If you don’t need to pay any overhead, or you can support yourself on a trust fund, then maybe you will be that incredibly rare lawyer who can pick and choose causes you want to pursue. The rest of us “working stiffs” need fee-paying clients in order to sustain ourselves. Everything you can do to tell the world you are for “real” will help you secure fee-paying clients for your practice.

Often times I purposefully invite clients to meet me at my office even though it might be easier for me to meet with them somewhere else because I want the client to see that I have “overhead.” Letting your prospective and current clients know you have ongoing expenses will help accelerate your firm’s cash flow by setting up a climate where clients expect to pay your bills on a timely basis for the work you have done in a timely basis. One thing we as lawyers forget is the need to play “show and tell.” Often times we only “tell” our clients things and expect them to be able to retain the information. When we perform our legal diagnosis of their problem, our prognosis of their problem and our prescription for treatment, we hardly ever reduce those legal concepts to writing. Many lawyers still do not get a written Engagement Letter or contract with their clients. Anything you can do to put things in writing for your client will facilitate clear communication and will establish a perception you are for “real.”

This week’s tip is to develop a firm resume and to give a copy to every new client. Periodically you can also send out updated firm resumes to current and former clients. Every time there is a major change is another good time to send out new copies of your firm resumes.

Your firm resume should include the firm name, address, all telephone numbers, fax, e-mail addresses, the names and biographical information of each attorney in the firm, and — where applicable — biographical information for paralegals as well as biographies of other members instrumental in the day-to-day business of the firm including doctors, nurses, investigators, law office administrators, office managers, comptrollers, bookkeepers and other such personnel. Oftentimes a mission statement will be appropriate. The areas of practice the firm holds themselves as being able to work should also be part of the resume. Additional information such as significant verdicts and lists of clients who have given you previous permission to utilize their names may be added as well. The contents of a firm resume are only limited by the imagination and marketing skills of those putting it together.

I am reminded of a series of phrases I have used over the years in talking about the topic of things like firm resumes. These phrases are as follows:

   1. “Saying it’s so does not make it so;”

   2. “There is something magical about putting it in writing;”

   3. “Perception is reality;” and

   4. “Create a myth, repeat it often enough and it becomes reality!”

Let’s take these phrases one at a time and explore how they are applicable to law firms and in particular with regard to the issue of a firm resume.

“Saying it’s so does not make it so.” This concept has to do with the well-known adage of “talk is cheap,” or as one client I had early on in my career said “cash talks, and trash walks.”

All four of these phrases basically go to the idea that people believe what they both hear and see. Talk is talk. Seeing a firm resume conjures up an image of a substantial organization. Cash is tactful. Cash comes in various denominations. When cash is added up it can be totaled and a value can be placed on it. When a firm resume list out the individuals in the firm a substantial structure and organization emerges instead of just the amorphous information of names on a letterhead and what bars they are admitted to or their titles.

“There is something magical about putting it in writing.” One thing that has continually impressed me is the transformation that occurs when something is thought about, spoken and finally put in writing. It always appeared that the similarity between the thought and the talk was not much, but for some magical reason putting those into a written document transforms the words and somehow makes them solid and saleable. The heft of the written word far outweighs the spoken word. Putting together a written firm resume transforms the barebones letterhead and the verbal communication into the perception of a solid functioning group that can address, then work with and efficiently and economically satisfy clients’ legal needs.

“Perception is reality.” I have recently seen some law firms that have taken a picture of the staff and put it in their firm resume. This is a great idea. It shows all the members of the team it takes to meet the clients’ legal needs. It establishes the lawyer is just not one individual out there “tilting with the wind mills,” on behalf of their clients. The concept of adding non-lawyers’ names to letterhead is similar to this concept. If you can create the perception that the firm is substantial and can meet the legal needs of its clients, then you have successfully performed step 1 in creating the reality that your clients seek. Step 2 is to actually get the work done in an efficient and economic matter. Step 3 is to understand that clients are looking for “projection of effort” and not necessarily “results.” Studies done in the mid-60s in Missouri showed lawyers, when questioned about what clients were looking for, almost always indicated “results.” Remarkably, when clients were asked what they were actually looking for their answer was consistently “projection of effort.” Lawyers obviously didn’t understand that clients were more sophisticated than the lawyers gave them credit for. My experience is that clients realize this is not a perfect world and in an adversarial system of law, not everyone can be a winner. I have always been struck with the concept of “how hard did you try?” Of course, we have all heard the phrase “the harder I try, the luckier I get.”

“Create a myth, repeat it often enough and it becomes reality!” I have previously discussed this concept with regard to lawyers being able to work in specific substantive areas of the law. I am convinced it is not only true in the practice of law but throughout life. If you constantly think and act and talk like a winner, you will more likely than not become a winner. If you look for certain things in life, you will more likely find what you are looking for. After all, almost everything a person can look for is out there, and so sooner or later you are going to find it. Why not create the myth that your law firm is set up for the express purpose of satisfying clients’ legal needs. Do everything you can on a day-to-day basis to make that myth become a reality, and “presto change-o” the myth has become a reality.

You are probably saying to yourself, wait a second; it cannot be this easy; a firm resume cannot accomplish all of this. You are absolutely right. The firm resume cannot accomplish all of this, but by putting one together you have begun to take that first step towards realizing clients are looking for lawyers and firms that can satisfy their legal needs both efficiently and economically. If you use your firm resume as a focus for your firm and for each individual in your firm, and if you try to “breathe life” into your firm resume, you will wake up some day and realize you have “conjured up something out of nothing.” On that first day when you sat down as a practicing lawyer, before the phone rang you had all of the tools needed to be a practicing lawyer — but no clients. Over the years, as you handled one client and one matter after another, a substantial amount of what I will call “lawyer _____will” was created by what you did every hour of every day. You can fill in that blank with several different words: good, bad, ill, etc.

Setting up a firm resume and living by the tenants and the information contained therein on a day-to-day basis will hopefully put you on the path to success and prosperity. Remember, satisfied clients are the absolute best advertisement any lawyer or law firm can have!

Next week’s topic will be to discuss firm logos, color schemes and mottos or slogans. Remember to keep track of how you are doing so you can score yourself when we come to the end of the section dealing with clients. I think you will find next week’s topic quite interesting.

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.