Trying to get new work? It doesn’t really matter what you know or how you market your practice or even who you know, writes Mark Herrmann in Nothing You Can Say Can Cause Me To Retain You. Because for in-house lawyers, the risk of hiring new attorneys far outweighs any benefits they might bring to the equation. Even if he thinks they are smarter than his existing counsel:
“Because long experience (and the rules of arithmetic) have taught me that the average lawyer is average. […] This means that if I picked my outside counsel randomly, I’d be disappointed 19 times out of 20. I don’t like those odds, so I don’t pick outside counsel randomly. And if I picked my outside counsel based on which outside lawyers told me that they personally think they’re great, I’d still be disappointed 19 times out of 20. I still don’t like those odds.”
That doesn’t mean you should just give up on trying to grow your practice. But it does mean that you should be realistic about your chances with new clients (“When might I add you to the list of approved counsel? Almost never.”). And it means that you should focus your efforts on those people who already know you, who already trust you, who already give you the benefit of the doubt when handing out new assignments: your existing clients. Read the post, even if it tells you what you don’t want to hear. Because that’s exactly what you do need to hear. Then take your clients to lunch.
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