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The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
I am more convinced than ever that nothing that traditional bar organizations are doing is going to move the needle on the sad stats on lawyer happiness ...
The root cause of all lawyers' problems is financial stress. Financial stress holds you back from getting the right people on the bus, running the right systems, and being able to only do work for clients you want to work with. Financial stress keeps you in the office on nights and weekends, often doing work you hate for people you don't like, and doing that work alone.
(Yes, you have permission to do only work you like doing and doing it with people you like working with.)
The money stress is not because the lawyers are bad lawyers or bad people. In fact, most lawyers are good at the lawyering part and they are good people.
The money stress is caused by the general lack of both business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Thus, good lawyers who are good people get caught up and slowed down in bringing their gifts to the world. Their families, teams, clients, and communities are not well-served because you can't serve others at your top level when you are constantly worrying about money.
We can blame the law schools and the elites of the profession who are running bar organizations, but to blame anyone else for your own woes is a loser's game. It is, in itself, a restrictive, narrow, mindset that will keep you from ever seeing, let alone experiencing, a better future.
Lawyers need to be in rooms with other entrepreneurs. They need to hang with people who won't tell you that your dreams are too big or that "they" or "the system "won't allow you to achieve them. They need to be in rooms where people will be in their ear telling them that their dreams are too small.
Get in better rooms. That would be the first step.
Second step, ignore every piece of advice any general organized bar is giving about how to make your firm or your life better.
The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
Ep. 191 – Rainmaker Unleashed: Relationship Marketing, Trust, and the New Rules of Big Law
In this episode, Ben sits down with Sejal Patel—author of Rainmaker Unleashed and founder of Sage Ivy Consulting—to dive into the high-stakes world of client acquisition and relationship marketing inside Big Law. Sejal shares insights from 25+ years of experience helping partners grow sustainable books of business in a world where trust, not just talent, determines who keeps their seat at the table.
They unpack:
- What "de-equitization" means and how the Big Law model is changing
- Why lawyers struggle with relationship-building—and how to fix it
- The seven-to-eight touch rule for building trust (and what not to send)
- How to give a CLE that doesn’t put people to sleep
- What introverts and extroverts alike need to know about effective rainmaking
- How women and lawyers of color can advocate for themselves inside opaque firm systems
Whether you're in a 5-person firm or a 500-person firm, this episode is packed with practical takeaways for anyone who wants to grow their business by building real relationships. If Big Law can figure this out, the rest of us have no excuse.
🎧 Listen in and grab Sejal’s book on Amazon.
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA. Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
So people uh are failing at what they're doing before they come to me, right? So they've had experience of not having success and not being able to build that book. The way it works right now is you you want to start at a law firm, and then if you don't succeed at a law firm, you try to find an in-house job, right? Like that's kind of the career path of the folks that end up at at the bigger law firms, then they end up going in-house. But walking them through the path, first, it depends on what personality type they have, whether they're an extrovert or an introvert. So if they're introverted, there's a lot more hand holding I have to do. And what I mean by that is they're nervous to go to go to lunch with their law school friend who's in-house and they have to ask for business. Because nobody is comfortable asking for your friends from your friend's business because you're afraid of losing that relationship. Then I basically where where the books fall short and where my consulting company comes into play is what to say and why you're saying it. How to get your friend to want to work with you, or how to have a conversation where you're not just a used car salesman that is like, give me business and I'll leverage down my rates. The extrovert, the problem with the extrovert is they're always thinking about what to say next, as opposed to slow down, listen first, ask questions, be quiet. And so that the two different personality types is where you where I tend to go first is to look at that. And then here's a basic tip for your client, um, your viewership. It takes seven to eight interactions, and those interactions can be emails, it can be text messages, it can be lunches, drinks, what what have you to convert to revenue. But then the question is, is what are those interactions?
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show that challenges the way lawyers and professionals think about life, business, and success. Hosted by Ben Glass, attorney, entrepreneur, coach, and father of nine, this show is about more than just practicing law. For over 40 years, Ben has built a law firm that stands for something bigger. He's helping thousands of lawyers create practices that make good money, do meaningful work, don't make it. These are people creating bold careers and meaningful lives without burning out or selling out. If you're ready to stop playing small and start thinking like a renegade, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.
SPEAKER_03:Hey everyone, this is Ben Glass. Uh, welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where just about every episode I'm interviewing someone inside or outside of Legal who is dinging the world. And today we're gonna talk about relationship marketing, we're gonna talk about rainmaking. Have Sejal Patel on the podcast today. She is the author of Rainmaker Unleashed. And it's gonna be really interesting because Sejal works in this in the big loss space. And before we went live, she was telling me like how actually challenging and difficult it is for those lawyers who are in that space to get clients to maintain client, the pressures that they are under. I even discovered a new word, de-equitization, which we can talk about. She grew up in the big four consulting world, so brings a very interesting perspective. And I was introduced to her by another recent guest, Seema, who we you heard a week or so ago. And here we go. So, Sanjil, thanks for getting on the podcast with us today.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_03:Tell me a little bit about your background and what you know what provoked you to write this book. And I read a story that it was written mostly over a weekend.
SPEAKER_00:Um my background is is I graduated law school in 1996 and kind of pursued an alternative legal career. And so I worked in the space between consulting. So the big four litigation consulting firms that help attorneys in um big law find their expert witnesses, their forensic accountants, their due diligence experts, because as lawyers, you know this, Ben, that we're really great at reading and writing and talking. But when it comes to subject matter expertise, we're still going to look for outside resources to help us in those particular areas. So for over 20 years, I've been putting deals together between lawyers, experts. I sit in the middle, bring the right resources into a room. And over those 20 years, I've learned that that a lot of these partners at various law firms, they would ask me about my day-to-day and what my day-to-day looked like because we would become friends. And the funny thing is, is I would tell them that I basically ringmake without the billable hours. And all of these attorneys would start taking notes over what my day looked like and how I went to market. And that is kind of where my consulting company came into play. Because over the pandemic, I kind of was reassessing what the world looked like and what I wanted to do in the world. And one of the things that came up was I love the client side of things and not necessarily the consulting side of things. And so looking into what folks were writing down on napkins at lunchtime, um, I realized that what I viewed as common sense go to market was not common sense for everyone else. And so currently I have a company called Stage Ivy, and Stage Ivy consults with law firms and their attorneys to basically create a strategic approach to one's business networks and how to leverage a strategic plan to go to market and build out these relationships and make it sustainable.
SPEAKER_03:This is so interesting because even though you play in kind of a dip a different atmosphere, like in the big law space, we believe at Great Legal Marketing that these human-being relationships, your referral networks, the people who know you, not just they know that you're a lawyer and what you do, but they actually know you as a person and trust you. Like this is vital in a space where there's so many law firms and now outside law firm money being spent being spent on quote unquote advertising. So, you know, all media, all advertising media today is just it's a competition, right? Who can pay the most money? And then you get the clicks and the eyeballs. And yet we've built our law firm, and many of the our members have built their law firms on what you are teaching these big law attorneys about how to foster relationships. Again, whether we're talking about law firm to consumer or law firm to big business, at the end of every trail is a human being with a emotions and a brain and a soul and a heart who is making decisions based on emotion and backing them up with logic. I mean, that's at the end of the day, we know this about humans. So, so what are I'm so first of all, I'm just curious about that big law life because you were telling me before we went live, like the pressure that that world is even changing. And sometimes we like to look and go, all right, well, that's interesting. We have our own headaches running small 20-person, 30-person firms, right? The headaches are different over there. Which headache would you like? But how's by observation, how is big law changing?
SPEAKER_00:Big law is changing because a lot of the law firms back in the day, once you became a partner, you remained at that law firm for your for the entire career that you had at that firm as a partner. But now there's different levels that we can't see. And every law firm does it differently. So you have non-equity partners and then you have equity partners. And the terminology is various. They use different words like income partner, et cetera. But what it basically means is an equity partner is still a glorified senior associate where they're still on salary, they have benefits, et cetera, and they need to hit benchmarks before they become an equity partner. And if you go to their website, everyone is a partner. You just don't know these different levels that are hidden behind the door, right? An equity partner, once you made equity in a law firm, you usually spent the rest of your career there. However, now folks have to maintain a book of business, whether it's$5 million,$7 million, whatever the numbers are per law firm. And if you don't maintain those numbers, you can get de-equitized. And so you were speaking about it earlier. De-equization, again, a new word, a new word that I'm learning is basically you become, you go from equity partner to non-equity partner. And again, that's hidden behind a door. So so as we knew in law school that you had these different levels to hit inside of a law firm, those levels are becoming even greater. And it's not something that the law firms share with the younger folks, the associates and counsel and whatever levels each law firm has for people to get up the ladder. The ladder is becoming bigger.
SPEAKER_03:It's steeper and even difficult to figure out like where are the actual steps. Okay, so when when uh when somebody comes to you, like is it like the firm is maybe sending some of their younger, maybe non-equity partners to you? Like, how are they even finding you?
SPEAKER_00:So right now, the book is helping me get in front of what I basically consult on, is actually the stuff that I do, right? And so I write for Above the Law. I have a weekly article that comes out on Above the Law. So folks find me through that venue. Um, I've been in this space for 25 years, so I have my own personal relationships across law firms in New York City. So word of mouth is is another big one. Um the book that is on Amazon right now, Raymaker Unleashed, basically goes through the ideas of what I have found folks where where I think it's common sense, which isn't common sense to them. So in the book, we talk about your approaches to CLEs and what makes a CLE good. What you have to do after you present a CLE, a lot of people fall down on follow-up. They think the time has gone by and they can't, there's like a window of time and they didn't do it, so they don't follow up. Or folks are scared, or people are introverts and and think, well, why would they want to talk to me? So there's a lot of like psychology that goes into why humans are humans and are afraid to interact with others that we get into, but but where folks find me is on LinkedIn, on Amazon, on Above the Law. There's multiple different ways, and then my own personal connections into the law firm. So I have clients, they're both law firms where we create rainmaking programs, and then also individual partners that um I'm their kind of secret sauce where I'm behind the scenes, where where I'm helping them, helping them go through their business networks and doing an analysis on them.
SPEAKER_03:Obviously, you're dealing with high achieving, very smart people, men and women who had to do good to get into law school, went to great law schools, did well, and now they're moving up the profession's ladder. What are you surprised? Because you said you used a phrase like it's common sense to me, but uncommon, not common sense to them. So what are you surprised that these adults who are obviously very smart and they're high achievers, like they don't know, or or what fear do they have locked up? Because you also mentioned that. Like, why would anyone want to listen to me? What surprises you?
SPEAKER_00:So, so I had this conversation just uh a week and a half ago with a partner at a big law firm who had gone to Princeton undergrad and Harvard Law, and he was reading my book and he was at chapter four, and he's like, You called me a commodity. And I said to him, I was like, Well, we're all commodities. So if at the end of the day, no matter where you went to school or um how great you think you are, across the board someone else can replace you or find someone with equal credentials and you're replaceable. So then what makes you, what makes the client want to hire you? And he goes, Well, I don't know. And I'm like, it's trust and likability. Credibility is easy because that's your resume. But trust and likability are the hard things because that's the human connection. Your client is either gonna tell you everything or hold you at arm's length. And the difference of you being a good lawyer versus a great lawyer is to have a close relationship so that your client tells you everything so you can be the best possible lawyer that you want to be. And so that always to me is is surprising because in the space that I work, everyone feels that they went to school, so people should just hire them because of the school they went to or the credentials that they have. But it comes down to personality. I didn't go, you know, I went to I went to law school, but I didn't go to the Ivies and that sort of thing. I have a pretty middle of the road educational background, yet because of trust and likability, I'm able to get in front of all sorts of different people.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that's what they were told. I mean, they they were told get great great grades in undergrad, you get into a great law school, pick the Ivy League school, the expensive school, and everything will open. And that's simply not how the world works, right? It is not how the world works. All right. So so you so let's say you you get someone who comes to you with sort of that um pre-knowledge, that that sort of mindset of uh oh, I mean, I have to be like likable too. Walk us through a little bit of the of the reprogramming or deprogramming that you might ooze on somebody just to get them to accept the notion, really, that trust and likability is actually more important than their resume.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and I think, you know, most of the people are failing at what they're doing before they come to me, right? So they've had experience of not having success and not being able to build that book. The way it works right now is you you want to start at a law firm, and then if you don't succeed at a law firm, you try to find an in-house job. That's kind of the career path of the folks that end up at at the bigger law firms, then they end up going in-house. But walking them through the path, first, it depends on what personality type they have, whether they're an extrovert or an introvert. So if they're introverted, there's a lot more hand holding I have to do. And what I mean by that is they're nervous to go to go to lunch with their law school friend who's in-house and they have to ask for business. Because nobody is comfortable asking for your friends from your friend's business because you're afraid of losing that relationship. So I've had one client take a drink, drink a drink before he went and met his law school friend for lunch. And then I basically where where the books fall short and where my consulting company comes into play is what to say and why you're saying it. How to get your friend to want to work with you, or how to have a conversation where you're not just a used car salesman that is like, give me business and I'll leverage down my rates. The extrovert on on that hand, the extrovert, the problem with the extrovert is they're always thinking about what to say next, as opposed to slow down, listen, first ask questions, be quiet. And so that the two different personality types is where you where I tend to go first, is to look at that. And then here's a basic tip for for your cli um your viewership. It takes seven to eight interactions, and those interactions can be emails, it can be text messages, it can be lunches, drinks, what what have you to convert to revenue. But then the question is what are those interactions?
SPEAKER_02:We'll get back in just a second. If you're the kind of lawyer who believes your practice can be your platform, not just a paycheck, you need to check out my book, Renegade Lawyer Marketing. This isn't your average law firm marketing book. No theory, no fluff. Just the mindset and tools that helped us build a law firm that serves our family and still fights for our clients. Grab your copy at renegade lawyer marketing.com and start building a law practice that actually works for you. Now back to the show.
SPEAKER_00:Because the interactions of sending a white paper or asking them, asking them questions that legal ease is not the interactions that falls into the seven to eight that I recommend. It's, you know, do you know their dog's name? Do they have kids? Where'd they grow up? It's building those seven to eight interactions are in order to build the relationship so that then you can have the conversation of working together. So it's an easier conversation at that point.
SPEAKER_03:There's skills that need to be taught in high school and college, frankly. Like, and I and I think as human beings, and I sound like the old guy in the room, right? But but we're losing this because of digital technology in large part, right? And COVID didn't help because we weren't allowed to be close to anyone and see them eye to eye, you know, live and in person. But we're losing this ability to have a conversation where I talk to you and I ask you questions, and I actually listen to the answers. And then I have this skill set to ask more curious questions. So at the end of 40 minutes, you've talked about yourself a lot, but you have enjoyed the conversation, right? You felt like somebody was finally listening to your story. And for me, and when I get to speak to youngins, right, not just lawyers, but younger than that, like this is a, and I believe it's a skill set. Like you can teach this, you can learn to do it, and it learn to do it so it doesn't sound fake. And I'm just surprised that so many really, really, and it's good for you because you have this business, right? But so many really, really smart people, like they seem to have never been introduced to this concept. And you know, you just looked at the messes on LinkedIn where everybody, every, every reach out is like, here, and I want 20 minutes of your time so I can tell you how I can make you your next million dollars or something. And I'm surprised that someone would be afraid or shy to talk to their law school buddy.
SPEAKER_00:Because they don't want to ruin the relationship. Friendship matters to them so much that asking for business is scary. Because what if the friendship goes away?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well, because no one's again, no one's ever taught them, you know, how to how to ask for work or ask for referrals or and and and for me, and and I believe we're probably aligned on this, it's like the the pitch should be, hey, how can I help you? Like, like I asked you pre pre-call, like what would you like to get out of this out of this podcast? And so that's a skill set to do. Talk to me about CLEs, because you mentioned CLEs, and so are you referring to like a lawyer participating in as teacher, instructor in a CLE?
SPEAKER_00:So I go through um what what the purpose is of a CLE, right? A lot of times I have clients who think that just because they sit on a panel, their only job is to meet the other panelists to get clients. And they don't think of the audience at all. And so what I ask my clients to do is when we prep for a CLE that they're gonna present on, first the prep work is is your CLE fun? Does it have audience participation? Why do you want to be that boring law professor that we all had? And we've sat through a ton of CLEs in our lifetimes to know that everybody is looking at their phones, doing a CLE where people are reading off the slide and aren't really engaging. Like you are not that important. You're just up there talking, and it's get over yourself. Let's make a CLE that is fun for the people that come to watch you and to listen to you. We have to be a little bit more entertaining. And so that's what I mean when I talk about CLEs is is talking about a CLE from concept to preparation of the CLE to how do you present? If you see that you're losing the audience, then what steps do you need to take in order to bring the audience back in? And then after a CLE, I had a client say say to me when I I asked him to write, you know, go get the attendee list for everyone that came to see him and send a thank you for coming in and seeing my CLE. And he goes, I've never gotten one. And I'm like, that's the point. You've never gotten one. So why not say thank you? If there's anything I can help you with, I would love to help you or have a conversation further than the CLE. And he's like, Isn't that weird? And I'm like, it's only weird because no one's done it, right? Like, it's it's that's the only reason why you think that's weird. But if someone came and you have a potential client inside of that audience, what I call it is a captured audience. Right. So in a presentation, you have a captured audience and you want to make make sure that if there are any questions that you can help those folks with that spent an hour listening to you, you do.
SPEAKER_03:And and we would take that I I I I don't know what you meant by send them a note, but you know, uh w what we advocate is stamped, handwritten, addressed, mailed, because you can find anybody's mailing address. Um so even the the few people who who do this at all, they do it by email. But you're right, like I don't think I've ever gotten one from a CLE presenter, but I sure as heck, you know, if I'm uh we're gonna talk about networking events in a moment. I'm in a group where before every virtual or in-person networking event that this group holds, we get the list. We get the picture list, we get the bio, we get the addresses, it's provisors, and I and I'm walking around with my with my notepad. And if you're if you seem interesting to me, because there's two kinds of people that go to networking events, the the ones that you could meet and you could talk to for hours, and it would be fascinating for both of you. And there's the one where you say, please stop talking, get away from me. But for the first ones, like follow up with a note. Like, you know, we we teach lawyers how have a library of books, because people love books still, like real books matter, and find out one thing that this person is interested in that's not related to the legal subject matter, and just be curious about it. But I am curious about your because I know that networking events is something else that I think you teach into, and especially for an introvert, these are horrible. They can be, I mean, I can get on stage and talk to hundreds of people, but I hate like just generalized social, not good for Ben. But yeah, so so what are some of your lessons learned and taught about what I would call just generalized networking events and how to maximize your time there?
SPEAKER_00:It's a let's let's just paint the picture. There's a two-hour cocktail party of a bar association that you're going to because everyone's been to doesn't matter what type of law you practice, you've been to a bar association cocktail party. Um, so at that cocktail party, you're gonna see two types of people. You're gonna see the introverts that are standing alone, off to the side, they get their drink, their beer, and they go off to one of the corners. And then you have that guy who's just running around grabbing business cards. He's not actually having conversations. He just thinks that getting business cards means that he's gonna get business. And then you have the other folks that that do the 30-second elevator pitch. And okay, so for all those people that we've been told that we need 30-second elevator pitch, excuse me, has anyone ever gotten a client off of 30 seconds of talking? Nobody has. So what do you do in those 30 seconds? In those 30 seconds, you need to be human, you need to be relatable for an introvert or an extrovert. You have two hours. So go make three new friends. Instead of looking at it as a potential client, look about look at those people as three new potential friends. And what I have my clients do is come back to me with where they grew up, where they went to undergrad, where they went to school, tell me about their families, tell me about tell me about their hobbies. What do you talk about outside of law? And I always get this question, what if they bring up, you know, what do you do for work? And I'm like, answer the question, go back to, you know, whether it's golf or whatever their hobbies are, restaurants, foodies, etc. Go back to being human. You'll get to the law part later, if necessary, when you go out to lunch, but build a relationship so that you can go out to lunch. So the goal is three friends, and the only thing that you need to get out of it is how if you get enough information about how someone has grown up with sports team that they like, dogs, cats, food, etc., follow-up is easy because you have an infinite amount of things that you can either text them, email them, LinkedIn chat, chat them as follow-up. Like, hey, I saw this new restaurant opening. Did you see it too? We should go grab a grab some food from there. It could be all sorts of things. Because you need enough information in order to connect with them again. So the goal isn't them becoming a client. The goal is how am I gonna have my seven to eight interactions? And if I haven't gotten enough information, then there's that that follow-up. No one's gonna how many people have responded to you because you sent out a white paper? Nobody responds. Nobody reads it. You feel good because you wrote one. It's for you, not the person that's gonna read it.
SPEAKER_03:One other technique or strategy that has worked for me is you know, if I go to a networking event, I already have a circle of people that are my referral relationships or my clients in the legal space. And one of the things I'm looking for is who in this new group of a room full of people that I don't know would be really good, not for Ben necessarily, but for someone in Ben's universe, so that I can make that connection. Because if you make that connection, that's how you and I met, by the way, right? It's it and it and it's a good connection to make. Like that becomes a memorable experience. And if we would just spend the time thinking not so much about am I gonna get the am I gonna get the work from this in in house counsel who was my buddy in law school or not? And just think about all, as you say, all these other human connections. We're just gonna make a more effective use of of our time here on earth. At these at these events. Is this all harder? I know that you have written into and spoken in the space of women, minorities, women of color, in the legal profession. Is this still, I'm expecting it has been harder. Is it still harder in 2025?
SPEAKER_00:It's getting harder.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, tell me about that.
SPEAKER_00:It's actually, I think because of, I mean, how dare, yeah, do I dare say the politics of the world right now that the challenges are becoming more difficult? Meaning that law firms are stepping away from having initiatives that help support various groups. Um, I think that because those challenges are there, then you're you don't have programs and you don't have access to support inside of at least the firm life. I think um the words that a lot of folks pick and choose to use are becoming more crass. For a while there, it was getting better and now it's it's turning back into the past. Um as far as women go, there's two different types of women that are in the legal space. And a lot of this is because of politics inside of the organizations they work in. And the two viewpoints of women, and I write about this, is there's one type of woman that feels like she she made it, and because she made it, she's afraid of any other woman challenging her position inside of the firm and won't help other women come up because there's only one space at the table and that's hers. Then there's my philosophy, which is help everyone and just make a bigger table. If you got there, it's better to have allies at the table than it is to be alone in a group of you know 15 men because they gave you a seat. You're there, so use the power. Um as far as minorities and and the bar associations are helpful. I think it's always a struggle. I have a lot of um I have a couple clients that have just become partner, and the challenge is more of the fact that the law firms don't give them full information. You've made partnership, but you don't know what the rules of engagement are. And I don't know necessarily if that's a a female minority type of thing. I think that's an all of us kind of thing. I don't think all the law firms want everyone to become equity partners. The pie becomes smaller at that point. So I don't know what incentive there is for all of them. But I think the challenges are always, how do I say this? I think there's there's these microaggressions that happen that we still face. I went and I faced it my whole life. So it isn't I speak about it inside of the book of the things that I face. And I still have young women coming to me and and talking about the same. And it's walking in a room and you're judged by how you look and what gender you are to be taken seriously or not taken seriously. And so it's not that I'm not smart, it's no one's giving me a chance to prove that I'm smart. And that isn't going away.
SPEAKER_03:So is there any different or special advice, you know, besides besides like, okay, work work harder at it, right? At making these relationships, or get out and find a place where these barriers don't exist. Like, what do you say to particularly to these younger female or people of color partners who are trying to break down these invisible walls?
SPEAKER_00:Well, first you have to be your best advocate for yourself because no one else is gonna do that for you. And the hump is is you have to bring it up in a not this is my resume, but for me, my challenge was I always looked younger than my age. And so within the first five minutes of wanting someone to take me seriously, I would mention that I graduated law school in '96. And once they started crunching the numbers, you could see a visible posture change of oh, she's not a young kid. So it's different for everyone. Um, I recently spoke to an associate that the vendors she had a bunch of discovery, uh, e-discovery vendors that were helping her out on a case, and they would only respond to the senior partner on the case and not to her. And but she was running the whole thing, and and they were just cutting her out because they wanted the vendors want the partner. They're just dismissing her. And so, and so for her, she was she's an Asian uh woman, and English is her second language, and they needed her to like be fierce and have a call with the clients, the senior partners, and the vendors, and take them down a notch. And you have to do that at a certain point because otherwise you're gonna be walked over over and walked over over and over again because because you didn't fight back, and there's a lot more fighting back that needs to be done as a woman of color. You have to advocate for your voice. You have to be a little bit louder and a little bit more. This word is always touchy, aggressive. I grew up in an age where aggressive is bad, but I'm sorry you need to because in law school you were taught to be the best advocate for your client as possible. That means aggressive as well. It's part of the job description.
SPEAKER_03:You were doing some great work in the world. Tell me about if I followed you around for a couple of weeks, what would I see you doing?
SPEAKER_00:Well, right now, um, I've become an event planner for myself, which is a role that I never thought it was going to be. But because I self-published my book, there's a need to let people know that the book exists. So right now, you would be seeing me in and out of meetings with law firms talking about developing rainmaking programs, or you'd be seeing me doing client meetings with my current clients on our weekly, weekly calls to see what they've done last week and what what they're gonna do next week. Or you would see me doing event planning, which is setting up launch parties in the big cities to let folks know that the book exists. And um, I gotta get to the tipping point where it becomes word of mouth because the book goes into things like what we talk about at lunch, origination, how you how people screw you over and steal your origination as a young attorney. It also goes into if your clients are individuals as opposed to corporate clients, how to set up feeder networks that feed you clients instead of chasing a bunch of individuals, what they can do. How do I say it? Let's take an example. If you are an estate and gift attorney out there and you have your own shingle, then your best feeders would be financial consultants because you guys can work hand in hand together. So let's set up a feeder system that feeds you clients, but you have to develop those relationships with those financial consultants in your area in order to have those clients come come through if you have those relationships set up that you know where the referral business comes from. So you're you're doing multiple different things and you never know where the business is gonna come from, but you have to do it all in order for it to be effective.
SPEAKER_03:So one of the things we teach, and I think you'd appreciate this, is when you we we would call that like finding the tribal leaders, right? So the financial consultants would be tribal leaders over other people who are at some point are gonna need an estate planning wealth attorney. And so, so on a at a different level, we do that here. My son uh does that with with chiropractors, right? What do chiropractors have? They have people that have been injured in car accidents. And one of the things that we do is we ask them as we're as we're making these introductions, most all of whom have had a bad experience with a lawyer, right? Is we ask them, like, tell us the tell us the things about lawyers that irritate you. And then our internal program is all built around making sure that we are not in that box. Like, if the lawyer doesn't pay you on time, if the lawyer doesn't keep you up to date on the case, the lawyer doesn't, you know, is always trying to uh like discount your bills and stuff. We're like, okay, we can solve those problems. So, so when we're talking to tribal leaders, we find out like, what is it that they hate about lawyers? All right, let's not be that person. So then it gets it gets all the way back around to human relationships, customer relationships, referral relationships, and just ask like, how can I make this other person's life better, smoother, so that they can be a hero to their customers, their patients, their clients, whatever it is. Look, this has been fun. The book is Rainmaker Unleashed. I know people can find you on LinkedIn. And what's the URL, what's the address for the consulting company?
SPEAKER_00:Sageivconsulting.com. Rainmaker unleashed just found on Amazon. So just Google that and you can find it. Um but yeah, say SageIV Consulting.com is is the business link.
SPEAKER_03:Well, and I hope folks go and in order the book because even though you are speaking, like your avatar primarily is a is all big law attorney, we are talking about human beings. And as you and I said before we started, like if they can do it, if big if big law can do it, then we're in a much better position, I think, like um to accomplish this and to see the results. I found the comment about you know, if you have more equity partners and the pie is smaller, we'd be like, if you had more equity partners and you built a bigger pie, everybody's happier, right? And that's what the whole the whole game is like exactly build a bigger pie. So gel, it's been uh it's been a pleasure chatting with you today. Good luck on your future events for the book and and getting the book flipped to yes, where word of mouth is is the lever. It's been fun talking to you.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01:That's it for today's episode of the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where we're rewriting the rules of what it means to build a great law practice and a great life. If something sparked a new idea or gave you clarity, pass it on. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with someone who's ready to think bigger. Want more tools, strategies, and stories from the trenches? Visit GreatLegalMarketing.com or connect with Ben Glass and the team on LinkedIn. Keep building boldly. We'll see you next time.
