Top 9 Ways For Any Attorney To Generate a Huge Book of Business

Transcript

[00:00:00] Okay, I'm going to get started. So today's topic is actually one of the most important topics you may ever hear. And it's important if you're a partner it's important. If you're an associate, it's important. If you're a law student and just at the outset there's kind of two types of attorneys.

[00:00:18] There's the type of attorneys that have business. And when you have business, you're operating your own business. And that's very helpful because you have clients and the clients are coming to you and they're giving you work. And if you're that kind of person, then law firms will aggressively compete for you.

[00:00:33] And you'll never really have any significant issues with employment, stability and the stain employed anywhere or anything along those lines. And unfortunately, if you don't have that, then it's actually much harder to be an attorney. And the reason is because law firms typically do not.

[00:00:53]Have much interest in people once they get beyond a certain number of years of experience, because [00:01:00] you shouldn't that seven or eight because they want people with business. And so they want younger people to do the work, and then they want older people to, to bring in the work and get work to younger people.

[00:01:10] So that's the model of law firms. And if people don't fit into that model, what tends to happen is they look for other opportunities. They go in house, they go on the government and all sorts of things. And I can tell you. From experience that most of the attorneys that I know that have a lot of business actually really enjoy practicing law, it's fun for them.

[00:01:28]And they have clients and they feel a sense of responsibility. You feel more of a sense of control over what happens to you and how you use your time. And it's a lot of times that lack of control that people without work field that makes the practice of loss so difficult and so stressful, and why people leave in such great numbers.

[00:01:45] So this topic is extremely important and I hope. That I'm able to really offer you some insights today and help you. A lot of my practices, working with partners and finding partners, and I've been doing it for over 20 years. And actually my first [00:02:00] placement I ever made was a partner. So I have a lot of experience.

[00:02:03] I've watched how people get business and what makes people successful. And I really hope that everything that I saved for you today is going to be okay. Very helpful, because this topic is huge. It's one of the most important things that any attorney can understand. Let's get started and what I will do to today, just because this is such an important topic is throughout the presentation.

[00:02:24] I will, if you have any questions, I'm going to cover kind of nine different ways for people to get business. And so if you have any questions after each section, just ask the questions and I will try to answer them during the presentation. And then when we're done with the presentation, I will also take time to answer as many questions as you have.

[00:02:45]If you're on this presentation that you made a great decision coming to it, because this is a very important topic. I'm going to teach you how attorney can clients. I'm also going to teach you why everyone, you meet some potential client and just a few things about the legal profession that you [00:03:00] may not be aware of, that I've already brought up, but most people when they're in law school and when they come out, give believe that success requires you billing a lot of hours and doing good work and.

[00:03:11] For the most part that's, what's important when you're working for someone else and another attorney in your firm, but when you get out, other things become more important and most lawyers come to understand that even more important than that is your ability to generate business. So I'm going to teach you today how lawyers can clients and also how clients find the liars that they work with.

[00:03:34]And just another thing that I wanted to bring up real quick. Or quickly is that, that your success as an attorney really is important, but having security is something that's very important too. And so if you don't have businesses in attorney, then you need to go to work for other people and attorneys that work in house, or they work for the government.

[00:03:53] Many times they don't have any employment security. And what that means is they could lose their job at any moment. Most [00:04:00] attorneys that I see the resumes that have gone in house. I've worked in numerous in-house companies because companies go out of business, their legal department changes frequently and all sorts of things happening in the time that I can remember since say 2005, I Google first of all, public enough.

[00:04:17] The number of changeovers in the legal department has been crazy. I've seen so many people come and go there and that's just one company. And so the same thing happens in most companies. And then any time there's a new CEO, they will bring in a different management. So you really do not have a lot of skills.

[00:04:33] Employment security. When you're in house, you don't have a lot of employment security in many government positions. And when you have business, you actually have employment security. Cause clients keep coming back to you again and again. And the other thing, the thing is you also control your income. So that gives you having business gives you a lot of control over your income because you can make more money depending on how much business you have.

[00:04:54] So here are the top nine ways that attorneys can get clients. So the first thing that I've learned [00:05:00] from many of them successful attorneys out there is that every person that you meet could potentially be a future client. It's many attorneys and even law students don't believe that different people that they meet could be a client or might someday be able to be their client.

[00:05:15] I it's funny. Cause I go around, I live in Malibu, California, and there's so many real estate agents in Malibu. There's, I don't know. There's. There's literally more real estate agents. There's three times as many real estate. And since there are sales and leases in the city every year, so everybody's competing for all these big leases into sales.

[00:05:32] And so what happens is every time I go to a party and variably, I'll find myself talking to a real estate agent and many times the real estate agents are a good portion of the time. I have no idea who I am. And they're always trying to figure out who I am and if I could be a potential listing many times.

[00:05:48] And so I typically will not give any details about myself. I won't, I'll be very opaque with them and act like I couldn't possibly be a client or someone that would have a [00:06:00] house where they have listing. And invariably, those people will just disappear and ignore me and go somewhere else. So that's how a lot of attorneys are too.

[00:06:08] Like when they're out there looking for clients, they may ignore. The building janitor, they may ignore the person that sells them auto insurance. And they may assume that someone that they never got, they didn't get along with in the past. I could never work with them. And those are all, these are all types of people that I've seen.

[00:06:25] In my opinion, in my history have gotten, have been able to give business to other attorneys. I once knew of a janitor son who went to Harvard law school and was the general counsel of a major computer company in California. And someone was very nice to him. There was an attorney and got. And business.

[00:06:41] And then an auto insurance salesman, who was a son of a CEO of a well-known American insurance company and was able to get business. And so these are all examples, people that you may have ignored and in the past, and that people I've seen him, he knows that other people didn't ignore him, sorry, and were able to get lots of business from it.

[00:06:59] So [00:07:00] all these people that you need in your life, if you. If you give up, if you have a positive interaction with as many people as possible, and you're nice to people and you take interest in people many times, they have more power than you can realize. I'm thinking of another example of a guy that owned a small meat market, like meat market, kind of grocery store in a town.

[00:07:20] I grew up in whose son became a very powerful executive head of a major, a us company. And so it's all these sorts of people can help you. When I was practicing law, I got business from it. People I never would have expected to give me business and just people that never in a million years would I have believed, have given me business.

[00:07:41] One of them was a a graphic artist that I've never thought would really do anything and started a very large design firm that became decent sized company. And he referred other designers to me and I did all their. Contracts and other work and litigation. And so you just, and I was nice to him and I [00:08:00] always had a good relationship.

[00:08:01] So you just can never underestimate the people that you meet. And no matter what you're doing, you have to realize that anybody you meet could always be a potential business. It doesn't matter what type of a law firm you're in. It doesn't matter at all. Everybody, the person you meet could be a potential client, no matter who they are and how you act towards others will also determine.

[00:08:24] Whether or not they like you in the future. And one of the things that I've noticed that kind of runs through these relationships is when the real estate agent comes up to me at a party and tries to figure out who I am. And if I'm important, it's nice to me. And if I don't act like I'm important, Walks away.

[00:08:41] That's an example of what you might call a snob and someone that's only con or someone that's only concerned about you for one thing. And when you take interest in people and you're nice to them, regardless of whether or not they need help. And regardless of what about them personally, or what you bought their standing, those are the people that are most likely to [00:09:00] come back and work with you many times.

[00:09:01]It's not the people that you expect. It's like when you. Do something without expecting something in return and you're nice to people and you go out of your way to be nice to people. And every time that I've done that I've actually ended up getting work. One of the things that, one of the, one of the ways that it's on, I think on the, it said there on my blog or on BCG, but there's something called the garbage man story.

[00:09:24] And I'm going to tell it to you. Real quickly, just because it's actually a fairly important story in my development. I was a, when I graduated from high school, I had a, kind of an asphalt business around Detroit where I was going around and putting asphalt sealer on people's driveways. And I had so much bad luck and I lost so much money doing it that I actually, after just having all sorts of problems with it for several weeks, losing all my money and having all sorts of accidents and so forth.

[00:09:53] I actually quit the work. And I became a garbage man for minimum wage. This is in the summer after my, after my [00:10:00] last year of high school. And so I was a garbage man. And even though I was a garbage man, I decided that what I was going to do is I was going to go back and just do the right thing, all the work that I'd done over the summer, that hadn't turned out well, I was going to go back and I was going to go fix it all with the money that I had made from being a garbage man, because I decided that part of me just didn't want to go back to school knowing that I didn't do it.

[00:10:23] But I didn't do a good job on some of this work. And I had no background in this type of asphalt work or anything. So I was in a hardware store towards the end of the summer and kind of a big convenience home Depot type store and home improvement type store. And I met a guy. His name was Al Weiman. He was going to pay someone that worked for him to go back and to put this asphalt sealer all over his condominium complex.

[00:10:51] And all the asphalt around it. And he was looking to buy some stuff and so forth and what materials. And so I sat there and I told them about [00:11:00] how to do it and how much he needed and so forth for over an hour and how the process worked and how we needed to mix sand and all these different things.

[00:11:08] And I didn't want anything in return. And then as I was leaving, he asked me if I could go take a look at it and how much the work was worth. So he knew how much to pay the guy that was going to do the work for him. And he was just a maintenance guy. And I said, sure. So I went and I measure the whole parking lot and I told them, this is how much you should charge and so forth.

[00:11:28] And he said, thank you. And then a couple of days later, he called me and he said, do you want to do it yourself? And I couldn't believe it because the job, I don't know, it was like 3000 or $4,000 and it would cost maybe $500 in materials for 600. And I said, sure. And. So I went and I did it and done. I made $3,000 and maybe three days, which was a lot of money 30 years ago.

[00:11:52] So the point is that when you give people something in return, without any expectation, I went and I measured it for him [00:12:00] without expectation, getting that I went, I gave them all this advice without any expectation of getting a thing that was one of the most powerful lessons that I've ever learned.

[00:12:07] And the lesson is that you need, when you. When you offer and you give people advice and you help them and you don't want anything in return, then good things will happen. And for me, that was a really just, it changed my life. And it gave me so much self-confidence because I ended up coming back from that and started this business that grew.

[00:12:26] And I became very profitable and gave me a lot of self-confidence and over the next several years, and I had enough money when I went back to school and I felt very good about myself. So if you learn to do this stuff properly, it can really make a difference. But you should never take any vendors you meet for granted.

[00:12:40] So the dry cleaner, anybody who moves your lawn mechanic or fixes your car, all these people can be sources of business for, from you. And the reason isn't because they meet other people like you all day long, and they meet people with companies, they meet people that tell them their personal stories, the same thing with anybody, everybody you meet, even your lawn service person, [00:13:00] and we should stay in touch with these people and always be nice.

[00:13:02] One attorney. I know. That I always got a lot of business. Always. I was very nice about tipping people and being very loyal to different vendors and so forth. And that helped him. The other thing is one of the biggest sources of business for many attorneys is their peers and their subordinates and people that they work with.

[00:13:21] Staying connected with people that you've worked with early in your career is very important. So my attorneys that stay in touch with people from law school, And check in with them constantly attorneys and stay in touch with college classmates, high school classmates, previous employers. I know one attorney that just brought it up in a major appliance store in California.

[00:13:43] And he actually worked, did that apply in store during high school and college, and just stayed in touch with his boss. And then his boss kind of Rose up and he never did that expecting thing to turn, but his boss actually Rose up through the. Ranks and became part of the executive office of the [00:14:00] company and so forth.

[00:14:00] And now it's a huge client of his, and this guy has developed tens of millions of dollars with the business that way. So this sort of thing can help you. And so you need to do that and you should never assume that anyone can help you in the future. One of the things that I thought was one of the most interesting discussions I ever heard was.

[00:14:19] I started my career at Quinn Emanuel and John Quinn and bill Urquhart who's since passed away, but gave a presentation about how to get clients one day. And then at that point, the firm was pretty small. It was like 45 or 50 attorneys. And now it's over a thousand, but he said that one of the biggest mistakes, Jen, this is what John Quinn said.

[00:14:37] But he ever made was not being nicer to people that he met in law school and early in his career. And he said, he wished he had done that because if he'd done that he would've gotten more business later on. So the people that get business really are the people that tend to be nicer to people. And then they're nicer to everyone that they meet.

[00:14:54] And that can be very helpful, but you shouldn't even take your relatives for granted. Relatives can be a source of [00:15:00] business to tell people that you're a lawyer or can use you for legal work. And so you're up. Relatives will always go away and I'll go around and we'll tell people about your background and so forth.

[00:15:12] And so relatives can be very helpful for you to get business and you should treat them well too. And you should stay in touch with people because they're just a PR organization there. They meet people and they're very proud of you. And they say that they're lawyers and then people remember that.

[00:15:26] So you should do that. Former employers are a great source of business in my particular business. I can't. Even begin to count the number of people that I used to practice law with that have referred attorneys to me, to work with and have referred themselves to me, to work with and have come into positions of power and asked me to help fill off from five people.

[00:15:47] So there's just so many different people that can help you. And. In your employers, your former employers can really be a great source of work. It doesn't take much time to reach out to people and see how they're doing. It takes a few minutes. So you can check in with [00:16:00] people and you can talk to them and say, ask them how they are and so forth and not just spending a few minutes doing that and really make a difference and it can help you.

[00:16:10] Because those people will reach out to you on Facebook and all sorts of places, spending a little bit of time with people, some of the business that people that I know that do the best practicing law, if I ever text them or something and ask them how they, and that texts them, we have, I text them or if I contact them through LinkedIn or something, they respond instantly or just always there communicating with people.

[00:16:33] And you feel like you're always connected to them. And that's important. You should never burn bridges. You always want to. Have your former employers for your advocate. And that's one reason also, why are you want to work hard and you want to do a good job and we want to do the best you can, wherever you are very important, they should never take your superiors for granted people that you've worked with.

[00:16:53] If you do a really good job, when you're working for someone, that person will refer work to you in the future. I am my [00:17:00] second law firm that I worked at. I worked for one partner and I worked very hard for him. And then he wanted to move firms and he. Had me help him. And then later on referred other partners that had been my superiors to me when they wanted to move from.

[00:17:14] So if you work hard for people, they will help you and in the future, and they will give you business and they will give you cases, but they couldn't work on. There's lots of very well-known law firms. That pretty much, if you go there and you do a good job and you use go to another law firm, we'll refer, you work lots of work and.

[00:17:33] That they are conflicted out of it. They don't want to do for whatever reason. And some of these other law firms may, in addition to referring you work, they may, even if you have a solo practice, they can refer you to work. So the best law firms will typically do that and just treat everyone you meet inside and outside of work as a potential client in the future.

[00:17:51]That's really the most important thing for you. If you treat everyone as a potential client, then those people are likely to come back to you and they. [00:18:00] We'll work with you hopefully in the future. So everybody needs to be looked at as a potential client and just think about creating good feelings towards yourself and having people feel like you helped them and you can help them if you professionally represented them.

[00:18:12] And that's the feeling you want to set up, you don't want to feel like you want to feel like someone that would want you as a, an advocate. And just think about my experience, the garbage man story, where I was going back and fixing houses, where I didn't do a good job, which is a.

[00:18:26] Something I didn't have to do, but I wanted to do, and where I gave someone free advice and one attorney that I know said that one of the ways that he's gotten his biggest clients is to look for people that are running businesses or have been in positions of power inside of businesses. And that may need help and giving them free advice and stepping in and helping them without expecting any in anything in return when they might be able to use it.

[00:18:51] And then. Those people a lot of times will come back. So that's obviously important. So I wonder, is anybody have any questions about the first part of this [00:19:00] presentation? No, I can continue, but just remember that every person you meet really could be a future client. And that's honestly one of the most important lessons you can ever meet and learn.

[00:19:10] That's where most of the clients of people that I've seen come from. The other thing that's important is making sure that you always do just talk about your work. And this is something that the best liars do as well. And it was funny, one of the ways I learned about this, and it was actually longer than 20 years ago, it was, I don't know, quarter, century ago, but I was in Charlottesville, Virginia, and I was in a class about franchising and the UN, and it was awful presentation, but it was in a hotel ballroom and it was a three hour PowerPoint presentation.

[00:19:43] From an attorney at some big old Southern firm, but wearing a bow tie. And the attorney must've been in his, he was in this, I don't know, probably his late sixties. And it was incredibly boring. I couldn't even follow what he was just drawn in on. He had no enthusiasm for the subject matter.

[00:20:00] [00:19:59] Anybody sitting there didn't have any enthusiasm for the subject. It was just a horrible presentation. It was so boring. I don't know how anyone would possibly could sit there for. For as long as this thing took, it was just absolutely horrible. And I was sitting like a couple of seats away from a teacher and I think I started shooting spitballs.

[00:20:17] My classmates. I was so bored and he saw me and there was just, it was just horrible. But the thing is that every local owner of a burger King McDonald's subway and other franchises, and all these people turned out for this event and this hotel ballroom. And it wasn't a big ballroom, but there were probably like, I don't know, at least 150 people there.

[00:20:36] And. The funniest thing happened though, after this event, it was just, I dunno, but it was just a horrible presentation, but the point is, yeah, it's just, I don't know. I've made my point here, but the point is that at the end of the presentation, all of these owners of local franchises, who'd been invited to this event and had never, you could tell, felt very, it was held at a kind of a nice hotel and a [00:21:00] ballroom.

[00:21:00] And all these people, I don't think anybody had any idea what this guy was talking about. The only thing they knew is he was someone that was talking about what he did. And there was a huge line of people after the presentation that stood up and told them they enjoyed the presentation, gave him his business card and so forth, and then told the guy that they wanted to ask him questions or talk to him and they could set up a time to call.

[00:21:25] And so what I realized is that this lawyer probably picked up a bunch of clients that day. And all he had to do was get up and talk. And so when you think about it, one of the things that attorneys need to learn about is you need to learn about talking about what you do and making sure that you do it in a way that clients can see that.

[00:21:44] And all this guy did was invited a bunch of local people that had franchises to a talk and then talked about whatever he was talking about. And I still am. I'm not, I didn't even know them, even though I knew it was to do with franchise. And people just because they showed up [00:22:00] or hired him. And it's the same thing with any attorney.

[00:22:03]If you talk about what you're doing, but you're likely to get business, and if you want to get business, you need to talk about your work because people will see you as an expert. If you're out there writing and speaking, doing podcasts and other things, people will know who you are. You probably know who I am because I talk about this stuff and I'm interested in it.

[00:22:22] And that's another thing that you have to be interested in it. But if you want to get business, you need to be out there talking about your work and people need to see you as an expert and believe you're good at what you do. It's very common in trusting the States trust in the state's attorneys. He wouldn't believe it.

[00:22:35] Some of these guys are making a million dollars plus a year, and they have very easy ways of getting business. They will send a bio list of everybody who's over 70 in a zip code and they'll send them a letter, inviting them to a lunch and they'll get up there and they'll talk about. The importance of a living trust or a will or something for an hour and a lunch, and then walk away with $150,000 for the business after lunch, that cost him three or [00:23:00] $4,000.

[00:23:00] If that plus mailing, like all these people do is talk about business. It's very easy to get business. If you talk about what you do, and I have hired attorneys before, based on, I was just based on them having an article about something like one time I hired an article, a attorney. Cause there is an article about option law in real estate, how to do it real estate option and what parts of it are illegal in California.

[00:23:24] And it was one, it was the article was two paragraphs and it was the only person I could find that knew anything about it. And I hired them. So people just will. Hire you, if you just have something out there, if you write about it, if you list that you're an expert in it, whatever, you just have to talk about what you do.

[00:23:40] It's very simple and think about your position too. If you want to assistance with something, but you're going to go and you're going to try to find the people that are the most enthusiastic. So talks, webinars being enthusiastic about what you do. And when people hire doctors, for example, they always will say my doctor.

[00:23:59] Just [00:24:00] got this award. And my doctor wrote about this, my doctor's an expert and this, and probably not the doctor's probably not even an expert in it. They just say it. Yeah. It's just, you have to talk about what you do to get people enthusiastic. And this means being enthusiastic about it and telling people about what you do.

[00:24:16] And it means talking about your work with people from your office, and it means talking about your work. With your clients. And it's just, and just being enthusiastic about it, think about how many attorneys that are just dry, that don't care about their work. But don't write about that. That leave.

[00:24:33]Don't have any interest in it that don't particularly want to help their clients that don't. These are the people that clients don't hire and. These are the people that don't have any business. And they also don't have any employment security and they don't have businesses, which means is what you get when you have a business practicing law.

[00:24:50] And so you need to get out there and talk about what you're doing and you need to be enthusiastic and you need to like what you're doing and that's who people want to hire. If you think about [00:25:00] every important business figure in this country is enthusiastic about. There were I'm thinking Hoosiers example, Elon Musk, very enthusiastic about electric power in space.

[00:25:11] And we need that. And every lawyer that is well-known is very enthusiastic about what they do, whether it's whoever Dershowitz or whoever you want to come up with any lawyer that you ever can think of. That is a household name that's well-known as enthusiastic and talks. And so the reason is you need to have enthusiasm and you want to be remembered by everyone you encounter.

[00:25:33] As someone that enjoys work, this attorney that got all this business talking about franchising law, I think about what would have happened to him if he absolutely was interesting. If he was able to connect with the audience and people understood and understand what they think he would have gotten even more business.

[00:25:49] And so you really need to talk about what you do. And one of the most interesting things is that one of the best marketing lands I've ever heard is that you can build a better mouse [00:26:00] trap. But if the world doesn't know about it, they're going to be the path right around your door. And it's true.

[00:26:05] People need to know that you do what you do and know that you're enthusiastic about it. And if you, the thing many times, there's just like this whole kind of follower mentality where people like will put their heads down and where they won't, they don't want to be seen. And they. They don't Mark.

[00:26:23] They don't know how to market and stuff. And it's just, it's crazy because when every other profession, like the people that stick out are the ones who get the business and get the work. And I noticed this sometimes on zoom conferences, like if I go into a zoom conference and it's with these different firms, like the most uptight firms, everyone will have a camera's turned off.

[00:26:41] And then on the firms that are getting the most business and doing the most. So when I'm talking to attorneys to get a lot of business, they all have their. Camera's on like zoom conferences, but the ones where they're there, they're just kind of followers and people aren't getting a lot of business to other cameras are off.

[00:26:54] So people it's, you can tell very quickly, who's good at this stuff and who's not. And the people that [00:27:00] are out there and want to be visible and stuff are the ones that do well. Why do you think restaurants put billboards on highways or you have multiple billboards saying only former exits until you can get the best piece of splits, split pea soup in Ohio only three more.

[00:27:15] Turn here and people get enthusiastic about stuff because of this sort of thing. So you need to talk about your work and you need to write, and you get podcasts, you to talk to your clients, you need to figure out something and talk about it publicly, because that's how you will be found. And that's how you will get business.

[00:27:32] And why wouldn't you want business? I told you in the beginning that you need employment security, having your own business mean having. Your own business means you have your own business. You have a business. If some attorneys will move firms every five, six years with their own business to get more money or they'll, and the law firms, when you have business, I want you to understand you don't work for a law firm.

[00:27:50] When you have business, the law firm works for you providing support referrals, and so forth. And so wouldn't you rather a law firm work for you. And the other way around, all you need to do is talk about your work [00:28:00] and anybody that's putting their head down and not doing all this stuff is just hurting themselves.

[00:28:04] Let them be part of the group. That's not getting worse. Okay. And the other thing is, if you want to give business, you need to set a good example. So others, one quick question, and this is about free advice, but I will take that, I think at the, I'll take that question at the end, because that's a good question.

[00:28:19] So there's wires, you want to get business need to set a good example. So the other thing is you need to look like the type of attorney that you would want representing you. So you need to think about. What type of attorney would you want to represent you and what type of attorney would you want if you had a problem and just think about that.

[00:28:39] And so I've typically hired attorneys for clients. I'm an attorney. So I've been an attorney with business and I'm also in a position of hiring attorneys and there's several things that most clients would like to be concerned about when they're hiring you and. One of the things is, and these are all things that people that you work [00:29:00] with and we'll see, and these are people that things that your friends will see and other people, so we'll see.

[00:29:04] But one of the biggest things, your level of honesty, and I certainly would never want to hire an attorney that I knew was the least bit dishonest, especially if someone was billing you on an hourly basis. So if you tell people that are close to you, that you've done something dishonest, or you do something dishonest.

[00:29:21]Or people think you're dishonest. Like I've seen attorneys that have overbuild, and I know that they did, and I've seen attorneys that applied and I've seen them do that. Then I wouldn't trust them. And I've had plenty of opportunity to refer work to attorneys. And I just know something about them was anonymous.

[00:29:36] So honesty is very important. If you can't trust someone and you don't look trustworthy, And you've done something that's untrustworthy. You need to fix it. And I'm preferably not broadcasting. When I was practicing law, I knew at least a couple of attorneys that made up their hours, including one of the highest, not one of the highest, a very high ranking attorney, one of the firms.

[00:29:56] And I had an example where a friend of mine, the office next to [00:30:00] me, came into the office on a Friday and worked all the way until 7:00 AM on a On Monday and then took a shower and then he went into, and then he went into the office after catching a quick nap car. And you saw that the partner had written down that heat assisted him for 25 hours over the weekend reviewing and making changes to the brief and the partner hadn't worked at all.

[00:30:22] So that's pretty scary. And from my standpoint, I'd probably never use the partner for work ever again. I would be very nervous if that guy. Was ever working in my thing because he associated come in after taking a shower and napping and stuff, had it seen and shared our secretary with that partner and seeing his bills and saw that he built that he knows he didn't look out on the weekend.

[00:30:45]But the idea is that if you're dishonest, even in your personal life or your work life around people from work, this is going to get out. And so you're always being tested. And the minute someone doesn't trust you as an attorney, That's a [00:31:00] problem. And the idea is people just want to work with people who are honest and you want to be dealing with people who are honest as well.

[00:31:06] And so you just need to set a good example. And if you're honest, people will say that and they will like that. But another thing that I've seen is when different people are entitled to have different types of personal lives, but there's some attorneys that just like to several that I know and like to have a lot of fun and they will.

[00:31:26] Too, out of control, partying and all sorts of things, those types of attorneys, typically a lot of people also don't want to use because they will assume that they're tired and not making good decisions and unable to moderate themselves. And I know of one attorney that  was going to get an offer from a major law firm in Silicon Valley, and a partner took him out for drinks and he had I dunno, three or four drinks.

[00:31:48] And this was after he basically been hired. They were discussing. And relocating. And when he saw how much he drank, he just said, no, this isn't going to be a good fit for us. And then didn't hire him. And I [00:32:00] remember I'll never forget that because the guy had looked very hard for a job. And the law firm probably made a good decision to bring him on because he did drink too much and have been a problem for him at different firms.

[00:32:10] But that, that was a problem. So if you examine the most successful law firms that have been very successful, what most of them do is they look for steady people. Who are not particularly Rickreall and seem competent. And they want people that are just going to sit down and do the work and not create problems and who can be trusted and so forth.

[00:32:29] So you need to remember that and you always want to act and behave as you'd want your own attorney to act and behave. So attorneys don't think of themselves this way, but you're actually a representative of the justice system and you're to the average person, that's not an attorney. They look up to attorneys and they expect them to act and behave a certain way.

[00:32:48] And. And that's important. So you want to really come across that way and with someone that can be trusted, another thing that's important. And I did talk about talking about your work earlier, [00:33:00] but another thing that's very important is if you want to get business, you definitely need to be interested in other people and their own and their legal issues.

[00:33:07] And people want to be helped by others that are actually interested in what they're doing. And you need to have interest in the work you're doing. You need to be interested in the work here. And the more interested you are, the better are you are likely to do the work. And so many people actually are not interested in the work that they're doing.

[00:33:26] And the reason is because it's just, it's quite obvious. So I all the time and I make this mistake too. So someone will come to me with a problem, like in terms of looking for a job or whatever. And I will, a lot of times know the solution or things that they should do. And I'm interested in telling them my solution cause I'm interested in it.

[00:33:46] But a lot of times I won't listen and get all the facts and that's a problem. And people that are interested in work will do a much better job. I once hired an attorney and I went into their office and I've hired lots of attorneys, but this pretty good turn, I'm thinking I went into their [00:34:00] office and I they told me how great they were and how they could solve all my problems.

[00:34:04] And then without even really knowing anything about it. And then, so the meeting was almost over and then they asked me. Brooklyn quickly, like how did I get into this trouble that needed this attorney for, and it was a contract matter or something. And I could tell when I started talking and they were completely bored and they started looking away and down and so forth, that showed me that they really weren't interested in what I was talking about.

[00:34:23] And it turned out to be a horrible choice hiring this particular attorney. So because they weren't interested in the work and they weren't focused. So if you're interested in what you're doing, people are going to care. They're going to realize that you care and it's very important. And having a mindset kind of where you're doing your best and you're speaking up and you're asking questions and so forth is going to really make a difference.

[00:34:48] When you're interested in something, you tend to come up with much better solutions and you can help people. And if you're not interested in something, you're just going through the motions, you're missing information. And are you really, if you're not interested in what you're [00:35:00] doing, whether it's your practice area, practicing Mar you don't find the people or concepts you're doing interested.

[00:35:05] Then that's a problem because the most, the best attorneys are very interested in what they're doing and you just have to be, and very few attorneys are really good at understanding other people's problems. So one of the most successful attorneys, I know I noticed that a lot of attorneys, these days, the best ones will modify it.

[00:35:23] There are other kind of online LinkedIn and other settings, and they'll call themselves like an expert in finding common solutions to problems, or they'll have like little things that they. Talk about in there, like even in there, the headline after their name, they talk about how they're interested in other people.

[00:35:38] And that's, if you were a client, we think about it. You, when you go to a doctor, you want to tell the doctor your problem, and you want to have them understand it. When you go to an attorney, you want the same thing. And that's what we want from all of our service providers. So it's, we want people that will connect with us and listen.

[00:35:53] And then the more people will are allowed to talk. The more people will feel invested in the process. [00:36:00] And you. And when others feel invested in with you, they want to work with book more closely, and I'll tell you something that's a secret at PCG that I did this and it really driven my whole career is when we work with someone, like we always will ask them lots of questions about themselves.

[00:36:16] We'll have them fill out forms and questionnaires, and I will ask them questions and get lots of information and then communicate that information to law firms. And that makes her candidates get a lot of interviews. And I do the same thing with the law firms that I talked to. I try to learn about them and the people there, because everyone's an interesting person.

[00:36:35] And when people are, have the opportunity to talk, they're more invested in working with you and they're more invested in and they want to be invested. So you have to let clients and other people talk and you need to be interested in them, or remember them and their families and their no other in their birthdays and other sorts of information.

[00:36:52] It's all very important. Because if you have that information you're going to do much better and you should allow people to speak at length. You should allow [00:37:00] them to unload. People feel so much better after they, they talk about things. I can remember I've gone in romantic relationships before.

[00:37:09] I can remember one time I years ago, I went to, with this romantic partner, we, she wanted to go see a therapist. So we went to a therapist and it was in a one hour meeting. We sat down and she basically talked to the, told the therapist, everything that was bothering her for an hour. And then I was there and I didn't say anything really.

[00:37:26] And the therapist and saying, Hey, we got out. And she said, I feel so much better. I don't feel any problems anymore. And it was just the idea of being able to talk, made her feel good. And so clients are the same way. Like when they get the chance to talk, like they feel good and think about yourself. If you can talk, you feel good.

[00:37:41] So people need to be able to talk and that makes them feel better. And the one time I went to a a branding company and the branding company, I was talking to them about something. And I dunno, these branding companies will look at your logo. I don't know what they do, but they come up with they help your company.

[00:37:59]I [00:38:00] dunno, unifying message or something and in any way. So there were two companies and one of them, both of them were charging $250,000 to do a brand audit or something. I don't know what it's called. And two of them came to the office and one of them talked about how they were big company. They've done a lot of work.

[00:38:16] They had good employees and I never said a single thing. And all they did was talk about themselves. And so therefore I ended up using the other company and. That's what a lot of people will do. They'll assume that because they're at a big law firm or because they went to good schools or because they've done similar work when you're not interested in other people and don't ask them questions, then that's a problem.

[00:38:36] And people want you to be interested in them. So the people we'd like to have the most interest in us, the people we don't like typically don't have interest in us and people want to feel acknowledged and understood the thing that's missing. And most of our relationships. There's connection. And if you think about the most popular websites out there, it's things like social media sites.

[00:38:58] And the reason those are the most [00:39:00] important is because those are the ones that give people connection and people want connection. And the more you can give people connection, the better people want to feel acknowledged and understood. And if you're interested in other people and ask some questions that's going to make them feel understood and being interested in other people is crucial to being a good business generator.

[00:39:18]All the attorneys. I know, by the way that I knew when I was younger, that have a lot of business that I've known for a couple of decades, they'd always call me interested and ask good questions and just be really likable and want to talk to people. And that's what the best attorneys do. And you just need to do that.

[00:39:34] One of my mentors or his gunny anyways, it's an important Jamie. And he gave a story once where he got on an airplane for a cross country flight. And decided that he didn't like it when people tried to talk to him all the time, cause they recognized him and stuff. And so what he did is he decided that he was going to talk to someone this time and ask him questions, the whole trip.

[00:39:58] And so he sat down and the guy next [00:40:00] to him, he just started asking him all these questions and the guy talked the whole length of the country. It was four and a half, five hour flight. And when the flight was done, the guy said, this is the most interesting conversation I've had in as long as I can remember.

[00:40:11] And it was interesting because my mentor didn't talk about himself at all. He just asked this guy questions. And so people are most interested in themselves and people want connection. So you need to be interested in other people you need to be interested in are legal issues. You need to let them talk.

[00:40:27] And even if for the solution, people want to talk and the more you listen and the more the person feels like you understand them, the more they're going to want you to work with them. The other thing is in terms of getting businesses. If you want to get business, you need to get out there really need to form relationships.

[00:40:44] And really the way to do that is you need to get out and meet people and expand your comfort zone. And you need to learn how to break down kind of the boundaries formality and. Get outside your immediate sphere of influence. Most young associates do not build the books of business [00:41:00] because they don't prioritize are getting work.

[00:41:02] They're not getting out there and meeting people. And what you need to do is you need to get out there and you need to go to events where other attorneys are likely to be. And then. Even events where you're likely to stand out because you're an attorney, a lot of attorneys will join all these kinds of random organizations.

[00:41:17] You wouldn't think I'll try and local community organizations, school boards, hospital boards, and things, and where there aren't a lot of attorneys. And that ends up actually being an important source of work for them. So anytime you're part of a group where there's not a lot of other attorneys, you can get works, you can get work and also social situations.

[00:41:36] So you should go to. Lots of social situations and just meet people and people like to ask who you are and what they do. And people love actually referring other people to attorneys. I get referrals all the time from people that think I'm a practicing attorney, even though I'm not just because when people ask me what I do and I say, I tell them that I used to practice law.

[00:41:59] I'm an [00:42:00] attorney and I do this now, but people still. Even with that. Refer work to me. So you need to just meet people wherever you possibly can. And if you don't start to form relationships, then you'll be someone who can't get business. You need to form these relationships and you need to get out there.

[00:42:15] And that just means going, taking opportunities to go to different types of social events. And just when you go there, not thinking that you have to meet someone to get business just going there and having a nice time because the business doesn't come by, you being a snob and going through and seeing who might give you business owners who are not, there's a remarkable number of them.

[00:42:34] Of people you can get business from. I remember once I was at a party and I saw it, I go to some of these parties and I was, and I'll be standing around, and these are cards of my kids. And because of where I live in Malibu, like these people are dressed like in surf shorts and all sorts of stuff, and they could be a guy could have tattoos all over him and plats, facial hair and stuff.

[00:42:54] And it could be the founder of a huge company. And many times they are. So you have to just get out there and meet [00:43:00] people. And regardless of who they are, It'd be nice though, and just form different relationships and get on, get in groups and boards and anything you can because all of this stuff leads to business.

[00:43:10] You have to have this sort of connection that I've talked about earlier, in order to get that business, you have to be able to connect with people and meet people in order to get work. And it's very important. All of my successes, I can really say, have been when I've gotten outside of my comfort zone and met people, at least from successes where people have helped me with things.

[00:43:30] You have to get out there and meet people. It's so important. That's where business comes from. That's where change happens. If you're in the office all the time, that's not going to happen. You need to prioritize that sorts of things. And one other story about John Quinn, this guy, I used to go out for dinner several days a week with clients, potential clients and all sorts of things to meet people.

[00:43:50] And it would be an all sorts of events. And so that's how it works. The other thing that's important is to specialize and. Attorneys who specialize always get a lot more [00:44:00] work than those who don't. And if you have a specialty you're going to do much better. People refer clients to specialists most times, especially in larger markets than nonspecialists.

[00:44:11] If you specialize in something like litigation, that's good. But if you specialize in representing, for example, disposable, lighter manufacturers that explode or injure people that's even better. So if people can point to you. As doing one type of work. And there's not a lot of people like you, when it comes time to recommend people, then that can be very helpful.

[00:44:33]Good marketers will typically have the ability to be seen for one thing or another. If you need to buy a book online, you immediately think of Amazon. And if you need to think of different types of things, you need to be seen as the logical decision. And the person that people want to use.

[00:44:51] And very few people do this, right? Many people try to say had you litigation. I do a little bit of corporate. One of the biggest things that I've talked about with the recruiters [00:45:00] of BCG and I have these conversations every day is your candidates that they work with in order for them to get jobs and get as many jobs as are possible, can get need to really be well, you need to create.

[00:45:12] Make them look like specialist. And so they need to be very good at one thing, if they're, it's better to be like a worker's comp litigator than it is to be a general litigator, it's better to be. I don't know, to do employ. I know there's just millions of specialists. It's better to be a patent attorney specializing in computer circuits than it is to be a general patent attorney.

[00:45:31]Every type of attorney needs to be specialized. And these are the types of attorneys that people hire. There wasn't a period. Like I think it was between like 1997 and 2000, but anybody with a decent idea can make some money on the internet. And I'm a member I used to drive to work and I get the wall street journal in the morning and I would be glancing at these like stories.

[00:45:50] And I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Like these people, just these businesses that are getting all this money and stuff. And, but there were very few people, there were a lot of people getting [00:46:00] investments, but there they're very few people making money and the people that were actually making money.

[00:46:04] We're doing very simple products that were specialized. They might be selling birdcages or battery replacements, battery replacement batteries for cell phones or cases for Palm pilots, which were popular back then. And these people were making a lot of money back then, but people that were trying to create like these stores that were doing everything where we're not making money, even Amazon back then it was only selling books.

[00:46:26] So being a specialist is the only way to really grow things. You may have noticed a BCG. Like only do law firm placements. Like why would I want to do something where like, where I would be known for doing multiple things, it's like you do, everybody has to specialize it and specialized. And so what happens is if you have like someone that needs a bird cage and they would search for bird cages and the website that did nothing, but bird cages wouldn't come up.

[00:46:54] And then if someone talked about how they were an expert in bird cages and they made the best bird cage, then you would be much more [00:47:00] likely to buy their bird cages. And then you would. By a birdcage of someone that sold birdcages and televisions, you'd be much more likely to do that. And that's how people are.

[00:47:10] The other thing is if you need an attorney, let's talk about franchise log in. If you need an attorney to help you with the regulations of franchise law, then you're likely to use the one who appears to be an expert in franchising, especially if your only person in your area doing this. I know a woman that started a very successful business doing nothing but a cer software service contracts.

[00:47:30] For her own law firm in California. And she gets so much work that she's kept saying she is a solo practitioner that she's just kept increasing and increasing your billing rate and the work still calming because she's the only person that people find when they search for someone to do that work in her area of California.

[00:47:48] And you, if you are specialized, let me just tell you. Like that you, you have everything going for you. I know people that are specialists now in privacy law, people that are specialists in different types of things, [00:48:00] and you have to be specialized if I was, if you were a client like I know someone that just had a, not to Lyme, go ahead.

[00:48:05] A, this is a crazy example, but they have breast augmentation surgery and they went to see someone that did nothing but that. And there's plenty of people that can do that. But. This person went to the biggest expert, the one that was supposed to be the best and the member of all these boards that did nothing.

[00:48:20] This is how people choose service providers, especially lawyers. They want people that know what they're doing, and they want people that are very specialized. So you can't be all things to all people. There's lots of attorneys out there that will say, Oh, I do this. Yes, I do that too. I do this. And they think that's going to get them more business.

[00:48:36] No, it actually works the opposite. Think of the solo practitioner I'm telling you about that has no marketing and experience and only does one thing. And is the only person that's found doing software service agreements and just keeps raising their billing rate used to be 500, 600. Then it was 700. Now it's 800.

[00:48:53] Now it's 900 because there's just so much demand for specialists. And that's all you have to do. The thing about specialists too. That's [00:49:00] actually very good is you allow, you specialize in something like the more you understand it and the more you understand it. The better you become the better you become, the more referrals you get and the more referrals you get, the more business you get and the higher billing rates, you need to be a specialist.

[00:49:14] It's very important. And I don't know what else to say about that, but I can tell you that every attorney and every major law firm that has a lot of business, almost always as a specialist, and they are known for being a specialist. They get referrals from other attorneys from being specialists.

[00:49:29] And they keep getting better and better at their work because they're specialists. And it's like that with the business that I'm in, like I'm in legal, placed in business. And the longer I look at this stuff, I do it every single day. The more I look at it, the more depth I see to it. And I've been doing this every day.

[00:49:44] I see more and more depth and they get better and better at it. And it's amazing. I look back at the person I was even a few years ago and I'm amazed at how far I've come and it's like that for any specialist in any type of business. So the laundry more, you specialize. The better you can do and you should [00:50:00] specialize it's going to be very dangerous for you if you don't specialize and attorneys, by the way, that when you're looking to switch firms or jobs and so forth, if you specialize, and if you can be marketed as a specialist, which I tried to do with all my candidates, I can, you will get jobs on the corporate world.

[00:50:17] Your capital markets attorney is marketable. Your MNA attorney is marketable, but your M and a attorney that does nothing but M and a in the pharmaceutical industry. Theoretically is more marketable than your general MNA attorney. And you're a capital markets attorney that raises money for a subscription businesses is going to be more marketable probably than your specialist that does all types of MNA.

[00:50:39] So people want specialist and that's just how it works. Okay. And that's hopefully a good thing for questions and we'll do questions at the end today, but the other thing is attorneys need to be familiar with others to get business and clients. For people that do business with you and choose you to attorney, but you need to be just very familiar with them.

[00:50:57] And so what this means is it means phone [00:51:00] calls on their birthdays. So every year there's people that will leave me voicemail messages and call me and leave me birthday messages. And these are typically very good attorneys that do that. There was no reason for them to do that, but they do. It means sending sometimes one of the most successful attorneys had on California.

[00:51:16] Incredible. Exactly. He will each year at Christmas, he sends me a long letter with pictures of his kids and a long letter. That's three or four pages that talks about single space. What happened with him and his family over the year. And he's been through divorces and all sorts of things. And every year it's the same thing.

[00:51:35] And I find it amusing, but I feel very close to this guy. I hardly knew him when I was practicing law and I call him and I'm recruiting them now for a firm that I'm. Doing a search for it where I probably double or triple his income and sky. And he's got a lot of big clients. So he actually sends out personal letters, probably hundreds of them telling people how he's doing every year.

[00:51:59] It's [00:52:00] crazy. He's one of the founders of a major law firm. He's no longer working there, but a major law firm with over a thousand people in it. A