Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog

We already knew that referrals are crucial to a law firm’s business development success. Now comes a survey that specified exactly how important referrals are: referred work typically accounts for 26% of a US law firm’s income.

The researchers in “Lawyer to Lawyer Referrals: A Global Perspective” just published (July 2010) by LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell, expected that the value of referral work would typically account for only 5-10% of a firm’s income.

Here’s the astonishing part: 27% of law firms don’t track referrals. This is like not tracking where a quarter of the money in your wallet comes from.

For US firms the most significant types of work to be referred between firms are:

• Litigation
• Employment
• General Corporate
• Property (real estate)
• Intellectual Property
• Following are important business development lessons to be learned from this study:

1. Proactively build a referral network. I have visited scores of law firms, and most of them get referrals on a random basis – whatever comes in over the phone. Instead, smart law firms should intentionally seek out referral sources and cultivate relationships with them.

2. Keep track of incoming referrals. The whole purpose of a referral arrangement is to create a mutually-beneficial relationship. If the other party isn’t doing their share, I recommend that you visit the referral source and have a talk with them. If the conversation doesn’t start producing referrals, stop sending files to them.

For the rest of the tips, please visit the LawMarketing Portal at www.LawMarketing.com.