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The rogue lawyers who won´t return your calls

Above The Law’s 6th Annual Legally Themed Halloween Costume Contest

By STACI ZARETSKY

Oct 22, 2015 at 1:29 PM

Halloween is a little more than a week away, and once again, everyone in the legal community is getting excited for a weekend full of debauchery in their favorite witty — or incredibly naughty — costumes.

For the sixth year in a row, we here at Above the Law are soliciting legally themed costumes for our annual Halloween contest. We’re continually impressed with how creative lawyers and law students can be when they take their noses out of their casebooks.

Have you got what it takes to top the winners of years past? We hope so!

If you’re in need of inspiration, here are the winning looks from the past four years of the contest, Assault and Battery (2010), Grandfather Clause (2011), Original Intent (2012),Ruth Baby Ginsburg (2013), and Short and Plain Statement (2014):

Please email us your pictures and then we’ll vote on the winner of our annual competition right after Halloween. We’re all looking forward to judging you!

The Still Changing Legal Landscape

Responding Strategically to the Still Changing Legal Landscape

BY SUSAN LETTERMAN

I wish I could report that the legal landscape, which is complex, competitive, and the result of significant economic changes over the past 10 years, is finished changing.  Unfortunately, that is unlikely. The thought leaders in the business and legal world, who spend their days noticing and analyzing the economic patterns, locally and globally, know that significant changes continue and that most lawyers are not yet prepared to respond strategically and effectively.

The Still Changing Legal Landscape

1995

We are in one of those great historical periods that occur every 200 or 300 years when people don’t understand the world anymore, and the past is not sufficient to explain the future.  —Peter Drucker

Lawyers are particularly susceptible to looking toward the past to predict the future. It’s part of our training. Indeed, the best lawyers are particularly adept at using the past to make sense of the present and explain the future. Using this skill for business decisions is a huge mistake. The only way lawyers avoid this trap is by adjusting their thinking in ways that are contrary to the thinking that has largely contributed to their professional success.

2013

We have entered an Age of Disruption. —C. Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer

Changes in statutory and case law usually happen slowly. These changes are never proactive. They respond to a significant need that has been present for a while. They lag behind the needs of society. Responding to a business environment defined by disruption requires being proactive, anticipating possibilities, trying out solutions to see what might work, and adjusting strategies that are implemented iteratively. This type of process is the antithesis of the change paradigm that lawyers have been practicing religiously since law school.

The changes in the business of law are profound, ongoing, and continue to create future scenarios that are difficult to anticipate with the clarity that lawyers crave. The wisest approach is to manage the business with competencies to manage ambiguity and adapt to an unfolding future as it appears.

The market for legal services has changed permanently.

In firms where the profits-per-partner measure of firm performance has grown steadily, it is mostly a function of significant cost-cutting. This is not a growth strategy. This is a strategy that creates organizational vulnerability.

When firms employ a growth strategy by acquisition or merger, the expected return on financial investment and time spent nurturing the merger is often not realized because the law firm business model and consequential culture does not support the expansion of business from current clients through cross-selling, and instead encourages lawyers not to share access to their clients and not to spend the time to develop trust and communication with new partners and across practice groups. Coincidentally, the model and culture also drive behaviors contrary to those required to support diversity with inclusion.

Even assuming that the empowered leaders of a law firm want to change their business model and culture, actually doing so is still a significant challenge, demanding external support, development of new competencies, and a well-executed, planned, change strategy.

Responding Effectively and Changing When Change is Hard

When you can’t anticipate the change to come, it’s important to be capable of adapting to the situation that arises. —Edward E. Lawler, III & Christopher G. Worley, Built to Change, 2006

Adapting to change is a process and situational adaptability is a competency that people can learn and master. Law firm leaders are responsible for creating law firms capable of adapting to an unfolding future as it unfolds. Doing so is “extremely difficult because it often requires the development of new core competencies and… changes in structures and [processes]that were built for stability,” Lawler and Worley wrote in their book, Built to Change. However, it is achievable with an understanding of how intentional, strategic change is created.

Organizational changes include:

Planned culture changes to improve adaptability, communication, leadership, business development and client retention, continuous learning and improvement, innovation, and inclusion.

Client development, retention, and cross-selling programs and plans.

Post-merger and acquisition integrations and organizational alignment.

Succession planning for leadership and clients.

Talent engagement, development, advancement, and retention programs and plans.

Change is hard, so resistance is common and manifests with myriad symptoms, including complaints about fairness or reasonableness of a situation, concerns about risk and safety related to oneself, one’s group, or the entire organization, and even denial of problems, confusion about what to do, or paralysis.  Frequently, change initiatives fall short of creating the intended outcomes or fail altogether.

Call to mind the list of law firms that equated growth with mergers or acquisitions and measures of profit per individual partner instead of creating a culture that would drive organizational profit through expansion of services and legal work for existing clients and client retention through succession planning. Exactly where are they now?

Approximately 75 percent of change initiatives fail, threaten the survival of the organization, create substantial disruptions to the business, or otherwise leave an organization worse off than before the strategy was implemented. Successes, mild or otherwise, seem to hover around 10-15 percent, according to Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn in Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture. Law firm leaders who design growth strategies on a foundation of the four principles of strategic change increase the likelihood of success and minimize substantial threats to their organization.

The four principles of strategic change are:

Strategic change begins with a clear vision and goals. What is the law firm trying to change and why?

Strategic organizational change requires leadership. In particular, it needs a leader who is able to communicate, drive vision, goals, engagement, and persuade others take on their part in making the strategy successful.

Strategic change succeeds when those involved in the planning or implementation and those affected by the changes created have the right competencies. The predominant competencies are the ingredients of the firm’s culture and ability to implement the change strategy.

Change is difficult and uncomfortable for everyone. It is easy for the process to stall. Leaders must be able to diagnose and address obstacles when they arise.

Principle #1: Strategic Change is Strategic

Strategy is a process of noticing changes in the legal landscape, making an organized series of decisions, and taking action that causes forward movement toward goals and a vision of success. Astute leaders notice changes in the legal landscape, analyze them, and decide the possible and likely opportunities and threats that will unfold in the near future.  These key elements include your clients and their business or personal needs, wants, expectations, pain points, and preferences, your vendors, your competitors, and the general economic environment.

They also identify organizational strengths available to access those opportunities and address those threats, and then develop a plan. Today, prescient leaders are routinely discussing with their teams the present situations in their external and internal environments. They discuss their organization’s values, identity, and vision. They evaluate their organizational culture and whether it is aligned with the organizational vision and goals. If not aligned, culture will serve as an extremely strong source of resistance. Given the massive changes in the legal industry, effective responses, and new growth strategies for law firms of any size often requires changes to a law firm’s values, identity, and culture, especially if the culture drives stability over responding to changes in the external environment by intentionally changing.

Principle #2: Strategic Change Requires Leadership

Intentional, strategic, organizational change starts when a leader becomes aware of growth opportunities and threats to continued performance levels, develops ideas about what to do to improve organizational performance, creates a vision, communicates what to do and why, and engages empowered partners to support and participate in the implementation of a strategic plan.

Organizational change is a team process. The law firm managing partner or CEO leads the change leadership team, often composed of office managing partners, executive or policy committee lawyers, practice group leaders, and the partners in charge of talent development or business development. Each member of the change leadership team leads his or her own team in implementation of the change strategy action plan. Change plans are implemented in a cascading fashion from the highest levels of formal authority down.

Principle #3: Those Leading a Change Initiative and Those Affected Must Have the Right Competencies

The most important competencies required of leaders at all levels include:

Understanding the legal industry, the industries of key clients, and the relevant perspectives that may be global and culturally different, and applying the knowledge to advance organizational strategy and goals.

The ability to make good and timely decisions that are relevant to moving forward the law firm’s growth strategy and in particular the specific change initiative, even when there is a lot of information that is complex and appears contradictory.

The ability to anticipate and address the needs of multiple stakeholders with contrary interests and concerns.

The ability to be action oriented and drive results even under difficult circumstances – to take on difficult challenges with a positive, energetic, and resourceful attitude.

The ability to manage others with strong communication skills, including giving and receiving feedback effectively, managing conflict, delegating tasks to others clearly, relating with a diverse group of people effectively by adjusting styles when necessary, and holding others accountable.

The ability to build relationships with others to meet shared objectives and locate and leverage the resources (people, money, time) necessary to support organizational goals.

Resilience, courage, adaptability, and the ability to instill trust.

Assessments, including 360ᴼ assessments, are valuable to (1) evaluate the ability of the people to lead and respond to change, (2) develop a common language for change and leadership as an early step to a culture change, and (3) design a skill-development plan to create sufficient competency to drive the change forward. Although many assessments are available, I suggest using an assessment backed by a robust model and developmental materials.  A law firm has no reason to create its own developmental model from scratch when excellent resources already exist and can be integrated into talent development models.  Law firms also can build a robust change leadership team by using a consultant certified and trained to use resources such as the Korn Ferry Leadership Architect and Voices 360.

Principle #4: Change is a Difficult and Uncomfortable Process

Change is hard and filled with discomfort because of the loss of familiar routines and the challenge of learning new skills. It is particularly difficult for people and cultures ingrained with beliefs that change should be slow, risks avoided, stability is best, and the past is a good source of information about how to approach the future. Strategic changes also take more time than is often anticipated. For example, a culture change takes years to achieve. Organizational growth through merger or acquisition depends on a culture that encourages cross-selling. Successfully moving into a new market (geographic, industry, or expertise needed) is a multi-faceted project, requiring adjustments to many parts of the organization’s structures, processes, and the competencies, thinking, and behaviors of the people.

Most people resist change and implement strategies built on familiar ways of doing things. In other words, they try to change the problem situation by using the strategic plans, thinking, and behaviors that it.

Examples:

A law school with a declining applicant pool, following rising unemployment or underemployment for its graduates, adds new law practice management courses without changing its business model.

A job hunter has received few interviews and submits more applications without changing where to look for job openings, the types of jobs considered, or the content of a resume and cover letter.

A law firm hires a consultant to create a strategic plan for organizational growth and then is unable to implement any changes. The leadership group meets regularly to discuss the plan, and every meeting has the same people arguing the same positions and offering the same reasons for the firm’s inability to implement change instead of addressing the group’s inability to communicate effectively and reach decisions they can implement without resistance.

The legal landscape continues to change.  Law firm management tactics aimed to maintain stability are not effective. Only those law firms, with leaders prepared to respond intentionally and strategically, will survive and thrive.

Resources:

Bridges, W., Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes (2nd ed. 2004)

Cameron, K.S., & Quinn, R. E., Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture (2006)

Denning, S. & Cross, R. The Organization Network Fieldbook 125 (2010)

Heifetz, R. & Grashow, A., The Practice of Adaptive Leadership (2009)

Kahneman, D, Thinking Fast and Slow, (2011)

Lawler, E. & Worley, C., Build to Change  (2006)

Marshak, R. J., Organizational Change: Views from the Edge (2009)

About the Author

WhiteSusan Letterman White is principal of Letterman White Consulting, a business consulting firm focused on law and accounting firms.

http://www.lawpracticetoday.org/article/strategically-changing-legal-landscape/

O abismo entre as áreas jurídica e administrativa

Quem trabalha em escritório de advocacia sabe exatamente que existe uma divisão concreta entre a área jurídica e área administrativa.

Em alguns grandes escritórios esse abismo é tão grande que chega a ser debatido e confessado abertamente em reuniões que debatem por horas as ações e tentativas para diminuir esse "problema"

Não bastando isso, existe também o abismo entre os diferentes prédios e locais de trabalho. Grandes escritórios costumam ter essa divisão, ficando então um abismo duplo: 

1 - Área jurídica - abismo - Área Administrativa 

2 - Área Administrativa do prédio A  - abismo -  Área administrativa do prédio B

Eu já ouvi muitos apelidos "carinhosos" direcionados ao prédio B. Vejam bem, o prédio B é todo e qualquer lugar separado da sede principal do escritório, mas na mesma região e bairro.

Em escritórios de médio porte essa diferença é muito menor, e na maioria das vezes, inexistente. Quem vem de um dos grandes grande, sente essa diferença na pele, e no ar.

Obviamente o "core" do negócio é e sempre será a área jurídica e a área administrativa é e sempre será um apoio. Um apoio fundamental. 

Eu já viu um sócio pedindo ajuda para fechar a cortina. Pedindo lá da sala dele, sem pegar no telefone, ou seja, gritando: - Fulana venha fechar a cortina da minha sala pois está muito sol.
Por favor e Obrigada nem pensar! Parece que vai cair a língua se pronunciar essas palavras.

Já vi sócio pedindo para uma pessoa levar o "resíduo" da filha dele para o laboratório (sim, exame de fezes).

Gente! Fala sério! Quando isso vai ter fim?! Isso não é bonito. Isso não é profissional.

Pessoas são pessoas e se elas estão lá é por que são necessárias para o bom andamento do negócio como um todo. 

O pessoal da limpeza é muito importante, o pessoal do café é indispensável, os meninos do malote e gráfica, as recepcionistas e secretárias e todo o pessoal do financeiro, que emite e cobra faturas!! Ah, e sem falar do pessoal do Departamento Pessoal hein! Imagine um sócio rodando uma folha de pagamento? A equipe de recursos humanos e marketing também merecem seus créditos, afinal lidar com o gosto e o jeito de vários sócios para um mesmo assunto não é nada simples. 

Essa real e concreta diferença faz parte da coletânea "Piores Práticas", e infelizmente está enraizado nos grandes escritórios. 

Quero só ver a geração Y como vai ser.
Ou melhor, eu não quero ver não. . 

Law Firm: A Gen Y Perspective

Getting to know the Millennial mind is a popular topic of interest these days. It is no surprise to me that my generation is trending – we’re fascinating. Or at least, you expect me to say something like that because according to recent studies, Millennials are narcissistic and entitled.

In fact, the Millennial generation is the fastest growing group entering the business world. By 2020, nearly 50% of the U.S workforce will consist of Millennials, according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics. Another study predicts nearly 75% by 2025. In Canada, the forecasts are 75% by the year 2028. One issue that has become clear over the years is the students’ gradually shorter intended duration of stay at their chosen company upon graduation. Ninety-one percent of Millennials (born between 1977-1997) expect to stay at one job for less than 3 years. So, how do law firms avoid a human resources nightmare? It is crucial nowadays to first understand us, and then to know how to provide a positive working environment for people between the ages of 18-34.

When I thought about where I wanted to work, it never occurred to me to search first for jobs at large scale corporations  that have been around for years which might look fancy on my resume. I was looking for a real world experience, to learn new skills, and to make a difference.  When I researched companies in Vancouver, I wanted to be able to tell right away what it was that I could learn from my experience at that firm, and in what way I could add value and in turn make a difference. I wasn’t looking to be making photo copies and fetching coffee.  After all, that’s why we pay for a university education, right?

What do I value about my company culture? Well, for starters we have an office puppy. Yes, an office puppy. Her name is Ashley, and we get along swimmingly (when I give her cookies out of the bottomless office cookie jar). Am I suggesting that you stop by the nearest pet store or SPCA to make your Millennials happy? Not exactly. I’m asking you to  think outside of the box (or the kennel). When I arrive  to work in the morning there is always real marketing consulting work to be done. I get to collaborate with the graphic designers, brainstorm marketing strategies, create campaigns with the directors, and analyze different companies and create my own recommendations. I get to listen to my music at my desk and put my ideas on whiteboard walls around the office. Did I mention the bottomless office cookie jar?

So what are some attributes of Millennials that will affect their role at your firm?

1. Tech savvy
2. Seek work-life balance
3. Question authority and seek meaningful careers with a team-oriented environment
4. Problem-solving involves more technology and social media than ever before, and it can be invaluable for getting relevant information faster
5. Typically confident and self-assured, but not afraid to express self-doubt, occasional anger and disappointment
6. Not afraid to reach out to others for guidance
7. Value learning and experience
8. Expected to be nurtured in the workplace, not necessarily with competitive pay, but with challenging experiences
9. In constant communication with the world, so we expect you to be too. Responding to our emails over a day later is questionable to us

Here’s how you can provide a favourable working environment for Gen Y:

• There needs to be more emphasis on technology and a desire to test innovative ways it can be used to improve processes for your law firm and your clients. Let your Millennials discover new online tools for you. Or better yet, give them the opportunity to use different technologies to provide efficiencies for clients.
• You need to invest more time into creating and embracing your internal culture. Your firm may be used to traditional professional practices, but with the growing trend in casual dress codes and flexible work hours, some exceptions might need to be made. Casual Friday’s just aren’t enough for us anymore.
• Challenge your Millennials! Believe it or not, you can learn a thing or two from the younger generation. Let us wow you with our knowledge of social media. Give us projects (with the necessary guidance) that might be new to us. We want to learn how to do new tasks, and it doesn’t take us long to get the job done.
• 
  

How do we add value to your firm?

To name just a couple of reasons:

• Your goal is to bring in new clients and create relationships with them that will be maintained over their lifetime. Attracting clients involves getting to know who they are and what they value from you as a law firm. As Generation X and Generation Y become your clients, who better to have on your team than the demographic themselves?
• Who do you think is in charge of the large and still growing startup scene? There is an opportunity to tap into new markets such as this with people who speak fluent Millennial on your team.
• We bring fresh perspectives and different ways to tackle daily challenges. Think about it this way, if two heads are better than one, then wouldn’t it be beneficial to manage a large group of people who all think differently and for themselves?

Feel free to comment with any questions regarding this blog post. If you liked this post, then be sure to follow us for more legal marketing content on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram!

Keep an eye out for part 2 of this blog post: the Millennial Client.

Photo by bplanet.

http://fsquaredmarketing.com/blog/2015/07/24/engage-millennials-law-firm-advice-from-gen-y/

Men Behaving Badly

By DAVID MOWRY

Oct 21, 2015 at 4:05 PM

I just finished “Crash of the Titans” (affiliate link), a book about the fall of Merrill Lynch and its sale to Bank of America. Listening to the book on tape made the dialogue and behavior of some of these Masters of the Universe seem, quite frankly, depraved in the depths of immaturity. Utilizing a company helicopter solely for golf outings, playing playground politics over millions of dollars, when your duty is to the shareholders of your company? It was quite a story, one I recommend to those new hires out there. The bankers are the people you work for in Biglaw. Associates are but peons on the rung of the lawfirm pyramid; a scheme so insidious that Daniel Koybiashi would be proud.

What is it that makes some men behave so poorly? Like forcing associates to accompany them to the men’s room. One partner at a former firm thought nothing of continuing conversations about matters right into the latrine, through the ablutions, and back out the door. It would have been especially nice of him to wash his hands before reaching into the ice machine on the way back to the office, me following like a puppy. Another partner triple billed clients on an arbitrage matter; I know this, because the work assigned to me was done by two other associates previously. Yet another partner didn’t want to report a mentally unstable attorney for fear of the extra headache it would cause. Or the judge who would demand his clerks stay until he left for the evening, and who often proceeded to workout in the gym; oh, and had one of the worst backlogs in the judiciary.

Then there are the harassers. I know of a judge who was mysteriously looking for a mid-year replacement. The problem was that the old bastard was such a sexist jerk that he’d been through several female clerks already, and the latest one had quit mid-year. There are the back room and closed door jokes about gender, pregnancy, affirmative action, femi-nazis and the like. And yes, this goes on still today; in law firms, in house, and many places men gather. I call it “harrumphing”, as groups of men engaging in this behavior over drinks sound like water buffaloes at the river, “harrumph harrumph.” We even had a kid stupid enough to offensively call out a woman in our summer class. Of course, nothing was done as she didn’t want to make waves. It was with no small amount of shadenfreude that I read about him in this very blog for emailing (yes EMAILING) damning quotes to other folks in his current firm. And I can never write one of these without mentioning the partner who took after the female partner who had already left her first husband (another partner) and which couple went on to cuckold the primary client of the first idiot. Then, the client came back in house, married another partner at the firm, and sits in the office of the first guy. (You have to chart it out, but it is truly amazing).

Before you inundate me with the MRA nonsense, or even the Trumpian “if you work as hard, you’ll make as much,” nonsense, just self-reflect a bit. If any of this seems funny to you, or sounds familiar, you may be part of the problem. However, the real problem, is that while we all recognize that these problems exist, nothing is done to eradicate them. Diversity training doesn’t help those in need, and those that don’t need are bored to tears by the silly films. I suppose that as generations of peer groups come through and move up or on, some of this will come to an end; but I don’t hold out much hope.

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David Mowry is Senior Counsel to a large technology company. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the company’s position or opinion on issues raised herein.

David is a former litigator, two time federal clerk, and former Chair of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s New to In House Committee, and is available for speaking engagements (specifically interested in schools that want a presenter to tell it like it was, is and could be with experience not only in Biglaw, but also the federal judiciary and is now in-house). If interested, you may reach him at dmowry00@gmail.com.

http://abovethelaw.com/2015/10/men-behaving-badly/

Somente para os realmente inteligentes

O destino das boas ideias

3 Common Mistakes When Pitching New Business

I have occasionally seen lawyers make great pitches for new business.

I haven’t delivered one of those pitches, mind you. When I worked at a law firm, I tended to develop business the more difficult way: I wrote articles, gave talks, served on boards and bar committees, and gently stayed in touch with folks, thus shooting 1000 arrows in the air and hoping that one would strike its mark.  For me, at least, the arrows that struck tended to be the substantive ones: I wrote and spoke widely to develop a reputation in a field, and that ultimately led to business. I attended beauty contests, to be sure, but I was no Miss America.

The beauty-contest star I watched in action — one of my former partners, years ago — gave a remarkable performance. He trotted through all the preliminary PowerPoint slides — awards the firm had won, clients the firm worked for — with complete nonchalance, implying that he knew this was all unpersuasive silliness that he was obligated to say and that he’d said a million times before. But he somehow worked in a couple of trial stories: “Oh, yes — the firm represents BigCo. Ha! I tried a case for BigCo a couple of years ago, in downstate Illinois. The trial ran for nearly three months; I came home for only one weekend, to see my kid’s high school graduation. We drew the jury from Hell; we were just toast. But the other side had this one expert who self-destructed. [Amusing anecdote.] If not for that, I’m not sure we would’ve gotten out of that courtroom alive. That expert did us a helluva favor; he probably cost his client the whole seven billion dollars it sought in damages.”

You get the idea: It’s an extended humblebrag.  You act as though you’re just telling a cute war story, but you sneak in things like “three-month jury trial,” high stakes, remarkable dedication to task, famous lawyer against you in the courtroom, defense verdict, and the like. The war story might have recounted the only trial this guy ever won in his life, but it sure sounded good.

Now that I’m in-house, I watch out for these things. I always follow up with questions like: How many jury trials have you personally first-chaired? How many of those went to judgment? What were the verdicts? Please give me the names of your clients and the opposing counsel in the cases. And so on.

No one asked my partner those questions many years ago — although, frankly, if asked, he would have had perfectly good answers. But that guy was Superman; he wasn’t a mere mortal, like you and me.

Let’s talk a bit about Clark Kent. What three mistakes have I seen (either in my old law-firm life or my new in-house role) that you should avoid?

First, I’ve seen folks so nervous about landing the client’s business that they ignored the client during the pitch. The pair of lawyers I’m thinking of had analyzed the complaint, shared with the potential client an outline of what they’d say in a motion to dismiss, and prepared some general strategic points about defending the case.

But, during the beauty contest, their preparation got in their way. The two lawyers were so intent and earnest about making the pitch that they ignored the potential client. When the client plainly was about to ask a question, the lawyers kept talking — because they had prepared these great ideas, and by God they were going to present them. The lawyers generated a monologue (actually — there were two lawyers monopolizing the discussion, so it wasn’t a monologue; what the heck is the word for that?) instead of encouraging a conversation with the client. The client ultimately went elsewhere.

That’s the first mistake. A good presentation will focus largely on the client’s concerns and the client’s questions; your preparation should focus on that, rather than on what you’d like to say if the client doesn’t interrupt you.

Second, I’ve seen folks effectively beg for business.

I don’t mean dropping to their knees and pleading, “Please, please, please hire me.”

But effectively doing the same thing. Thus, I’ve heard:

“I’d really like to represent you. My firm rates me, and pays me, based on the business I generate, so it’s very important to me that you hire me.”

Or:

“I’m our firm’s relationship lawyer for you as a client. That means that I’m responsible for making sure we get an increasing amount of business from you over time. And you haven’t retained us in three years; that makes my firm think that I’m ineffective. You should really hire me.”

Sorry, Charlie: Superman doesn’t beg. This is not effective salesmanship.

Finally, I’ve seen lawyers implicitly threaten clients to try to attract business. It isn’t phrased like a threat, but it is one: “You haven’t retained us in a new case in nearly three years. You really have to give us some new business. If you don’t give us new business, then I won’t be able to keep you on as a client, and that will mean that my partners and I will start suing you on behalf of other clients. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that to happen, so you should hire me.”

In the words of the second President Bush: “Bring ’em on.”

Just not as our lawyers.

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Mark Herrmann is the Chief Counsel – Litigation and Global Chief Compliance Officer at Aon, the world’s leading provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, and human capital and management consulting. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Inside Straight: Advice About Lawyering, In-House And Out, That Only The Internet Could Provide (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

http://abovethelaw.com/2015/09/3-common-mistakes-when-pitching-new-business/