Featured · Personal Brand
Things you can do this week without a budget or permission
Most marketing advice written for attorneys assumes a budget, a marketing department and permission to spend both. An associate or a junior partner has none of those, and is usually told the firm handles marketing.
These are things an individual can do alone, this week, without spending anything or asking anybody. They are ordered by what actually produces instructions rather than by what feels productive.
This week, and they cost nothing
Each of these takes under an hour and requires no approval from anyone.
Ask the last three clients whose matters ended well for a review, and for anybody else who might need this.
Rewrite your own profile on the firm's site — most firms will accept an improved draft from the person it describes without a debate.
Update your professional network profile to say what you do for clients now, in the words clients use, rather than listing your career.
Write down the twenty people best placed to meet your kind of matter before you do, and contact two of them.
Reconnect with three former colleagues who now work somewhere that generates the work you want.
Reply properly to the next referral you receive — thank the referrer, and tell them what happened. Almost nobody does this and it is the cheapest way to receive a second one.
And keep a note of every question a client asks you twice. It is the raw material for everything below.
The last one is the quiet engine. An attorney with a running list of the questions they are actually asked never lacks something to write, say or offer to speak about.
None of the seven requires a budget, a supplier or a partnership decision, which is precisely why they are the ones to do first.
This month, with a little more effort
Each takes a few hours and starts producing over a year rather than a week.
Choose the one narrow thing you want to be known for, and say it consistently everywhere. Narrower than feels comfortable.
Write one genuinely useful piece on that thing, aimed at the professionals who refer rather than at other lawyers.
Offer to speak to a room your referrers are in — a professional association, a chamber, a training session for an accountancy practice.
Ask your firm to let you write the practice-area page for your specialism. Most will say yes and few fee-earners ever ask.
Set up a simple record of where each of your matters came from, even if it is a spreadsheet.
Take a proper photograph of yourself. It will be used for years and the current one is probably five years old.
The habits that compound
These are not tasks but routines, and they are what separate attorneys with a book from attorneys with a caseload.
Ask for the review and the referral at the end of every matter, every time, without deciding case by case.
Contact two people from your list of twenty every month, with something useful rather than a greeting.
Keep the question list running, and turn four of them a year into something written.
Say yes to speaking where referrers gather; decline where only peers do.
Review your source record annually and do more of whatever is actually on it.
Keep in touch with former clients on a schedule rather than when you remember.
Protect a small, fixed amount of time for this — an hour a fortnight, in the diary, defended like a hearing.
And be patient in a way that feels unreasonable. This produces very little for a year and a great deal by year three.
Everything here is free, none of it needs permission, and all of it belongs to you rather than to the firm. That last point is the reason to start now rather than when somebody asks you to.
FAQs
What can an attorney do without a marketing budget?
A great deal, and the highest-return items are free: asking for reviews and referrals at the end of every matter, rewriting your own profile, listing the twenty people who meet your matters first and contacting two a month, and keeping a note of the questions clients ask you twice.
Do we need the firm's permission for any of this?
Almost none of it. Rewriting your own bio, updating your professional profile, contacting referrers, asking for reviews and keeping a source record are all within any fee-earner's own gift. Asking to write your practice-area page usually gets a yes and is rarely requested.
What is the single most neglected habit?
Replying properly to a referral — thanking the referrer and telling them what happened. Almost nobody does it, and it is the cheapest way to receive a second referral from the same person.
How long before this produces work?
Very little for about a year, and a great deal by year three. The lag is why it loses every scheduling contest against billable work, and why the attorneys who persist end up with something their colleagues do not have.
How much time does it need?
An hour a fortnight, in the diary and defended. The constraint is not the volume of time but its reliability — sporadic bursts produce almost nothing here.
End Note
The firm's marketing builds the firm. Everything on this list builds something that is yours, costs nothing, and needs nobody's approval.
Ask at the end of every matter, keep the question list, contact two people a month, and defend an hour a fortnight. In three years you will have what your colleagues do not.
Key Takeaways
Seven free actions, none needing permission, all doable this week.
Keep a running note of questions clients ask twice — it fuels everything else.
Reply properly to referrals; almost nobody does, and it earns the second one.
Speak where referrers gather, decline where only peers do.
An hour a fortnight, defended, beats occasional bursts entirely.
