Law Firm Marketing Consultant : Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog : Law firm marketing, legal marketing, attorney marketing, business development, sales training, practice development, training, marketing consultant, legal consultant, individual lawyer coaching, business development, client team, practice development, business development, law firm coach

When two Pokens touch, digital identification information is exchanged, including a photo, name, address, telephone number, email address and links to various social networks, including MyLegal.com, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, according to MyLegal.com CEO Lisa DiMonte.

You'll be able to use pokens at MyLegal.com's one-day conference on Thursday, October 21, 2010 at Georgetown University Hotel and Conference Center. The presenters of the conference, The Case for Social Media: Managing Your Online Presence to Build Your Law Practice, are lawyers, who also happen to be recognized social media experts. They will be sharing their advice and experience on how to use social media to build your law practice. 

Yours truly is the luncheon speaker, and I'll be talking about using LinkedIn for business development.

One of the main reasons people attend conferences is for the networking opportunities. Meeting someone in person and establishing a personal, face-to-face connection is the foundation of any worthwhile and meaningful relationship. So what does everyone do? Exchange business cards. Then what happens? You get back from the conference with the pile of cards (assuming you haven’t lost any along the way) and you are immediately brought “back to life” and the unenviable task of digging out of your email and handling the problems of the day.

The unique Poken ID is connected to a social business card that every attendee creates on the Poken website. Each Poken holder can enter contact information and links to his/her social networks. All contacts that you’ve made at the conference can be uploaded to your computer as an Outlook Contact when the event is over, and they will appear on your “social time line,” which is a complete record of everyone you meet at the conference.

Please go here to read Lisa's article on the LawMarketing Portal.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Many attorneys believe their next client relationship will be “the luck of the draw,” so to speak. To some extent that’s true. But it’s absolutely possible to build a practice that is virtually free of problem clients and has strong cash flow – if you’re willing to refine or redesign your client intake and communications processes, according to Dustin Cole of Longwood, FL, who teach lawyers business skills.

In an article on the LawMarketing Portal, he says Step #1 is Choose Your Clients Carefully, and reject the "F" clients, who cost you time and aggravation, and actually hold a lawyer back from building a practice.  Charging $200 for an initial consultation will filter out the shoppers looking for free advice.

Step #2 is: Define the Working Relationship and Set Client Expectations, and walking through the engagement letter, billing, payment, and how to facilitate communications best.

Step #3 is "Communicate, Communicate, Communicate," by realizing that every conversation either increases or decreases trust.  Return clients calls promptly and send invoices out regularly.

Step #4 is Live by Your Own Standards. Many an “A” client slips to “D” or “E” or even “F” because of lack of enforcement of the standards that were explained to them. When clients fails to pay bills and the attorney continues to work, the clients learn they don’t have to pay. When the attorney takes a week to return the client’s call, the client comes to believe his or her problem isn’t important to the attorney. When clients receive unidentified papers in the mail, they get worried and fearful.

Fur the full article visit http://bit.ly/90ZT0d.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

I love this line from Richard Russeth's blog The Last Generalist. As the General Counsel for Leprino Foods in Denver, CO, he offers 7 mistakes to avoid with your in-house client:

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

There are a lot of points that corporate general counsel like about their law firms, and they are all pathways to getting more business for their lawyers. They all turn on what retailers call “good customer service.” These behaviors include offering alternative fees, having an effective website, going the extra mile, offering better rates and knowing the client’s business.

None of these tactics will be a surprise for a law firm marketing director (except for the fact that many law firms don’t use them). Most law firms offer excellent legal skills, and having them is no longer a point of distinction. GCs expect it.  Following are several ways that lawyers distinguish themselves and land more work from corporate clients.

Be responsive and accessible.

• “I think about individual lawyers, not firms. Certain lawyers have given me fantastic results and personal attention. If I call my lawyer at Perkins Coie, he’ll call back within 2-3 hours, even though he’s traveling all across the country.  I’ll get exactly what I need to know right away,” said Jeffrey Reeser, Assistant GC at Newmont Mining Corporation in Greenwood Village, CO. The company uses 300 law firms.
• “My favorite law firms will not only tell me about news that affects my company but also tell me they can tailor it to my concerns. They see the hoop before I do and jump through it themselves,” Reeser added.

Know the client’s business:

• “For me it was a pleasant surprise when a partner would talk about what we’d need to get done, and would stay on the line and ask questions about what they saw in the headlines, or what other business challenges I was facing. They took the time to be inquisitive – and we had a fixed fee so it didn’t cost me anything. It’s been very exciting to me. These are busy people and they’ll slow down to take an interest in me – it turns into a lot of business for them.  They’ll say we have appellate skills we can help you with. They make small talk about what else is going on in the company,” said Julie DeCecco, Associate GC and Director of Litigation of Oracle. Her company uses 100 law firms.
• “When you as a lawyer do understand more about our firm, there’s a great cross marketing opportunity,” said Eric Hilty, an in-house lawyer for AIMCO apartment investment, a REIT in Denver.  The company uses 100 law firms. “Lawyers and marketing people should envision putting themselves in our shoes. We’re in real estate industry, our stock price is down and we’ve had layoffs.  Think about what that means. Try to envision what the clients are going through and it’ll help you discover how to meet those needs.”

Your website should display what GCs want to see.

To read all the additional tactics, visit the LawMarketing Portal at http://bit.ly/bpZoSy

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

A smart way to generate more business for your law firm is to know what’s going on with your corporate “customers.” Here’s a peek at what’s happening in corporate in-house counsel suites so that you can maximize your business development efforts.

The survey “Law Department Metrics Benchmarking Survey” was conducted by ALM Legal Intelligence (see http://bit.ly/9tqy2P), which has monitored trends of in-house legal performance since 1972. The survey is based on data collected from 61 US companies throughout 2009, in a dozen industries, with annual revenue of less than $100 million up to $5+ billion.

Six trends affecting corporate clients

Trend No. 1: Law departments are getting bigger or staying the same size. According to the survey, 32.8% of respondents have reduced the size of their law department in the last 12 months. The key takeaway here is that 67.2% of departments are bigger or the same size. This means that more corporations are taking work in-house and staffing up to do so.

Trend No. 2: In-house lawyers are working harder. 70% of in-house lawyers say their workloads have increased during the past 12 months. This underscores Trend No. 1, that work is staying in-house. What this means to law firms is that there is less demand for routine corporate legal services like environmental, tax, real estate, corporate and patent prosecution matters.

Trend No. 3: In-house law departments have had their budgets cut. According to the survey, 62.3% of law departments implemented budget cuts in 2009. This means the lawyers at a potential corporate client are doing more with fewer resources. It’s an awful position to be in. A law firm that could ease the pain of in-house counsel would be welcome indeed.

Trend No. 4: A majority of a corporate law department’s budget is for fees for outside law firms. According to the survey most companies spend 58% to 65% of their budget on outside law firms. This is good news, because it means there are fees to be earned from the overburdened law departments.

Trend No. 5: The higher a company’s revenues, the more law firms it uses. As you can see from the chart below, the sweet spot is companies that have annual revenue of $5 billion or more:

Trend No. 6 – Companies are paying fees to outside counsel in alternative fee arrangements. Roughly 20% of companies are spending 37% of their legal fees in alternative arrangements.

To read what kind of files are most commonly referred, and to read my Five Tips to Get More Corporate Work, please visit the LawMarketing Portal at www.lawmarketing.com.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

The survey “Law Department Metrics Benchmarking Survey” was conducted by ALM Legal Intelligence (see http://bit.ly/9tqy2P), which has monitored trends of in-house legal performance since 1972. The survey is based on data collected from 61 US companies throughout 2009, in a dozen industries, with annual revenue of less than $100 million up to $5+ billion.

Six trends affecting corporate clients

Trend No. 1: Law departments are getting bigger or staying the same size. According to the survey, 32.8% of respondents have reduced the size of their law department in the last 12 months. The key takeaway here is that 67.2% of departments are bigger or the same size. This means that more corporations are taking work in-house and staffing up to do so.

Trend No. 2: In-house lawyers are working harder. 70% of in-house lawyers say their workloads have increased during the past 12 months. This underscores Trend No. 1, that work is staying in-house. What this means to law firms is that there is less demand for routine corporate legal services like environmental, tax, real estate, corporate and patent prosecution matters.

Trend No. 3: In-house law departments have had their budgets cut. According to the survey, 62.3% of law departments implemented budget cuts in 2009. This means the lawyers at a potential corporate client are doing more with fewer resources. It’s an awful position to be in. A law firm that could ease the pain of in-house counsel would be welcome indeed.

Trend No. 4: A majority of a corporate law department’s budget is for fees for outside law firms. According to the survey most companies spend 58% to 65% of their budget on outside law firms. This is good news, because it means there are fees to be earned from the overburdened law departments.

Trend No. 5: The higher a company’s revenues, the more law firms it uses. As you can see from the chart below, the sweet spot is companies that have annual revenue of $5 billion or more:

Trend No. 6 – Companies are paying fees to outside counsel in alternative fee arrangements. Roughly 20% of companies are spending 37% of their legal fees in alternative arrangements.

The research found that there are four primary criteria that corporations use when they select outside counsel. They are, in order:

• Firm specialization – 34%
• Cost – 19%
• Responsiveness – 18%
• History with the company – 12%

Interestingly, criteria that didn’t matter were firm reputation, partnering capabilities and diversity.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

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.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Legal career consultant Kate Neville says 20 percent to 25 percent of her clients affirmatively want to leave law practice, and many are willing to consider leaving.

I can tell you why: it's because they let their clients choose them, as opposed to identifying an ideal client and pursuing the client.

The unhappy lawyers are order-takers at megafirms, who become addicted to taking assignments from senior partners or other lawyers. They are also lawyers at small firms who will take any assignment that comes in over the phone. As a result, the lawyers collect a clientèle of a**holes who make their lives miserable. The legal work is often wretched too, consisting of work a senior lawyer isn't interested in doing, or a file from a client who has been shopping across the Internet for the cheapest lawyer in town.

Compounding their unhappiness is the fact that they have no job security. They live in fear of the next round of layoffs or sweat making the next payroll.

Let me describe the happy lawyers:

• They have a lot of business relationships. When they walk into a coffee shop or luncheonette, many people recognize them and say "hello."
• They don’t take assignments, they give them.
• They control their own destiny and pursue areas of law that interest them.
• They are invited to positions of authority at their firm.
• They are never targeted for layoffs.

I've just described the rainmakers. These are lawyers who know who their ideal client is, and they put themselves in the circles where they are found. They have become industry experts, who speak and have leadership roles at trade associations, where they meet potential clients. They get out of their office, have coffee with a referral source, lunch with a client, and spend an evening at a business organization meeting.

As I've long maintained, business development is the key to happiness in practicing law. I'm working with a smart second-year associate who wants to get started with business development; the reward will be job satisfaction for years to come. Nothing beats having your own clients.  A clientèle gives you authority, independence and job satisfaction.

The beauty of rainmaking is that it is not an in-born talent.  It is a skill that can be learned. Check out the video Rainmakers weren't born that way, they were trained.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

"Adding value" is a difficult concept for literal-minded lawyers to wrap their minds around. What is known is that law firms that do add value to a client relationship will get hired over and over again. 

At the recent LSSO (Legal Sales and Service Organization) meeting in Chicago, the "51 Practical Ways for Law Firms to Add Value" came up for discussion The list of 51 tactics to add value was developed by the Law Firm Value Committee, composed of representatives from eight major law firms.  This document is reprinted from the website of the Association of Corporate Counsel.

1. Conduct a pre-matter planning session before every major matter to ensure that the attorneys and the client are aligned regarding goals, objectives, outcomes, fees, communications, updates, team members, etc.

2. Conduct an end-of-matter review with the client at the conclusion of a significant matter, or as needed during the course of a significant matter as a checkpoint.

3. Work with the firm's financial group to develop accurate and timely data to understand costs and benchmark efficiencies. Provide ongoing, real-time access to matter details such as actual cost vs. budget and work in progress. Utilize an integrated financial dashboard to analyze historical, current and planned pricing per client, matter and attorney in real time.

To see the other 48 visit the LawMarketing Portal at www.LawMarketing.com.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

How can you tell if a client team is working? Key indicators are:

• A satisfied client.
• An increase in the number of relationships at the client.
• More revenue from the client.

This was the considered view of a panel of in-house law firm business development experts speaking at the Legal Sales and Service Organization (LSSO) annual RainDance conference Chicago. They included:

• Mike Duffy, Director of Client Services at King & Spalding. He works exclusively on client team management
• Linda L. Fleming, Esq., former Director of Business Development at Buchanan Ingersoll.  She is the firm's key account training professional.
• Kelvin Chin, a sales director at Womble Carlyle.  He has been at the 500-lawyer firm only 9 months, but has sold to GCs for more than 20 years in other jobs.
• Patrick Fuller, Managing Account Director for Hubbard One, who moderated the panel.

Fleming and Chin said that the key measurement is client satisfaction.  Chin said Womble will conduct 100 client surveys in 2010 -- 40 done personally by the firm's chairman. "It's difficult to get the chair to find the time, but we're committed to it," he said. "I'm a results-oriented guy.  I will ask 'is the client really happy?' "Are we bringing in more work from them?' and 'Is the client willing to go to bat for us and give us a really good reference.'  That would be a signature of success."

To measure success, Duffy meets regularly with the relationship partner on a client team and delivers a complete financial report with an analysis: revenue growth, revenue per lawyer, write-offs, the number of practice groups and offices serving a client and more. "We also track whom we know at the client, create a relationship map (connecting a lawyer with a person at the client) and I ask if we're touching each one regularly."

Duffy also establishes client pursuit teams to go after prospective clients. He asks each practice group leader to name five prospective clients, and narrows the total down to 35 clients. The firm appoints a partner to head up the team to pursue them from 18 to 24 months -- or even longer.

Rewarding client teams for their successes is difficult.  Business developers have no way to change the firm's compensation system or alter existing compensation credits. But the panelists said they had found a more effective reward the money: recognition.

Duffy said, "I always ask, 'how can I make the team members look good?'" Fleming agreed, saying, "having a team publicly acclaimed for what they did is more valuable than anything else you could do for them.  She recommended that business development professionals read the book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink (about $16 on Amazon.com).

The speakers agreed that client teams will continue to be a key part of business development for years to come. Duffy said, "First, the results prove the value of client teams. Second, clients want them." Chin agreed, saying, " Clients are demanding that more attention be focused on them."

"Our  client interviews have led me to conclude that it's good to give clients good service, but they are also looking for something extra -- creativity and innovation.  Without a client team, you can't achieve that."

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link