Before the Meeting: What Lawyers Actually Need to Know About a Client or Prospect
A partner has a meeting with a client tomorrow morning. Another lawyer is having lunch with a prospect she hasn't seen in six months. A team is getting ready for a pitch. Someone is heading to a conference and realizes that several people from companies the firm wants to know will be there.
In each case, there is a familiar request to the business development team: What do I need to know?
There is more information available to answer that question than ever before. The challenge is deciding which information will actually help the lawyer have a better conversation. A useful meeting briefing gives the lawyer enough context to understand what has changed, who they are meeting with, what may matter to that person and where there may be an opportunity to ask a better question, offer something useful or continue the relationship afterward.
Start With What Has Changed
A lawyer who already knows a client doesn't need a history of the company before every meeting. Understanding what has happened since they last spoke is usually much more valuable. The company may have made an acquisition, entered a new market, raised capital, changed leadership, launched a product, announced significant hiring or encountered a new regulatory issue. A private equity sponsor may have raised a new fund, completed an investment or made changes across its portfolio.
These developments can change the direction of a conversation and help a lawyer understand what may be occupying the client's attention right now. They can also prevent a lawyer from walking into a meeting without knowing about an important development that happened a few days earlier.
For prospects, recent developments can provide context for why a conversation may be particularly timely. Rather than approaching the meeting with a generic description of the firm's capabilities, the lawyer can understand what is happening within the business and think about where the firm's experience may be relevant.
Understand the Person, Not Just the Company
Company research is only part of meeting preparation because the people sitting across the table matter just as much. Understanding someone's current role, professional background, previous companies, board positions and other relevant experience can provide useful context for how they may approach the conversation.
A new general counsel who spent 15 years at another company may bring relationships and priorities from that organization. An executive may have previously worked at one of the firm's clients, overlapped with a lawyer at another company, served on a board with someone the firm knows or worked with another lawyer earlier in their career.
These connections aren't always obvious when looking only at someone's current title. Identifying them can help the lawyer understand the person behind the role, find common ground and recognize relationships that may already exist between the individual and the firm.
Know the History With Your Firm
External intelligence becomes more useful when it is connected to what the firm already knows. A prospect may already have relationships with several lawyers at the firm. A new executive may have worked with the firm at a previous company. The firm may have pitched the company before, hosted members of its leadership team at an event or represented one of its investors, portfolio companies or business partners.
This information can influence how a lawyer approaches the meeting and who else at the firm may be helpful to involve. A lawyer preparing for an introductory conversation might discover that another partner has known the company's CFO for years. A pitch team may learn that the firm previously proposed work to another part of the organization. A relationship partner may find that a colleague in another practice already knows a newly appointed executive.
Connecting external developments with the firm's own relationship history creates a much more complete picture of the client or prospect. It can also uncover opportunities that wouldn't be apparent from external research alone.
Look Beyond the Immediate Matter
The reason for a meeting naturally shapes the preparation, but understanding the broader business can make the conversation much more valuable. A lawyer meeting with a client about a transaction may also benefit from knowing that the company recently entered a new market, hired a senior executive or announced another strategic priority. A private equity lawyer meeting with a sponsor may want to understand what is happening across the portfolio, where the firm has been investing and what themes are emerging from its recent activity.
Looking at the broader business gives the lawyer more context for understanding what may be important to the client now and what could become important next. A corporate lawyer may notice that a longtime client is expanding internationally. A private equity lawyer may see that a portfolio company is making significant executive hires. A litigation partner may learn that a client is entering a heavily regulated market.
These developments may have nothing to do with the immediate reason for the meeting, but they can lead to useful questions and help the lawyer recognize when another issue or business need comes up naturally in the conversation.
Turn Intelligence Into Better Questions
Research becomes more valuable when the lawyer can use it to have a more informed conversation. Knowing that a company completed an acquisition is useful background, but understanding what that acquisition may mean for integration, expansion or another business priority gives the lawyer something meaningful to discuss.
The same applies to other developments. A newly appointed general counsel may be evaluating the legal department's priorities and outside counsel relationships. A private equity sponsor that recently raised a fund may be preparing to increase its investment activity or enter new areas. A company expanding internationally may encounter legal and regulatory issues that haven't previously been part of the relationship.
A strong briefing helps connect the information to the conversation the lawyer is about to have. Instead of presenting a collection of facts and expecting the lawyer to determine what matters, it provides context that can help them ask better questions, understand the answers and recognize when something in the conversation may point to another need or opportunity.
Think About the Follow-Up Before the Meeting
Meeting preparation can also make the follow-up more meaningful. If recent company activity suggests that a particular issue may come up, there may be a relevant article, event, introduction or colleague worth having in mind before the conversation. When the client expresses an interest or raises the issue, the lawyer already has a natural way to continue the discussion afterward.
What comes out of the meeting is equally important. New priorities, promised introductions, business issues and follow-up items become part of the intelligence surrounding the relationship. Capturing that information can help the next interaction build on the last one rather than starting over each time.
Over time, this creates a better understanding of what the client cares about, who matters within the organization, what the firm has discussed with them and where there may be opportunities to strengthen the relationship.
Focus on What Can Change the Conversation
The most useful meeting preparation helps a lawyer understand which developments are likely to matter in the conversation and why. A recent acquisition, leadership change, new fund, expansion into another market or meaningful relationship connection can provide important context, but its value depends on the meeting and the people involved. The goal is to identify the information that can help the lawyer understand what may be happening inside the business, ask a more informed question or recognize an opportunity that might otherwise be missed.
That requires judgment because every meeting is different. A conversation with a longtime client calls for different preparation than a first meeting with a prospect, a competitive pitch or an introduction at a conference. The intelligence should reflect what the firm already knows about the company and the people involved, what has changed recently and what the lawyer hopes to accomplish in the conversation.
When those pieces come together, the briefing becomes more useful than a collection of company news and background information. It gives the lawyer context for the conversation ahead and can help identify where there may be an opportunity to strengthen the relationship, address a business need, make an introduction or create a meaningful reason to follow up.
Where Gatsby Fits
Getting to this level of preparation can take significant time when business development teams are researching companies and individuals, tracking developments and trying to determine which information is relevant to a particular lawyer or conversation.
Gatsby helps law firms make that process more efficient. Gatsby Intel provides on-demand research on companies and people that can be used to prepare for client meetings, prospect conversations, pitches and other business development activities. Gatsby Aware monitors priority clients and prospects so lawyers and business development teams can stay current on developments rather than trying to reconstruct what has happened immediately before a meeting.
The technology provides a stronger starting point, while the business development professional adds the context that comes from understanding the firm, its lawyers and its relationships. They can connect external developments with internal knowledge, determine which information is most relevant and help the lawyer understand how it may relate to the conversation ahead.
This is an important distinction because technology can make intelligence easier to find and organize, but knowing what matters still requires context and judgment. Combining the two can make high-quality meeting preparation easier to deliver consistently across more lawyers, clients and prospects.
Better Preparation Can Lead to Better Conversations
An important client or prospect meeting represents more than the hour on the calendar. There is an opportunity before the meeting to understand what has changed and prepare for a more informed conversation, as well as an opportunity afterward to build on what was discussed and continue developing the relationship.
When lawyers understand the company, the people involved, the firm's existing relationships and the developments that may matter most, they can spend less of the conversation gathering basic background and more of it discussing the client's business, priorities and needs. They are also better positioned to recognize connections, make useful introductions and identify reasons to stay in touch.
Done consistently, this kind of preparation becomes part of a broader business development strategy. Each meeting adds to what the firm knows about the relationship, and that knowledge can make the next conversation more relevant. Over time, better intelligence and better preparation can help lawyers develop stronger relationships and create more opportunities from the conversations they are already having.