We have been talking over the last several weeks about ways of getting clients, keeping clients and making clients happy. The first group of topics in these series of weekly articles has dealt mainly with getting clients. This week we will continue with that topic. You will remember that “clients” is one of the five things that any business in the world needs to thrive; the other four are administrative procedures, procedures for getting the work done, a method to bill and a way to collect the bill. These weekly columns should be giving you tried and true “tips” on law office marketing, management and economics regarding each of the five categories as they apply to legal practice and legal business. Hopefully these ideas are relatively simple for you to implement, stay focused on and evaluate the rewards that will be coming to you by doing so. We are scoring five points for each of these tips that you are currently consistently doing in your practice. At the end of each of the five categories for every business we will do a recap to see how you are doing somewhere between “In the Stone Ages” or operating on the “Cutting Edge.”

Previously we have talked about: congratulatory, let me know if I can be of any help letters, becoming involved in community activities or church activities on an ongoing basis and being involved in at least one professional activity on an ongoing basis. This week we will address the need to write one article or teach one seminar on a yearly basis.

The best example I can give with regard to what happens when one becomes involved in writing articles and presenting seminars is a story I observed happening right here in my hometown over the first 30 years of my law practice. When I began practice in 1970 there were a number of outstanding plaintiff lawyers in the Kansas City area, but none of them had carved out a “niche” other than the general designation of “Plaintiff’s Personal Injury Lawyer.” These lawyers were exceptional in their ability to get business, work the cases up to a settlement and where necessary to try the case and get a significant verdict. There were no lawyers “specializing” only in medical malpractice, products liability, catastrophic injuries or any other such niche practices.

In the 1980s, a revolution occurred not only in the legal profession but across the United States with the advent of the computer in businesses. Every business, every business task and every worker was forever changed by the computer. Everybody could now keep track of statistical information that had been at best, laborious to track previously. Every lawyer could now tell exactly what kind of cases were the most productive.

At the same time, the concept of marketing hit the legal profession. Long deceased senior partners would have been rolling over in their graves. Firms were hiring, God forbid, marketing directors! The competitive frenzy for legal work had taken on a new dimension. The putdown of lawyers as “sharks” took on new meaning when the “feeding frenzy” of marketing exploded.

Interestingly enough, there were two lawyers in town that had already begun “laboring in the vineyards” and within time would become “overnight successes” after having worked in the trenches for many years. It was like the proverbial starlet being “discovered in the drugstore” or the comedian or the singer getting their big break after having spent countless hours getting ready for their big moment in every “two-bit” club in the country. I am reminded of the phrase, “the harder I work, the luckier I get.”

These two lawyers decided to become experts in product liability cases. They wrote and edited chapters in practice manuals, organized seminar materials, moderated seminars, made seminar presentations in the area and generally did everything they could to try to become the best they could be as trial lawyers in the product liability field. After five, 10, even 15 years of such labor, suddenly, they burst on the scene with spectacular product liability settlements and verdicts. Our town had never seen anything quite like it; it was “eye-popping!”

What many people seem to overlook, was the unbelievable amount of time and energy that these two individuals put in to becoming masters of their craft. No matter how many times you look at an individual and think they were an overnight success, every single time you look behind the scenes, you will see dedication, hard work and unbelievable amounts of time that have gone in to what appears on the surface to be, “people getting lucky.” You can’t win the lottery without buying a ticket. You can’t become an athletic star without practice. You can’t be a star entertainer without paying your dues, and just like all of these other instances, you can’t be a successful lawyer with a burgeoning practice and lots of clients and cases without paying the price.

There are clearly more opportunities to write articles and more opportunities to teach seminars than there are people willing to put in the time. Every meeting I go to, every activity I am involved in, the constant refrain is, can we get someone to write this article, can we get someone to participate in this seminar? There are way more opportunities than there are opportunists!

Articles can be written for the city newspaper, corporate magazines and other such publications. Articles can be written for bar journals, legal magazines and periodicals. Chapters in CLE books and practice manuals always need new authors. Every institution seems to be in the seminar business, local, state and national bar associations, practice groups and plaintiff and defense associations. The opportunities are boundless.

When you begin to write and talk about the areas you are interested in, you are building your expertise, advertising that expertise to your peers and setting yourself up for referrals of business in those areas from other lawyers.

A personal example may bring this topic home. Sometime ago I had an opportunity to appear on a series of seminars involving law office management. This is an area I have always been interested in, and I have written and taught about this area for over 25 years. I’ve also been on the Board of Editors of legal periodicals in the area of law office economics. I have served as chairman of bar committees dealing with the topic. These very articles that you are reading on a weekly basis in The Daily Record are an outgrowth of that law office management interest.

After having taught a recent seminar, and spoken to multiple participants afterwards, I received a phone call from an attorney when I arrived back in Kansas City. I was asked to serve as an expert witness in a legal malpractice case on the defense side. I had previously participated as an expert witness in legal malpractice cases for both the plaintiff and the defendant, and so I willingly became involved. One of my philosophies has always been, “if we do not police ourselves, who will?” The answer is probably not one that any of us as practicing lawyers would like to hear the answer to.

In this latest instance, the lawyer had seen me at the seminar, had talked with me afterwards, and had come back to Kansas City and suggested to the attorney that was handling the defense of his legal malpractice case that I might be someone who could serve as an expert witness with regard to whether or not the lawyer’s activities had amounted to activities that were beneath the standard of care of members of his profession under the same or similar circumstances. I was flattered to be considered, and was happy to be of help.

Another story is one that is more convoluted, but nonetheless, illustrative. At one time I was the chairperson of a committee of The Missouri Bar dealing with the Quality and Methods of Lawyers in the state. One of the things I am proudest of with regard to this committee was extending the MOLAP program across the width and breadth of the needs of lawyers and their staff that involved not just alcohol counseling, but every other conceivable area of counseling that would be helpful to lawyers and their staffs. This service is offered on a free basis by The Missouri Bar. Subsequently I was asked to participate as a speaker in a series of seminars dealing with the addicted client, the addicted staff member, the addicted associate or the addicted partner. Certainly there were more experts on these topics than I. Nonetheless, I dove into the subject and through extensive review of the literature and of the rules of professional conduct, was able to put together a presentation. Shortly after one of the presentations, I was contacted by an attorney who had lost a position at a firm here in Kansas City, and he hired me to help him resolve some issues with that firm as well as to counsel with him with regard to other positions that may be available to him for employment.

Who would have thought that any legal business would have come out of either of those subject matters from teaching at seminars?

If you do not believe there is a need that exists for people to write articles and to teach seminars, just volunteer, and you will see how quickly you are taken up on your offer.

Last week we talked about getting involved in one professional activity, and yes, I am prejudiced, but I think that one of those activities should be an active committee of your bar association. What better way to be a better lawyer in a particular area, meet people and have an opportunity to become involved in writing articles and teaching seminars than to be actively involved in a bar association committee? Believe me, if you ask anybody that has been actively involved in any bar association, they will tell you that the opportunities are limitless if you will just take the time to be active, go to the meetings, and say yes. Clearly, in the practice of law you reap what you sow!

In the coming weeks we will continue with “tips” for getting clients, dealing with them, keeping them and making them happy. Next week’s topic is the importance of doing at least one public speaking engagement a quarter. Yes, that’s right, four times a year. We will discuss how this makes you more visible, a better speaker and will set you up for people who want to hire you as their lawyer.

Remember to keep score. Give yourself five points if you write at least one article or teach one seminar per year. If you’ve given yourself five points for each of the last four tips, you are almost half way to being out of “In the Stone Ages.” Fewer than 50 points total puts you with the Neanderthals as being a modern day “hunter, finder or rainmaker.”

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.