he DuPage County Bar Association has over 2200 members. By my absolutely unscientific estimation, about 750 of you will attend at least one DCBA social function throughout the year. That’s about 34% of our members. I have never been able to figure out why so many of our members choose not to attend the social events. Especially because, by not doing so, they are missing out on one of the best benefits of DCBA membership. No, it’s not the food or the beverage or the golf course or the music. It’s the opportunity to market your practice to a large number of attorneys who may not do what you do or may have conflicts they wish to hand off.
When you make a connection with another attorney, your potential client base significantly expands because that attorney may have hundreds of current and past clients to potentially refer to you. As most of you know, my firm is a specialty boutique firm (bankruptcy). In our firm, roughly 80% of our clients come from other attorneys. We have dropped most of our other advertising. Even if you are not a specialty practice, we all have areas we concentrate in. The practice of law is becoming more and more like the practice of medicine where every doctor has a specialty.
For our firm, the primary way to meet and get to know other attorneys is through the bar associations that we are members of. The primary one, of course, is the DCBA. In order to successfully do this, one must first decide to attend the social events. Not just one, but as many as possible. Take a stack of business cards, grab a beverage and walk up to someone and introduce yourself. When you ask another attorney what his or her areas of practice are, they usually ask you the same question. That is your opportunity to advertise yourself. Frequently, when I mention I’m a bankruptcy lawyer, the other attorney asks if he can get my opinion on some issue they’re facing. Great! Now we’re getting somewhere. Being open, friendly and willing to assist your fellow attorney with the occasional question is how you build that relationship.
The more functions you attend, the more people you will know and who will know you. You can further get your name out there by getting involved with a committee or two at the DCBA. Offer to speak at a seminar. Perhaps you can write an article for "The Brief". Those are great ways to get positive exposure for your practice.
Marketing through your involvement in the DCBA has other advantages, also. First, it’s very inexpensive compared with print or electronic advertising. The cost of the social events, over a year, would get you about one month’s coverage for a half page ad in the various phone books circulating around DuPage County. Second, it’s a lot more fun than phone books. Third, lawyers are great people to party with (that’s a well kept secret but absolutely true!). Fourth, you may make some life long friends. Try being a life long friend with a phone book.
I will occasionally hear an attorney say that attending all the DCBA events or being active in the DCBA would mean taking too much time away from the office. If you are in the fortunate position that you have more work than you can handle and don’t need to worry about getting new clients, then perhaps your concern has some merit. I submit that there are very, very few law firms in Du Page County for whom that is true. I firmly believe an hour of marketing is every bit as valuable as a billable hour and just as necessary to the success of the firm.
All of us want to make more money. Unfortunately there are only 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week. There are two ways to make more money. Work more billable hours or bring in more new clients and hire additional attorneys or paralegals to help get the work done. If you choose to work more billable hours, you will have to balance the financial benefits against the loss of family time, and the potential detrimental impact to your health.
Regularly working 50 to 60 hours a week is guaranteed to take a toll on your family, your stress level, and your health.
The alternative is to bring in enough new clients that you can pass work off to associates and staff and assume more of a supervisory capacity for the day to day work of the firm. When this occurs, you are leveraging your time and being more efficient and profitable. If you bring in enough work to keep two associates busy, your effective hourly rate triples because you can do three things at once or be three places at once. If this were the military, marketing would be called a force multiplier.
For our younger or newer members, being active in the DCBA has some other advantages. First, if you are job hunting, being active in DCBA gives you an inside track on positions that may be available. I believe most of the jobs that are available in the Du Page legal community are not advertised. Many firms just put the word out that they need someone by talking to other attorneys at the ARC or at DCBA events. Frequently, if a firm needs someone and it knows of a young attorney they like, they will simply approach him or her directly. For the young or newer attorney, being known is the key. You get known by DCBA involvement. Second, being active in the DCBA gives you access to older, more experienced members who can help mentor you in your practice. These members will be there for you to answer questions and guide you.
I encourage all our members to maximize the value of their DCBA membership by regularly attending the social events and getting actively involved with the DCBA committees. Jump in all the way. Attend everything you can. Meet as many fellow DCBA members as you can. Try it for a year and see if it doesn’t improve your practice and your enjoyment of being an attorney. I know it will.
While we’re on the subject of getting involved, it’s annual election time for the DCBA. Through March 31st, 2010 the DCBA will be accepting nominating petitions for the position of Director (3 regular Directors and 1 "new lawyer" Director, admitted less than 7 years as of 7/1/2010, will be elected) and for the position of Third Vice President. Being a Director or Office of this great Association is a privilege and an honor. I urge anyone who has thought about running to do so. Just being on the ballot shows the entire Association that you care about the DCBA and are serious about wanting to improve our Association. If you don’t make it this year, so what? Many of our officers over the years (including yours truly) didn’t get elected the first time they ran. As I said above, jump in all the way. Go for it! If you don’t try, you’ll never know.
That’s it for this month. Before signing off, I would like to again say a special and sincere thank you to Kevin Millon, Angel Traub, the Judge’s Nite Band and the cast and crew of Judge’s Nite for the wonderful show they put on for the 35
