I think that lawyers should know who they are and what type of clients they want (and the answer is not “any client with a pulse.”)
Here is a great example from Maureen Mckay’s website (www.mckaylegal.com):
McKay Legal® has a select clientele.
You are the right type of client for McKay Legal® if you:
Back in the old days when law school cost very little and you could rent an apartment in Toronto for a reasonable amount, law firms hired newly qualified lawyers at modest salaries and gave them simple assignments. The firms also provided mentoring and training, so that the juniors could learn to do more challenging work. Firms neither made much money on the newbies, nor did they pay the newbies much. The pay-off came after a few years as the lawyers gained experience and could bill enough to earn their keep.
In my heyday of clients and billings, my largest client asked me to handle an outsourcing transaction. I would hazard a guess that had it been completed, it would have made quite a ripple in the business community.
A Bay Street firm was the client’s corporate counsel. The client may have been my biggest client, but we handled only a sliver of their legal work.
Aaron Baer sent me an invitation to speak at the Authentic Legal Professionals Summit. He said, and I quote, “I’m going to gamble and say that you’re able to speak about one of those (autism, ADHD, Tourettes, or other neurodivergences.)”
All of this was a bit of an eye-opener to me, because at 69 ¾ years old, I was unaware that I was neurodivergent, but it seemed to be a pretty safe bet for Aaron.
There is an old story about a young man who, after finally meeting the love of his life following years searching the globe for his one true soulmate, took his girlfriend’s hands in his own one starlit summer evening, stared deeply into her beautiful eyes, and whispered to her in a husky, excited voice: “since I met you, I can’t eat. I can’t drink. I can’t sleep… I’m completely broke.”
There were good things about the old days when law was primarily a profession, and lawyers joined law firms with a view to learning, working hard, and becoming partners. One of them was that law firms cared about their associates progressing, developing clients, and becoming self-sufficient.
There is no shortage of talk about the importance of lawyers delegating legal work to other lawyers and paralegals. Despite that, I have always believed that lawyers should not delegate work that they do not know how to do themselves. I questioned how anyone can check the quality of work done by their law clerks or associates if they do not know what a good job looks like.
Law firm marketing comes in two flavours.
An important element of a law firm’s culture is the manner in which it designates ‘client lawyer’ status, or ‘client origination credits’ (“OCs”).
By way of background, there are three ways to earn money in a law firm.
Let me tell you about two different law firms.
Big Law Group One is a well-respected Canadian firm with many hundreds of lawyers, some of whom appear to be happier than others. Some of their dearly departed professionals have told me distressing stories about their lives at that firm, and the effect that the work demands had on their mental health. They also shared with me their feeling that the firm let them down when they required accommodation to recover from their mental health problems. They painted a picture of a firm which did not care much about its people, especially after those people became unable or unwilling to continue to sacrifice their health on the altar of billable hours.