June 24, 2008
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Cole Silver, attorney and certified marketing consultant. He interviewed me as a part of his Expert Audio Series, and we had a marvelous conversation about leadership development in law firms. (That interview will be coming soon on the blog, but if you would like to receive it now, please send an email to latbinterview AT aweber.com.) I decided to turn the table and interview Cole, because the more I talked with him, the more intrigued I became about his work and his point of view on client development and client service. Here’s an excerpt from the transcript:
Cole: You know what? It’s really in a sense not fair in a way that things have changed. I’m in my 50s so I’ve lived through it. When I graduated law school you just had to be a good lawyer. If you stayed at one firm you made partner. Everything was pretty good. You were going to stay there and life was going to be pretty good.
But somewhere along the line the rules completely changed. Now we are completely measured by dollars and how much we bring in. It’s almost more important, the amount of money per partner, than the value you bring to a client. It’s not fair in a lot of ways because the rules haven’t changed on people. They may not know how to go out and market. I wanted to address that issue.Â
With respect to law firms, if you don’t have enough clients and you don’t continue to grow, then you’re going to lose clients, you’re going to lose profits, and you’re going to lose associates and partners. We switch law firms quite regularly today. So there is a change going on in the entire legal marketplace that I wanted to address with different solutions.
It was a fascinating interview. You can listen to it here (Interview of Cole Silver), or visit this page to download the MP3 and/or a PDF of the interview.
If you haven't already done so, please consider signing up for the Life at the Bar blog's RSS feed. Or you might like to receive the posts by email or to subscribe to the weekly email newsletter Leadership Matters for Lawyers, and you'll see subscription forms for both in the middle column. I promise that I won't rent, sell, or otherwise provide your information to anyone else and that your email address will be used only as you request.
Thanks for visiting! (And don't worry... You'll only see this note the first 3 times you visit the blog.)
