Lessons Learned: Reflections from a Retiring Lawyer

LESSONS LEARNED: REFLECTIONS FROM A RETIRING LAWYER By: John Eldridge

YOUR PRACTICE

One of the genuine benefits of the legal profession is the opportunity to develop a practice. Like physicians and many other professionals, lawyers have the opportunity to create a network of referrals. Satisfied clients, who only interface with the legal profession on a very limited basis, sometimes just once, remember their lawyer. And, when in the course of daily living, those satisfied clients hear someone say: “I need a lawyer,” your name pops up, and you get a referral. So you develop your practice: do good work, be noticed and remembered, and then get talked about.

Of course, the whole referral system way of building a law practice as indicated above has changed due to lawyer advertising, but some of the “old way” is still operative. I am told that the key to lawyer advertising is in the reviews, and to get a good review, you have to do the same thing as in the “old way” of referrals: do good work and get talked about.

Whether you rely on referrals alone or advertising alone, or a little of both, developing a practice does not occur overnight. On the contrary, developing a practice takes time; it’s a day-in-day-out sort of thing. Once you have a practice, no one can take it away from you! Of course, you could booze it away, ruin it with an affair, or ignore it until it disintegrates, but again, the practice is yours, and no one can take it from you!

So what makes a good lawyer? What does it take to get a referral or good review from a client? A wise lawyer once told me that what it takes are primarily two attributes: 1) you are a hard worker, and 2) you care for your clients. This may sound simplistic, but these two traits, working hard and caring for your clients, are indeed the most important thing you can do to build a law practice. Nonetheless, I would add one additional attribute: good communication skills. A good lawyer knows how to talk to a judge or jury, but she must also know how to communicate with clients, lawyers, witnesses, and anyone else with whom the lawyer comes into contact.

It is very rewarding to build a law practice. As you do it, make sure you work hard, care for your clients, and learn to communicate. Then you won’t have a good practice; you will have an excellent practice!

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