Achieving Attorney Success: Making a Coordinated Effort

Attorneys in larger firms frequently say "Well, I know what I’m doing, but I have no idea what the folks down the hall do." It's said in jest, but the statement rings true all too often.

What it points out is that all too frequently, attorneys in one part of a firm may not be aware of other activities within their firm. It happens in a two-person office and is almost guaranteed in larger firms. Business development activities are less effective when attorneys and staff within a firm lack overall knowledge of the work of others,


Clients are best served by attorneys who know what they do best, have utmost confidence in their ability to deliver results, and who know the capability of those around them, professionals and support staff alike. The successful practitioner begins the external business development program with an internal look, and carries out these activities:
 

• Information gathering within the firm to determine strengths and weaknesses
• Consensus establishment on who the firm is and where it is going
• Communication with everyone in the firm about goals and objectives
• Development of a plan that achieves these objectives
• Attorney and staff training to carry out the business development plan

This process of establishing consensus, ensuring good communication and training personnel for both marketing and for client service, is critical for both the single attorney and a large firm. The level and scope of activities are all that changes.

By addressing these issues, the attorney concentrates resources onto those situations where the greatest results will occur. It lessens the chaos in the office of a general practitioner by emphasizing certain legal areas of service. It provides guidelines and criteria for the acceptance of new work. It provides a common purpose toward which all attorneys can strive.

It is the basis for a good internal marketing program, which helps attorneys bridge the information gap "from the folks down the hall." But it also increases efficiencies and improves client service. It enables attorneys to respond more quickly to situations and information. Internal communication helps to avoid duplication of effort. In short, it is the basis for a well-planned, effective marketing program.

GETTING STARTED

Why is it so hard to launch a coordinated marketing program in a law firm? Because law firms are conceptual ideas. They are comprised of strong-willed individuals who by personality and training are fierce in their convictions. Since most attorneys have an opinion about marketing, initial agreement between two or more attorneys on how to begin almost never exists. Marketing involves the blending and molding of individuals into unified groups with a common purpose. Attorneys in the same firm may not agree on their own common purpose, virtually prohibiting the development of a unified group and the subsequent coherent marketing program! Most attorneys begin marketing by creating some sort of printed piece, usually a brochure or similar device that attempts to describe the attorney or firm capabilities, areas of practice, expertise, and so on. What a difficult task to undertake as the first step.

To represent a law firm in print is difficult, translating living energy into frozen words on paper. It requires not just creative thinking but arduous soul-searching. It is a process of taking vision and transferring it into graphics, of taking soul and describing it in words.

To some degree, every law firm goes through an agonizing start-up phase of marketing. Many issues are raised. Take, for example, the intellectual process of simply preparing a brochure. Brochures raise not only graphic design issues but also more philosophical ones. Another example is a logo and letterhead, which are always needed. If they move away from white bond paper and standard typefaces, it disturbs many attorneys, representing a break from the conventional and smacking of something unprofessional. Clearly, even this is territory to be entered with trepidation.

POWER OF THE PRINTED WORD

The power of graphic design to communicate is immense, but so too is thepower required to create it. Attorneys, document oriented by training, intuitively know that every printed piece, whether a contract summary or an individual biography, represents the firm and therefore must be complete and correct. Maybe this explains a frequent attempt to avoid errors and omissions by including everything in a single brochure.

If an attorney accepts an earlier premise—that individual law firms are concepts difficult to summarize—then the attorney understands that a unified vision of the practice of law is the bond of a firm and a prerequisite to effective marketing. Through things like brochures is that vision trans ferred to print. This process forces the first main hurdle along the way to successful brochure production—consensus of vision.

SIMPLE QUESTIONS. TOUGH ANSWERS

The creation of a marketing program prompts issues that strike to the heart of law firms. Using again the example of a brochure, a simple question about design ("Should we list all our practice areas on one page?") may raise a more complex question ("Are our practice groups clearly defined?"). Simple questions. Frequently tough answers.

Other decisions that are necessary for successful marketing prompt soul-searching responses. For instance the question "What colors do we want to use?" really strikes at firm culture: "Are we conservative, formal, and stuffy? Or are we contemporary, approachable, and responsive?" A firm may be shades of both, and colors of ink and paper can reflect that. Law firms are conservative, so are black and white. An attorney can be sophisticated yet warm, and so are silver and burgundy A traditional, stable law firm of aggressive litigators is both gray and red. Casual, friendly attorneys are shades of green and peach.

In sum, lawyers will always have difficulty implementing plans without total internal consensus. But on a practical level, the process of the creation of marketing materials raises significant internal issues, the resolution of which is often of greater value to the attorneys than the creation of the material itself! The outcome is a firm with a clearer picture of its currentposition and a united vision for its future.