Thought leader: Coaching with care

By Sara Kraeski

At some point each year, a lawyer sees his firm’s judgment of his value reduced to a single number: total compensation. That number is loaded with meaning, particularly as it is compared to the ‘values’ assigned to peers. More often than not, the assessment of a lawyer’s value is closely related to an ability to successfully attract new business. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this; organisations of all kinds reward those who bring the greatest growth to the enterprise.
But lawyers are very different from income-generators in other businesses. As a group, lawyers are much less likely to have the personality traits that correspond with business development skill, so rainmaking often does not come naturally. Lawyers can also seem hypersensitive to criticism – a trait often cited as the reason for high rates of depression and suicide within the profession. So it is unsurprising that lawyers can be vulnerable to a sense of failure when they are judged on their success as rainmakers.
I’ve been reflecting on the emphasis on business development success and how it affects lawyers on a personal level ever since I read of the April 2009 death of a pre-eminent appellate lawyer. This lawyer had argued 16 cases before the US Supreme Court – an uncommon achievement in an appellate lawyer’s career. He had served as the top appellate lawyer in the Clinton administration. He provided on-air analysis of Supreme Court decisions for National Public Radio. He represented major national business associations on high-profile (but thinly profitable) appeals. He loved the practice of law and had everything to offer to the profession except, apparently, the inclination or knack for generating a stable book of profitable business.
So when the economy turned and his firm started to trim its practices, he was one of a score of lawyers who were laid off. Friends say that his identity was entwined in his professional status, but he found himself adrift in an industry that increasingly valued the ‘salespeople’ over the ‘experts’. Despite all of his successes in court and accolades from clients, he was seen by his firm as less valuable than others who could bring in new business. Two days after the layoffs were announced, the lawyer drove to his office, activated the out-of-office message for his e-mail account, and killed himself.
The legal profession’s evolution to become the ‘business of law’ will not be reversed, and rainmaking will continue to be a major focus of skill development and compensation systems in law firms. But this lawyer’s story has made me rethink how I communicate with lawyers about business development. Marketers have a natural enthusiasm for all forms of business development activity. But an eagerness to see lawyers succeed may outstrip both their desire and their aptitude to make business development a cornerstone of their practice. Thrusting a shy lawyer into a trade association, showing frustration with an overwhelmed lawyer who hasn’t met their commitments, placing an unsure lawyer into a complex pitch – these actions may create for the lawyer a disproportionate sense of failure. It is critical that marketers use sensitivity to coach a lawyer into business development activities that will match both their temperament and their abilities and gradually build their confidence. Because pushing too hard could have serious unintended consequences.

Sara Kraeski is director of business development at Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP. She can be contacted at sara.kraeski@dgslaw.com