Young Lawyers Network

Young Lawyers Network Editor: Josh Crowfoot, Crowfoot Law Firm, 200 W. M.L.K. Boulevard, Suite 1000, Chattanooga, TN 37402, josh@crowfootlaw.com.

Get Known

As a young lawyer, the early part of your career is spent learning your craft. You master the fundamentals of your practice area, and through repetition of tasks, you develop skills. For those lawyers practicing at law firms, you become aware that lawyers fall into two camps—those that bring business to the law firm, and those that do not. As an associate, especially at the junior level, most law firms do not expect you to generate business. Instead, an associate’s function at most law firms is to grind at the lower-skill level of tasks that you must master in your practice area before you are given the responsibility to handle more sophisticated work. If you work at a firm that bills by the hour, your value largely turns on your ability to bill hours. And while attaining your firm’s billable hour targets yields its rewards, even that does not make you indispensable. What makes you indispensable is having your own book of business with enough work to “feed” you and others at your firm. This article is about one of the most important things you can do to build your book of business—getting known.

People Have to Know Who You Are

There is a statistic that 80 percent of small businesses fail within the first 18 months because no one is aware the business exists. The problem is obscurity, and it applies to lawyers, too. If people do not know you and what type of law you practice, they cannot retain you as their attorney. As Grant Cardone, one of the greatest thought leaders in sales and marketing, likes to say, “If people don’t know you, they won’t flow you.” The ideas in this article to get known come from a new audiobook, The 10X Mentor: Take Charge of Your Business, Your Career, and Your Life by Grant Cardone, exclusively available on Audible. I have tailored it to a lawyer audience.

Commit to Getting Known

According to Cardone, the effort to become known must be constant and relentless. The ultimate goal is to be the expert in your practice area, not just a participant. A successful outcome will be that your ideal client recognizes both your face and your voice because you have taken steps in your marketing to make that a reality. The more your target client recognizes you, the more business you will have.

Develop Your Existing Network

Like every lawyer, you have an existing network of people who know you. This network includes family, friends, colleagues, people you went to college with, people you went to high school with, and people in your neighborhood. But do they all know exactly what you do as a lawyer? Be sure to let them know and to remind them. Client referrals from your existing network are your “lowest hanging fruit.”

Reach Out to People You Don’t Know

The most limiting factor to building your book of business (and your income) is who knows you. The ultimate size of your book of business in the practice of law directly correlates with how many people know you. If people don’t know you, they cannot support you. To build a thriving practice, you must stretch your reach beyond your existing network of family and friends.

How to Meet People Who Don’t Know You Yet

Become active in your local community. There are myriad ways to do that including, but not limited to, (i) attending neighborhood events, (ii) attending your children’s school events, (iii) participating in local politics, (iv) participating in events for a charitable organization, and (v) attending industry conferences put on by trade organizations in your practice area. You can also write articles for industry publications, local newspapers, or magazines to showcase your knowledge and expertise. Find opportunities to collaborate with players in your community. This can come in the form of supporting their businesses or participating as a guest on a podcast. The biggest lesson here is that you need to leave your office and promote yourself in the marketplace. Make sure people see you, hear about you, and read about you. Let your community know what you can do for it. And then do it relentlessly.

How to Accelerate Meeting People You Don’t Know

Your most valuable asset as a lawyer is your accumulated knowledge and ability to provide legal counsel in a chosen area of law. The best way to market your legal services is to share that knowledge for free. At first blush that sounds counterintuitive because clients should be paying us for our time and expertise. The point, however, is to share your knowledge with as many people as you can, so people get to know you. This happens with your creating content and distributing it through as many social media channels as you can handle. The more, the better. This includes Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, your firm’s newsletter, or via some type of collaboration with other professionals. All of our potential clients will be on these platforms, although they are likely to behave differently on each one—just as you probably do. Tailor your message as needed to fit with the platform. The persona that you present on LinkedIn is probably very different from the one on Facebook or Instagram, but the point is the same − let people get to know you. As for selecting a social media platform to begin with first, determine which platform will have your ideal customer and start there.

The Right Mindset

For you to be perceived as an expert in your practice area, you must be thought about and talked about. Take every opportunity that comes your way to showcase your talent, knowledge, and expertise. Visibility is key.

Conclusion

You can be the best lawyer in the world, but no clients will ever give you their business if they do not know you. You should make sure the world knows who you are and what you can provide. In the game of marketing, the best lawyer does not necessarily win. The best known lawyer does.

Published in Probate & Property, Volume 36, No 6 © 2022 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.

Probate & Property, November/December 2022