How to Get Lawyers More Engaged in Business Development
Getting lawyers to participate in business development is one of the most persistent challenges facing law firm marketing and BD teams.
Most lawyers understand that developing relationships and bringing in new business are important. They know they need to stay in touch with clients, build their networks and look for opportunities to expand existing relationships.
But knowing something is important and making time for it are two different things.
When lawyers are managing active matters, responding to client demands and supervising teams, business development activities can easily get pushed aside. Even lawyers who genuinely want to be more proactive may struggle to figure out where to focus their efforts.
For law firm BD professionals, the challenge is finding ways to make business development easier to incorporate into lawyers' existing responsibilities.
Here are several ways to approach it.
Give Lawyers Specific Reasons to Reach Out
One of the most common approaches to encouraging business development is reminding lawyers to stay in touch with their contacts.
The advice is sound, but it's often too general to prompt action.
A lawyer may have dozens of clients, former clients, referral sources and prospects in their network. Telling them to reconnect with those people leaves them with another decision to make: whom to contact and what to say.
Now imagine giving that same lawyer information that a former client has just been promoted to general counsel, an existing client has announced an acquisition or a prospective client is expanding into a new market.
Suddenly, there's a specific reason to reach out.
The lawyer can congratulate the contact, ask about the development or offer to connect them with someone at the firm who has relevant experience.
This is where timely company intelligence can be especially useful. Gatsby Aware helps firms monitor developments at clients and prospects, giving BD teams information they can use to identify potential outreach opportunities.
Make Business Development Preparation Easier
Another reason lawyers may put off business development is the preparation involved.
Before reaching out to a prospective client or attending a meeting, a lawyer may want to understand the company's business, leadership, recent activity and potential legal needs.
That research is valuable, but it takes time. And when lawyers have to gather the information themselves, preparation can become another obstacle.
BD teams can help by providing concise company research before important meetings and conversations.
For example, a lawyer preparing to meet with a healthcare executive might benefit from knowing about the company's recent acquisitions, investment activity, leadership changes and expansion plans.
That information can help the lawyer ask better questions and identify areas where the firm's experience may be relevant.
Gatsby Intel supports this process by bringing company research together for lawyers and BD professionals preparing for business development activities.
Connect Business Development to Lawyers' Existing Relationships
Lawyers are often more comfortable developing business through people they already know than approaching unfamiliar prospects.
That makes existing client relationships a useful starting point for encouraging greater participation.
BD teams can help lawyers identify clients they haven't spoken with recently, understand what's happening in those businesses and find opportunities to reconnect.
They can also look for developments that may be relevant to other practices at the firm.
For example, a litigation partner may have a longstanding relationship with a company that's preparing for an acquisition. That development could create an opportunity to introduce a corporate colleague.
These opportunities become easier to recognize when client information is regularly reviewed and shared across practices.
Give Lawyers Manageable Actions
Business development plans can become overwhelming when they contain long lists of activities and ambitious expectations.
A lawyer who is already struggling to find time for business development may be discouraged by a plan that requires attending multiple events, publishing frequent articles and reaching out to dozens of contacts.
BD teams can make participation more manageable by helping lawyers identify a small number of meaningful actions.
That might include preparing for an upcoming client meeting, following up with someone they met at a conference or reconnecting with a former client whose company recently announced an important development.
The important part is making the activity specific enough that the lawyer knows what to do next.
When the BD team can provide relevant background information and a clear reason for outreach, there's less preparation standing between the lawyer and the conversation.
Follow Up on Opportunities, Not Just Activities
Many firms track business development participation through meetings, events, outreach and other activities.
Those measures can be useful, but they don't always show whether the activities are leading to stronger relationships or potential new work.
BD teams can add value by following up on what happened after a lawyer contacted a client or met a prospect.
Did the conversation uncover a new business need? Is another meeting appropriate? Would an introduction to a colleague be helpful? Has something changed at the company that warrants additional outreach?
These questions help connect individual activities to ongoing relationship development.
They also give BD professionals a better understanding of where their support is most useful.
Use Client Intelligence to Support Consistency
One of the biggest challenges with lawyer business development is maintaining momentum.
A lawyer may be highly engaged after a training session, practice group retreat or successful client meeting, only to become distracted by client demands a few weeks later.
A consistent flow of relevant information can help bring business development back into focus.
For example, monitoring a lawyer's priority clients and prospects may surface developments that prompt a conversation even when the lawyer hasn't been actively thinking about outreach.
Gatsby Aware helps firms stay informed about those developments, while Gatsby Intel provides additional research when an opportunity warrants a closer look.
Together, they can help BD teams provide practical support throughout the relationship development process.
Making Business Development Part of Everyday Practice
Lawyer engagement improves when business development becomes easier to act on.
For BD teams, that means understanding the relationships and industries that matter to individual lawyers, providing useful information at the right time and helping them identify realistic opportunities for outreach.
Training, coaching and planning remain important, but the work that happens between those activities matters just as much.
When lawyers have relevant information, a clear reason to connect and support preparing for the conversation, they're in a better position to make business development a consistent part of their practice.