By Zack Needles
The Legal Intelligencer
New York Lawyer
August 3, 2010

PHILADELPHIA - Once upon a time, lawyers could sit back and let clients come to them, expending minimal time and energy on networking and sales pitches and instead concentrating on billing hours.

But if those days were over even before the recession turned the legal profession on its head, by now they almost seem quaint.

Given the increased market competition the economic tailspin has whipped up over the past few years, the art of selling may currently be at its historic height of importance in the legal profession.

But midsized firm leaders are not shy about admitting that not all natural-born lawyers are necessarily natural-born salespeople.

"Attorneys are well-trained in delivering high quality legal products but they're not always particularly well-trained in marketing themselves or cross-servicing other products at their firms," said David M. Kleppinger, chairman of McNees Wallace & Nurick in Harrisburg.

Still, more and more firms across the state are betting on their attorneys' ability to learn and are hiring nonlawyer — or, at least, nonpracticing — business development, sales and marketing experts to teach them.

The most recent firm to take this step was Pittsburgh-based Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, which hired its first director of business development in July to take over functions like cross-selling and client-care programs.

But Eckert Seamans is far from the only firm in Pennsylvania looking beyond its stable of attorneys for business generators.

According to Kleppinger, McNees Wallace's marketing department includes a business development coordinator, whose job it is to "assist and support and bring ideas to attorneys on how better to market themselves and to cross-service" other aspects of the firm.

Thomas P. Peterson, managing shareholder of Tucker Arensberg in Pittsburgh, said his firm's marketing director plays a similar role, working closely with individual lawyers on individual business development plans and monitoring their progress throughout the year.

Peterson said he believes it's important to have a sales professional in the ranks to help keep busy attorneys focused on marketing and business development.

And while he admitted that some lawyers are more successful than others when it comes to marketing themselves and cross-selling other practices, Peterson said everyone at Tucker Arensberg is aware of the importance of doing so.

"We all realize the development of clients is key to any successful legal practice, as is client retention," he said, adding that the current legal landscape demands that even more attention be paid to those endeavors.

"It's a competitive profession and the recent economic downturn has caused prospective clients to be out looking for cost-effective legal services," he said. "A lot of firms need to be out there marketing to existing clients and always looking for new ones."

Mitchell S. Kaplan, managing shareholder of Zarwin Baum DeVito Kaplan Schaer Toddy in Philadelphia, agreed that times have changed in the 29 years he's been practicing law.

Today, he said, "you need attorneys in your office to continue to generate business because business doesn't flow in any longer just because of the law firm's name."

"Clients want to see efficient and effective results for their dollar, and while that's always been the case, more clients today are examining their legal budgets, trying to make some cuts and looking for more efficiencies in their law firms," Kaplan continued. "Part of marketing a law firm is to market the efficiencies. I definitely believe its more important today than the day before and it will continue to be that way because of increased competition."

Kaplan said his firm recently responded to that challenge by hiring a marketing director, whose duties aside from the more traditional marketing and advertising roles include facilitating meetings between the firm's attorneys and prospective clients.

But Kaplan said he generally believes that beyond that point, it should be left up to the lawyer to actually close the sale with a potential client.

"Our feeling at this firm is that clients hire attorneys, they don't hire law firms," he said. "I think a client wants to know who they're going to be working with."

Consultant Joel A. Rose had a similar take.

"There are some clients who would really not want to speak with a salesman or saleswoman," he said. "They would like to speak with a lawyer who will be working with them."

Rose said that at many of the firms he works with, the business development experts develop business leads but it's up to the attorneys to follow up on them.

To paraphrase an old saying: Give a lawyer a client and you've given him business for a day, but teach a lawyer to bring in his own clients and you've given him business for the rest of his career.

Often, those in charge of business development act as matchmakers, pairing clients with lawyers according to the client's specific needs and streamlining communication between practices, especially within larger firms.

The business development coordinator at McNees Wallace, which has well over 100 attorneys between its six offices, works to gather business intelligence on current and prospective clients in order to relay information to the firm's attorneys about "who the decision-makers may be and what contacts we may already have with those decision-makers," Kleppinger said.

Sometimes, the results of that research can be surprising.

For example, he said, a labor and employment lawyer may deal exclusively with a client's human resources department.

"But do they ever get exposure to the chief financial officer or chief risk officer? Maybe, maybe not," he said.

A closer look by the business development coordinator, however, could reveal that the firm already has an in with one of those higher-ups.

"The chief financial officer may be a personal friend or a neighbor of someone else at the firm" he said.