How Law Firms Are Overcoming New Business Development Challenges

In addition, most lawyers:

• Focus their very limited available business development time on speaking, presenting, attending conferences and writing. Each of these traditional marketing activities increases visibility and may develop business, but not as productively as other means. The fact is, almost all new legal work is awarded either during or shortly after a private, one-on-one or small group meeting or conversation, yet most lawyers don't have the time, inclination or skill to plan, conduct and follow up on qualified leads.
• Only make time and effort to market or develop business when they are less than fully busy, e., often when a case or matter ends. But because the sales cycle for outside legal services can be long and usually requires many appropriate contacts over time, many lawyers find it difficult to follow up and stay in touch over the two or more years it often takes to convert qualified leads into actual new legal work.
• Know their own practice and practice group, but not the whole firms.
• Do not have time to create, use or maintain a regular client development action plan. Instead, they engage in client or business development only when they are not busy (which, for most successful lawyers, is not very often).

Defining and Measuring Qualified Leads

A qualified lead is defined as one in which an existing client, prospective client or referral source communicates an interest in a legal area or topic. Most often, qualified leads come in the form of questions a client or prospective client asks, such as, "Does your firm have a written cybersecurity policy it recommends?" "Does your firm do FCPA work?" "Are any of your partners experienced in oil and gas?" Clients or prospects ask these kinds of questions because they have (or someone they know has) a need for outside counsel, advice or representation.

Once a need is identified, it needs to be qualified, which consists of an internal review or assessment of the lead, which answers these (and other) questions in the affirmative: "Are there any conflicts?" "Is this the type of client our firm wants?" "Is this the type of legal work our firm wants and does well?" Then, the only way any qualified lead is converted into new legal work for the firm is if someone in the firm communicates directly with the person(s) who expressed the need. A firm lawyer (or other firm representative) needs to get in touch, stay in touch, respond appropriately and in a timely manner, follow up and follow through to develop the lead and relationship into new work or a new client. Lead qualification and relationship development are jobs and responsibilities that, in the past, have been traditionally handled by firm lawyers, but this is changing due to the time, effort, skill and discipline these processes take.

Formalizing New Business Plans Into Pipelines

Increasingly, law firm leaders embrace the fact that having an ongoing and robust pipeline of organic new business opportunities and qualified leads is critical to the continued success of their firms (in addition to regularly identifying and acquiring new laterals).