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[00:00:07] Scott Benton: Hey everyone, Scott Benton here. How are you? I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast where we help you easily transition from law school student into your professional career as an attorney. And we teach you everything that law school does not teach you about practicing law. That way you can step into your first job and know exactly what we’re doing.
[00:00:27] Scott Benton: Because we are here To make the practice of law fun and today we’re going to answer the question of who is your best Prospect who is your best potential client your best prospect
[00:00:38] Scott Benton: [00:01:00] Now as you probably already know Law firms are businesses and they’re businesses that sell time in exchange for providing legal services to clients that’s simply the most basic description of what a law firm does and so that we understand and so that we state it, just like any other business, the business purpose of any law firm, it’s to generate a profit.
[00:01:54] Scott Benton: Now profit ultimately is what sustains and it ideally grows a [00:02:00] business and a law firm. And without generating a profit, pretty much in a short period of time, that business or that law firm is likely going to be out of business. So in order to keep the doors opening, in order to keep the lights running, a law firm’s balance sheet needs to show that they’re in the green and that they’re not operating in the red or at a deficit for very long because that’s just not sustainable.
[00:02:27] Scott Benton: And if you operate in the red for a long time, then those doors, I can guarantee you those doors are going to close. So now. In order to keep the doors open and to keep those lights running, a law firm is always sourcing new business. That means they’re looking for new clients. That business is somehow you’ve got to figure out a way to market the services of that law firm to your target community, whatever that target, [00:03:00] happens to be And that’s going to be based on the legal specialty that your firm offers.
[00:03:06] Scott Benton: And, by the way, some firms, they have multiple focuses. Sometimes, firms that it’s one attorney in the firm, They’re going to operate on many different focuses, but bigger law firms, a lot of times, not always, but a lot of times their focus is very narrow. So you need to know what your focus is and your law firm, because some have many and then others have few.
[00:03:30] Scott Benton: Are you a law firm that has many or are you a law firm that has few? Now inside all of that and all the clients That you get, whether it’s, through marketing efforts or maybe it’s through your website or maybe there’s an advertising campaign. However, your law firm gets those clients to come in.
[00:03:49] Scott Benton: You still need to keep in mind who your best prospect is going to be. You need to keep that in mind. It’s important because otherwise you’re going to get, you’re going to get scattered all over the place [00:04:00] and you’re going to defeat the purpose of bringing in more business. Remember, turning a profit is the most important component to any business, including a law firm.
[00:04:09] Scott Benton: So you want to know who your best prospect is and knowing that it’s going to help you focus your energy, focus your attention. All the efforts that you’re making to ensure that you’re providing legal services to clients and also that you’re reaching your minimum billable hourly requirement and even exceeding it and that you really never run out of to do list items.
[00:04:34] Scott Benton: Now, the to do list, if you listen to this podcast, you’re going to know that the to do list is what feeds your success cycle. It underlies. The difference between a successful career as an attorney and a less successful or really no career. as an attorney And by the way, we haven’t talked about this in a long time in these podcast episodes, but we want to focus back in on the success cycle.
[00:04:59] Scott Benton: Now everything we [00:05:00] talk about is a piece of that success cycle, but we haven’t really put it in those terms necessarily. Although every single episode is following one of these three categories. Now, the success cycle has, Three categories and it’s what the entire classroom 2 courtroom podcast is built around The success cycle is a working model It’s composed of three stages and you’re just gonna complete those three stages over and over again And those three stages are it’s composed of the to do list You’re gonna perform the legal service and then you’re gonna bill for your time and get paid And once that’s done, you simply start all over again and go back to the to do list Perform the legal service, bill for your time, get paid.
[00:05:41] Scott Benton: And if you remain on this success cycle, you’re going to have very little trouble reaching and even exceeding your hourly requirement, that’s for sure. The success cycle, it’s the key to your work as an attorney. So you always want to have that pattern, stored in your mind superimposed [00:06:00] over everything you’re doing because you’re just doing three things.
[00:06:03] Scott Benton: You’re putting your to do list together, you’re performing the legal tasks that are on your to do list you’re billing for your time and going back to the to do list But let’s get back to the central question that we’re looking at and that we’re trying to figure out On this podcast episode, which is who is your best prospect going to be the answer to that question is that your best prospect or your best prospective client, it’s simply going to be the current client that you’re already working for.
[00:06:31] Scott Benton: It’s the current clients that you already have. Now, sometimes attorneys they have clients who just stop engaging with them or maybe they stop replenishing their trust accounts, which usually means a couple of things. First of all if you’re going to work on unfunded accounts, that’s it. It means that you’re just not going to get paid for the legal services because there’s just no money to get paid unless the client happens to pay the invoice when it gets sent to you.
[00:06:58] Scott Benton: But generally, if you have [00:07:00] a trust account that’s set up that the client funds whenever it drops below a certain level, if you’re working on cases where the balance is zero or sometimes below zero, then there’s really nothing in the trust account until the client replenishes it. So between the clients that you already have and clients that you don’t have.
[00:07:20] Scott Benton: Meaning people that you’re not working with, that you have to go out and market to. You have to decide which is going to be the kind of the easier path to go with, or certainly the most economically viable path to go. If you’re going to passively wait around, for as long as it takes until A potential client goes to Google at 2 a.
[00:07:40] Scott Benton: m. because they can’t get to sleep because there’s some issue that’s on their mind and they go and they type in a search term that matches the kind of work that your firm does and in your particular geographical area and then they have to click on that link to get to your website and then in the morning after they’ve gotten some sleep, if they’ve gotten some sleep, they have to [00:08:00] follow that up with a phone call And they have to call your office and it’s not a long shot.
[00:08:04] Scott Benton: People do that all the time. But between that and simply revitalizing the clients that you have, you’re far better off working with the clients that you’ve already got. It just, again, it makes the most economical sense for you. And frankly, for the client and the firm. Now, as I said, sometimes those clients, they just begin to drop off because they’re more or less unclear about what’s happening in their case.
[00:08:28] Scott Benton: And we’ve talked about in other podcast episodes that the number one complaint of clients that they’ll say is that they’ve been paying out of all this money. They’ve been billed, these services cost a lot, but nothing is being done. The law firm didn’t do anything. That’s their perception.
[00:08:46] Scott Benton: Because in most cases that’s really not what’s going on. A lot of work, in fact, is generally getting completed on those cases, but the clients just, they don’t know about it. The problem comes down to One of clarity [00:09:00] and communication because chances are that the attorney’s just not talking to the client directly.
[00:09:06] Scott Benton: They’re not sending out status reports or sometimes the billing entries, they can be confusing and the client just doesn’t understand them. Sometimes there’s a thing where they combine a lot of work that they did on a case into one sort of billing entry. And it can be impossible to really understand.
[00:09:25] Scott Benton: The amount of work that’s been done So the client really because they’re not for the most part. They’re not attorneys they’re left with no choice, but to just conclude that I mean here they’re making all these payments and nothing’s getting done on their case. So you want to keep in mind that instead of going out and getting new clients don’t forget that There’s probably a good chance that you may already have clients who they just simply need to be Recultivated that you need to touch base with them You need to remind them about the value of their case.
[00:09:55] Scott Benton: You need to clarify what’s going on with the work, because [00:10:00] that’s going to be, at the end of the day, much more profitable than starting from scratch and going back into the marketplace and ramping up your marketing just, to see if you can attract new clients into your firm. That’s even if you do the marketing.
[00:10:11] Scott Benton: If you’re working in a bigger firm, you’re not In charge of that, they have a whole marketing department. You just need to focus on working with the clients that you have, revitalizing those cases, contacting your client, making sure they know what’s going on, letting them know about the value of their case, and getting them back on board.
[00:10:31] Scott Benton: So I hope that’s helpful, and I hope that answers your question of who’s your best prospect gonna be. The answer is that the best prospect is always gonna be the clients that you have.
[00:10:41] Scott Benton: I am Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. If this is information that you’re finding valuable and it’s helping you make that transition from a law school student into your professional career as an actual attorney and you’d like to get an alert every time we put out a new episode, you can go to our website or website is [00:11:00] classroom2courtroom.com.
[00:11:00] Scott Benton: You can leave us your contact information. You’ll get an alert every time we put out a new episode of the Classroom2Courtroom Podcast.
[00:11:08] Scott Benton: And don’t forget to share and subscribe if you’d like to stay on top of all our newest episodes. That’s just another way you can do it as well. Until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place one client at a time. Thank you so much.
