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Midlevel at a V100 firm here. My review this year basically came down to "we love your work, your hours are great, but you need to start developing a business development plan and promoting yourself more." Any advice on how to do this? I try to write articles/blog, go to networking functions, serve on a nonprofit board/leadership committee, and keep in touch with old friends/classmates, but I wonder if there's anything else I can/should be doing. Any advice?

Hang out at the yacht club.

Seriously though I'm sure a lot of people will chime in here and say do x, y, z, but in reality you've pretty much already hit the major points. Business development, especially in law, is difficult. If it were so easy everyone would do it and be able to hit the $2 million in billables per year that some of these biglaw firms require for partnership consideration. A lot of it is luck, whether you stumble onto a big client or are lucky enough to be born into a wealthy/well-connected family that you can tap into for business.

hlsperson1111 wrote:Midlevel at a V100 firm here. My review this year basically came down to "we love your work, your hours are great, but you need to start developing a business development plan and promoting yourself more." Any advice on how to do this? I try to write articles/blog, go to networking functions, serve on a nonprofit board/leadership committee, and keep in touch with old friends/classmates, but I wonder if there's anything else I can/should be doing. Any advice?

Maybe explain what you're already doing and make a plan to do more of it. I got a suggestion from someone that I should be trying to write an article every few months. There's a couple of people at a firm that sends out a newsletter with appellate developments like every month or two.

Attending networking functions are good, but you also need to keep up with people you networked with. That's one thing I fail horribly at. I have business cards from all sorts of people, including in-house contacts, from networking functions, but I often fail to ever follow up with them or talk to them again. Those are just missed opportunities.

I'd say the only thing missing from what you're already doing is trying to be a presenter/speaker at stuff. That can be difficult since those are usually invitations but who knows, maybe there's a way to do it.

If your firm is reasonable, it'll understand you aren't going to be pulling in a bunch of business at the moment, but it probably wants you to get your name out there so more people (a) know you do great work and (b) know you exist if they ever have a referral (other attorneys) or a case (clients). And you need to be out there enough to constantly remind everybody of those two facts. It's a slow process.