Marketing your litigation practice

• Author: Stewart Edelstein
• Pages: 255-268

255

CHAPTER TWELVE

MARKETING YOUR

LITIGATION PRACTICE

You are already overloaded with work. You have deadlines to meet.

Memos to write. Pleadings and briefs to file. Emails to respond to. Cli-

ent calls to retur n. Billable hour requirements to meet. W ho has time

to market your practice? You do. Why? Because, unless you want to

be no more than a drone churn ing out work for your superiors for the

rest of your legal career, you must learn how to market your sk ills and

your experience as a trial lawyer, create a marketing plan, a nd follow

through on it. Consider your market ing effort s an investment in your

professional futu re. No one can do this for you. A nd you will likely be

compelled to go outside your comfort zone. It’s well worth it.

Marketing is more impor tant now than ever before. Compet ition is

intense, for a variety of reasons. Law schools keep pumping out about

45,000 lawyers a year, and one of the most fertile areas for young law-

yers is litigation. Mergers, acquis itions, and consolidations have reduced

the number of clients for commercial litigation. Shr inkage of the client

base is exacerbated by companies having in-house legal depart ments.

Many companies seek to avoid litigation expenses by resolving d isputes

without benefit of counsel and, even then, utilizing various alternative

dispute resolution techniques, in par t to avoid costly litigation fees. A nd

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