Confidence makes the world go ’round. In our current financial crises and credit restrictions, one lesson becomes very clear: Our financial markets require the confidence of banks and the public that loans will be repaid and that the extension of credit is safe. Until our public regains that confidence, the markets will have difficulties and the NASDAQ will continue to slide downward.
So, too, people must have confidence in their lawyer and the honesty and trustworthiness of their lawyer. What has our profession come to when a lawyer must promote his honesty?
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During an economic crisis, yes, some call it a depression, Heather Milligan has some cogent ideas to market your practice:
- What are your clients’ key industry pubs reporting on today? Understand how the financial markets impact their companies.
- If your clients/referral sources are at risk, call and see how you can be of service to THEM. Not just their companies, but THEM. If their company is on the brink of collapse or bankruptcy, their first concerns will be about putting food on their table, not who is handling the filings.
- Face time. Face time. Face time. You need to be, and stay, top-of-mind with your key contacts.
- For we marketers, time to start thinking about clearing our budgets of “unnecessary” items. Now might not be the best time to kick-off a rebranding campaign or overhaul the website. I’m not going to ask for a high-capacity color laser printer right now. End-of-year charitable contributions/tables-of-ten will soon be reaching your desks. How are you going to evaluate them?
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The days of multi-million dollar profits per partner and rapidly rising triple-digit associate salaries were never real for most law firms, especially when considered in light of the demographic of law – more than 70% are in small law firms. But, now firms big and small, conservative and highly leveraged, all feel the business pressure from the economic downturn.
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On September 26th, ACC is planning a live webcast seminar to introduce its "value revolution," designed to teach about lowering large law firm fees to corporate clients.
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The WSJ, August 26th, front page, discusses law school rankings … and the ability of school deans to "game" the system used by U.S. News & World Report to rank law schools. This reminds me of the accounting adage, "Figures don’t lie, but liars figure."
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Does more information become competitive intelligence … or just more information? Read Ann Lee Gibson at her new blog only if you want to learn more, i.e., become more intelligent! Congratulations to Ann for a great start.
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Famous words. And the legal community is beginning to feel them.
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In our Managing Partners Roundtable discussion this morning, we talked about the effect and value of surveys. Not enough law firms ask their clients "how am I doing?" Too often, marketing gurus suggest that written surveys be sent in the mail after a matter or litigation is concluded. I suggest that this is the wrong time … no matter what you learn from the responses (and in my experience, you won’t get many responses, probably not even a statistically valid amount), it’s after the fact. That means that you will not be able to salvage that client relationship if there is real dissatisfaction!
One of my clients taught me an important lesson: Send a short survey with the first billing. If there is anything wrong, it’s best to know at the beginning when you have time to correct any deficiency.
Most lawyers are reluctant to ask the question. They’re afraid of the answer. But, what better result could you get than to be told there is something that you can correct … and thereby strenghthen the relationship when you do. The client feels appreciated and heard … and recognizes that you care enough to ask and to make a change.
In larger firms, we concluded that it is very beneficial for the managing partner to periodically visit the top 10 clients of the firm. Even when I was in industry, the fact that I as CEO cared enough to visit a customer had a dramatic impact on our relationship and the buyer’s/customer’s goodwill toward us.
Bottom line, we don’t exist in a vacuum. We must understand and know the needs and wants of our clients … and what better way to find than to ask, directly. In addition, this process confirms that the relationship is between the client and the firm, not an individual lawyer in the firm.
Obviously, there was much more said this morning, but this concept caused the managing partners to vow to make changes in their firms. What are you prepared to do in your relationships?
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I have now joined JDSupra. See my profile.
The organization is designed to gather documents used by one lawyer that the first lawyer is willing to share with another lawyer … this is a great way to find a starting point in a practice area in which you are not well versed. It may even be a great way to find a good format and content to use in your matter/case that someone else has used in another, similar matter.
Years ago, when practicing law and as chair of the Beverly Hills Bar Association’s Family Law Committee, I organized and chaired a stellar group of family law lawyers to create and edit a Bar/Bench book with forms that the trial judges were using in the Los Angeles Superior Court. It was called The Billy G. Mills Bench Book. Judge Mills, at the time, was the presiding judge of the Family Law Court. The joint effort produced an outstanding work that helped many lawyers address the concerns of the Bench for the benefit of clients.
Today, JDSupra is using technology to produce an even greater result for attorneys seeking the right form at the right time to be more efficient and avoid rifling through files to find that elusive document that they remember seeing, but just can’t find right now, the moment of need!
JDSupra will also introduce content that I will produce for law firm management. We hope to provide an ever broader platform to help lawyers become more effective with their clients, more efficient in the delivery of their legal services and more profitable for themselves, the objective of LawBiz Management.
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