In this blog post, Anmol Gupta, a student at Faculty of Law, IFHE Hyderabad and pursuing a Diploma in Entrepreneurship Administration and Business Laws from NUJS, Kolkata, writes about finding your first client as a Lawyer.

The job market for lawyers is pretty saturated in India. As a result, more and more lawyers are forced to go the entrepreneurial route and start their own law practice. The major problem they all face is how to find clients as a new lawyer. Finding and retaining clients can feel like an albatross hanging around the neck and this is true especially for students fresh out of colleges. As a friend once put it, “when you study in a college for 5 years, you become a part of the institution”. So how do you unlearn what you have learnt? Fortunately, for you, there this list that will tell you how to find your first client as a lawyer.

If you’re among the many young lawyers striving to find new clients and grow your practice, fear not. More and more resources are emerging all the time to help you build a client base and grow your law practice from the ground up. The following info contains some helpful tips and strategies for how to find clients as a new lawyer. There are umpteen number of things one can do to kick start their legal career while in law school.

While most students in their law school do not think that it is necessary for them to invest their time in developing a database (as most of us hope to get placed in top notch law firms and let the work coming in!) it is important to start working on your contact database and not wait until graduation.

1. Get your contacts – If you are reading this article and you are currently in law school, start your contacts database right this very minute. If you have been offered a PPO or are placed in a big law firm or want to continue studying further/opt for civils, create this database as soon as possible. If you have a job in private practice, you will need a contacts database right away; if you have a job working for the government, you will need your database eventually. Enter the names of every single person you know – lawyers/judges you met during internships, your classmates/professors, law school staff (who know who you are), members of clubs you belong to, your friends and your parents’ friends, neighbors, and people you may know in other professions, such as engineers, accountancy students etc.
2. Email your contacts – Now that the easy part is over, send an email to all your contacts announcing that you’re open for business. This is practical for people out of college and into the market looking for work. The email is to be sent to basically everyone in that database (the assumption is larger the net you cast into the world, the more fish you might catch). It may or may not work at first.
3. Online internships/Freelancing – A classmate of mine had joined this group of entrepreneurs who were just out of college and had a started a website that allows the general public to seek legal advice through their website. The first consultation would be free of charge, if the client is impressed by the advice solicited to him; he will come back next time for which a minimal fee is charged. This way, my classmate not just widened his professional circle by befriending some lawyers but also got the opportunity to interact with (his future) clients.
4. Blogging/engaging in public forums – Written content is the most important ingredient for a lawyer. That is why even tier 1 law firms put much emphasize on legal writing, publishing articles. This is how they judge your ability to research. Blogging is considered to be the cheapest way to market oneself and attract potential clients. Publish high quality content on your blog not just in terms of written words but also videos (a blogger friend would make mini videos that explained basic concepts of law in layman’s language for the benefit of non-legal persons). For example, someone might read your article on IPR issues and come to you for advice. You can publish a blog and see how many people have visited the blog and posted comments on your article or the number of views your video has got.
5. Creating an online presence – Create a facebook/twitter/linkedin page in your firm’s name and repost every blog on your personal and firm page. It will create inbound links to your website and improves its Google ranking. Also, adopt a custom email address with a custom domain name and a basic website. So next time you provide your email address to someone which does not end with ‘@gmail.com or @yahoo.com”, you will be subtly marketing your firm.
6. Writing a book – It doesn’t have to be on any specific subject or necessarily be for academic purposes. You can write a novel, your law school experience or like a Chetan Bhagat, 5 point someone will also do. I know of a senior in my law school who wrote a novel while still in college with a picture of herself on the book cover. Within a few weeks she achieved wide circulation (by just promoting it on the internet) in and out of campus that if you google the name of the author or the book, the first result directs to her LinkedIn profile and the second link to Amazon, from where the book can be purchased. This makes me come to my next step –
7. Search Engine Optimization – Google defines SEO as, “the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine.” This is can achieved by promoting your firm’s website like my friend did while promoting her book or it can be done by paying money, which make sure that your firm’s website is always on the top page when a potential client Google’s certain search words that may direct to your website. However, such a method could be expensive and not feasible to individuals just starting out in their career.
8. Attending conferences/MUNs – A senior friend of mine was very active and well known in the ‘MUN circle’ in my city. After attending many conferences and organizing some, he was given the opportunity to draft agreements for future MUNs happening in the city. Most MUNs are organized by schools/colleges, but are actually conducted by a group of people interested in organizing such events. These groups of people would enter into agreement, drafted by my friend, with the school/colleges for providing space and accommodation to conduct a three day event. Another advantage to participating in such events is improvement in public speaking and debate skills which are essential to a lawyer.
9. Volunteering – Join an association or group that is most likely to consist of potential clients. Ask your current clients what sort of associations or groups they are a member of or what sort of meeting they go to and join them. Then, volunteer to help put together programs, events or any sort of activity that is going to make you visible and not a face in the crowd!
10. Referrals – The next thing is to cultivate referral sources. A lot of lawyers get most of their business from referrals. If you never ask, the answer is always going to be no. Asking isn’t always an easy thing to do, especially if you’re freshly minted from law school and just starting your legal career. But you will be asking for referrals your entire legal career so you might as well learn now and start now. One needs to find cheap ways to advertise/market themselves. Shout loudly as you can (not literally) and let people know that you exist. Provide them with your business cards and let them know of the kind of work you’re engaged/interested in. The best people to ask for referrals are your clients – ask them send you new in future and ask your client to refer you to a friend.

11. Build your own in group – By surrounding yourself with like minded and entrepreneurial individuals. Collaborate with them on projects and seminars. Guest write for their blogs. These are people who speak your language, who cheer you on.

CONCLUSION

To conclude, it can be said that networking is by far one of the most important things you can do get more and more clients albeit it is very exhausting. But it is also important to build your network outside the legal profession. The real key to networking is to build a network with people outside of law, but within the targeted industry. Networking is a lot like sales – it’s all a numbers game. The more people you have in your database the more likely you are to find new clients. Also, networking is a long term approach to gaining new business, just by being friendly and kind and building a relationship. Thus, it can be said that getting your first client is all about how to market yourself, market the skills that you have invested in yourself and being able to sell your services to the potential client.