04 Nov 2022
It’s nice to have clients.
I’m lucky that I’m in a position to:
- turn down potential work
- not have to worry about having enough billable hours
- choose the type of work I do and the type of work I don’t do
I have way more control. I’m a lot more fulfilled. And I get to run files my way.
But it wasn’t always that way.
Or to be more precise - until relatively recently, it most definitely wasn’t that way.
I come by pretty much 0 business development skills naturally - as anyone who knew me when I was younger can attest.
The fact that I’ve built up a sizeable book of business is pretty much a surprise to everyone, myself especially included.
I always planned on going in-house after my first few years of practice, so business development wasn’t even remotely on my radar.
I’m also incredibly good at forgetting people exist when I don’t see them, which is apparently not a best practice for sustaining relationships.
And I was also foolishly under the impression that people went to conferences to learn (though if you read my mental health article, then perhaps I wasn’t completely out to lunch - I needed to learn since being a lawyer required the substantive knowledge that I was sorely lacking).
And speaking of being out to lunch, I sort of assumed that if I went out to lunch with someone, then work would magically come - even if I never asked for the work or didn’t clearly articulate what on earth I even did for work.
Basically, I was very bad at sales.
Though ironically, I don’t think that adversely affected me, because if I’ve learned anything in the past few years, it’s that most lawyers are terrible at sales. At least it was a relatively level playing field, even if I was starting a little behind everyone else.
Things took a turn for me in 2019. I was doing a lot of work with a colleague at the time who had a growing practice, and I became a key part of growing one part of that practice.
And by key part, I mean I taught myself the substantive legal skills, ran the initial meetings with potential clients, and did all the actual legal work once we retained them. All for 0 credit, which was a pretty sweet deal for her.
On the bright side, I learned a lot of valuable skills that eventually paid off (I had to leave that firm for them to pay off monetarily, but that’s a conversation about law firm origination credit for another day).
What I learned quickly is that most lawyers - including partners with decent books of business - are also terrible at sales. In many cases, they have succeeded in spite of their lack of skill, not because of.
Others of course just had fortunate family connections or were in the right place at the right time. And some were just naturals when it came to business development.
But I had a few key realizations:
- I wasn’t that far behind from a skillset standpoint, because pretty much everyone was terrible at this
- Getting the chance to try out some different things on ‘real’ potential clients was going to be very valuable
- There were a lot of potential clients out there, and most of them weren’t particularly thrilled with the legal services they were receiving
- It was pretty obvious that there were better ways to do BD, even if I had no idea at the time what they were
I watched some colleagues do terrible jobs trying to pitch clients; the lawyers were so focused on talking about how great our firm was that they forgot that the whole point was to talk less and listen more. By the end of the pitch, the clients knew an awful lot about our firm and we knew basically nothing about them. And it was obvious from their body language that they weren’t too thrilled with that.
I did 100+ pitches for my colleague over a 2 year period, and by the end I had a gameplan figured out for each call. I had figured out what didn’t work and I had figured out some things that clearly worked well.
I had confirmed that the typical lawyer approach of overwhelming a client with information, confusing the heck out of them, and then explaining why we were the best was a good way to guarantee that you weren’t going to get the client.
But while that was all great for my colleague, that wasn’t so great for my book of business (at least not the one that the firm formally recognized).
Over the pandemic, I rebuilt my network from scratch (all while billing a very healthy number of hours). If I was going to be locked down, at least I wasn’t going to be bored. And it was definitely a luxury not to be bored in 2020.
I’d be surprised if there are more than 10 lawyers in traditional law firm jobs who did more 1-on-1 Zoom networking calls than I did over the past two and a bit years, other than perhaps some people whose main job was to bring in clients (ie existing rainmakers).
I was planting seeds with 0 expectations of anything paying off, though I realized that with enough time, some of those seeds would turn into something. I got to meet a lot of people, and that in and of itself was a good enough reward for me. I also reconnected with a lot of people that I had lost touch with, and that wasn’t so bad either.
I also tried a bunch of things early in the pandemic - I figured there was nothing to lose, especially since the opportunity cost was basically 0. My time was low value, and there were basically no monetary costs since I just needed a Zoom account.
Pretty much everything was out of my comfort zone, but with no downside, I gave it a shot.
The idea of posting on LinkedIn was terrifying. But again - there weren’t too many alternatives.
And obviously that paid off.
LinkedIn has given me a platform for efficient business development (1 to many), which is key for any time-strapped lawyer.
But it wasn’t just the posting. And it wasn’t all the networking calls.
It was building and learning systems:
- For remembering who I had spoken to and what we had talked about (i.e. understanding CRMs)
- For learning how to increase the odds that I could turn a potential client into an actual client (i.e. mastering that initial call)
- For managing conversations about fees (i.e. no longer avoiding the difficult conversations)
I also had to get a lot better at getting comfortable with being rejected and reframing rejection away from something that I perceived as failure.
And for a lot of that, I turned to people who knew a lot better than me: sales professionals.
I listened to podcasts, read books, and picked Dhawal’s brain.
I’m lucky to be running this conference with Dhawal, working with him daily at our law firm (where he leads our sales and customer success teams), and also running Build Your Book with him.
If you read my mental health article about how I became a competent lawyer, then you can probably see a lot of similarities here. A lot of hard work. A lot of time. And a lot of effort.
It all paid off, but I highly don’t recommend the path I took.
That’s why Dhawal and I built Build Your Book, so that we could teach lawyers best practices for sales that are tailored to the unique quirks of this profession.
Without having to figure it all out on your own and spend hundreds and hundreds of hours that you don’t have. And without having to do anything that isn’t authentic.
The nice part is, we’ve had life-changing impacts for some of our participants - while also having a lot of fun along the way. And we’ve gotten to meet people from nearly a dozen countries who have taken our courses.
I’m so glad to have several of our alumni speaking at Summit. Each of them has put themselves out there by doing things that were incredibly uncomfortable for them - just like they were at first for me.
We did the easy work to coach and encourage them and teach them some best practices. They did the hard work by trying something new and uncomfortable.
I’m so glad that they’ve found their voices as authentic lawyers and have seen all sorts of business development benefits as a result.
On November 9, we’re talking all about business development.
You’ll hear from in-house counsel about what they wish private practice lawyers would do (and what you should probably be doing if you want more clients).
You’ll hear from people you likely know well from LinkedIn, Twitter, and TikTok - all of whom have embraced authenticity.
And you’ll hear from a number of incredibly impressive lawyers who are doing things differently, being entrepreneurial, and having a great time in the process.
We know most lawyers are struggling with how to approach business development.
Any reason we won’t see you there?
Learn more and sign up here.
22 Oct 2022
Sometimes I find Women In Law events can be a little awkward for men.
There’s often an unarticulated question about whether men are invited - i.e. if they were to show up, whether that would be seen as a bad thing.
So some men, in an effort to do what they believe is correct, don’t attend.
Which is a shame, because let’s be real for a second. The legal profession is largely run by men.
I’m not saying that’s a good thing - I’m just saying that at present, the majority of the people with the most power in this profession belong to a certain demographic group.
Which is bad for all sorts of reasons, including the fact that at many law schools, the number of women actually outnumber the men - meaning we have an awful lot of women entering this profession.
So if the people in power are not attending events where they could learn about how the experiences of their colleagues - and are not otherwise seeking out opportunities to listen and learn - then we have a problem.
It’s also a problem when people in power aren’t creating ways for their colleagues to honestly articulate their concerns or doing their best to create psychological safety in the workplace.
(Yes, I am aware that gender is a spectrum and I’ve using very binary language here. And I’m also aware that I’m taking a very charitable view on why some men may not attend these events.)
That’s how we end up with the crisis we’re currently in - and it’s an absolute disaster.
If you are sitting there thinking ‘everything seems fine, what is this guy who loves to complain talking about?’ then I encourage you to read the ABA report ‘In Their Words’ about why women lawyers are leaving their law firms and the profession.
Surely it’s not your firm or your organization - it’s just all the others that have problems, right?
It’s not an easy read. And it’s just one of many publications that all point to the same issue: that there are serious systemic problems and biases in this profession.
For The Authentic Lawyer Summit, I want to be crystal clear about our Women in Law sessions on November 8th.
Men are not only welcome, but they are expected to attend. Women and everyone else are obviously very welcome as well.
We’re taking away the excuse of ‘I didn’t know I was allowed to go’. We’ll also ignore the past ‘how was I supposed to know these were issues?’ stuff.
This is online. It’s free. And we have an amazing group of speakers lined up.
None of whom are shy about talking about how they feel.
About how this system has adversely affected them. About how men and others in this profession need to step it up. And how firms can start really caring about these issues and set women up for success.
I’m far from an expert in this area.
I’ll be there to listen, to learn, and to take action on my end.
Are you open to doing the same?
Aaron
Learn more and sign-up here.
19 Oct 2022
Why is mental health one of the topics we’re focusing on at The Authentic Lawyer Summit?
- Partly because we’re dealing with a major mental health crisis around the world.
- Partly because we’re dealing with a major mental health crisis in the legal profession.
- And partly because of the adverse impacts that this profession has had on my mental health - which has inspired many of the projects that I’ve embarked on.
Each one of the topics that we chose is one that I identify with on a deeply personal level. If I’m going to spend my time on a project these days, I really need to care about it.
And for me, the one I definitely resonate with the most is mental health. It’s a topic that I was incredibly ignorant about when I finished law school and in my first few years in the profession.
But I got a fun wakeup call on the topic in my 4th year as a lawyer. And by fun, I mean the opposite of fun.
To the point that my partner (and now wife) was worried about leaving me alone at home for a weekend if she went out of town. Her fear was a little overblown, but she wasn’t way off the mark. It wasn’t good.
It was a perfect mix of some personal traits coupled with a system that leads to bad mental health. And for me, that meant some really bad anxiety that was dramatically affecting my quality of life.
It was also something that I didn’t understand particularly well - so that meant a lot of learning, both on my own and in therapy - to better understand how my brain worked and what I needed to do to control it.
I had a pretty solid case of impostor syndrome (and the usual implications that follow from that). But the thing was - I wasn’t so sure it was just impostor syndrome, and I wasn’t wrong.
I had been trained poorly, which meant that I was being put in positions where I was set up to fail. Which wasn’t fair to anyone - not to clients, not to the firm, and especially not to me.
Most of my efforts to voice this to the people who were supposed to be supporting me at my firm fell flat.
I was told to take a week of vacation. To meditate. To address my issues.
There was no realization of how they had failed. Instead, it was the classic ‘it’s not me it’s you’ approach.
Some of these people were actually (in hindsight) well intentioned. It was just that they were so ignorant about these things. Others were [insert a less charitable word to describe their actions].
They were ‘stunned’ to discover that our EAP program covered $500 a year of therapy and how much 1 therapy session cost. Sort of like this Arrested Development scene.
They couldn’t grasp that taking a week off wasn’t going to change things.
Or how they themselves had played a role in the problem.
I had reached a point where I knew that if I took time off, I would never come back to the legal profession. The impostor syndrome and anxiety was only going to get worse the longer I was off.
So I didn’t take time off - which, for me, was the right call. Instead, I just did a stupid amount of learning (both on the legal side and also on myself), in addition to doing my day job.
I knew clients had lots of questions I felt I should know the answers to. I knew I didn’t know the answers. So I set out to figure out how things work. Which is surprisingly hard to do, as there aren’t that many resources out there that help connect the dots to understand how everything ties together and why we were doing certain things.
I was lucky that I had some unofficial mentors at my firm who - when I asked for their time so that I could ask them a few dozen questions about a topic - were willing to take that time. Even though there was nothing in it for them, and it meant that they were just adding an extra hour or two to their days. They know who they are, and I’m truly grateful for their generosity and patience.
I had absolutely no idea how much I was supposed to know - which is sort of the fun part about being a corporate lawyer. Where something ‘stops’ being a corporate issue is anybody’s guess. I sort of figured I should know a bunch of tax law and a bunch of employment law and a bunch of other things. And then I figured that if I said ‘X’ to a client, the logical next question I would ask if I was them would be ‘Y’, so I figured I should probably learn about ‘Y’ too.
Apparently this wasn’t a common approach.
As I later learned, most lawyers just say ‘oh that’s a business problem’ or ‘oh you should talk to [insert specialist]’.
I began to understand why many clients don’t love working with lawyers and how legal bills end up being $20,000 to review a 10 page contract. It still blows my mind.
I also found it fascinating when I would ask questions to experienced colleagues and they’d say they’d never thought about that question before. That was mindblowing to me, because these were (in my mind) completely intuitive follow-up questions that - if I was the client - I would absolutely be asking my lawyer.
In any event, the end result of a journey I highly recommend that you do not try to go on yourself was becoming far more knowledgeable and competent than I was supposed to be at my stage.
It’s paid off - there is a reason that clients really like working with me, that I’ve won most of the awards people seem to care about much more than I do, and that I’ve been fortunate to build a large client base - but the journey to get there was not fun. And I hope none of you have to embark on something similar.
The impostor syndrome didn’t fully go away (which I consider a good thing), but boy did it get dialed down. Because the reality was - there truly was a huge knowledge gap that I needed to fill and that was a byproduct of a broken system with lots of people (including law schools, law firms, and the profession as a whole) to blame.
It’s why I started running training for the younger lawyers and students at my old firm, even though it added extra hours to my day and I wasn’t getting any credit or compensation for it
It’s why even after I left my old firm, I kept mentoring a colleague of mine who was going through a bunch of mental health issues that the firm was struggling to grasp (despite good intentions).
It’s why I have always seen 4L Academy as a mental health company. If you don’t know what you’re doing or why you’re doing it, then you’re not going to be good at your job. You’re not going to be fulfilled. And you’re going to be anxious.
If a firm cares about mental health, then they have to care about training. They are so intricately linked.
Don’t get me wrong - caring about training is far from enough. But it’s such an overlooked piece of the puzzle.
Had I been adequately trained - in law school and at my law firm - my mental health would have been a lot better.
Are we okay with the fact that there are so many people who feel (or have felt) the way I did?
Because I’m not. And I hope you aren’t either.
On November 8th, we’re going to hear from an incredible group of speakers.
Some things you’re going to hear are going to be absolutely heartbreaking. Other things are going to be so inspiring.
And we’re going to be challenging everyone who attends to drive real change after the event. Because while listening is a start, it’s not enough.
At a minimum, I hope that this Summit helps drive at least a few people to seek out the help they need, to leave a toxic environment, or to make a change/set some boundaries that they know deep down they need to make.
And I hope we can help people understand what resources are out there, that they’re not alone, and that they are unfortunately victims of a system that is badly in need of change.
See you there,
Aaron
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Learn more and sign-up here.
15 Oct 2022
We’re hosting The Authentic Lawyer Summit because there are systemic problems in the legal profession.
That’s not just my view - that’s a perspective that is backed up by countless studies and reports, not to mention plenty of anecdotes.
Sometimes it feels that many people who are working in this profession - especially leaders - have been in the system for so long that they truly just don’t grasp the realities of their colleagues, peers, and the public.
Let’s be clear - by no means am I defending them. I’m just saying that ignorance and a lack of accountability for past actions is definitely part of the problem.
We watched a parallel story play out in Canada very recently in the hockey space. Front page news. Complete corporate disaster. The reputation of many people completely destroyed.
It was the rotten culture of Hockey Canada finally exposed, and a group of leaders who thought they could - like they have done for years and years - make the problem go away by denying that there was a problem and by shirking accountability. This in spite of all the evidence to the contrary: in the court of public opinion, in the eyes of so many who had been adversely affected by their actions, and based on the cold hard facts.
The leaders thought wrong, and boy have they paid the price. And that’s certainly a good thing, because change was desperately needed.
The impact:
- Their sponsors - some of the biggest companies in Canada - dropped their sponsorship of Hockey Canada.
- They were criticized by pretty much every major media publication in Canada, not to mention tons in the US and around the world.
- Many of the top hockey players in the world and the Prime Minister of Canada did not mince words about their disgust with the organization.
- The organization’s reputation - and the reputation of many of their key leaders - were destroyed forever.
It was interesting watching from the sidelines because I know some of the key people involved - including the person who was leading the charge on behalf of Hockey Canada and who has borne the brunt of so much outrage. It’s pretty hard to unite a country, but Hockey Canada did a really great job of uniting an entire country against them.
(Note: since I wrote this article, the entire board and the CEO of Hockey Canada resigned and additional sponsors also dropped their commitments to Hockey Canada)
The main person getting crucified is my former colleague who is an incredibly nice person, an incredibly quiet person, and someone who doesn’t deserve some of the outrage being directed to her (and let’s just say there has been an awful lot of outrage directed towards her, including plenty of vulgarity and inappropriate comments).
Though let’s be clear - she said a number of things that were not good and that were generally considered to be completely inappropriate and ignorant. Some were absolutely indefensible. And some were very very foolish.
But I also have little doubt that there was a lot more going on behind the scenes in terms of talking points that she was expected to follow and her being set up to fail (though it was - to be clear - her choice to go through with what she may or may not have been asked to do).
There is also the concept of the glass cliff, which is a concept in which women and minority groups are more likely to be elevated to positions of power when things are going poorly (and consequently have a higher likelihood of failure). It’s a concept that I was not familiar with until I showed a draft of this article to someone, but that’s presumably since I am operating from a place of privilege.
And while I have no actual knowledge of how she ended up in this role just 2 months ago in the middle of an ongoing investigation into Hockey Canada’s culture, let’s just say you don’t have to be a genius to figure out why she might have been selected for her role (and that’s not to say she wasn’t qualified; but there are at least a few demographic boxes that she checked that past leaders did not).
On the other hand, the fact that Hockey Canada thought a lawyer (e.g. my former colleague) would be a good fit to deal with a PR issue was just a terrible idea - but that’s the kind of thing you do when you don’t truly think you have a PR issue (and instead just have a legal issue) because you’ve been able to dodge accountability so many times in the past.
When you have people who have been in the system for so long who are blind to the change, it’s no wonder they did such a terrible job managing a crisis. And how they thought that their “master class of denial, deflection, whataboutism and arrogance” would somehow work.
Because the problem is that it has worked. And they’ve gotten away with it over and over again.
And when you’ve been in the system so long, it’s possible to not grasp what’s really going on; what the public believes; and wow others are being impacted by your actions and your words.
It’s the years of not asking and not listening that leads to these moments of gaslighting, where you make a series of terrible decisions that don’t help anyone other than yourself.
What made a difference this time? Why could they not get away with it here?
It’s because finally, the sponsors did something about it. One by one, they dropped their sponsorships. Some of the biggest companies in Canada finally distancing themselves from a very toxic organization.
That’s when Hockey Canada appears to have realized they had a problem. Because now money was on the line, and it was clear that the public, the media, and their sponsors had all turned on them.
They were experiencing what it was like - for once - to be held accountable for their actions.
But unfortunately in the legal profession, we haven’t seen a lot of clients voting with their wallets. And if I’ve learned anything in my decade in this profession, is that if things aren’t going to affect the bottom line, then good luck getting a lot of people to change.
We’ve seen lots of talk. But even when those things haven’t been backed up by action and results, there really haven’t been too many implications.
Key players in the legal industry have continued to get away with all sorts of things because the pressure hasn’t been strong enough from clients. And it’s allowed these organizations to ignore these critical systemic issues, by putting the blame on the individuals.
- The associate who is anxious and is told to meditate their problems away.
- The assistant who is verbally abused on a daily basis by a partner and is told she needs to be more thick-skinned.
- The partner who is sexually inappropriate with female colleagues, but isn’t sanctioned because he is making up for his small [insert word here] with a big book of business.
That’s why we’re hosting The Authentic Lawyer Summit.
We’re done complaining and waiting for change to just happen. Because when you have systemic problems, you blame everyone but yourself.
Ignorance is not a great excuse - but there is an element of real ignorance. But wilful blindness is something we absolutely cannot accept.
What we’re saying here is - if your organization is publicly speaking out and saying they care about how women are treated, they care about mental health, and they care about how lawyers from diverse backgrounds are treated - then we’ll see you at our event.
There’s a reason it’s free. And virtual. And really, really accessible.
Does your organization truly care about the stuff they’re saying, or are they simply paying lip service to these things because they know that true action and true accountability isn’t actually required in this profession?
To be clear - some organizations really care. I’ve been on some incredible calls lately where it’s so amazing to see what some firms are doing. In other cases, I’m talking to these law firm leaders who are so passionate about helping their colleagues, but are getting blocked internally by a lack of resources or a lack of commitment from the top.
We’ll be tracking which firms have senior leaders at the event - because I think it’s important for people to see what’s really going on and which firms are ready to truly step up.
And more importantly - we’re ready for ignorance to stop being an excuse. No more arguments of ignorance after something goes wrong.
We’ll be having real conversations about serious, systemic issues.
We will not be beating around the bush. Because enough is enough.
It’s time to take this stuff seriously. To stop the performative nonsense. To have real conversations, from real people, who have been adversely impacted by the system in which we are living and working (and in many cases, are doing some incredible stuff to make things better for others).
Does that seem like too much to ask?
You can learn more and sign up here.
10 Oct 2022
For the last few years, I’ve been on a mission to try to improve the legal profession.
That’s involved plenty of complaining and calling out what I perceive to be problems. But it’s also involved a lot of action.
- I wasn’t happy with the level of training I got as a new lawyer. So we built what we can truly say is the top training company for junior corporate lawyers in Canada. As of last month, we’ve started working with some leading US firms. And we’re just getting started.
- I wasn’t happy with the expectations that I magically build a book of business without any understanding of how to do that. So we built a pretty incredible sales training company for lawyers that has changed people’s lives for the better. And we also launched one of the top business development podcasts for lawyers.
- I wasn’t happy with the traditional approach to practicing law, so in the past year, I started co-running a law firm and really doing things the way I always thought they should be done. I’ve barely talking about this ‘job’ at all, and there will be lots more on that in the future.
But there are still a lot of areas where I haven’t been able to allocate enough time - despite the obvious need for change and my really strong internal desire to drive that change.
Things like mental health. How this profession treats people with different backgrounds. How women are treated. And how much of this is systemic - even though we love to allocate the blame to the individual.
I’ve spoken at a ton of events over the past two years, and one thing that’s been gnawing at me is how - in many cases - these events could be so much more impactful. And the issue hasn’t been because they were virtual.
So without burying the lede any further, I’m really, really excited to announce one of the things that we’ve been working on.
We’re calling it The Authentic Lawyer Summit - it’s free, it’s virtual, and it’s going to be really freaking good.
Think TEDx style - with tons of amazing speakers, deeply authentic conversations, and a focus on actual action after the event.
(and when I say amazing speakers, I am absolutely not exaggerating here)
Despite the name, this one is for everyone in the legal profession. Lawyers. Law students. Paralegals. Assistants. Clerks. Professional Development and Business Development professionals. You name it.
But it’s especially for law firm leaders and partners - because accepting ignorance is just not something that we can keep tolerating by the people with power in this profession.
Our speakers are going to be talking about things that are not being talked about enough in the profession. We promise no dry panels. Absolutely no PowerPoints. And no fluff.
Just pure authenticity.
Here’s what’s on the agenda
- Getting Real About Mental Health (tears will be shed - I can almost guarantee that)
- Women in Law (this one is for everyone, but it is especially for the men - we’ll see you there. Just in case you weren’t sure if you were allowed to be there, the answer is yes - you are not just allowed to come but are encouraged to come)
- Parenting as a Lawyer (real talk on the challenges in a profession that’s hard enough when you don’t have kids)
- Setting Yourself Apart with Business Development (gain control over your practice, increase your fulfillment, and stop worrying about your hours)
- Understanding Different Perspectives (because it turns out not everyone is like you, so it might be helpful to understand how your colleagues and peers are experiencing things)
Nov 8-10. It’s a worldwide event for legal professionals, by legal professionals. And it’s free for everyone.
No more excuses - it’s time to learn, to listen, and to act.
What’s your excuse not to be there?
Sign-up and learn more here.