Do You Want a Rewarding, Fulfilling Career?

Associate training: Bring Ross to your firm to educate your lawyers!

For firms looking to show they support their associates and junior partners, the most-effective solution is having Ross present at an associate retreat, or provide in-house marketing training. Designed to leverage the Ultimate Law Firm Associate's Marketing Checklist, Ross's entertaining presentations play well with this tough demographic.

A big-firm senior associate recently commented "I'd have paid $1 million if someone had taken me to Ross's program when I was a young associate!"

For details on specific programs, contact Ross directly at ross@fishmanmarketing.com.

• Foreword

  Foreword

  Be a good lawyer, build a network, target your marketing.

  The law is a challenging, competitive profession; many associates live in a constant state of unease. They want to know how they’re doing, how they’re comparing to their peers in the firm and across the industry. And the anxiety doesn’t go away as they advance through their careers. In fact, it often increases, as they wonder if they’re doing everything they can to improve their chance of partnership, including developing their own clients.

  I regularly see smart, personable, motivated senior associates or junior partners who have been working tirelessly on client development for many years, with nothing to show for it.

  After we sit down and discuss their previous marketing efforts, it’s often obvious to me that the activities they’d been undertaking had little chance of success. I hate to discourage them, even when I’d like to say, “Yeah, that stuff was never going to work.” It’s not their fault; they just got bad advice. Or no advice at all.

• Introduction

  Introduction

  You don't need a big ``Rainmaker`` personality.

  Big Picture: As a new associate, your goal should be to master the skills you need to be an excellent lawyer and put yourself in the best-possible position to successfully develop a pipeline of high-quality legal work later when you will want to generate work or create business opportunities.

  To do that, your goal from the very beginning of your associate career should be to build a strong and productive network. Gradually and systematically, over time, you will want to develop a tight 250–500 person network of people who hire lawyers, influence the hiring decisions, or refer business to them.

  Few clients will hire an associate for a larger case or deal -- you simply don’t offer enough cover if a representation were to go bad. (“Wait, you hired an associate for this?!”) Therefore, spend these important early years building your resume, reputation, and name recognition within a specific target audience.

• First-Year Associates

  First-Year Associates

  Mindset: Become an excellent lawyer.

  Your first priority is to learn to be a good lawyer; external marketing isn’t important yet. Your only real proactive, external activity should be ensuring that you don't lose touch with the people you already know. Create a reminder to make sure that you've had some contact with your chums once per quarter. Your future self will thank you.

  • Always, always, always have business cards with you; you never know when you’re going to meet someone who could later turn into a client or referral source.
  • The 250 business cards gathering dust in a box in your bottom desk drawer can’t help you unless they’re with you when you need them. Here’s how to ensure you have cards with you when you need them:
  o Leave 75–100 in the box at work, then divide up the rest among all of your pants pockets, suit coats, blazers, jackets, overcoats, purses, gym bags, briefcase, backpack, suitcase, roller bag, and glove box.

• Second-Year Associates

  Second-Year Associates

  Mindset: Build your internal brand and develop your network.

  Your first priority as a second-year associate remains learning to be a great lawyer; marketing is still a distant second. Continue to focus on building your internal brand for excellence, efficiency, and teamwork. Stay in touch with your friends and contacts.

  • Continue the ``First-Year Associates`` activities, above.
  • Continue adding new names to your mailing list, and to your LinkedIn and Facebook networks as you encounter these contacts.
  o Bar association committee members
  o Your peers within client companies
  o People you meet at networking functions
  o Alumni association contacts
  o Co-counsel and opposing counsel