legal sanity

Here’s the next installment in my series of roundups on rainmaking for lawyers: Larry Bodine continues the nature v. nurture networking debate with a post and related Law Marketing Portal article about lawyers as natural-born marketers. Bodine cites a study by Dr. Larry Richard of Hildebrandt International finding that, due to certain personality traits, “only 20% of lawyers are natural born marketers.” Of the remainder, “55% of lawyers can learn to be rainmakers” while “25% are hopeless at marketing and should be ignored.” I’ve commented on this notion of the hopeless lawyer rainmaker before. Blogger JD Hull expresses sentiments similar to my own when he states that we lawyers are teachable creatures and that law firms should work hard to cultivate an inclusive “marketing culture.” The Law Practice Management blog adds to the conversation on whether lawyers can be taught to market by offering “five tips to build a solid foundation in networking.” To round out this installment of the rainmaking roundup, I’d like to join in the rousing cyber welcome extended to professional service firm management expert David Maister and his new blog.