MOTIVATING LAWYERS TO ENGAGE: A Case Study on Business Development Technology.

• Author: Rutter, Katie

Anyone who works with lawyers is well acquainted with the fact that lawyer personalities depart from the norm in some very signature ways. The infamous Altman Weil study profiling over 1,000 lawyers with the Caliper Profile personality test illuminated how most lawyers are impatient, skeptical, unsociable, highly autonomous and not very resilient compared with the general public. While these traits are ideal for defending arguments and heading off risky business decisions for their clients, they put lawyers at a disadvantage when it comes to business development. Given the increasingly competitive legal landscape and the change-resistant culture that prevails at most firms, marketing departments are being challenged to come up with creative ways to shift lawyer mindsets.

Goulston & Storrs rose to this challenge by incorporating technology into its business development efforts to form a robust training program. They created an initiative called the "Contribution Pipeline" that encouraged its lawyers to contribute to the future success of the firm by engaging in business development, both individually and collaboratively. Each practice area or industry group had a "contribution plan" that laid out business development strategies and tactics to deepen relationships and bring more business into the firm. The initiative provided lawyers with group coaching sessions, a pipeline management technology platform and accountability meetings with the firm's business development manager. The initial pilot was a 2016 finalist in the LMANE Your Honor Awards for Practice Development and Client-Based Programs.

The Objective

Before incorporating software into its business development coaching initiatives, the scene at Goulston Storrs was one that will sound familiar to many firms: Its lawyers were open to business development in theory, but in practice they did not implement the behaviors needed to deepen relationships consistently.

The intention behind the initiative was to couple technology with coaching to keep contribution plans top-of-mind, to encourage lawyers to seek synergies with their peers in sales and service activities, and to hold them accountable to the business development action items in their plans.

The Initiative

In the past, coaching alone was insufficient to drive business development for the firm, so a pipeline management software platform called Practice Pipeline was introduced to help the lawyers stay organized and lend more structure...