Zen & the Art of Legal Networking

Join us for our latest episode of the Law Firm ILN-telligence podcast!

Ron Norwood is a partner with Lewis Rice in St. Louis, Missouri, a member of the International Lawyers Network. In this episode, Lindsay and Ron talk extensively about his work as a mentor, including how and why he gives back, the meaningful commitment to diversity & inclusion that Lewis Rice has made and how Ron leads that charge as the chair of the D&I committee at the firm, and the Missouri Bar’s Special Committee on Lawyers of Color and Ron’s work with them to get six important initiatives passed through the Bar’s Board of Governors (and what the next steps look like). Ron also talks about this moment in history with this week’s verdict in the Chauvin trial, his own background growing up in Chicago, and working as a police internal affairs prosecutor. Truly one of our most powerful episodes.

Join us for this week’s rainmaking recommendation from trainer and coach, Jaimie Field.

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Prospective Ideal clients – these are the people and businesses with whom you would like to do business.  But, often I am asked the question: What if they already have a lawyer or law firm with which they work?

My answer is quite simple:  “So what?”

Join us for this week’s rainmaking recommendation from trainer and coach, Jaimie Field.

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This Rainmaking Recommendation is a result of a Facebook posting in which someone I know said it was no one’s business whether or not they were going to receive, or had received Covid Vaccines.  And while I agreed, it is no one’s business unless you make it their business, I also said that I was so excited to obtain my inoculations that I couldn’t help but post it on Facebook. Which made me think, what constitutes too much information?

As a lawyer, in addition to the network of clients and potential clients that you’ve built, you’ve also built a network of referral sources. This may be formal or informal (or more likely, both). One of the most overlooked opportunities for further developing your relationships with these sources of referrals is content – not only does it help you to get to know these sources better, but it also provides you with collateral that you can use with your primary client/potential client networks.

Join us for this week’s rainmaking recommendation from trainer and coach, Jaimie Field.

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Way back in 2013, I wrote a blog entitled: The Mathematics of Time for Rainmaking.  In it, I dispelled the myth that I hear from my clients who are in Mid-market and Big Law firms: “I don’t have the time to do Rainmaking.”

So, I showed you how much time you really did have. Let’s run the math once more. Again, we are starting with the following assumptions:

A conversation I had earlier today got me thinking about what it means to be a leader.

Is it technical skill? Surely, you need to have the skill to perform your duties and an understanding of what your company or organization does to be successful. Is it experience? Yes, often that helps, though I think we all know that there have been cases where someone may have skills from another industry that can be transferred without having what is considered the “right” experience on paper, and still be a wildly successful leader. Is it executive presence? That may be debatable and probably depends on the audience that you’re speaking to as to what their definition of “executive presence” is.

So what are the right ingredients for being a leader?

Join us for this week’s rainmaking recommendation from trainer and coach, Jaimie Field.

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Since the pandemic started, I have been doing a tremendous amount of virtual networking with a plethora of people. I am speaking specifically of group networking, not just virtual one-on-ones. And I have noticed something very interesting:  many have trouble describing what they do for a living in a few short, memorable sentences.   This is why you need to create an Audio Business Card, also known as an Elevator Pitch.