You will remember that last week’s inaugural column of a weekly column in The Daily Record introduced the concept that every business in the world needs five things to thrive:

            1. Clients;

            2. Administrative procedures;

            3. Procedures for getting the work done;

            4. A method to bill; and

            5. A way to collect the bill.

These weekly columns will give you tried and true tips on law office marketing, management and economics regarding each of the above five (5) categories as they apply to the law profession. Remember to score yourself at the end of each of these columns. At the end of each of the above categories, we will do a recap for you, you can add up your score and you can see how well you’re doing somewhere between being “In the Stone Ages” or operating on the “Cutting Edge.”

This week’s column starts to deal with the category of clients and customers.

You can be the best lawyer in the world, operate the best restaurant in your city or be a tremendous car mechanic, but without clients or customers you are quickly out of business. Lawyers have traditionally clustered around other “rainmaker” lawyers who seem to have some unfathomable ability to generate legal business. Picture sitting around the law firm table with the business-getter at the head of the table, with them doling out the portions of the legal-project meal to the firm’s participants. Often times being at the right table with the right business getter can provide a very substantial living for the lawyer recipients, even if they are given just leftovers and crumbs.

With more than fifty percent (50%) of lawyers in the United States of America, practicing in law firms with less than ten (10) lawyers, the role of the business getter has fallen more and more on the shoulders of the individual practicing lawyer.

Some of you may have heard the phrase applied to law firm lawyer personnel that there are “finders, minders and grinders.” It might make more sense and drive the point home more if we were to use more pointed words with regard to such an analysis, and I have often used the parallel phraseology, there are “hunters, skinners, cookers and eaters.” In particular, in a business such as the practice of law where so many people are now “eating what they kill,” it appears that the latter metaphor is even more appropriate and pointed. So, how does one begin to try and be a “finder” or “hunter” and not just one of the other table sitters in the chain of lawyers in the law practice and in the law business?

One of the very best ways that I have found to set yourself up as a “finder” or “hunter” is to throw out as many “luck-lines” as possible. What is a luck-line? A luck-line is a comment or written statement such as “let me know if I can ever be of help!”

People have always asked me why I seem to be so lucky, and I have always told them that I throw out luck-lines. I have also told them about reading a Reader’s Digest story in college that talked about luck-lines and have followed-up on what I read as being a very good idea. People are not born lucky; people make their own luck by inviting luck to come to them. I am sure that you are familiar with the phrase, “the harder I work the luckier I get.” Throwing out luck-lines is working harder.

One of the ways that I sincerely throw out luck-lines is by caring about people that I come in contact with and letting them know that I am sincerely interested in acknowledging them, acknowledging their accomplishments, and inviting them to contact me if I can ever be of help to them in any way, not just in providing legal services.

One of the best ways to sincerely project your interest to people is to identify people that you already know, that you are working with in Church, in community activities or bar projects and sincerely saying to them how much you have enjoyed the experience of working with them, and inviting them to call upon you if they should ever be in need of your help. You can find important information about people by looking at articles in the daily newspaper, the local business newspaper, corporate magazines and items such as your high school, college and law school alumni magazines. When you see somebody who has done something that is noteworthy, write them a letter, congratulate them and invite them to call upon you if you can ever be of any help to them.

One other similar area for writing letters that is sensitive, and must be handled with the utmost sincerity and care is writing to people who you know who have lost a loved one. I never ever suggest to them that they should contact me if I can ever be of any help, but I sincerely pass along to them my condolences and my prayers for the loss of their loved one.

President George H.W. Bush was famous for writing to people on presidential note cards that must have solidified his political position with thousands of people that he came in contact with. This was a longstanding habit of his from all of his previous positions in government, and by the time that he ran for his parties nomination for president, you can only imagine the number of people he had communicated with and endeared himself to with regard to his taking the time to write them a personal note with regard to the contact that he had made with them.

Too often we as lawyers forget that the phrase “everything I ever learned in life that was important, I learned in Kindergarten” applies ten fold in the practice of a profession, in particular the practice of law. Didn’t we learn in Kindergarten to say please and thank you; didn’t we learn to share; didn’t we learn to flush; and other basic daily routines of the same sort. Whatever happened to the practice of written communication to say thanks, congratulations and “let me know what I can do to be of help?”

So are being a rainmaker, a business getter, a “finder” and a “hunter” really as simple as making the effort to try and go out of your way to do the right thing in the first place? Absolutely! As is said in almost any sales training exercise, you need to make the “ask!” The secret is you must know the people in the first place, and you must be sincere, and you must go out of your way, and you must make the “ask.”

If you are doing this type of activity in your law firm and in your life, score five points for yourself towards your cumulative score to see if you are “In the Stone Ages” or on the “Cutting Edge” in operating your law practice.

If you are not writing notes to those that you know to acknowledge their accomplishments, congratulate them and invite them to let them know if you can ever be of help, you should start immediately, make it a habit and you will be surprised at the outcome; You will make people feel good about themselves and feel good about you. Ask yourself how you feel when someone acknowledges something good you have done, turn it around, pass it on!

Next weeks column will continue to deal with “tips” dealing with clients.

We will talk about community and church activities and how they play a role in exhibiting to people the skills that you have available as an attorney in a non-legal setting, and that are translatable to those who are seeing you in action as this person who is probably a pretty good attorney as well.

Talk with you next week!

Jim Wirken is a civil trial attorney and the Chairman of the Board of The Wirken Law Group in Kansas City.