Business Development? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm a junior/midlevel in a mid-biglaw firm. The firm is pretty helpful in terms of support for business development, but as an associate, I am still at a loss when it comes to finding clients. Has anyone in a (more) junior role had success with this? If so, what steps did you take, what resources would you recommend, etc.?

For additional background, I'm in lit, focused on a niche practice area (i.e., employment, antitrust, something like that).

[Anonymous User]

Business development is a long term thing when you are an associate. The best source of new business are others at your firm - usually the corporate partners who are bringing in deals, so you should keep in touch with people from your class year.

The next best source are former colleagues, law school classmates, college classmates, friends of your SO, etc. You should make sure to just check in with people every six months or so to grab coffee/breakfast/drink. If your firm offers a business development budget you should use that even if it is in a tongue-in-cheek way (pick up the check and say that it’s on the firm).

Otherwise, get in the habit of writing articles. After a few it becomes pretty easy - you can usually bang out an article about new developments in a couple of days. Being in a niche area helps. Offer to put the partner’s name on it if it will help get it published - but Law360 especially is always looking for content. Put those articles out on linked in and facebook, you never know who in your contacts has wound up there and will see that and take notice.

Keep track of your contacts. It sounds dumb but I use a spreadsheet. If you see they’ve done something, published an article, won a big case/closed a big deal, congratulate them. If you meet a mutual friend, shoot them a quick email saying you met so-and-so.

You also need to develop business with the partners in your group. Offer to assist them with CLEs or presentations at conferences.

A huge issue with business development at a firm is that you are probably priced too high for most people in your network or (if they work for clients or potential clients) those places already have in-house lawyers with established relationships. This is magnified in litigation because so many matters are really important for the company or connected to deals the company has already done so the clients go through whatever corporate partner did the deal for them. If you are really interested/connected in a growing industry you might be able to be a source of referrals for people in the firm which can establish a mutually beneficial relationship.

[Anonymous User]

Why do junior lawyers think you need to have an existing book of business in order to eventually be promoted to partner? You don't, at least not in biglaw. The overwhelming majority of biglaw firms' revenue comes from large institutional clients that have had relationships with the firm for years or decades that transcend any one partner. Any new client that brings in a significant revenue stream will come in because they want to work with the senior, well-established partners, not because of some 3rd year associate. If making partner is your goal, your efforts would be best directed toward doing an extremely high level of substantive work that will establish you as a superstar and cultivating a senior partner as a mentor who will hand off his relationships to you when he retires.

[NoBladesNoBows]

Business development is a long term thing when you are an associate. The best source of new business are others at your firm - usually the corporate partners who are bringing in deals, so you should keep in touch with people from your class year.

The next best source are former colleagues, law school classmates, college classmates, friends of your SO, etc. You should make sure to just check in with people every six months or so to grab coffee/breakfast/drink. If your firm offers a business development budget you should use that even if it is in a tongue-in-cheek way (pick up the check and say that it’s on the firm).

Otherwise, get in the habit of writing articles. After a few it becomes pretty easy - you can usually bang out an article about new developments in a couple of days. Being in a niche area helps. Offer to put the partner’s name on it if it will help get it published - but Law360 especially is always looking for content. Put those articles out on linked in and facebook, you never know who in your contacts has wound up there and will see that and take notice.

Keep track of your contacts. It sounds dumb but I use a spreadsheet. If you see they’ve done something, published an article, won a big case/closed a big deal, congratulate them. If you meet a mutual friend, shoot them a quick email saying you met so-and-so.

You also need to develop business with the partners in your group. Offer to assist them with CLEs or presentations at conferences.

A huge issue with business development at a firm is that you are probably priced too high for most people in your network or (if they work for clients or potential clients) those places already have in-house lawyers with established relationships. This is magnified in litigation because so many matters are really important for the company or connected to deals the company has already done so the clients go through whatever corporate partner did the deal for them. If you are really interested/connected in a growing industry you might be able to be a source of referrals for people in the firm which can establish a mutually beneficial relationship.

Very practical and useful advice, thanks for this.

[NoBladesNoBows]

Why do junior lawyers think you need to have an existing book of business in order to eventually be promoted to partner? You don't, at least not in biglaw. The overwhelming majority of biglaw firms' revenue comes from large institutional clients that have had relationships with the firm for years or decades that transcend any one partner. Any new client that brings in a significant revenue stream will come in because they want to work with the senior, well-established partners, not because of some 3rd year associate. If making partner is your goal, your efforts would be best directed toward doing an extremely high level of substantive work that will establish you as a superstar and cultivating a senior partner as a mentor who will hand off his relationships to you when he retires.

Not sure what you're really trying to contribute here. First of all, what you're saying does apply to some firms, particularly V10, but not all. Plenty of other big law firms, even especially prominent ones, are not solely working off the same clients, and are constantly looking to bring in new clients. Furthermore, even at the ones that do just rely on growing share with existing clients, developing a relationship with the actual people in that corporation (or whatever it is) is still important, and the above advice is useful for that.

Given that OP is already a midlevel and asking this question it seems very clear that his firm is one that is looking for new clients, and your response is pretty unhelpful and pretentious.

[Wipfelder]

Why do junior lawyers think you need to have an existing book of business in order to eventually be promoted to partner? You don't, at least not in biglaw. The overwhelming majority of biglaw firms' revenue comes from large institutional clients that have had relationships with the firm for years or decades that transcend any one partner. Any new client that brings in a significant revenue stream will come in because they want to work with the senior, well-established partners, not because of some 3rd year associate. If making partner is your goal, your efforts would be best directed toward doing an extremely high level of substantive work that will establish you as a superstar and cultivating a senior partner as a mentor who will hand off his relationships to you when he retires.

In 1986, this was TCR at White Shoe big-city firms.

[totesTheGoat]

You also need to develop business with the partners in your group. Offer to assist them with CLEs or presentations at conferences.

Put together a CLE for one of your clients and go to their office to present it to them. It's mostly partners that do this, but if you're able to contribute and tag along on the visit, people may remember you and send you work. There was a situation like that where a couple partners and an associate came into town and sufficiently impressed me to where I called up one of the partners and asked if the associate had bandwidth the next time I had some work to outsource.