October 3, 2005
Teaching Law Firm Associates to Make Rain
I was talking with Beth Keno, Professional Services Manager for Juris, Inc., about the Midwest Managing Partner Forum. The Forum is organized by The Remsen Group, http://www.theremsengroup.com/. The Chicago event was held September 14, 2005. The Forum moves to Texas November 10.
Beth indicated that business development was a hot topic. Participants expressed concern over the lack of development skills among their associates—"most don’t know how to develop business and some don’t understand that they need to." According to Beth, one young partner explained how his "mentor" took him to clients; introduced him, showed him how it was done. That mentor connected the dots between his prospects of making partner and developing his own book of business—one will not happen without the other.
That young partner’s mentor laid it out almost as clearly as it can be laid out. What does it take to turn young associates into rainmakers?
Show them how
Set expectations
Measure results
Hold accountable
Working backwards, the "hold accountable part" is easy. It is a partnership requirement and a compensation component—billable hours aren’t enough to succeed.
As far as measurement is concerned, most law firm management systems measure origination. However, most law firms do not track and/or measure practices that, if performed, will result in making rain. Two management fundamentals are 1) measurement improves performance and 2) if you don’t measure, it must not be important. So that is the key. It is not enough to measure origination. What else do you need to measure?
That question takes us to the issue of expectations. If you are really serious about developing your associates, you do not treat business development as a "sink or swim" proposition. The associate needs to understand that we are not trying to turn them into a salesperson. Making rain and building a book of business is all about building relationships. Their mission is to build friendships and a network of business associates. Business will follow. Building relationships starts by giving, not selling.
You need to assign each associate a development target consistent with the firm’s objectives. Whatever industry, community or group of businesses your associate targets, he or she has to have a genuine interest (individual to individual) in helping and giving value to the people you hope will eventually become clients of the firm. One message is constant, "Look, if you ever need help, advice or just want to talk something over, call me." Don’t be too quick to go on the clock. Be available first and lawyer second. And be proactive. Keep track regarding their business and personal life. Offer congratulations when appropriate. Offer help when it might be needed. Offer advice when something happens that affects or might affect their business. Recognize an office move. Support their charities. Send them copies of articles that could apply to their business or situation. You want your association with them to be of value to them.
Each associate should be given a plan. What you want to measure and report on are the planned events versus the actual development steps that occur. In a resent post,(Law Firm Marketing: Individual Attorney Planning Form:September 20, 2005), I included a sample business development plan for the individual attorney.
Now that we have covered expectations and measurement, it is just up to you to show them how—and equally important you have to give them time and budget to do it. In addition to a dollar budget for development activities, their billable time goal should include a portion of that goal that is to be charged to a "business development" account. While you are at it, include a dollar budget, and "hour budget", for professional development. If you are going to teach them to make rain, you will want to invest in their professional development at the same time.