Ed Poll, who writes LawBiz Blog, makes some interesting points about succession planning in his July 20 post, Keeping Clients After A Lawyer Retires. Among the many valuable points Ed raises are:
- Have the rainmakers introduce younger partners to their client contacts
- Build teams around the top 20 clients, and to let the client know they have a team.
- Actively start cross-selling the top 20 clients. For more info see Larry Bodine's webinar: Best Practices Of Cross Marketing and Selling New Services To Clients.
I would add to this list. First, merely introducing younger partners to clients is not enough. Younger partners need to be featured, given opportunities to excel for the client and then “bragged on” by the senior partner. If the senior partner doesn’t show respect, trust and admiration for the younger partner, why should the client? Second, I believe the client should be involved in the discussion. Many of the rainmakers don’t want to suggest to the client that they won’t be there to service the client. But the fact is that the clients themselves think about how deep a firm’s bench is, what would happen if the senior partner became unavailable, etc. They view the issue as a business problem and I think it benefits the relationship to let clients know you are thinking about their needs beyond any specific case. Finally, I think everyone in the firm needs to know who the “successor” is for any given client. Some choices might be difficult ones, but any issues regarding the choice are better addressed when the rainmaker is still around to resolve them.
Its clear how this approach benefits the law firm: the loss of a major client cuts deep, particularly for smaller firms. But why is this important from the client's perspective? How much institutional knowledge has the client already paid for? What would the cost be to replace that knowledge? In some niche practices, there may not be a real alternative. It is as much in the client's interest as it is in the law firm's interest to have a plan to cover anticipated departures as well as unanticipated ones. McDonald's lost two CEO's to sudden death or illness in one year. It happens, and there is no excuse to be caught short.
The Importance Of Passion
Its one of those things you know when you see it. Its one of those things that doesn’t really fit on a bio, that can’t be readily marketed. But its one of those things that is so important that clients should really look to see whether lawyers working for them have that trait.
What are we talking about? Passion. Fire in the belly. An insatiable desire to win, combined with an equal measure of intolerance of losing. However characterized, why is this trait so important? There are a number of reasons. First, so long as your outside counsel views “winning” on the same terms you do, I think everyone would agree that the stronger the desire to achieve that objective, the more comfortable you feel with your choice. But the value of the trait is so much more. Why are so many cases settled on the courthouse steps? Because lawyers who deep down are afraid to try cases milk every last nickel of fees out of a case before finding some excuse to recommend settling. Lawyers with passion for winning and a beyond-measure disdain for losing hate settling on the courthouse steps more than anything else. You can be sure that if your lawyer has these traits, you will settle on the court-house steps only because the other side has capitulated.
There is, in this scheme, a problem because there are lawyers who have tried “hundreds of cases” and go through the motions of being in court quite well. But at 7:30 at night, they’re home having a cocktail and not continuing to work to be ready to excel every minute of the next day.
Just like a pack of wolves all know instinctively who the Alpha wolf is, lawyers seem to instinctively know who the real deal is and who the pretenders are. The Alphas get the good deals and the pretenders are always a day late and a dollar short. Finally, when a lawyer with these passions recommends you settle rather than try a case, you know the recommendation is real, coming only after the lawyer has persuaded himself or herself that even with their potent skills, the matter most likely will be lost.
How does an in-house lawyer find this “alpha” lawyer? Are there tell-tale signs that sophisticated consumers of legal services look for? I don’t really know. Use the comment feature to offer you ideas about finding the right counsel.
Sunday, July 31, 2005 in Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)