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Client Speak: Trading Places

By ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |
February 26, 2008

Marketing abounds with buzzwords and bromides ' and dangerous ones at that. When, for example, we sling catch-phrases like 'partnering,' or pontificate about how important it is to 'understand the client's business,' it becomes way too easy to talk a lot of sanctified talk without ever really walking the proverbial walk.

In prior MLF columns, we've attempted to put some meat on these rhetorical bones by offering practical examples of what lawyers actually do when they partner with their clients as well as what it specifically means to understand the client's business. In practice, the two concepts are interrelated. In order to partner with clients and develop new business, you must understand the marketplace trends that drive their strategies. You must understand the liabilities both in and out of court that keep corporate executives awake at night. And so forth '

But let's drill down a little deeper. Lawyers operate in two very different worlds. One is the law firm, with its flat structure and unique owner/ operator dynamics. The other is the law department, which exists within a hierarchal corporate structure, and where the politics, if also Byzantine, are fundamentally different. So, to partner with clients and develop new business, understand those politics. Understand the internal responsibilities that the person to whom you are selling must constantly shoulder. Understand how you might actually help that person become a hero in his or her own world. In other words, change priorities altogether, from yours to theirs.

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