How Young Lawyers Can Take Advantage Of The Internet For Client Development

Developing the Next Generation of Rainmakers How Young Lawyers Can Take Advantage of the Internet for Client Development On Monday, I gave a presentation at a partners’ retreat. The focus on my talk was on how client development has changed and is changing in the 21st Century. While the principles of client development have not changed: you have to become visible and credible to your target market, build rapport and trust, get hired, get results and provide extraordinary service, the means of accomplishing the principles are changing every day. At the beginning of this decade: The Internet levels the playing field in many ways and gives young lawyers opportunities to become visible and credible to their target market like never before. Why? Clients are very busy. They want lawyers to tell them things they did not know and they want it to be timely. How can you take advantage? By seeing the potential legal minefields or opportunities before other lawyers, and even better before your target market, and then write or speak about it at just the very time your client needs to know about it using the Web opportunities above to distribute it. Just imagine if you blogged or did a podcast or webinar about something your clients did not know, but needed to know. All of a sudden you can become the “go to” lawyer to that group. And then just suppose that group found what you had written or spoken about so helpful that they sent the link to their friends in their industry. What an opportunity. Are you taking advantage of the Internet?   I practiced law for 37 years developing a national construction law practice representing some of the top highway and transportation construction contractors in the US.