In A Nutshell

Recently, members of a marketing listserv to which I belong were posed the following question by a "newbie" attorney: "Now I know plenty about the law and am ready to open my office. How do I get a client?"

That's an extremely broad question but various listserv participants took a whack at it. Here was my advice:

I think the shortest answer may be Woody Allen’s: Eighty percent of success is showing up. You need to show up in meatspace at networking events, seminars (even if you do your own), speaking engagements, association meetings, etc. etc. And you need to show up in cyberspace: blogging, participating on listservs, commenting on others’ blogs, writing articles and press releases, posting video, using social media, and so on.

If I had to give you client-getting advice standing on one leg, I’d say:

Get a great image.
Get in front of the public.
Build a referral network.
Get all over this Internet thing.

Oh, and do not price yourself low, hoping to obtain work by undercutting the competition.

But I also loved this extremely concise and valuable advice from estate planning attorney Laurie Kadair of Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

In a nutshell:
1) Fake it till you make it
2) Suit up and show up
3) Believe it'll be greater later

Comments

[Jenni]

Great advice, Mark. And I'm glad you included cyberspace as an important place to "show up". Lately, being a presence in your local community is not enough anymore. It is just as important, if not more important, to be a web presence as well. As always, thanks for the good advice!

Jenni

[HC]

A quick not on building your online presence. Lawyer directories not only help drive their traffic to your site, but also help increase the page rank of your law firm's site since search engines rank your website higher based on the number of incoming links. http://www.lawyerarchive.com is an example of a high quality directory that will not only drive traffic, but also give you a high quality incoming link.