Client Development Coaching For Senior Associates And Junior Partners

Developing the Next Generation of Rainmakers Client Development Coaching for Senior Associates and Junior Partners Before I get to the meat of my blog post.  Join me Thursday at noon central daylight time for our second Rainmaker Series Webinar. Sign up here. Also, although for some strange reason the ABA Women Rainmakers chose not to identify the panelists, if you are a young woman associate or partner, here is the link to a program that Holland and Hart partner,  Andrea Anderson,  and I will be presenting.  Becoming A Partner . . . And Then What? Business Development for Aspiring and New Partners. Andrea is a rainmaker. If you want to learn more about her do a search of her name in my blog and you’ll find posts about her. You can also click below, wait a few seconds for it to load and listen to an interview I did with Andrea. Why is it important for law firms to provide client development coaching for senior associates and junior partners now? There are several reasons. Here are two: Developing business now is more challenging than it was in the 90s and before. Today, perhaps more than ever before the competition for good clients is greater, clients have greater expectations, and the time available for business development has decreased. When I was a young partner, most lawyers developed business by doing excellent work and waiting for the phone to ring. Most clients in those days were both local and loyal. It’s way more complicated now. Through consolidation and mergers, clients that were locally owned are now part of national and international companies. So, it is more difficult to become visible to those clients. Coaching helps lawyers transition from associate to partner. Let’s face it. young lawyers do not learn about client development in law school. When they are associates most law firms prefer they not make any client development efforts. Many senior associates and junior partners are in the transition stage of their career, moving from being solely service providers to being responsible for developing and building client relationships. For many, that is a daunting task. They do not know where to start. As a result, they do not start, or they give up quickly when some of their efforts do not work. To the extent there is any effort at all, it is unstructured, unfocused and ultimately unsuccessful. Many lawyers procrastinate, are undisciplined, have no written plan and ultimately little or no execution.   When I was actively practicing law, I spent time helping our junior lawyers with business development, but that time was very limited. Frankly, I did not have time to analyze why some things worked for me, while others did not. Now that I am no longer busy practicing law,  I have taken time to analyze what worked for me and why it worked. Before I left my old law firm, I went to the leaders and told them I had peaked in my own business development efforts and offered to take 15 brand new partners and work with them on their client development. I bragged I could help the group double the collective business volume in two years. They accomplished that goal in one year. I enjoyed working with our pilot group so much that I decided to leave my law firm so I could work with lawyers in other firms. I coached lawyers 15 years, and I continue to coach and mentor a select few. If you have someone in your firm who will take the time to coach and work with your senior associates and junior partners, I think you will see both a benefit to the lawyers coached and a benefit to your firm. Here are some thoughts on what you might do. The person who volunteers to coach should be like a fitness coach. In other words, he or she should help the participants be accountable to themselves and to the “team.” I love a quote I read several years ago in a book by Jack Canfield. The quote was from a 1998 Fast Company magazine article:  WANNA BE A PLAYER? GET A COACH! Executive coaches are not for the meek. They are for people who value unambiguous feedback.  If coaches have one thing in common, it’s that they are ruthlessly results-oriented. Executive coaching isn’t therapy. It’s product development, with you as the product. Put simply, the most important factor in the success of any coaching program is the burning desire of the participants to get better at client development and their willingness and openness to being coached. Selecting the right people to be coached is the most important decision your firm will make. I’ve told many law firm partners, marketing directors,  and  attorney development professionals that I can’t motivate the unmotivated. Second, I suggest you create both an individual effort and a team dynamic. Participants will learn what activities will provide the greatest benefit to them and then will have regularly scheduled sessions with the coach to report on activities and learn more. I have been amazed by the group dynamic. No one in the group wants to let the rest of the team down and they feed off of each other’s ideas. In an effective coaching program, young lawyers will: Do you play golf or tennis? If you play golf or tennis, do you take lessons? If working with a professional helps you develop your game, I bet the same principles will help you become a more successful lawyer. If you are a regular reader, you know that for the next several months I will be creating video client development programs. They’re called: The Lateral Link Rainmaker Series. On June 13 I will be discussing: How to Create a Business Plan that works. If you missed the first program you can find the streaming video here.   I practiced law for 37 years developing a national construction law practice representing some of the top highway and transportation construction contractors in the US.