Devel­op­ing a good clien­tele as a lawyer is more about rela­tion­ship build­ing than fan­cy mar­ket­ing tac­tics. This is some­thing they don’t teach in law school after you’ve spent the equiv­a­lent of a home mort­gage on your education. 

The cours­es on inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing and brand­ing for legal pro­fes­sion­als may not have been part of the cur­ricu­lum, but that won’t deter the progress of the most valu­able asset from a gru­el­ing edu­ca­tion — you. Yes, you are the key to cre­at­ing and main­tain­ing a sol­id net­work of legal clients. You may be think­ing of how to get legal clients, and the answer lies in your net­work­ing abilities. 

Sounds sim­ple, right? It can be if you adjust your approach to rela­tion­ship build­ing and focus on build­ing a net­work rather than a database. 

Will you, even­tu­al­ly, have a list of legal clients? Of course, but you will have a bet­ter idea of who these indi­vid­u­als are out­side of work and are more like­ly to receive refer­rals based on that affin­i­ty. This will come in handy when you start build­ing oth­er ele­ments of your mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy such as con­tent devel­op­ment, social media plat­forms, and reviews. 

Building your clientele

To get you start­ed, we’ve includ­ed our top 5 tips for how to get more clients so you can jump­start your busi­ness and get back to your caseload. 

  • Network, network, network 

Whether you are still in school or fin­ished with your JD, you know peo­ple. You know judges, lawyers, pro­fes­sors, oth­er stu­dents, for­mer or cur­rent clients, and many peo­ple you may have not thought of yet. 

Rec­og­niz­ing that all of these indi­vid­u­als are refer­ral resources will start a snow­ball net­work­ing effect that will have your hands full with new clients in no time. Still, you have to make sure to guide your net­work to you by direct­ing them to send you refer­rals and clear­ly stat­ing what type of work you are look­ing for. Do this on a reg­u­lar basis, and you will cre­ate a pipeline of new busi­ness, acces­si­ble year-round.

Network, network, network

  • Join a trade organization

Become active in a trade asso­ci­a­tion by join­ing the board or get­ting on a com­mit­tee. Doing this will put you in front of a room full of poten­tial clients who can hire you. This infor­ma­tion can come through the grapevine of cur­rent clients by ask­ing what orga­ni­za­tions they belong to, join­ing them when they attend meet­ings, and ask­ing for intro­duc­tions to their friends. 

  • Content is king

Telling poten­tial clients how bril­liant you are will get you nowhere fast. How­ev­er, show­ing poten­tial clients how bril­liant you are is a win­ning strat­e­gy and is the ide­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a valu­able resource. That’s what you want and the best path to get legal clients to con­tin­ue to refer you. 

How do you accom­plish this? By cre­at­ing engag­ing and infor­ma­tive con­tent through blogs, ebooks, newslet­ters, video, and social media. By uti­liz­ing dif­fer­ent dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nels, you can cre­ate an impact­ful and cred­i­ble online pres­ence that will keep your pipeline involved in your brand. 

  • Social media is not a fad

Are you aware that 1.49 bil­lion peo­ple use Face­book, and Twit­ter has over 175 mil­lion users? Just in case, we thought we’d remind you. Social media plat­forms are not going any­where and are pow­er­ful avenues to con­nect to your legal clients. 

Pair­ing these pop­u­lar social media tools with a pro­fes­sion­al LinkedIn pro­file will raise the vis­i­bil­i­ty of your law prac­tice expo­nen­tial­ly. When cou­pled with great con­tent and proac­tive net­work­ing, you’ll be able to build and main­tain rela­tion­ships with cur­rent and future clien­tele quickly. 

  • Choose a niche

Show­cas­ing a legal spe­cial­ty will make you stand out and sep­a­rate you from the pool of law pro­fes­sion­als out there. Focus­ing on one type of law helps build cred­i­bil­i­ty and trust with poten­tial clients since they are look­ing for a lawyer with your exact skill set. Also, lawyers who focus on a spe­cif­ic spe­cial­ty have a ten­den­cy to earn more than those who don’t.

Don’t for­get to ask for reviews of your work. Pos­i­tive reviews are gold­en and will increase the like­li­hood of refer­rals. Under­stand­ing your tar­get mar­ket, main­tain­ing con­sis­ten­cy in your mes­sage, and devel­op­ing effec­tive con­tent will ensure you are seen as a thought leader in the legal field. 

Still have ques­tions? We have answers. Give us a call or con­nect with us on our Face­book or Twit­ter pages. We are hap­py to help.