Law firms have one essential asset, their lawyers. Like any asset, lawyers need to be carefully valued. A major factor in Dewey’s now inevitable demise is that often lateral partner guaranties were based on neither individual nor firm collections. To make matters worse, the firm borrowed heavily to pay skewed, and not necessarily deserved, multi-year guaranteed partner compensation. (See e.g., ”Dewey’s Fall Underscores Law Firms’ New Reality” James Stewart for the New York times May 4, 2012; “As Dewey Collapses, Partners and Retirees Face Big Financial Losses” Tara Siegel Bernard for the New York Times May 11, 2012; “Assigning Blame in Dewey’s Collapse” Peter Lattman for the New York Times)

Wooing attractive lateral partners with multiple-year financial guarantees has long been a tool used by law firms to lure rainmaking partners. However, even when such lateral partners produce as expected, the results can cause strife within the ranks. The service partners and associates resent being blatantly undervalued so that someone can be king. When rainmakers with long-term compensation guaranties collect less than expected, the overall situation is worse. It can become, as it seems to have done in Dewey’s case, lethal.

Law partnerships are certainly about money, but they are also about common values and common styles of practice. I am not a purist, but I do believe that lawyers with major books of business should take some personal risk of having a less productive year than expected. To attract star partners there does need to be a likelihood of favorable compensation, but that can be accomplished with a floor and an upside. Lateral partners often get a first year guaranty above the fair floor, giving them enough time to integrate their practices. At firms with a work ethic that includes camaraderie and collegiality, risk is taken by even the best rainmakers.

Oversized compensation guaranties reward the greedy, not a character trait that makes for good partners. If the rainmaker produces, lawyers at lower levels will still feel undervalued. If the rain doesn’t fall as expected, only the guaranties are honored and the suffering is pushed down the chain. In the end, when the going gets tough, the greedy leave.

By working hard at reading and writing better than much of the world, lawyers increase their chances of achieving good results in their transactions, litigations or regulatory pursuits. But because good results are frequently the result of quality time spent alone, it is tempting for lawyers to become overly fond of their desk-time. The problem is that, no matter how good a work product is produced, spending more time alone than necessary gets in the way of acquiring future work.

Pursuing business is never a solo activity, and most lawyers feel more at risk when seeking new work than when sitting in the comfort zone of their desks. To become comfortable when reaching for new work lawyers need to adjust their understanding of what qualifies as success.

Most attempts at getting business will fail if success is seen as an engagement letter. Each step in the process to such an engagement needs to feel like success. Deciding to invite someone to a conference, lunch or event can be a small success, and getting a positive response is surely a success. Attending or speaking at a conference is a success, and forming a new relationship is a success. Writing an article and spreading it to people who care is a success. Connecting potential clients with people who can help them in business is a success. What goes around often comes around, but little goes around when you are chained to your desk.

If your new vision of success results in overwhelming business, you can ask someone else to sit at a desk. People with undeveloped rainmaking attitudes often need work.

The non-practical reasons often have less legitimacy. On the emotional side, there are three primary reasons lawyers do not want to be rainmakers: admiration or affection for the one who makes your rain, lack of ambition and fear. Provided you understand your motives, the first two of these may be legitimate reasons. Fear, however, which is the predominant emotional reason for not taking risks about rainmaking, needs to be scrupulously examined, and often questioned.

Regarding sensible subordination, I know of no finer example than Alexander Hamilton. Robert Troupe, Hamilton’s friend, said, The pen for our army was held by Hamilton and for dignity of manner, pith of matter, and elegance of style, General Washington’s letters are unrivalled in military annals.  During the War years, Hamilton hitched his career to Washington’s largely out of admiration.

Even at the battle of Yorktown, where Hamilton finally got to use his military understanding and skill, and took the tenth redoubt in under ten minutes with few casualties, he still did not demand military honors. He expected his star would rise later, and he served.

Private practice lawyers who lack ambition have seen that in bad economic times, skills alone may not make a career. With luck, skills create a good pay check, but for maximum safety skilled lawyers without a client base may want to test the rainmaking waters.

Fear of rainmaking is wholly different. Pursuing clients frequently means not getting them. Some rejection is even personal. It hurts your finances and your self-esteem. Still, if you do not have a Washington-like figure to fall behind and you want to control your own professional life, it helps to make some rain. You may not be the biggest cloud on the planet but every bit adds to your self esteem and income.

To be useful for rainmaking, articles and speeches need to get to a wide, appropriate audience.  (Although not relevant to rainmaking, some, often academic or political, articles and speeches are not written with an eye to winning business.)  The trick is deciding how, with whom, and in what manner to share your work.

Someone hearing your talk or reading your article in its original source obviously wanted that experience.  People purposely attend events and read publications.  However, the audience that finds your original source is often smaller than you would like.  You should take great care, however, not to cause others to question your character or intelligence by thoughtlessly distributing your work.

The most obvious way to share an article or speech is with a post or link on your own web site.  Someone visiting your site wants to know about you.  (Authors should be aware that certain publications retain all copyright privileges, meaning that you would be required to pay to post on your own site).

It is also fair to assume that your current clients want to see your published work, even clients for whom you do a different type of work.  They may want to expand what you do for them or at least care about your skills and knowledge.  When possible, it makes sense to send your work to all conference attendees and perhaps the membership of an organization at which you spoke.  If you are permitted to obtain the list, there may be a charge.

Finally, go through your friends and professional acquaintances.  Even your fans who have no particular need for the article or speech may have an interest in spreading it to appropriate recipients.

Be careful, however, about sending your work to others who logically have no interest.  That can backfire. It makes you appear self-serving and primarily interested in name exposure.  We have all received thoughtless, egotistical communications with the words, “thought this would interest you.”  Perhaps, but if it’s not obvious, explain why you thought it would be of interest.

Speeches or articles can be distributed through snail or e-mail.  Snail mail is “louder”.  E-mail can be more easily saved and makes a longer impression.  Just send it. When appropriate, follow up.  Imagine how the world would be different if Martin Luther had only sent, but not posted, his 95 Theses.

All rainmaking lawyers and successful in-house and government lawyers are ambitious. Lasting success does not come without desire. People sometimes “inherit” great practices, but those practices scatter if the inheritor does not have the ambition to keep them.

There are different ways to get ahead. Greed and pride are vices. Ambition coupled with concern can raise all boats.

In this important week for the country and the Supreme Court, I want to notice two rather different instances of ambitious conduct by lawyers, one a Supreme Court Justice and one a frequent Supreme Court litigant.

During Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings, Clarence Thomas said, “If you are asking me whether or not I have ever debated the contents of it [Roe v. Wade], that answer to that is no, Senator.” Senate Confirmation Hearings, Sep 11, 1991. I have real doubts that Justice Thomas’ answer was literally true, but believe instead that it was said to achieve his ambition.

David Boies says that in 1997 he had “a multimillion-dollar-per-year income, total job security, and the best lawyers in the country on my cases.” (BW Magazine, October 25, 2010). He also had a longstanding client with a recently developed conflict with his firm. Over four days, in order to be “loyal” to both his firm and his client, Mr. Boies started his own firm, with one client. Yes, he was one of the best lawyers in the world and had all reason for optimism, but it would have been tempting to stay in the comfort of home. Others have swept conflicts under the rug or left loyal clients out to dry. Loyalty, coupled with outsized ambition, created a great firm.

Properly managed, with a keen eye on ethics, your ambition can be a great motivator for making rain and career success. Don’t hide it under a bushel.

Near the start of a legal career, this decision is less important for lawyers whose practice has developed among and with other lawyers. Typically such lawyers stay in their “family” neighborhood at least until they have solidified their client relations. Still, there are basic questions about partnership that rainmakers at all stages of their careers need to consider.

There are two categories of choices rainmakers face concerning partnerships: the threshold one of “whether” one wants to be a partner with others and then, if one does want a partner, “who” you want as a partner. (Non-rainmakers, like most employees, have more limited choices.)

Having a partner is not essential to success. Nor is it something all well-adjusted professionals should necessarily want. Do you need or want a peer decision maker to help plan your work and manage client relationships? Do your clients regularly need work in areas you cannot handle? Even when these things are true, there are tactical, financial and technical reasons to be happy with a non-committed professional relationship. However, when law partnerships are good, they can be very, very good.  Synergy happens within well matched law partnerships, regarding both finances and professional development.  How responsibilities and profits are shared is a separate decision, and varies enormously among law partners.

There are also basic considerations concerning who should be your partner(s). Billing rates are crucial. Well functioning partnerships want to encourage clients to stay for all possible services. Shelled peanuts followed by truffles make clients balk. Synergistic or overlapping practices are important for the same reasons. Clients need legal work in related fields, not distant ones.

Working styles, regarding attitude and energy, matter. I have seen lawyers who work well in crisis scream at partners who freeze when bad things happen in deals or litigations. Likewise, deliberative types cringe at decisions being made without all available facts being considered.

It matters if you care about your partners. You may march off into the sunset with them. However, as always, with common values, concern and affection can grow over time. At the start, you should trust your partners. Affection is a bonus.

What is crucial to any rainmaker’s hire is that the associate work hard, be willing to stretch (and therefore sometimes make mistakes), listen carefully and probe with questions anything that is not understood. The best rainmakers want someone who can think outside of the box when necessary and have good instincts about getting along with and growing clients. How do rainmakers go about hiring associates to do quality, cost efficient work, make clients happy and make the rainmaker happy? There are some best practices guidelines for such hires.

It is crucial to understand what sort of expertise is required and hire someone who can currently or be trained to do the substantive work. As important, one should hire a person who is by character suited to the style of work that needs to be done. Hire an associate who easily tolerates boredom when the work is generally repetitive, and a clever, big-picture thinker for frequent creative assignments.

The best lawyers are non-obsessively compulsive. When getting references (and do get references) make sure the person being made an offer wants to do things perfectly, but settles for close to perfect. To operate a thriving legal practice, rainmakers need to know those working for them will get the job done correctly, thoroughly and on time.

It is never a good idea to hire someone because of affection or common interests, but if you get that as well, your life will be better.

Common professional and world values matter less in associate to partner relations than in partner to partner or partner to client relations. So long as the overlap is sufficient to get good work done, you can decide who will be your partner over time.

I groused about this a bit – mostly because I was at the age where many of my women friends wanted husbands. Then someone explained that when a person wants to marry, he or she deeply understands that very good is good enough. No one can satisfy all your needs. When someone wants to marry, a good match can be had with someone you love, with whom you have sufficient common interests and who shares most of your values.

When clients choose lawyers, they likewise search for skill sets (common interests) and common values.

On the skills side, all clients want quality work, but with complicated transactions or litigations truly superb work is extremely time consuming and therefore expensive. It is an unusual client that needs, and is willing and able to pay for, every contingency addressed. Assuming a client wants quality work, there are two kinds of lawyers – those that do very good work and those that do impeccable work. Generally, very good is good enough.

However, there is a caveat. Regardless of whether someone’s technical legal work would get an A or a B plus, a lawyer should never offer anything short of impeccable personal service. Return phone calls promptly, even if it is to say you cannot speak that day; explain why you are doing or not doing certain things and generally convey an attitude towards open communication.

The values issue is more complicated, but suffice it to say that lawyers who like to drive the hardest possible bargains or win litigations with tactics as opposed to facts or law, work best with like-minded clients, while lawyers who generally leave something on the table or litigate to solutions short of destruction will work best with gentler sorts.

In my short talk, the main point was that, when possible, lawyers should advance the business of desired clients.  Unless it hurts a current client, business tips and wanted introductions are appreciated.  Often enough what goes around comes around, sometimes indirectly.

One lawyer objected to what she saw as the hypocrisy of reaching out to help others from whom you want business.  “People will see through my largesse and know I am only seeking a quid pro quo.”  The answer to that is to truly give sincerely, without any direct expectation of return.  It is simply part of the relationship.  One cannot discern hypocrisy where there is none.

A more serious objection was about violating one’s own values, becoming a sell-out.  “I cannot act friendly towards someone whose politics I deplore.”  “I cannot spend time discussing the virtues of boxing since I hate gratuitous violence.”  Etc.

Pursuing clients with whom one has ethical or political disagreements should not be a problem if the work sought does not further an objectionable agenda.  Just like lawyers sit on charitable boards with fellows having opposite political views, they can have clients who contract or litigate over issues about which there is no reason to feel discomfort.  Working with people who support causes with which you do not agree is not the same as working for a position you do not support.

Your clients do not need to be your soul-mates.  All that is needed is comfort.  In the commercial world, if you perform legal work that helps your clients engage in business activities you respect and treat those clients with loyalty and respect, you will have a good working relationship.  To expect more than that is a confusion of your personal and professional lives.

The last Make It Rain blog suggests that a good way to spend time with especially hard to pin down potential clients is by extending invitations for personal, and not professional, events.  The invitations should be particularly attractive and targeted at the client’s interests.  When accepted, you always get face time.

This technique has one important addendum.  At some point during your social event, business must be discussed.  Hard to capture business people are busy.  They are also often important, at least within their work world.

People who are busy and important generally skew into two categories regarding invitations from acquaintances.  They may have large egos and really do believe you want to be their friend, not their lawyer. If you want their business, that needs to be corrected.  Alternatively, such people often believe everyone wants something from them, and you are at least subconsciously attempting to bribe them.  Even if someone accepts a shiny invitation, he or she may resent the attempted bribery and resist giving you work.

Your potential client needs to be made aware you are not expecting personal friendship or legal work, but do want to get across that you have high quality legal services to offer and do want consideration for their work.  If the client has interest, further meetings, in a business setting, will be arranged.  Actual work may come from those meetings.  Those meetings would probably not have been possible if you had not created an opportunity to spend time together and briefly discuss your services.

Unless, upon reflection, you do not want someone as a client, a circumscribed, brief business discussion at the special event shows you are not afraid of the topic and understand the desire may not be mutual.  Create the opportunity.