If I had to give a piece of advice to young attorneys it would be make sure that when you are thinking through legal issues, take a moment to look through the lens of the business team. If you are a lawyer in a law firm this means putting yourself in your client’s shoes. When you are a corporate lawyer, it is a more immediate effect since you are part of the team. At a basic level, this may help you find solutions when there are legal obstacles to business goals. At a more advanced level, you should spot opportunities to help the business team even when they are not presenting you with an issue. The more that you are seen as a resource and champion for that business, the more successful you will be.
Law school’s training to spot issues and analyze them from both sides makes lawyers particularly skillful at jumping into their client’s shoes and recognizing where they can provide leverage to a business team. From my twenty plus years at a law firm, the harder part of being part of the business team is getting a deep understanding of practical business issues. Often, as outside counsel, we are only brought in for a limited issue and only glimpse a piece of the overall business. As an associate you also have very few opportunities for actual client contact when working for partners. This is where it pays to spend time outside of your counseling role researching the clients you work with and, when you do get direct contact with a client, asking them more about the nuts and bolts of their business.
Transitioning from law firm to corporate counsel life, I found the experience eye opening in that, on the inside, I received an even broader view of the multitude of practical issues that businesses face every day. Little things like vendor personalities, ease of access to information and communication-efficiency can positively or negatively impact pricing, delivery and ultimately the bottom line.
A simple example of this was observing the interplay between the large number of contracts that we manage and pricing. Our sales team often calls customers all over the country and various contracts govern the price they offer. We have online systems in place to assist them, but they had to go to another system to find the information slowing down their deal flow. And as one astute sales person told me, "you need to strike when the iron is hot." Improving deal flow, therefore, can increase sales.
When we started working with new software vendor, I learned that we could link our contract information on a customer basis. As the manager of all of our company contracts, I had more familiarity with which contracts applied and the pricing in each contract. I leveraged this to create contract specific price lists and linked them to our contacts. Having the price information automatically populated saved the sales team the time and effort of having to search for pricing. Although it took significant time for me to link all of this information, it did not take time away from our sales team. They were able to focus on sales, and having the information at their fingertips avoided interruptions that would slow the deal flow. Allowing the business team to do what they do best, making their life easier and improving the bottom line is a recipe for success as a lawyer advising a business.
At the end of the day, lawyers are highly trained problem solvers. Using your considerable issue spotting skills to spot practical opportunities for positive impact may cement your role as a trusted advisor. For my friends at law firms, I know how scarce time is especially when you are an associate working for several partners, but using client interactions to learn more about their business pays off with interest in that setting because each business faces similar issues. That extra time spent to learn more about one business and help them solve a problem becomes your business development tool for helping other similarly situated businesses. If you have any interesting stories where you used your legal skills to solve a practical business problem, please share it in the comment section below.