Monday, May 14, 2012

How To Hire Rainmakers

As originally published in the National Law Journal on May 1st, 2012

In Malcolm Gladwell’s 2008 book, Outliers, he makes a telling observation about American Nobel Prize winners: Only a few of the laureates in medicine and chemistry were produced by elite schools like Harvard and Stanford; more came from more modest schools like the University of Notre Dame or City University of New York. The Ivy Leagues were excellent at attracting superb students, but when it came to predicting who would become a great scientist, they didn’t know what to look for.

Law firms face a similar situation — how to predict which law students will become great rainmakers?

It all starts with asking the right questions.

The first question recruiters typically ask is: Was this candidate strong academically in law school? It should be: Does this lawyer have the ability to connect — to build the relationships that will bring in business?

Elite law firms hire exclusively from among the top 5 percent academically, said legal consultant Amy Knapp. However, “doing well in law school isn’t the same things as doing well in business. It means you are good at writing and good at legal reasoning. None of those talents are necessarily indicative of skill in business development.”

Not all firms take this approach. Richmond, Va.’s LeClairRyan (a client of mine) prefers candidates with above a 2.8 grade point average. “This lower cut-off allows us to look at the total résumé,” said recruiting manager Danielle Roberts. “Our favorite question — one that always throws off candidates — is, ‘Tell me your story — what has happened in your life to bring you where you are today?’ This gives firms a window into the real character of candidates.”

Of course, it is a little more complicated than hiring the handsome or popular; it requires finding a certain personality type. Knapp described one rainmaker who was a distinctly quirky individual, but he was so gregarious and brilliant that he amassed the largest book of business at his firm.

“There are so few rainmakers because we filter them out,” Knapp said. “The skills that would make a great rainmaker are not necessarily the same skills that would make a great law firm associate. It is often just too tough for them to make it all the way to partner so they can shine. In those first few years, associates are valued for the same types of things that are valued in law school. A few years later, suddenly, things are totally different as they approach partnership. It is really like a bait-and-switch. ‘You did everything we said, but now we are evaluating you on new and different criteria — show us the clients!’ ”

LeClairRyan tries to get around this by setting up coaching sessions, ostensibly to help summer associates work on business development skills; the real purpose is to test them for the potential to be rainmakers. “In one of these sessions, it became clear that one of our summer associates was not only a relationship-builder, but an exceptional relationship-builder,” Roberts said. “He received an offer from the firm soon after, but the real coup came when he invited the recruiters on-campus to meet his friends. We came on campus and set up a table offering free breakfast, and he was sensational — he knew everybody and everybody knew him. He will be a rainmaker.”

By the way, this summer associate had good grades, but nothing exceptional, she said. The firms that weren’t willing to interview him missed out.

Perhaps it is time for firms to spread the net a little wider and value personality at least as highly as academic superiority. Find the lawyers who meet basic academic standards, but who shine in the soft skills that will help them bring in business.

Adrian Dayton is a lawyer, speaker, author and consultant who coaches law firms with regards to business development through social media. You can grab a free chapter of his latest book, LinkedIn & Blogs for Lawyers (West 2012, co-authored by Amy Knapp) at http://adriandayton.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @adriandayton.

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Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Build Better Lawyer Bios

As originally published in The National Law Journal on April 12, 2012

The book Moneyball by Michael Lewis examines the actions of a rogue general manager by the name of Billy Beane who is able to take a team with a payroll of $39 million and compete with the New York Yankees, which at the time had a payroll of around $114 million. With his ragtag group of players that he described as “from the Island of Misfit Toys,” he was able to field a team that won 20 consecutive games, more than any other team in the history of professional baseball. How was he able to have such great success? How can we apply those strategies to law firms?

Billy Beane was able to have such phenomenal success in part because Major League Baseball teams are run like an old boy’s club, and he was willing to go against the grain. Among these teams, decisions are often made on based on precedent, gut instinct or other intangibles.

When statistics are used, some are hugely overvalued, like runs batted in, while others are greatly undervalued, like on-base percentage. Beane was able to change things by ignoring precedent, exploiting inefficiencies in the marketplace and focusing on the right metrics. How can law firms do the same?

One area that seems particularly perplexing is law firm marketing. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent on salaries for marketing staff, yet most of their time is spent on highly unproductive activities. Pitch books, Chambers submissions, holiday cards–do these really constitute the highest and best use of their costly time? Statistics would indicate otherwise.

Take the area of Web site bios, for example. According to Great Jakes, the law firm Web site company, 55 to 75 percent of the time visitors spend on law firm Web sites is spent on bios. In the range of important statistics and less important statistics, this is incredibly important. Think about it: Who looks at Web site bios? Potential clients, potential new hires and perhaps a smattering of competitors.

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Thursday, April 19, 2012

Top 6 Social Media Posts This Week

Here are six of the top social media stories being discussed in the blogosphere right now. Enjoy!

Blogging

Best Writing Techniques for Online Readers from the Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog. As we all know, writing content for a blog is much different than preparing legal documents. This article is full of great tips about writing content for online readers. Do you know the four common qualities of digital marketing content that make it stand out from convention marketing copy? Check out the link to find out! You’ll be happy you did.

Pinterest

3 Pinterest Tools That Will Have You #Pinning in No Time from Top Rank by Ashley Zeckman. Are you pinning yet? According to the statistics, Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Google Plus, LinkedIn and YouTube combined. This article shares 3 useful tools to help you master the art of pinning. Also, if you don’t have a Pinterest account yet, please feel free to contact me and I’ll send you an invite.

Twitter

4 Ways to Grow a Twitter Following That Matters from the Social Media Examiner by Rich Brooks. Do you use Twitter for business development? If so, how is it working for you? Check out this neat article on how to grow a relevant Twitter following. Remember it’s not how many followers you have, but how many relevant followers you have! The first pointer explains how to find and follow relevant people. A definite must read.

Facebook

Facebook Allows Users to Download Expanded Archive of their Information from Inside Facebook by Brittany Darwell. Even if you don’t use Facebook for business development, you’ll be interested to know that Facebook has now increased the amount of data it provides users when they download their info from the site such as catalogues of friend requests users make, IP addresses they’ve logged in from and previous names used. This is an interesting read for those interested in Facebook privacy settings and issues.

Search Engine Optimization

Does SEO Work for Attorneys from the SEO for Law Firms Blog by Gyi Tsakalakis. Is search engine optimization part of your online marketing strategy? Check out this article to find out which SEO strategies work best and which ones to ignore. Gyi also discusses that many forms of online engagement that serve a purpose in acquiring new business from the web.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn Adds Ability to Target Follower Updates from the Marketing Pilgrim by Cynthia Boris. By now, I’m sure you all have created Law Firm Company Pages for your law firm, but did you know that you can now target follower updates? You can now send updates to a specific segment of your follower list. It’s important to grow the number of followers your Company Page has to make this new feature work. As of now, this service is only available to a chosen few but they’ll start to roll out to the masses soon.

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