May 10, 2024 • 27 mins
Overview:
This episode provides a deep dive into the essentials of business planning for attorneys considering lateral moves. Steve Nelson leverages his extensive experience in legal recruitment to guide listeners on crafting high impact business plans that align with market trends and firm expectations. This episode may be our most practical and actionable let. We even have Steve’s business plan templates in our show notes.
Key Insights:
- Business Plan Importance: Detailed discussion on the necessity of a business plan for lawyers aiming to move laterally.
- Components of a Strong Business Plan: Steve outlines the critical elements that should be included in a business plan, such as market analysis, client needs assessment, and personal value proposition.
- Strategies for Differentiation: Tips on how attorneys can set themselves apart in their business plans by linking their unique experiences to the needs of potential firms.
Episode Highlights:
- Crafting the Business Plan: Steps for developing a plan that addresses both the current landscape and future market opportunities, focusing on the lawyer’s role in navigating these changes.
- Demonstrating Market Knowledge: The importance of showing deep understanding of regulatory trends and how they affect potential clients.
- Networking and Resources: How to effectively utilize existing networks and resources to bolster the business plan’s effectiveness.
Bonus: Steve gives us his analysis of the lateral recruiting market in the the nation’s capital (hint: it is an election year.)
Business Plan Template Option One
Business Plan Template Option Two
Business Plan Template Option Three
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
Murray, welcome to Steve's rules, periodic podcast
(00:10):
featuring Steve Nelson,executive principal at McCormick
group in the law and governmentaffairs practice. My name is
Murray Coffey, and I am theprincipal of M Coffey, a law
firm marketing and businessdevelopment Boutique. For more
information, please visit mywebsite at M coffey.net Steve
has been an executive recruiterfor nearly three decades, and
without naming names, he isready to spill the tea on best
(00:32):
practices, and maybe a few notso best practices by firms and
candidates that he has seenduring his career, recruiting
some of the most driven andsuccessful professionals into
highly profitable and growingfirms. Steve is a former lawyer
and journalist and is a fellowof the college of law practice
management and a proud son ofWilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. Full
(00:52):
transparency here, Steve hashelped my career immensely
through the years and has becomesomething of a career shaman to
me and I know many others. HeySteve, welcome back. Hey Murray.
We are, I don't know we're inwhat session. This is the third
of this third one,
Steve (01:12):
right? Alright. All I know is, I'm back in DC. My my
winter in Key West is over, soI'm back, and now it turns out
today is 80 degrees. So you
Unknown (01:25):
know, about the same here in in beautiful Dallas,
Texas. So, but why don't we? Whydon't we go ahead and and dive
in? You know, one of the thingsthat our friends at McCormick
Place are quite well versed atis producing market intelligence
and helping people understandwhat's going on in a market,
(01:47):
both from the from the thetalent side, from the from the
people who are thinking ofmaking a move for and also for
the firms to understand what thewhat the market For laterals
might look like. And one of thestrongest areas for the
McCormack group historically hasbeen in the DC lateral market.
(02:10):
It's a national firm, but DC iswhere they started and so, and I
think DC may be your firstintelligence report that you,
that you put out. So what'sgoing on in the DC, the DC
market, right,
Steve (02:24):
all right. So contrary to what has been reported in some
circles, at least in DC, and Ican't really and it's somewhat
true in Texas, all the lesson,the lateral market is a little
bit less busy than last year.
Nothing's dramatic, but it isdown, we think around 10% in DC.
(02:44):
Now, the interesting thing aboutthat, and that's really the key
to this, is that at least halfof that decrease is due to the
the dramatic decrease in thehiring from government. And this
is not entirely unexpected. It'san election year, and you know,
a firm isn't going to take achance on a, you know, a current
(03:09):
administration lawyer when theydon't know what's going to
happen. You know, the greatunknown is out there, and while
there may be some value withthese folks in whatever,
whatever happens, clearly it's,it's a big difference, you know,
in terms of if it's going to beBiden or Trump and and so that
(03:31):
case. So in this case, firms arejust not going to take chance
right now. They want to wait seewhat, what, what happens at the
end of the year. So lateralhiring from government is way
there
Unknown (03:47):
Well, and that's, you know that, I guess that's that's
in some ways to be expected. AndI expect also that the firms and
others that are that are hiringfrom government, they'll,
they'll, they'll sort of gagewho they're most interested in
based on who gets into office aswell. So it's not, it's not doom
and gloom for people who are ingovernment service today. It
(04:10):
just means that there's a lotof, if I'm hearing you
correctly, there's a lot offirms that are pushing pause on
their on their efforts, whichalso might mean a feeding frenzy
when things loosen up, I don'tknow. Yeah,
Steve (04:24):
every at the end of every administration, and this was
true for the first Trumpadministration as well. There's,
there's a lot of activity on thelateral side. You also have
remember that you've got peoplecoming from the firms that go
into government the early monthsof a new administration. So
they've got the, they've got tofill up, you know, the the holes
(04:45):
that they that they may havelost. So there's a lot of
activity during that first yearof a new administration. And
that will be true no matter whatI mean. I think clearly,
there'll probably be more, youknow, more active. D if Biden
wins, because there'll be, youknow, probably more regulation,
whereas a Trump administrationwould be more on the
(05:08):
deregulation side. But it's notdoom and gloom for those lawyers
anyway, because change isusually good no matter what the
change is, right? So even if youknow, you'll still need these
regulatory lawyers, even ifTrump gets in and has a major
deregulation focus,
Unknown (05:28):
yeah, well, and this, I think, squares well with what
we're going to be talking abouttoday, which is, which is the
the business plan that thatfirms will expect attorneys and
others who are who are movingnot only from government
practice, but also laterallyfrom one firm to another, to
(05:51):
have in their kind of in theirtool kit, ready to go. And you
know, Steve, you've seen lotsand lots of these, these
laterals coming in and out.
You've seen, you've coached lotsof people, and you've, you know,
you've really, you've really,probably seen every, every
approach that there could be tothe business plans answering the
(06:14):
lpqs, which is a whole otherpiece of business. You can go
back to last year. That was oneof our first podcasts. Was the
LPQ, but, but we're going totalk about the the the business
plan today, and it's, I thinkit's, it's when you and I were
prepping for this. I had asimilar feeling that I always,
(06:35):
often have when I when I tryingto talk to the partners about
how they, how they pitch toclients, because they always
want to kind of come in one way,and we tell them, nope, there's
a different way you got to comein. And so, So Steve, why don't
you talk about that? I'm notgoing to, not going to, you
know, not going to spoil ithere, but, but I do think
there's some similarities. Andso please. How should they
(06:58):
start? What do you do?
Steve (07:01):
So first of all, I want to just emphasize that, that I
believe that no matter who youare, whether you're in practice
or coming out of government orout of in house, whatever, you
ought to be thinking about abusiness plan. Now, for you
know, somebody in privatepractice, it's a little
different, because you've got,you know, you've got your your
(07:21):
statistics, and you want to talkabout what your current practice
is, but it's, yeah, even ifyou're going to stay at your
firm, right, even if you're youhave no plans to leave, you
should do a business plan.
Figure out where, where's whereare the clients coming from?
What are you going to be sellingto your clients? What is the,
what's going on in themarketplace that you know that
they're going to be interestedin. And so that, that, I think,
is a preface to this. But thekey that, that, I think, that,
(07:46):
that you've hinted at, is thatthe business plan should be
focused on the issues ofinterest to the clients. That's
the number one thing thebusiness plan should not begin
with. I have 18 years ofexperience with three government
agencies, and I'm a greatlawyer, and I went to Harvard
(08:08):
Law School. That's not the wayto go. The way to go is to talk
about what is going on in yourfield that's driving legal
business,
Unknown (08:18):
right, right? So you need to, you need to show a you
need. And I kind of think of itas a as a funnel, as you know,
we were talking about earlier.
So you sort of start outbroadly, talking about your
understanding of the of themarketplace, and that that's
critical, because the theclients are, clients aren't
buying the fact that you went toHarvard, the clients are buying
(08:41):
that you understand theinterplay of of EPA regulations
and and business decisions forlarge corporations, because
those are usually the ones whoare most focused on something
like EPA, right?
Steve (08:57):
And so you gotta do your homework, you know, there's, you
know, go to the sourcematerials, you know, you, I
think you've got to reviewsuccinctly, of course, the
issues and why they're importantto business, and why they're
important to clients and and alittle bit of future, looking at
the future like this is likelyto happen because of what's
(09:19):
going on. Good example right nowis artificial intelligence. I
mean, there's so much going on.
It's somebody who, somebodywho's in that field, who can
talk about what the real issuesare going to be, going to have a
leg up on somebody who, youknow, who's just coming out of
cold,
Unknown (09:38):
right that that area especially, is ripe for
regulation and and sounderstanding, understanding
that, not just understandingwhat AI does, because that's,
that's, that's a whole otherkind of world, and it's good,
good to know that, but to alsounderstand what is the
regulatory framework going tolook like over the next 10 years
(09:59):
with AI. Because. Right now,it's the wild west right now.
There's not a lot of regulation,but that's going to come to a
screeching halt, right? So oncethey've sort of done this audit
of the market and talked aboutwhat's going on in the market,
what's the next chunk, where's,you know, as we narrow the
(10:21):
funnel right, where, what's thenext point that the funnel
starts to narrow? Right?
Steve (10:27):
I think the next, yeah, the next step is to, is to
describe the legal services thatclients are looking for. What is
it that they need in terms ofthis market, in terms of whether
you know, obviously, for agovernment lateral, I think one
of the things you have to talkabout is they need people who've
(10:50):
come out of the government, whocan tell, can interpret what the
likely pathway is going To bewith regard to a particular
issue. So it's really about thelegal services needed, and that
at that point, you were stillnot at the point of tying your
(11:12):
particular background andservice offering in. You're
still just describing what themarket is and there and then
what? All right, what areclients
Unknown (11:23):
like? Yeah, yeah. And so let's talk about that next
step. What's what? What happensnext? And I'm thinking, you
know, as I, as I not onlyvisualize this as a funnel, I'm
also thinking about, you know,if, if I were to give somebody
an outline as well, of you know,critical elements that they're
going to need to hit. This seemslike you know, we're on to the
(11:44):
next step here.
Steve (11:47):
Yeah, and then the next step, once you've done that,
that's where it's important tobring in your specific expertise
and why it's different thaneverybody else that's in the
market. Because, let's face itagain, artificial intelligence,
there are going to be a lot ofpeople who are going to say
they've got experience inartificial intelligence. They've
(12:09):
been providing services orwhatever. And at that point you
have to distinguish yourselffrom the obvious alternative
parts. And at that point youcan't, you know, it's not enough
again, to just say I've been ingovernment lawyers. I've been a
government lawyer. It's moreabout being at the center of
(12:29):
government policy in thisparticular area is is critical,
because the government, youknow, has a particular
viewpoint, and the clients aregoing to need to know what you
know, what the government agencyis thinking. And then there's
(12:51):
other, obviously, other aspectsof your of a person's experience
can be brought in, in terms of,you know what they've done in
the past. And that's what sortof thing. And, you know, like,
if they've been in privatepractice before, or other
government jobs, so it reallysetting the stage of, I am
unique because of this. And atthat point, that's that gets you
(13:16):
almost all the way there.
Unknown (13:18):
Yeah, right. Because, because, I think the other
critical element, and, andagain, this is, this is
oftentimes where, where thelawyers will start, and this is
where they need to end,actually, which is the, which is
the tactics, maybe a little bitof the pedigree, not, don't lean
into it too much, but talk alittle bit about how, how you
(13:38):
describe tactics. And then we'lltalk about strategically. You
know what? What this means fornot only government attorneys,
but also lawyers coming who wantto, who want a lateral, but
maybe don't have the ten millionbook of business,
Steve (13:52):
right? Alright, so I want to separate tactics from I
would, you know, basically yourcontacts, you know, I think the
first thing to do is to talkabout, again, because if you've
been in government, there's alot of people who've gone from
government to in house, orthey've gone to government to a
(14:14):
law firm, yeah. And plus, youknow, again, previous jobs, law
school classmates. You know, youknow any, any you want to start
to describe at this point. Thisis the type of people that I can
call on. Now, if you're ingovernment currently, you have
(14:35):
to be careful, because you'reputting this in writing. And so
I think you have, you want to,you do not want to be very
specific about people, yeah,names, etc, because somehow this
gets into the wrong hands. Thiscould be very embarrassing for
you, because you're still agovernment lawyer. So I think
(14:58):
it's just important to you. Tobe, you know, as specific as
possible, but without anythingtoo specific, so that it would
end up, you know, you know,could come back to haunt you,
plus a little bit of a concernthat somebody might like, sort
of take your names and start to,you know, try to,
Unknown (15:16):
not sure, yeah,
Steve (15:18):
yeah. So, so it would
Unknown (15:19):
be, you maybe position it like you know you're coming
out of government, government,practice and service, and you,
you don't want to say, I knowJoan and I know Sue and I know
Ted, but and they're all thoseare all you know, Chiefs of
Staff for major, you know,major, huge government
(15:42):
bureaucracies. It's a I maintaindirect relationships with, with
chiefs of staff across a widevariety of regulatory agencies
within, you know, the followingsectors
Steve (15:54):
or Congress, plus on the client side, obviously. So you
might want to say, I, you know,I, you know, I practice in the
government with an attorney whois now the General Counsel of a
major logistics company, okay,something like that. So that
that the key here is not it'snot so much who the people are.
(16:16):
It's more that you've thoughtabout it, and that you do have
contacts and you've been andthen you can take advantage of
it. It's the the identitiesaren't as important, and as we
indicated, could come back tohaunt you. So as long as you can
say with some specificity, sothat's real, um, that's that's
enough to get to that point. SoOkay, so once you've gone
(16:39):
through that, then you gothrough the tactics part, and
the tactics are, you know, it'skind of typical. Obviously,
social media has played a bigrole in that now. So LinkedIn
profile is going to be importantand but also, you know, what do
you you know? What are you goingto you know, what are you going
to write, looking at thespeaking circuit? Any kind of
(17:04):
newspaper or media contacts youhave, all of those things have
got to be included. And we havea template, you know, that we'll
share with everybody about someof the areas that you want might
want to look at in terms of ofthe tactical side. Now, part of
this is also to work, is to makesure that you're going to be
(17:27):
working with the firm, thatyou're that you will be joining
and really, you know, dedicateyourself to getting out and
meeting everybody within thefirm and their clients that,
that that would be possible?
Because I think that thebusiness plan is as much there
to show that you're that you'rereally focused on this as your
(17:53):
business as anything else.
Because we see too many peoplewho come out of government, and
their first inclination is, Iwant to go in house, you know,
I've heard about, you know, I'llgo to a law firm. But you know
that, you know that's, that's,if you're, if you're not
(18:16):
thinking about the law firmside, it's going to be harder
for you to do that, and it willalso, I mean, the firms will
figure that out. So it's got tobe, you've got to really, you
know, do a gut check a littlebit and say, I really want to do
this, and this is what I've gotto do. I'll do everything I need
to do to get that done.
Unknown (18:34):
And, you know, we something we touched on in a the
last podcast was that, whichwas, which was, for those of you
who don't remember, was aboutabout compensation, and it was
actually very popular. It's oneof our more popular podcasts,
for obvious reasons. But thepoint in that was that, you
(18:57):
know, the the your comp is basedon the value that you're going
to bring to the firm. And partof that book of business, and
the other part of it is, youknow, being able to grow the
business, among other reasons,seems to me that a that a well
crafted, well thought out,strategic but also, but also,
(19:20):
you know, with a focus onexecution, business plan, could
be a way for a for somebody whois lateraling from Firm A to
firm B, or wants to lateral fromFirm A to form B to to make the
case that the firm should takerisk, because if you're not
(19:40):
bringing a big book of business,you are a little bit of a risk.
But if you're, if what you'rebringing is an enhanced
knowledge of what's going on inthe market, and you're going to
be part of the growth, you know,vector for that practice or that
firm, that's a that that couldbe persuasive. Or am I off on
that thinking? No,
Steve (19:59):
no, not at all. Well. And I think, I mean, a very high
percentage of of people who movelaterally are coming in as
councils anyway. So you'retalking about people who are not
going to have a huge book ofbusiness, and, and, and even if
you do have some, you know, abook of business you want to be
(20:20):
able to show that through yourefforts at your current firm,
you've had some accomplishmentsthat might not show up in the
numbers. We've talked about thisagain in earlier podcasts, where
you're the person you're notgetting the origination credit,
but you're the one who actuallyconvinces a firm that somebody
(20:45):
has a relationship with toactually give you the business.
And so your number, you know,your numbers aren't going to
necessarily reflect that. Sothat gives you that opportunity
in the kind of the why mesection of to really talk about
this is, this is my style. Thisis what I'm good at. This is
(21:05):
how, why clients trust me. Andit also will also, you know, you
can also use that when you'retalking about your client, you
know, the client part of of thebusiness plan, and there you're
there. You've got to be, ifyou're in a firm, got to be a
little more open about who theclients are. It's not the same.
Because the government that youknow that that sort of
(21:28):
Washington Post, you know, fearisn't there. You know, you still
might have a little fear of,like, will they steal my client?
But, but I don't think that's abig, a big issue. I just think
at that point you really do wantto talk about, you know, the
client relationships you havethat might not be exploitable at
(21:49):
your current firm,
Unknown (21:50):
right, right, right.
There's, that's a great, that'sgreat point. And you know, the
fear somebody having a fear ofclients getting hijacked is,
I've heard that, you know, as ahead of marketing, where I had
to roll out CRM tools, you know,client relationship management
tools, the fear of the partnerswas that, oh gosh, I'm going to
(22:11):
put my client's name into thisbig pool of contacts in the CRM,
And it's now available toeverybody, and all the partners
are going to be calling all myclients all the time, and I can
tell you categorically and andby the way, any CMOS listening,
you may want to play this nextpart for your managing partners
when there's some stuck concernsabout CRM. I have been doing
(22:35):
this for 23 years. In that time,I have rolled out five full CRM
implementations, and in thattime, I have never seen a single
partner at a single firm everuse another partner's contact
without first contacting thatpartner ever. And in most cases,
(22:56):
and I've hardly ever seen themeven make the ask, because the
knowledge, the idea is thatthat's your client. And, you
know, maybe I do want to get inon that, but I'm not going to
get in on it if I'm calling themcold and, by the way, partners
at law firms do not make coldcalls. They don't, they, they
simply don't make cold calls.
So, so, you know, the this, thisparanoia about the, about my,
(23:21):
you know, they're going tohijack my clients, if they know
who they are, if they can dothat, then they're really not
very good clients.
Steve (23:28):
Yeah, they learned in law school, the first thing they
learned in law school, don'tmake any cold calls,
Unknown (23:34):
that's, that's not the LSAT. I believe that the LSAT
has a question, you know, four.
There's four differentquestions, you know, should you
make cold calls? And there's,you know, four, four answers
that are almost identically thesame. There's only one that's
the best, but, but, yeah. So ifyou're interested in seeing the
McCormick groups template,business plan template, which
(23:56):
I've seen, and it's quiteuseful, contact Steve. His
contact information is always inthe in the show notes. And
again, if you mentioned thementioned the name of the
podcast, when you call Steve,you will win a prize of some
kind of some, some great valueis anywhere from a fruit basket
to a Camaro. I don't know it'sit's anything can happen, Right?
(24:20):
Steve, yeah, that's absolutelytrue. That's absolutely true.
All right, anything else youwant to address before we,
before we wrap
Steve (24:31):
here, yeah, yeah. I think you know one other point is, and
this is for, this is forgovernment laterals and in house
laterals, I would say is, doyour business plan before you
start interviewing. Don't waitfor the firm to ask you again.
You're trying to, you're you'reshowing them that initiative.
(24:55):
And if you wait, I think there'sa already a. The perception that
the firm has it now is this, isthis person really? Is this
person going to be successful?
Is this person have the rapidtoss and the the incentive to go
out and do it, so having thatbusiness plan at the ready
before you enter is isincredibly valuable. I, you
(25:18):
know, I, I'm, you know, I don'tknow how many times, you know,
I've heard from firms that said,you know, this, first of all,
let's say this was a greatbusiness, but, but moreover,
they'll say really thoughtfulwork, you know, even before we
interviewed. So, yeah,definitely.
Unknown (25:38):
And it, you know, the value on it too is, if you put
pen to paper, nobody puts pen topaper anymore, but if you put
pen to paper on anything, leastI find if I'm putting pen to
paper on anything, my ability torecall and to kind of have very
smooth delivery on all of thatis enhanced incredibly thinking
(25:59):
that I can Make it up on the onthe run is kind of leads to the
hemming and hawing and the ums,a lot of ums and hemming and
hawing, and you may get intocircular arguments all the rest
of it. But if you've, if you'reif you've written it down and
you've outlined it, you'vethought it through, you kind of
much better conversation, muchmore, much more beneficial
conversation up front and you asyou, as the, as the, as the
(26:23):
candidate, will also have anunderstanding of whether this
firm sophisticated enough foryou to move your business over
to it. Right? It's a two waystreet. Yeah, right, right. All
right. Well, thank you, Steve,always a pleasure, and we will,
we'll drop some information intothe show notes, and as always,
(26:47):
make sure also to get on toSteve's mailing list, the
McCormack group, mailing listfor their intelligence that's
that's coming out. They've gotsome kind of they've got some
very interesting intelligence inthe in the pipeline right now,
so you don't want to miss outand and until next time, Steve,
(27:07):
take care.
Steve (27:09):
All right. Thank you so much. Till next time,
Murray, welcome to Steve's rules, periodic podcast
(00:10):
featuring Steve Nelson,executive principal at McCormick
group in the law and governmentaffairs practice. My name is
Murray Coffey, and I am theprincipal of M Coffey, a law
firm marketing and businessdevelopment Boutique. For more
information, please visit mywebsite at M coffey.net Steve
has been an executive recruiterfor nearly three decades, and
without naming names, he isready to spill the tea on best
(00:32):
practices, and maybe a few notso best practices by firms and
candidates that he has seenduring his career, recruiting
some of the most driven andsuccessful professionals into
highly profitable and growingfirms. Steve is a former lawyer
and journalist and is a fellowof the college of law practice
management and a proud son ofWilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. Full
(00:52):
transparency here, Steve hashelped my career immensely
through the years and has becomesomething of a career shaman to
me and I know many others. HeySteve, welcome back. Hey Murray.
We are, I don't know we're inwhat session. This is the third
of this third one,
Steve (01:12):
right? Alright. All I know is, I'm back in DC. My my
winter in Key West is over, soI'm back, and now it turns out
today is 80 degrees. So you
Unknown (01:25):
know, about the same here in in beautiful Dallas,
Texas. So, but why don't we? Whydon't we go ahead and and dive
in? You know, one of the thingsthat our friends at McCormick
Place are quite well versed atis producing market intelligence
and helping people understandwhat's going on in a market,
(01:47):
both from the from the thetalent side, from the from the
people who are thinking ofmaking a move for and also for
the firms to understand what thewhat the market For laterals
might look like. And one of thestrongest areas for the
McCormack group historically hasbeen in the DC lateral market.
(02:10):
It's a national firm, but DC iswhere they started and so, and I
think DC may be your firstintelligence report that you,
that you put out. So what'sgoing on in the DC, the DC
market, right,
Steve (02:24):
all right. So contrary to what has been reported in some
circles, at least in DC, and Ican't really and it's somewhat
true in Texas, all the lesson,the lateral market is a little
bit less busy than last year.
Nothing's dramatic, but it isdown, we think around 10% in DC.
(02:44):
Now, the interesting thing aboutthat, and that's really the key
to this, is that at least halfof that decrease is due to the
the dramatic decrease in thehiring from government. And this
is not entirely unexpected. It'san election year, and you know,
a firm isn't going to take achance on a, you know, a current
(03:09):
administration lawyer when theydon't know what's going to
happen. You know, the greatunknown is out there, and while
there may be some value withthese folks in whatever,
whatever happens, clearly it's,it's a big difference, you know,
in terms of if it's going to beBiden or Trump and and so that
(03:31):
case. So in this case, firms arejust not going to take chance
right now. They want to wait seewhat, what, what happens at the
end of the year. So lateralhiring from government is way
there
Unknown (03:47):
Well, and that's, you know that, I guess that's that's
in some ways to be expected. AndI expect also that the firms and
others that are that are hiringfrom government, they'll,
they'll, they'll sort of gagewho they're most interested in
based on who gets into office aswell. So it's not, it's not doom
and gloom for people who are ingovernment service today. It
(04:10):
just means that there's a lotof, if I'm hearing you
correctly, there's a lot offirms that are pushing pause on
their on their efforts, whichalso might mean a feeding frenzy
when things loosen up, I don'tknow. Yeah,
Steve (04:24):
every at the end of every administration, and this was
true for the first Trumpadministration as well. There's,
there's a lot of activity on thelateral side. You also have
remember that you've got peoplecoming from the firms that go
into government the early monthsof a new administration. So
they've got the, they've got tofill up, you know, the the holes
(04:45):
that they that they may havelost. So there's a lot of
activity during that first yearof a new administration. And
that will be true no matter whatI mean. I think clearly,
there'll probably be more, youknow, more active. D if Biden
wins, because there'll be, youknow, probably more regulation,
whereas a Trump administrationwould be more on the
(05:08):
deregulation side. But it's notdoom and gloom for those lawyers
anyway, because change isusually good no matter what the
change is, right? So even if youknow, you'll still need these
regulatory lawyers, even ifTrump gets in and has a major
deregulation focus,
Unknown (05:28):
yeah, well, and this, I think, squares well with what
we're going to be talking abouttoday, which is, which is the
the business plan that thatfirms will expect attorneys and
others who are who are movingnot only from government
practice, but also laterallyfrom one firm to another, to
(05:51):
have in their kind of in theirtool kit, ready to go. And you
know, Steve, you've seen lotsand lots of these, these
laterals coming in and out.
You've seen, you've coached lotsof people, and you've, you know,
you've really, you've really,probably seen every, every
approach that there could be tothe business plans answering the
(06:14):
lpqs, which is a whole otherpiece of business. You can go
back to last year. That was oneof our first podcasts. Was the
LPQ, but, but we're going totalk about the the the business
plan today, and it's, I thinkit's, it's when you and I were
prepping for this. I had asimilar feeling that I always,
(06:35):
often have when I when I tryingto talk to the partners about
how they, how they pitch toclients, because they always
want to kind of come in one way,and we tell them, nope, there's
a different way you got to comein. And so, So Steve, why don't
you talk about that? I'm notgoing to, not going to, you
know, not going to spoil ithere, but, but I do think
there's some similarities. Andso please. How should they
(06:58):
start? What do you do?
Steve (07:01):
So first of all, I want to just emphasize that, that I
believe that no matter who youare, whether you're in practice
or coming out of government orout of in house, whatever, you
ought to be thinking about abusiness plan. Now, for you
know, somebody in privatepractice, it's a little
different, because you've got,you know, you've got your your
(07:21):
statistics, and you want to talkabout what your current practice
is, but it's, yeah, even ifyou're going to stay at your
firm, right, even if you're youhave no plans to leave, you
should do a business plan.
Figure out where, where's whereare the clients coming from?
What are you going to be sellingto your clients? What is the,
what's going on in themarketplace that you know that
they're going to be interestedin. And so that, that, I think,
is a preface to this. But thekey that, that, I think, that,
(07:46):
that you've hinted at, is thatthe business plan should be
focused on the issues ofinterest to the clients. That's
the number one thing thebusiness plan should not begin
with. I have 18 years ofexperience with three government
agencies, and I'm a greatlawyer, and I went to Harvard
(08:08):
Law School. That's not the wayto go. The way to go is to talk
about what is going on in yourfield that's driving legal
business,
Unknown (08:18):
right, right? So you need to, you need to show a you
need. And I kind of think of itas a as a funnel, as you know,
we were talking about earlier.
So you sort of start outbroadly, talking about your
understanding of the of themarketplace, and that that's
critical, because the theclients are, clients aren't
buying the fact that you went toHarvard, the clients are buying
(08:41):
that you understand theinterplay of of EPA regulations
and and business decisions forlarge corporations, because
those are usually the ones whoare most focused on something
like EPA, right?
Steve (08:57):
And so you gotta do your homework, you know, there's, you
know, go to the sourcematerials, you know, you, I
think you've got to reviewsuccinctly, of course, the
issues and why they're importantto business, and why they're
important to clients and and alittle bit of future, looking at
the future like this is likelyto happen because of what's
(09:19):
going on. Good example right nowis artificial intelligence. I
mean, there's so much going on.
It's somebody who, somebodywho's in that field, who can
talk about what the real issuesare going to be, going to have a
leg up on somebody who, youknow, who's just coming out of
cold,
Unknown (09:38):
right that that area especially, is ripe for
regulation and and sounderstanding, understanding
that, not just understandingwhat AI does, because that's,
that's, that's a whole otherkind of world, and it's good,
good to know that, but to alsounderstand what is the
regulatory framework going tolook like over the next 10 years
(09:59):
with AI. Because. Right now,it's the wild west right now.
There's not a lot of regulation,but that's going to come to a
screeching halt, right? So oncethey've sort of done this audit
of the market and talked aboutwhat's going on in the market,
what's the next chunk, where's,you know, as we narrow the
(10:21):
funnel right, where, what's thenext point that the funnel
starts to narrow? Right?
Steve (10:27):
I think the next, yeah, the next step is to, is to
describe the legal services thatclients are looking for. What is
it that they need in terms ofthis market, in terms of whether
you know, obviously, for agovernment lateral, I think one
of the things you have to talkabout is they need people who've
(10:50):
come out of the government, whocan tell, can interpret what the
likely pathway is going To bewith regard to a particular
issue. So it's really about thelegal services needed, and that
at that point, you were stillnot at the point of tying your
(11:12):
particular background andservice offering in. You're
still just describing what themarket is and there and then
what? All right, what areclients
Unknown (11:23):
like? Yeah, yeah. And so let's talk about that next
step. What's what? What happensnext? And I'm thinking, you
know, as I, as I not onlyvisualize this as a funnel, I'm
also thinking about, you know,if, if I were to give somebody
an outline as well, of you know,critical elements that they're
going to need to hit. This seemslike you know, we're on to the
(11:44):
next step here.
Steve (11:47):
Yeah, and then the next step, once you've done that,
that's where it's important tobring in your specific expertise
and why it's different thaneverybody else that's in the
market. Because, let's face itagain, artificial intelligence,
there are going to be a lot ofpeople who are going to say
they've got experience inartificial intelligence. They've
(12:09):
been providing services orwhatever. And at that point you
have to distinguish yourselffrom the obvious alternative
parts. And at that point youcan't, you know, it's not enough
again, to just say I've been ingovernment lawyers. I've been a
government lawyer. It's moreabout being at the center of
(12:29):
government policy in thisparticular area is is critical,
because the government, youknow, has a particular
viewpoint, and the clients aregoing to need to know what you
know, what the government agencyis thinking. And then there's
(12:51):
other, obviously, other aspectsof your of a person's experience
can be brought in, in terms of,you know what they've done in
the past. And that's what sortof thing. And, you know, like,
if they've been in privatepractice before, or other
government jobs, so it reallysetting the stage of, I am
unique because of this. And atthat point, that's that gets you
(13:16):
almost all the way there.
Unknown (13:18):
Yeah, right. Because, because, I think the other
critical element, and, andagain, this is, this is
oftentimes where, where thelawyers will start, and this is
where they need to end,actually, which is the, which is
the tactics, maybe a little bitof the pedigree, not, don't lean
into it too much, but talk alittle bit about how, how you
(13:38):
describe tactics. And then we'lltalk about strategically. You
know what? What this means fornot only government attorneys,
but also lawyers coming who wantto, who want a lateral, but
maybe don't have the ten millionbook of business,
Steve (13:52):
right? Alright, so I want to separate tactics from I
would, you know, basically yourcontacts, you know, I think the
first thing to do is to talkabout, again, because if you've
been in government, there's alot of people who've gone from
government to in house, orthey've gone to government to a
(14:14):
law firm, yeah. And plus, youknow, again, previous jobs, law
school classmates. You know, youknow any, any you want to start
to describe at this point. Thisis the type of people that I can
call on. Now, if you're ingovernment currently, you have
(14:35):
to be careful, because you'reputting this in writing. And so
I think you have, you want to,you do not want to be very
specific about people, yeah,names, etc, because somehow this
gets into the wrong hands. Thiscould be very embarrassing for
you, because you're still agovernment lawyer. So I think
(14:58):
it's just important to you. Tobe, you know, as specific as
possible, but without anythingtoo specific, so that it would
end up, you know, you know,could come back to haunt you,
plus a little bit of a concernthat somebody might like, sort
of take your names and start to,you know, try to,
Unknown (15:16):
not sure, yeah,
Steve (15:18):
yeah. So, so it would
Unknown (15:19):
be, you maybe position it like you know you're coming
out of government, government,practice and service, and you,
you don't want to say, I knowJoan and I know Sue and I know
Ted, but and they're all thoseare all you know, Chiefs of
Staff for major, you know,major, huge government
(15:42):
bureaucracies. It's a I maintaindirect relationships with, with
chiefs of staff across a widevariety of regulatory agencies
within, you know, the followingsectors
Steve (15:54):
or Congress, plus on the client side, obviously. So you
might want to say, I, you know,I, you know, I practice in the
government with an attorney whois now the General Counsel of a
major logistics company, okay,something like that. So that
that the key here is not it'snot so much who the people are.
(16:16):
It's more that you've thoughtabout it, and that you do have
contacts and you've been andthen you can take advantage of
it. It's the the identitiesaren't as important, and as we
indicated, could come back tohaunt you. So as long as you can
say with some specificity, sothat's real, um, that's that's
enough to get to that point. SoOkay, so once you've gone
(16:39):
through that, then you gothrough the tactics part, and
the tactics are, you know, it'skind of typical. Obviously,
social media has played a bigrole in that now. So LinkedIn
profile is going to be importantand but also, you know, what do
you you know? What are you goingto you know, what are you going
to write, looking at thespeaking circuit? Any kind of
(17:04):
newspaper or media contacts youhave, all of those things have
got to be included. And we havea template, you know, that we'll
share with everybody about someof the areas that you want might
want to look at in terms of ofthe tactical side. Now, part of
this is also to work, is to makesure that you're going to be
(17:27):
working with the firm, thatyou're that you will be joining
and really, you know, dedicateyourself to getting out and
meeting everybody within thefirm and their clients that,
that that would be possible?
Because I think that thebusiness plan is as much there
to show that you're that you'rereally focused on this as your
(17:53):
business as anything else.
Because we see too many peoplewho come out of government, and
their first inclination is, Iwant to go in house, you know,
I've heard about, you know, I'llgo to a law firm. But you know
that, you know that's, that's,if you're, if you're not
(18:16):
thinking about the law firmside, it's going to be harder
for you to do that, and it willalso, I mean, the firms will
figure that out. So it's got tobe, you've got to really, you
know, do a gut check a littlebit and say, I really want to do
this, and this is what I've gotto do. I'll do everything I need
to do to get that done.
Unknown (18:34):
And, you know, we something we touched on in a the
last podcast was that, whichwas, which was, for those of you
who don't remember, was aboutabout compensation, and it was
actually very popular. It's oneof our more popular podcasts,
for obvious reasons. But thepoint in that was that, you
(18:57):
know, the the your comp is basedon the value that you're going
to bring to the firm. And partof that book of business, and
the other part of it is, youknow, being able to grow the
business, among other reasons,seems to me that a that a well
crafted, well thought out,strategic but also, but also,
(19:20):
you know, with a focus onexecution, business plan, could
be a way for a for somebody whois lateraling from Firm A to
firm B, or wants to lateral fromFirm A to form B to to make the
case that the firm should takerisk, because if you're not
(19:40):
bringing a big book of business,you are a little bit of a risk.
But if you're, if what you'rebringing is an enhanced
knowledge of what's going on inthe market, and you're going to
be part of the growth, you know,vector for that practice or that
firm, that's a that that couldbe persuasive. Or am I off on
that thinking? No,
Steve (19:59):
no, not at all. Well. And I think, I mean, a very high
percentage of of people who movelaterally are coming in as
councils anyway. So you'retalking about people who are not
going to have a huge book ofbusiness, and, and, and even if
you do have some, you know, abook of business you want to be
(20:20):
able to show that through yourefforts at your current firm,
you've had some accomplishmentsthat might not show up in the
numbers. We've talked about thisagain in earlier podcasts, where
you're the person you're notgetting the origination credit,
but you're the one who actuallyconvinces a firm that somebody
(20:45):
has a relationship with toactually give you the business.
And so your number, you know,your numbers aren't going to
necessarily reflect that. Sothat gives you that opportunity
in the kind of the why mesection of to really talk about
this is, this is my style. Thisis what I'm good at. This is
(21:05):
how, why clients trust me. Andit also will also, you know, you
can also use that when you'retalking about your client, you
know, the client part of of thebusiness plan, and there you're
there. You've got to be, ifyou're in a firm, got to be a
little more open about who theclients are. It's not the same.
Because the government that youknow that that sort of
(21:28):
Washington Post, you know, fearisn't there. You know, you still
might have a little fear of,like, will they steal my client?
But, but I don't think that's abig, a big issue. I just think
at that point you really do wantto talk about, you know, the
client relationships you havethat might not be exploitable at
(21:49):
your current firm,
Unknown (21:50):
right, right, right.
There's, that's a great, that'sgreat point. And you know, the
fear somebody having a fear ofclients getting hijacked is,
I've heard that, you know, as ahead of marketing, where I had
to roll out CRM tools, you know,client relationship management
tools, the fear of the partnerswas that, oh gosh, I'm going to
(22:11):
put my client's name into thisbig pool of contacts in the CRM,
And it's now available toeverybody, and all the partners
are going to be calling all myclients all the time, and I can
tell you categorically and andby the way, any CMOS listening,
you may want to play this nextpart for your managing partners
when there's some stuck concernsabout CRM. I have been doing
(22:35):
this for 23 years. In that time,I have rolled out five full CRM
implementations, and in thattime, I have never seen a single
partner at a single firm everuse another partner's contact
without first contacting thatpartner ever. And in most cases,
(22:56):
and I've hardly ever seen themeven make the ask, because the
knowledge, the idea is thatthat's your client. And, you
know, maybe I do want to get inon that, but I'm not going to
get in on it if I'm calling themcold and, by the way, partners
at law firms do not make coldcalls. They don't, they, they
simply don't make cold calls.
So, so, you know, the this, thisparanoia about the, about my,
(23:21):
you know, they're going tohijack my clients, if they know
who they are, if they can dothat, then they're really not
very good clients.
Steve (23:28):
Yeah, they learned in law school, the first thing they
learned in law school, don'tmake any cold calls,
Unknown (23:34):
that's, that's not the LSAT. I believe that the LSAT
has a question, you know, four.
There's four differentquestions, you know, should you
make cold calls? And there's,you know, four, four answers
that are almost identically thesame. There's only one that's
the best, but, but, yeah. So ifyou're interested in seeing the
McCormick groups template,business plan template, which
(23:56):
I've seen, and it's quiteuseful, contact Steve. His
contact information is always inthe in the show notes. And
again, if you mentioned thementioned the name of the
podcast, when you call Steve,you will win a prize of some
kind of some, some great valueis anywhere from a fruit basket
to a Camaro. I don't know it'sit's anything can happen, Right?
(24:20):
Steve, yeah, that's absolutelytrue. That's absolutely true.
All right, anything else youwant to address before we,
before we wrap
Steve (24:31):
here, yeah, yeah. I think you know one other point is, and
this is for, this is forgovernment laterals and in house
laterals, I would say is, doyour business plan before you
start interviewing. Don't waitfor the firm to ask you again.
You're trying to, you're you'reshowing them that initiative.
(24:55):
And if you wait, I think there'sa already a. The perception that
the firm has it now is this, isthis person really? Is this
person going to be successful?
Is this person have the rapidtoss and the the incentive to go
out and do it, so having thatbusiness plan at the ready
before you enter is isincredibly valuable. I, you
(25:18):
know, I, I'm, you know, I don'tknow how many times, you know,
I've heard from firms that said,you know, this, first of all,
let's say this was a greatbusiness, but, but moreover,
they'll say really thoughtfulwork, you know, even before we
interviewed. So, yeah,definitely.
Unknown (25:38):
And it, you know, the value on it too is, if you put
pen to paper, nobody puts pen topaper anymore, but if you put
pen to paper on anything, leastI find if I'm putting pen to
paper on anything, my ability torecall and to kind of have very
smooth delivery on all of thatis enhanced incredibly thinking
(25:59):
that I can Make it up on the onthe run is kind of leads to the
hemming and hawing and the ums,a lot of ums and hemming and
hawing, and you may get intocircular arguments all the rest
of it. But if you've, if you'reif you've written it down and
you've outlined it, you'vethought it through, you kind of
much better conversation, muchmore, much more beneficial
conversation up front and you asyou, as the, as the, as the
(26:23):
candidate, will also have anunderstanding of whether this
firm sophisticated enough foryou to move your business over
to it. Right? It's a two waystreet. Yeah, right, right. All
right. Well, thank you, Steve,always a pleasure, and we will,
we'll drop some information intothe show notes, and as always,
(26:47):
make sure also to get on toSteve's mailing list, the
McCormack group, mailing listfor their intelligence that's
that's coming out. They've gotsome kind of they've got some
very interesting intelligence inthe in the pipeline right now,
so you don't want to miss outand and until next time, Steve,
(27:07):
take care.
Steve (27:09):
All right. Thank you so much. Till next time,
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