Steps to Make every Firm Want You.

In this market, I think we've left behind the catch-22 of small firms wanting you to have 2 years of experience, but no one being willing to teach you to begin with. 

But in case you're still running into that...

...or you're struggling to get attorney work and attorney pay in a firm where you worked as a law clerk or paralegal, this article will help you end that struggle and take command of your legal career.

First a message from our sponsor.

This article is sponsored by Rainmaker's Strategy Session, a service that helps Law Firm Associates and solo Lawyerprenuers outline their networking and marketing plan to bring in steady clients and predictable money, quickly. Schedule a session here.

So how do you become that coveted new-hire to any firm looking for an Associate?

Step One: Know your employer's mind

When you're seeking employment as a first year associate, let's first remember you just left a world where you paid near or more than 6-figures to learn. And now you’re essentially asking someone to pay you to learn. 

Please digest that. 

Knowing your employer's mind will allow to you craft your presentation of yourself in a way that encourages them to hire you. At the end of the day, they want peace of mind too. That means, clients happy, bills paid, payroll (your salary) made, and their own personal lives attended to. This mindset shift, of thinking from your employers eyes, will help you embrace what you need to do in order to be marketable.

Step Two: Offer what they most deeply desire

If you’re in a small firm, business development, also known as bringing in your own clients, is crucial.  It is how you are going to get paid. So, unless you are good enough at the attorney work that your senior attorney can spend their days drumming up new business, you have to take on this rainmaking duty as well. 

Ideally, your employer will already have so much work coming in that they need to hire someone to work the cases. But at that point they will want the person to be able to work the cases alone. Otherwise, it takes away from what they were doing to drum up that business to begin with.  If you can't work the cases alone, or bring in clients of your own, one or the both of you will be extremely frustrated. Would you want to work daily with someone who frustrates you?

If they have the time to teach you, there’s not enough business in the door to support the both of you, so you will need to know how to bring in business.  

I know it's what law grads expect and it would be a dream come true but, an employer does not want to pay you for the privilege of teaching you. So you will either need to come with skills to handle cases on your own or be able to drum up business (addressed below) in order to be THE no-brainer candidate for your employer.

Step Three: BE the coveted new-hire while insuring your career

"Well, how do I do that?" you ask.

Make it your priority to learn a new set of skills that not only makes them want you, but allows you to:

*get the mentoring you need as an attorney,

*take command of your salary and working conditions, and

*even open your own firm 1-2 years down the line, if you so desire.  

What is this new skill?

Networking and Marketing for the Lawyerpreneur aka Rainmaking

Rainmaking for lawyers is a broad topic covered ad nauseam in books and on the internet. People charge (and get paid) tens of thousands to teach this skill one-on-one.

To learn this skill set, you can do Google searches, watch to YouTube videos, follow expensive coaches or pepper your mentor with questions. But to succeed at this quickly, you need to create a plan that takes your specific circumstances, personality, and values into account so you can easily and consistently implement that plan with pleasure.

It's a plan for making money--with pleasure.

Your plan should include:

1. your specific, dialed-in practice area (newbies make the mistake of going too broad which only means all your efforts will be wasted),
2. your perfect client (knowing specifically who you want to work with informs how and where you market yourself),
3. your personal marketing message to attract your perfect clients, and
4. a step-by-step plan for yearly, quarterly, monthly and daily actions that repeatedly help your perfect client find you.

Now, you can choose to scour the internet and piece-meal this information. It'll take months (at best--IF you make this scouring a second full-time job), you'll burn a lot of energy, you'll be insecure about your job stability in the meantime, and you'll get lackluster results.

Or you can be like the people who:

(1) go to a source,

(2) where the information already exists, and

(3) get the information tailored and applied specifically to them;

(4) so they can have a concrete plan and action step for bringing in clients now.

To secure your personal marketing plan, go here, or copy/paste this link to your browser https://calendly.com/jenniferduclair/rainmakers-strategy-session

Learning how to bring clients in on your own is the insurance policy for your career.