Get Ready for the Recession -- Part 2
I don't mean to be a Cassandra, but there's a recession coming and lawyers better get ready:
- Develop client teams now to assure that you keep the clients you already have.
- Start cross-selling programs, even if it means you have to change your compensation system.
- Write a personal business development plan and start cultivating clients, referral sources and targets now, before it's too late.
- If you don't know how to generate new business, go to a business development conference and learn how to do it.
In warning about the coming recession, I've been called wrong, uninformed and someone who is just "crying wolf." However the New York Times just published a story "Unexpected Loss of Jobs Raises Risk of Recession." It says:
- "The job market took a serious and unexpected turn for the worse last month, raising the risk of a recession and putting added pressure on the Federal Reserve to move more aggressively to keep the ailing housing industry from infecting the rest of the economy."
- "But now, the odds of a recession in the next year have risen, to 25 to 50 percent, economists interviewed yesterday said.
- "Stocks fell broadly and sharply, as investors digested the idea that the economy had been weakening significantly even before the mortgage crisis hit financial markets last month.
- "If the economy is not headed toward recession, it is very close to one,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com."
Even if the Fed cut its benchmark short-term interest rate at its September 18, the news is already "baked in" to the market. The most the Fed is expected to drop the rate is 1/2 of 1%. This will make little difference in the real world of variable rate mortgages and credit card rates.
When the recession hits, consumers and corporations will stop spending. If there's a legal issue they're thinking of pursuing, they'll put it off. The merger and acquisition market will dry up.
