Making partner is a career milestone for many lawyers. After the initial excitement, new partners might ask themselves: What now? Often, many are overwhelmed by the daunting new task of building a book of business.
By keeping in mind a few guiding principles and focusing on realistic expectations, new partners can handle the transition smoothly and set themselves up for success. Law firms, for their part, can take steps to intentionally support new partners through the transition and give them the tools they need.
4 Ways to New Partners – and Their Law Firms – Can Foster Business Development Success
- Mentally and emotionally change how to define “success.” New partners should acknowledge the shift from associate to partner as a significant transition. As a result, shifts and changes will be measured, especially in billable hours, to create capacity for business development goals and activities. New partners can benefit from loosening their attachment to the success factors that have gotten them this far – such as high productivity and high billables – to make room for new success factors that come with their new role. By moving away from billables as the primary factor of success, new partners can make room for impact as a driver of success.
To support new partners, law firms should be transparent about new expectations and communicate these expectations clearly to all attorneys. It is impossible to create more hours in a day, so if firms require new partners to engage in more business development activities, the highest-performing firms provide tools and support. Often, business development coaching can help new partners learn how to shift their routine and build new habits around business development. Coaching can also accelerate other areas, like effective teaming and delegation, that create capacity for more proactive business development efforts.
- Use the transition to partnership as an opportunity to intentionally assess career priorities. As a new partner, this might be the first time in a long time – perhaps since starting law school or choosing a law firm – to take an intentional look at one’s career. New partners should ask themselves, What do I want to do? Who do I want to work with? Where do I want to focus my legal practice? Asking these questions can help new partners steer and prioritize their business development activities and goals.
Armed with this clarity, firms can support their new partners by helping them target with discipline and apply a framework that illuminates their highest business development opportunities.
- Understand and apply the rules of business development. Attorneys sometimes conflate the marketing and profile-raising activities that were common as an associate with the business development strategies they should be employing as a new partner. Business development relies on a systematic process that moves a target through a choreographed pipeline; marketing activities are often sprinkled throughout this journey, but are not substitute for business development.
Law firms can support new partners by providing learning and development resources to new partners to help them better understand this distinction. One-on-one coaching, group training, and internal mentorship are all helpful tools for enabling new partners to deploy effective business development tactics.
- Remember that no one needs to go it alone. New partners don’t need to strike out on their own to succeed in business development. Firms are filled with people who were once new partners themselves, and they are valuable sources of wisdom. Additionally, market research shows new partners often have more success, and fun, engaging in business development efforts with a small group of colleagues.
To support new partners, firms should create pockets of community for new partners. While many firms have a new partner orientation, these programs tend to be one-and-done. Firms that are experiencing greater engagement from their new partners facilitate ongoing and sustainable interactions for new partner cohorts, such as virtual gatherings and/or group coaching sessions. Firms should also rely on the value of formal and informal mentorship. For instance, firms can expose new partners to high-performing partners who appreciate that business development is an integral component of their legal practice. And the firms that emphasize and celebrate the variety of different styles partners can take in their business development journey often reinforce a critical norm within their firm’s business development culture—you don’t have to be ONE style of business developer in order to be successful.