Exhibit 2 Twenty Questions You Should Ask Current and Prospective Clients

• Library: Building Rainmakers: The Definitive Guide to Business Development for Lawyers (ABA) (2016 Ed.)

Exhibit 2 Twenty Questions you Should Ask Current and Prospective Clients

By William J. Flannery, Jr., JD

You've done your research about the client or prospect, thought about communication strategies, and completed your pre-interview plan, but you may still be wondering: What do I say? Where do I start? Here's where rainmaking often turns into drought. Lawyers inexperienced in business development often make the crucial mistake of assuming that they're the ones who are supposed to do all the talking. For lack of anything better to do, they start their sales pitch. Or they try to convince clients or prospective clients that the firm has a number of good lawyers who can help them. Or more likely, they start with small talk as their way of trying to build rapport. For the first 45 minutes, they focus on sports, the weather, or subject matter that borders on the trivial, and is, often, inappropriately personal.

But clients and prospective clients don't want a poorly thought out sales pitch, and they don't need to be told about your lawyering skills. They probably assume you're good at what you do, or you wouldn't have gotten this far. And they certainly don't want personal, small talk. They're as busy as you are. What they want is to feel comfortable with you as a professional and to see where you and your firm might fit in with their business objectives. To make them comfortable, you must get them to talk about themselves and their business objectives.

Your efforts should focus on listening to their responses. The more they talk, the more you'll learn. And the more you learn, the more natural the process becomes. In business development, information is always power—because it means knowing what they need.

Knowing what to ask and how to ask is an art and a science. The 20 essential questions proposed here are broad enough to apply to most types of clients—both current and prospective—yet specific enough to elicit the concrete information essential for effective business development. While many of these questions appear to target new clients, it is surprising how much lawyers don't know about the clients they've been serving for years. When those lawyers take the time to learn they often find that there is substantial business going elsewhere which, with a little effort, could be kept in the family.

First, here are a few basic rules:

• Show respect for your client's time. Demonstrate your ability to perform due diligence before a meeting, by asking questions that show you have mastered basic background information on the person you're meeting with, his or her company and industry, and the company's overall legal matters. Much of this is easily obtained from publicly available resources or in pre-meeting conversations with support personnel.
• Don't neglect the long-term perspective. When they hear you asking about their plans three to five years hence, they begin to think of you as a 30-year ally.
• Don't worry about asking new clients direct questions. This is information they tell their brokers, their PR staffs, the stockholders, the press, and others in the business world. Further, they expect a high degree of confidentiality when talking to a lawyer, and they certainly want to talk candidly about their business because they want to trust their lawyers.
• Ask current clients direct questions, too. They will appreciate your interest and may even realize that such expert listening is the crux of delivering quality legal services.
• You cannot and should not try to "sell" legal services to unwilling buyers. Don't
• try to close the business at the first available lull in the conversation. Avoid the "sales pitch," as they may not be in the "catching" mode.
• Never put them on the defensive. Don't use the style of questioning you would use in a deposition or while cross-examining a hostile witness. The interview should be a win-win. The better they feel about talking now, the better they'll feel about hiring you later. Let them be the ones to bring up sensitive or painful matters.
• Try to avoid the "why" questions. Such questions are often received as judgmental, even when you intend no such thing. It's empathy and rapport that you're after.
• Make all your questions as open ended as possible. A "yes" or "no" answer will seldom do you any good. Phrase questions in such a way as to give them the

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