white-collar hustler, then Lawcountability is his or her killer app. It is like an easy button in the cloud for lawyers interested in building accountability into their business development, marketing, and networking. It is also helping law students improve their career efforts and job hunts.
Through my training programs and conference keynotes, I have had the privilege of addressing thousands of lawyers around the world and thousands of law students at almost 50 schools in the U.S., Canada, and the UK. I have found that the challenge for most individuals is not that they are not getting good ideas or that those ideas are unproven, it is that they don’t execute. And, they don’t execute because there’s an absence of accountability.
So I thought that if I could layer technology on top of engaging, practical, and useful online training sessions that are only 10 minutes long and, hopefully, delivered in an engaging way, it would help individuals overcome their anxiety, uncertainty, or complacency, and excite them enough to create opportunity.
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Lawcountability offers a mash-up of traditional training, group coaching, and e-mail reminders, and combines them with colorful visualization, mobility, and calendar integration to form something user-friendly and cost-effective that can transform careers for those who use it.
JB: So how did you get this idea off the ground?
AK: The journey from the idea to its execution has been a fun adventure because, after all, I was trained as a lawyer and had no knowledge of CakePHP or the myriad issues that arise when you are building software. Launching the companion iPhone apps added another layer of excitement to the process.
I was on vacation over the holidays in 2012 and decided to make the development of this tool a New Year’s resolution. I went for a walk and dictated an e-mail describing exactly what I wanted to build, how I expected it to work and the features it would contain. That day, I found a developer to design a simple wireframe and within a few weeks, I was showing it to my network of trusted advisors, which included law firm partners and leaders in professional development. They provided valuable feedback and encouragement.
In the spring of 2013, I felt confident enough to offer a webinar to potential clients, though I advised them that the tool did not actually work and that I was merely providing screen shots of how it would function when finished. One firm contacted me immediately after the call and asked to license the tool the next month. I thought it would take two and the firm agreed to wait. It actually took almost a year, but that firm did subscribe when we launched on March 3, 2014, and it continues to use our software over two years later.
It was a finalist for ILTA’s Innovative Solution Provider of the Year award last fall, and now bar associations around the country, from Florida to Alaska, are beginning to feature it as a member benefit.
JB: So what are the key benefits to users?
AK: The benefit of Lawcountability is that it essentially provides a turnkey system where the firm gets to offer its lawyers new programming every single week that provides a great idea for networking, marketing, business development, writing articles, finding public speaking opportunities, using social media, and generally raising one’s profile. For solo practitioners, it is like having a virtual coach on retainer.
The embedded reminder system is associated with point values to encourage benchmarking or gamification. Firms can create metrics and analytics, while individuals can instantly generate business development plans and seamlessly add activities to their calendars through an Outlook integration feature.
We really tried to build a tool that employs all of the elements that make technology both useful and effective.
JB: Why do you think that accountability has become so important in the legal industry?
AK: Lawyers are experiencing an increased emphasis on accountability in every area of their professional lives.
Through technology, clients are proactively monitoring matters and evaluating performance based on predetermined metrics. Law firms are more attentive to the pace of the career progression for both associates and partners based on lockstep milestones of skill acquisition and training. Finally, this is trickling down to the individual level, where the best lawyers are recognizing that those who set goals, commit to accomplishing certain tasks, and incorporate consistency into their marketing and business development strategies tend to be most successful.
JB: From your experience as a legal industry researcher, how has the legal industry shifted?
AK: Technology, technology, technology.
I have produced almost 20 different benchmarking reports focused on different aspects of corporate and legal trends. The shift in the legal industry can be characterized by the recognition that those who can adapt to a more technology-centric environment will be able to thrive and meet client expectations to incorporate greater efficiency into their practices.
JB: Your research touches all sides of the legal industry. What are you hearing from corporate counsel in terms of what they want from law firms?
AK: Regardless of the company type, size or location, I am always amazed by the fact that when I interview an in-house lawyer, he or she has consistent concerns related to communication, client service, project management, and a law firm’s commitment to the organization’s business beyond its immediate legal problems.
In-house counsel want a holistic consigliere, who is extremely well-versed in any given subject, but also networked enough to find immediate answers to the most pressing questions, regardless of whether they relate to the actual case at hand or just a concern of their key contact.
JB: Thanks Ari, last question: how do you think law students can stand out?
AK: I wrote my first book, The Opportunity Maker, almost a decade ago, and the keys to law student career success are essentially the same today as they were years ago. The tools they can use are a bit different, but the theme remains the same: be a hustler. Be dynamic, proactive, thoughtful, grateful, and persistent (in the most positive way).
Study great rainmakers and ask people for advice. Set Google Alerts and use the results to organically follow up with individuals that you meet. Find ways to demonstrate your thoughtfulness by sharing press leads, inviting members of your network to speak at student events, or profiling alumni for a student publication. Review LinkedIn updates and congratulate connections on their achievements.
For those using our software, we encourage them to leverage the techniques we share with at least two professionals every week. In fact, we have started an initiative to personally introduce active students, who take advantage of our content on a regular basis, to lawyers at mostly large firms, who use our system as well.
In my books, presentations and research reports, I have always tried to make good ideas more accessible to lawyers, law students, and business leaders. I am also committed to encouraging them to implement those suggestions for their own benefit, as well as for their clients and their firms. I built Lawcountability to further that mission and will continue to adapt the technology to meet the needs of a dynamically changing profession.
Thank you for this opportunity.
Joe Borstein is a Global Director at Thomson Reuters’ award-winning legal outsourcing company, Pangea3, which employs over 1,000 full-time attorneys across the globe. He and his co-author Ed Sohn each spent over half a decade as associates in Biglaw and were classmates at Penn Law.
Joe manages a global team dedicated to counseling law firm and corporate clients on how to best leverage Pangea3’s full-time attorneys to improve legal results, cut costs, raise profits, and have a social life. He is a frequent speaker on global trends in the legal industry and, specifically, how law firms are leveraging those trends to become more profitable. If you are interested in entrepreneurship and the delivery of legal services, please reach out to Joe directly at joe.borstein@thomsonreuters.com.
