Lawyers: Don’t Make These Client Development Mistakes In 2019

Always strive to understand your client’s business. Identify a potential problem, opportunity, or change that impacts potential clients and present them.

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. Cordell Parvin is a Senior Director with Lateral Link based in the Dallas, Texas office. Prior to coaching and recruiting lawyers, Cordell built a national construction law practice at an Am Law 100 law firm. Cordell is a well-known speaker, writer and blogger on career development and client development. He has made presentations to law firms and bar associations throughout the US and Canada. Cordell has published four books on career and client development. You can subscribe to his blog at http://www.cordellblog.com/, connect with him on LinkedIn, join his Facebook Page, and follow him on Twitter.

When I was a young lawyer there were no books or articles on client development. There were no marketing directors or other guidance available. So, I generally learned about client development by the seat of my pants and by making mistakes. Here are some of the top mistakes I and my fellow attorneys made, and how to avoid them.

Just Do Good Work

How many young lawyers are told they don’t need to spend any time on client development. Instead, they should just focus on doing good work and business will follow?

I strove to become the best lawyer I possibly could be, by continuously increasing my quality of work. I quickly learned that being a top-notch lawyer, and doing quality work, was only the ante — the price a lawyer pays to be in the game.

Initially, I was focusing more on the actual practice of law, and less on what my clients needed. It quickly became apparent that client development is about relationship building and client management. Each client is different and ultimately their needs and priorities can greatly differ too. That first awakening contributed greatly to my ultimate success in building a practice.

Don’t Be a Generalist

I know several generalists who have been very successful. They became their clients’ “trusted advisors.”

However, the current market makes it difficult to attract, retain, and expand relationships with clients if you do not have a niche specialized practice.

I started my career as a commercial litigator and even though I was practicing in a city of just 100,000 people, there were already several well-known litigators that drew the majority of litigation work, crowding me out.

In 1978, I started on a new path. While I continued to litigate a wide variety of cases, I focused my marketing efforts on the construction industry. I wrote and published a law review article and spoke at the ABA Annual Meeting on a construction law issue. I became active in construction industry associations and I frequently spoke at their meetings and conventions. I wrote articles and created workshops on issues that affected their business. I began to build relationships both with the clients and with the association executives who recommended their members hire me. In essence, I found my niche and business boomed.

Don’t Try to Be a Salesman

There is a financial advisor with whom I have played golf a few times. For years he tried to invite me to lunch. Finally, I ran out of excuses.

He spent the entire lunch telling me about his firm, his own experience and what he could do for me. The only question he asked me was when I was getting up to leave. He asked: “Cordell, how would you like to put more money away tax-free than you can with your 401k?” I responded that I had already talked about a defined benefit plan with my financial advisor.

You have likely had a similar experience with a financial advisor or insurance salesman. Your clients do not want you to “sell” them. If you are selling, you are thinking of your own needs first and your clients second.

Developing business requires working on your listening skills. Learn about the client and its business. Ask questions rather than making statements and actually listen to the answers. Don’t ask for business. Instead earn the business. I have found that when I started focusing more on serving and less on selling, I was far more satisfied because I knew I was making a difference in my clients’ businesses, which in turn got me more business.

Don’t Just Focus on Attracting New Clients

I loved attracting a new large client. But I quickly learned that my most important client development activities were in service to my existing clients.

I realize that a young lawyer with few clients may not have a choice. But, a lawyer in a large law firm would be well served to spend the majority of her time on current clients. Some suggest that 80 percent of time should be spent on relationship building and only 20 percent of the time on reputation building. The theory is the time and cost to replace a client lost is a multiple of the time and cost spent to make that client a satisfied one.

Don’t Focus Your Attention on the Wrong Clients

I coached lawyers who were focusing attention on the wrong potential clients. One lawyer I coached was persuaded to give a half-day presentation for a legal seminar company. Think of the number of hours he spent preparing for a four-hour presentation.

When he arrived for the workshop, he was struck by three things. First, only eight people showed up. Second, he discovered that most of the firms represented were small companies who would be bankrupt if they had a big problem and could not afford him to handle the problems they could survive. Third, he found that those who attended for the firms that could afford him were not the right people.

Don’t Fail to Differentiate Yourself

Many lawyers and law firms fail to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Their websites and website bios look like many others.

Your potential clients discern the little differences. How can you differentiate yourself? The key is striving to understand your client’s business. Identify a potential problem, opportunity, or change that impacts potential clients and present them.

Don’t Fail to Prepare a Business Plan

If you have read any of my writing, you likely know I believe many lawyers spend more time planning their vacation than they do planning their career.

At the end of the year, they frequently ask: “Where did this year go?” I have always found that if a lawyer does not have a written plan, they are not likely to make the efforts needed for their career and client development.

The famous author Stephen Covey teaches us that there are four quadrants of time. He believes many people do not spend enough time doing quadrant two activities-those activities that are important but not urgent.

David Maister, a noted expert on professional services notes that many professionals focus on their income statement and not balance sheet. Client development is both a quadrant two activity and one that builds the balance sheet. It is important and should be well planned.

Some lawyers, practice groups, and law firms make a plan and never execute it. They develop a great plan, but simply do not follow through. When a young lawyer said to me, “Let me show you my client development plan,” I doubted whether he had actually acted on it. If he had said, “Let me show you what I have done this year and the results,” I know he is executing his plan.

As Nike says, “Just do it.” A fair marketing plan being executed is better than a perfect one that never gets off your hard drive.

Don’t Fail To Operate as a Team

Lawyers have historically not been great team players. Many law firms do not encourage teamwork in their compensation systems. Those firms reward client origination.

In those firms, some lawyers may think: “I need to bag this one to increase my client origination credit.” Clients sense this is what is going on.

When that mistake is made, lawyers are competing with their partners internally rather than competing with their competitors externally. In the end, individual lawyers will not develop clients as well as collaborative law firms.

What Now?

Today there are many books, articles and guidance on client development. Many are well worth reading for any lawyer interested in not making the mistakes described above in developing client relationships. If you have a topic that interests you, send me an email. I’ve likely read a book covering that topic.


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