Nancy has a bucket list of places she wants to visit and things she wants to do. We checked one item off her bucket list recently when we visited Mount Rushmore. If you ever visit South Dakota, I know you will be impressed with how helpful and friendly the people are there. I get the feeling they know their tourist season is short and they know they are in a service business.

We were fortunate to be able to attend the first evening show of the season on May 13. As we walked in patriotic music was playing. When it was time for the show, a park ranger came on stage and shared with the audience his thoughts about Mount Rushmore and its history. Then a movie played discussing each of the four presidents on Mount Rushmore and the history of the carving. Then Mount Rushmore was lighted. Nancy took wonderful photographs, but the ones she took when Mount Rushmore was lit did not come out.

Is your law firm striving to be a preeminent firm? If so, you must create a preeminent attorney development program. But, that is challenging. Are your partners and associates behind your attorney development program, or do the partners undermine it and associates blow it off? Are your firm leaders promoting attorney development or putting it on the back burner?

As a firm leader if you want to increase the odds of getting the lawyers in your firm behind your Attorney Development program, you must take the lead. You should articulate:

• The purpose of the attorney development program is,
• What the firm is trying to accomplish, and
• What is expected of your lawyers.

So, take a look at the slides I prepared Client Development in 2012 for Young Lawyers. Then, take a look at the Client Development for Associates Workbook.

I have been sharing the slides and workbook with the  LinkedIn Marketing the Law Firm Group and I was asked by a member to teach the program as a webinar. I agreed to do it and will teach associates in a June 6, Webinar at Noon CDT. If you are an associate and want to learn, or if you want associates in your law firm to learn in a conference room, contact jflo@cordellparvin.com for details and pricing. Space is limited so it will be on a first come, first served basis.

1. How can I make time for client development when I am really busy and want to spend time at home with my family?
2. How can I convert my contacts/ friends into clients?

How would you answer these questions?

I tell lawyers that when I was most busy I made time for client development because I had a nagging fear of waking up one day with nothing to do. I wanted to plant seeds that would come up six months later. I could usually make time to write. I made time early on weekend mornings. I know lawyers who make time late after their children are asleep. Beyond that, I always had a list of things I could do to connect with clients, referral sources and friends that took very little time. I wrote about it in my post: 12 Thoughtful Things You Can Do For Clients When You Are Busy. I urge groups that I coach to create their own list of client development activities they can do in less than 15 minutes.

I wrote a Practical Lawyer column answering the second question. In the column: How Your Friends Can Become Your Clients, I began by emphasizing that the main thing is to build the relationship without expecting anything in return. That means, among other things learning about their business, their industry and their work for their company rather than talking about your work and your firm. Beyond that I offered three strategies:

1. Become the second firm when the first firm has conflicts.
2. Become a subject matter expert in a subject area for which they need help.
3. Find ways to add value that the client’s current firm is not doing.

As dispatches from my Times colleague Peter Lattman have made abundantly clear, Dewey collapsed under the weight of a toxic combination of high leverage, lavish financial guarantees to many partners and faltering revenue.

That quote made me think of what is happening with our federal budget and deficit. Have you seen the federal budget explained in simple English?

At the risk of interjecting something political into this post, I will simply say I agree with former Fed Chief, Alan Greenspan who recently was quoted: Greenspan: Obama Should Have Embraced Simpson-Bowles and I am disappointed that none of the important legislation that must be done by the end of the year will be dealt with until after the election.

But, back to law firm economics in 2012. Here is another quote from the New York Times article:

Today, firms bargain over rates and compete fiercely for both their own talent and for clients. Clients have figured out that much of what lawyers do is a commodity that can easily be outsourced far more cheaply.

With the economy still an issue, how many firm leaders are focusing on ways their firm can be more valuable to existing clients and become the firm of choice to potential clients? One law firm leader recently wrote about that.  In Re-Engineering the Business of Law, Seyfarth Shaw‘s chairman J. Stephen Poor, wrote:

Lawyers today should be asking themselves nontraditional questions: how to apply resources more effectively, to shorten cycle time and lower the cost of their work product and other deliverables, while raising the level of service. In the end, your client will reward you by giving you more work across more areas, and your relationship will deepen.

Are you asking those non-traditional questions? I would love to know how you are answering them.

Habit 1: Be Proactive: You are responsible for your own career success. Your law firm can help, but you are the one responsible for your future success and happiness. To put it in construction terms, you are the architect of your career.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind: In planning your career you must have a vision of where you want to go and what you want to accomplish. When you know “the what” and “the why,” the how comes to you very creatively. To put this in construction terms, you must design your career with an idea of what you are building.

Habit 3: Put First Things First: What is the one thing you aren’t doing now that if you were doing it would make the greatest difference in your life. Using the third habit, you want to create actions for your success. Dr. Covey suggests that you think about your personal (father, husband, son, brother) and professional (billing lawyer, learning lawyer, client developer) roles and plan your week around those roles. To put this in construction terms, it is time to take the most important actions to build your career and life.

Habit 4: Think Win/Win: This is about your relationship with your clients, figuring out what a “win” is for them and doing what is in their best interests.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand then to be Understood: Dr. Covey helps to explain this in his simple analogy “diagnose before you prescribe.” Learn to ask your clients good questions and then listen empathically to their answers for both feeling and meaning before offering your advice.

Habit 6: Synergize: In your work with clients, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is about opening your mind to ideas advanced by others on your team. Your most effective solutions to solve your client’s problems come from working collaboratively with your colleagues and your client’s representatives.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw: This habit is about never feeling you know all you need to know. Each day continue learning and striving to become a better lawyer. This is where Dr. Covey breaks up the continual improvement into four areas:

• Physical: Beneficial eating, exercising, and resting
• Social/Emotional: Making social and meaningful connections with others
• Mental: Learning, reading, writing, and teaching
• Spiritual: Spending time in nature, expanding spiritual self through meditation, music, art, prayer, or service

The three man playoff included number 1 in the world, Rory McIlroy and D. A. Points. All three hit long drives in the fairway on 18. With the pin in the front on the far left of the green and water to the left off the green, hitting a shot left of the pin was risky to say the least. But, that is exactly what Rickie Fowler did. He stuck his shot 4 feet left of the pin and made his put for his first career PGA win. As reported in the Times article;

“I definitely didn’t want to play safe,” he said. “I had a good number, and I was aiming right of the hole with the wind coming out of the right, and if I hit a perfect shot, it comes down right on the stick.”

He also said he knew if he did not hit it right, the shot could have landed in a creek.

If you did not see the shot, you can watch it here. Even if Rickie Fowler’s shot had landed in the creek and cost him the tournament, he knew he would play again next week and continue his efforts to win his first PGA tournament. It was worth taking the risk.

Many of you are in large firms. Some of you mostly do work handed to you by more senior lawyers. That may make you feel secure now, but it is unlikely you will be secure for your entire career. Take a risk. Start working on a plan to attract, retain and expand relationships with potential clients. Even if your initial efforts do not yield results, you will have more opportunities to attract clients. It is worth taking the risk. The sooner you get started and take risks the better.

You likely have read my thought that one of the best ways is to identify potential problems and provide solutions before the other lawyers do, and better yet, before the client realizes there is a problem.

When I joined my old law firm, I had all my files and books on moveable book cases in the hallway. I marched off to two days of orientation. When I returned late Friday afternoon, I met a young man named Mason. He worked for our facilities management group. He said to me:

Mr. Parvin, I know you need everything organized so you can hit the ground running on Monday. If you would like, I would be happy to come in on Saturday and help you get organized.

I was blown away. Mason clearly understood the problem and offered a solution before I mentioned the problem.

I learned the same lesson later that year. I had invited executives from my largest client and their spouses to Dallas to a Cowboys football game. On the Monday preceding the game, I got a call from Jan in our marketing department. She said:

Cordell, how would you like for me to drive with you to Texas Stadium, show you which exit to get off the freeway, show you our assigned parking place, where to enter the stadium, which elevator to get on, where to get off the elevator and how to find the firm’s suite?

I am willing to do this so you do not make a complete fool of yourself in front of your most important client.

I feel too content.

I have seen many content lawyers over my career, but rarely are they willing to admit it. When they are not moving forward, they are being caught from behind by those who are not content.

I love the famous Steve Jobs ending to his commencement speech at Stanford:

Stay hungry. Stay Foolish.

I realize many large, well established law firms do not want lawyers to “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”  It is hard to picture how someone like Steve Jobs would have done practicing law in one of those firms.

Over the weekend, think about what “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish” means in the context of your law practice, (and your law firm). How can you use it to push yourself and stay motivated? If you would like to do more reading, read Linchpin by Seth Godin. Here is one quote from the book:

Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.

1. Be purposeful about staying in touch with your contacts. You should not have random lunches with clients and referral sources when you can’t find anyone in your office with whom to dine.
2. When you make contact do so in a way they will value. Put yourself in their shoes. If they think you are inviting them to lunch, or following up after lunch, to hustle their legal business you will never have the lunch.
3. It is ok to ask a favor. For example, you might say: “I want to pick your brain on something…”
4. Ask questions when you are with contacts and listen intently.
5. Find a thoughtful way to follow up after you meet with them. I frequently send a copy of a favorite book on a topic I know interests them. If you can’t think of anything else, send a handwritten note.
6. Seek out ways to help your clients and referral sources succeed in their business. Do you know anyone who would be a valuable prospect for your client?