How to Lead Lawyers, Not Just Serve Them
So many of us spend our days playing whack-a-mole to tame our ever-growing to-do lists and keep lawyers and our firms happy. Yet we know we can go farther and be trusted advisors.
Use knowledge, empathy, and confidence daily to lead lawyers to better opportunities and outcomes, and watch your role change and develop in ways that match how you see yourself.
Knowledge: In Service Roles, Curiosity is Greater Than Authority
Too many MBD professionals assume our job is to persuade lawyers to agree with us. That's what we think "expertise" looks like. Yet that’s a recipe for frustration.
When we ask questions instead to understand how lawyers are thinking, reveal assumptions they've made, and define the outcomes they expect, then we achieve deeper insights and develop creative or unexpected opportunities to serve them, no persuasion required.
This curiosity is our gateway to strategize with lawyers, not just deliver tactically on their assumed solutions. When lawyers feel us leading them down fruitful paths, and when they see the rewards of those labors, they open themselves to more of this kind of service. Over time, they start calling us when they have ideas, not just when they have answers they want us to execute on. That's when we know the lawyers we serve trust the knowledge we bring.
Empathy: A Trigger for Simplicity
Similar to our assumptions that we must convince or persuade lawyers, it is also far too easy for MBD professionals to dump loads of information on our internal clients to demonstrate that we've thought a thing through and know what we are doing.
This is absolutely the wrong approach.
It's easy to forget that lawyers bill in six-minute increments. In many trainings, I meet participants who don't even realize that lawyers are under that kind of pressure. Or that they are expected to bill 1,800 hours a year in many firms—or more for "real" bonus consideration.
Do those lawyers have patience to read five paragraphs of an email to figure out what we need them to do or want them to know?
When MBD professionals can feel empathy for the lawyers we serve, it becomes easy to see opportunities to lead them.
It's also easy to assume that lawyers have all the advantages, especially given the power dynamics and disparities of law firms. Yet lawyers too are raising kids, supporting aging parents, paying down debt or managing financial pressures, navigating relationship struggles, facing health and mental health issues, fighting addiction or substance abuse challenges, or questioning their careers and feeling burnout.
In other words, they have the same human struggles we do.
When MBD professionals can feel empathy for the lawyers we serve, it becomes easy to see opportunities to lead them.
Rule of thumb? Simplify. Start that email with the most important point, then offer more info below or attached. Make sure your ask is clear. If you're delivering a report or analysis, summarize the key points at the top, and state why those points matter. Don't assume the lawyer will connect the dots, or that they will even see the dots. Make it easy, and they will see the value you bring.
Anything we can do to simplify how lawyers plan, execute, and succeed at MBD activities is a powerful way to deliver client service and win loyal fans.
Confidence: A Client Service Must, But Not How You Think
We can't inspire confidence if we don't show it ourselves. This is not a call for bluff swagger. There are plenty of times when we won't know the right answer, and it would be a mistake to pretend we do.
That doesn't mean, however, that we should ask a lawyer, "What do you think we should do?" When we do, we cede our credibility, and confidence in us quickly plummets. Consider how you would feel if the plumber you called said, "I don't know, what do you think?"
Instead, have the confidence to bring suggestions, even when you know they are incorrect or incomplete. It is far easier for lawyers to react to an idea than to brainstorm from a blank page. Confidence comes from understanding how to create reactions that move us forward.
In other words, we inspire confidence when we catalyze lawyers to act. We don't need to have all the answers; we just have to know how to reach them together. (Fortunately for us, legal marketing is not as black and white as plumbing.)
As you consider how to raise your client service delivery, focus on knowledge, empathy, and confidence in the ways described here. Note how lawyers respond, and just as importantly, how you feel. Use these steps to lead lawyers, not just serve them, and watch your role bloom.