It usually take a good three weeks to develop a good impromptu speech—Mark Twain

An opportune way to allow newer attorneys to cut their teeth in an industry is to develop opportunities for them to participate in speaking engagements. Under the guidance of more senior members of the firm, they can receive good exposure with current and potential clients. Use the law firm marketing department to research professional conferences in which to sponsor or participate one to two years in advance. Here’s why it is essential to the marketing mix: The more speaking engagements and seminars you conduct and participate in, the more opportunities your attorneys have to make contact with new targets and new possibilities to enter the Red Zone.

Turn Seminars into ‘Web’inars

Don’t just record the events on camera for prosperity. Arrange in advance for the rights to use the footage from the seminar, trade show or association event for future use on the firm’s website to broadcast the helpful information worldwide. Doing so will enhance the richness of content and credibility of your corporate site. Opportunities for exposure abound on the Internet, both from a client relations and potential media relations opportunities, as reporters covering a particular area of law increasingly use the net to find sources on the subjects they cover. As an extra measure of exposure, email a link to the seminar to existing and potential targets along with a brief note.

This is the second in our series on Law Firm Mergers and the importance of integrating the marketing leadership from both firms as early in the process as possible. Since clients and internal stakeholders will be the most impacted, how should a firm get more people to care?

Well, what do people care about? While marketing in a merger situation is not conceptually unique, it is exponentially more complicated because now you must refine the message and re-identify the messengers across multiple fronts. These fronts encompass the capabilities of the merging firms and the altogether new capabilities that the merged firm presents.

With this premise set, our next column will focus on how you show - not tell - the marketplace that your intellectual and professional platform is indeed broader and deeper.

Continuing with our series on really getting to know your clients and your prospects, and assuming you do want to discover what makes them and their companies work, what’s next? You and your marketing support team must make time to organize, pursue and hopefully close opportunities if you do find out. Lawyers are excellent at talking, good at asking questions and only so-so at listening. Yet it is the latter two skill sets that are the ultimate determinants of ongoing success.

According to KLS/Gates “top of Mind” survey of senior in-house counsel, conducted in the summer of 2005, “communicating effectively” and “enjoyable attorneys” are two of the top three attributes for outside counsel selection.

For any lawyer who wants to “communicate effectively and enjoyably” the 60/40 rule that served IBM so splendidly for decades still applies. Client talks 60% of the time, you talk 40%. Demonstrate the knowledge you have obtained by asking strategic questions and getting them to discuss operational and management challenges.

Last year was a good year for law firms, especially those in employment law and litigation. Despite the sub-prime debacle, the legal industry as a whole had a respectable profit. The Recorder reported that law firm behemoths Morrison & Foerster and Orrick and Herrington and Sutcliffe each posted 16 percent increases in revenue, to $772 million and $894 million, respectively. Teams of new blood have come in to fill demand. Legal services expand around the globe. Good times, right? Not quite. Warren Buffet is famously quoted as saying, “Be fearful when everyone else is greedy, and greedy when everyone else is fearful.”

In the legal field, living like a grasshopper—enjoying the harvest without a care about possible lean times ahead—is a recipe for disaster. Now is the time for law firm marketing and business development measures to be in top shape. Like real estate, the legal field has its ups and downs, ebbs and flows. Don’t take a good run for granted. Use the momentum to solidify existing client relationships and create new ones.

It is also a good time to re-evaluate what strategies are in place by the marketing department. Look at what’s working and what isn’t. Are the attorneys the key players, or is the department on a island? What’s the business development strategy? The client retention objectives? When was the last time your firm held training sessions on sales techniques and closing skills? Ask the serious, and sometimes, uncomfortable questions. Hunker down and spread your eggs around the proverbial baskets. And don’t ever get too comfortable.