MAY 2003
What's new this month:
   1. Improving Rainmaking Skills
    2. The Rainmaking Coach
    3. Last month's Survey Results
    4. Making Rain - Chapters 2/3

LATERALS provides 10,356 law firm partners with monthly information on recruiting and rainmaking issues. We are attorney recruiters who have lateraled and/or merged over 1,000 attorneys since 1979. As a result LATERALS is about the real world of lateraling and rainmaking. Visit the Sears & Associates web site at www.mentoringpros.com. Meet Jerry Sears, our Managing Partner, learn what the New York Law Journal had to say about his best selling book, "Making Rain" and download the first three chapters of Making Rain at no cost.

ONLINE PROGRAMMING
IMPROVING YOUR RAINMAKING SKILLS

In last month's Survey, more than 80% of you asked for online programming on improving rainmaking skills. This month we're pleased to announce two easy-to-access programs on this critical subject. They're pre-recorded so you can listen to them at your convenience. And there's no cost.

1. YOUR FIVE PERSONAL OBSTACLES TO MAKING RAIN
2. OVERCOMING THE FIRST OBSTACLE: YOUR OWN FEARS.
Many of you know me as a speaker at law conventions on lateral and rainmaking issues; others know me as an successful attorney headhunter who counsels laterals on increasing their book of business. But those of you who know me well, know that I didn't start out with the skills needed for building a successful rainmaking practice. I started life as an abandoned child. I reached adulthood with absolutely no interpersonal skills (some may say I still don't have any). While it took me years to develop myself, once I did, I never looked back. Using this background, our first six programs are on my favorite subject: Overcoming Your Rainmaking Obstacles. Click here to listen to these two pre-recorded sessions.

Good luck with your rainmaking.

Jerry Sears

THE RAINMAKING COACH
PROOF POSITIVE: RAINMAKERS CAN BE MADE

Can rainmakers be made? Daniel Goleman, Psychology Professor at Harvard and author of, "Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace", together with Robert Sternberg, IBM Professor of Psychology at Yale and author of, "Successful Intelligence", resoundingly say 'yes.'

Many equally knowledgeable people agree that attorneys can learn to make rain. If they're right, we believe that this will dramatically change the practice of law. It means that we may finally have to abdandon our cherished, ancient, seldom articulated, but widely believed axiom: rainmakers are born but seldom made.

So look around your firm. Which of your non-originators can become successful rainmakers? How can we forecast who among the 60% or more of non-rainmakers will be able to make enough rain to support their compensation packages?

While our intelligence quotient, popularly known as our IQ, remains virtually unchanged through life, Goleman and Sternberg, and others like them, have proven that our emotional intelligence, which governs our interpersonal skills, can dramatically change, often with minimal effort. Think about your firm's most successful rainmakers. Across the board, you'd probably agree that they have excellent interpersonal skills, right?

I know that we've all experienced the brilliant attorney's difficult and/or withdrawn personality. He or she is impossible to work with and/or can't get any business on their own. What these new studies report is that even some of these extreme people can be helped. Within reason, it makes little difference how explosive, awkward, withdrawn or insensitive a person is - change is possible.

Changes result from improving interpersonal skills. The results with clients, as well as in the workplace, are immediately evident. The person needs only strong motivation and some effort. Law firms are often the key drivers by delivering new business origination expectations. Major studies using the techniques that we'll describe in this newsletter deliver results that are seven times bigger than traditional 'marketing' techniques. Our experience proves that it takes as few as 30 days to as many as 6 to 8 months to effect change. It's all dependent on motivation.

CLICK HERE TO TEST YOUR OWN EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

LEARN MORE ABOUT EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE (EI)

1. Visit the premier EI research site: The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations.

2. Visit The Institute for Health and Human Potential.

3. Read Highlights of Emotional Intelligence: Excepts and Comments from Daniel Goleman.

4. Visit the web site of Robert Sternberg, PHD, author of "Successful Intelligence: How Practical and Creative Intelligence Determines Success."

5. Lyle Spencer, Jr., PHD, in his well known study of star performers in 286 organizations, showed how critical these emotional intelligence skills are. Spencer measured these star performers on 21 generic competencies of which 18 (85%) are based on emotional intelligence.

YOU BE THE JUDGE
This survey is not scientific and reflects the opinions of only those readers who have chosen to participate. The results cannot be assumed to represent opinions of readers in general, nor the profession as a whole. Check back next month to see the compiled anonymous results.

1. Do you believe that partners can be trained to make rain?
NO. If elephants could fly, birds would have big ears.
NO. Most personalities are too ingrained to change.
MAYBE. If the firm applies enough pressure, they'll change.
YES. If the person has enough motivation.

SURVEY RESULTS
YOUR RESPONSES TO APRIL'S SURVEY

Thank you to the 4,200 attorneys who participated in last month's survey. The results were compiled anonymously and hopefully, you'll find the responses as interesting as we did.

Why do you think partners make lateral moves? 50%-to escape their firm's problems and/or politics; 34.6% - their firm provides inadequate support for their growing practice; 26.9% - they want better compensation plans; 11.5%-They want origination credit; 11.5%-They want to reduce financial risk from current management; and 3.8%-they want to grow their books, but don't have the time.

This question related to a story about a firm's need to service the clients of huge rainmaker who had recently left the firm: Which candidate would you choose? These results were very interesting. Brad was the firm's non-rainmaker, service partner who had worked with the rainmaker's clients for years. Ben was the lateral candidate with a $2 million book, but who only billed 1200 hours himself; and Norm had built his book to $500,000 and bills a consistent 1900 hours, half of it on other partner's matters. 30.8% choose Norm Strugolsi; 26.9% chose Brad Talbert; 7.7% choose Ben Goodfellow; and 19,2% felt that they didn't have enough data to chose.

Which Online Programming or Webinar topics would you be most interested in attending? 88.5% - improving rainmaking skills; 23.1% - lateral due diligence; 11.5% - growing a firm with laterals; and 7.7% - retaining good laterals.

When should a successful partner leave a firm that has substantial internal conflict, all things being equal, within... 34.9% said 12 months; 19.2% said 18 months and 11.5 said within 6 months.

Do you beleive that data gathered from other professional environments doesn't correlate to the practice of law? A resounding 92% indicated that this statement was not true. And as result in this month's issue we've published the first of several articles on using data gained in the corporate workplace on emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills.

During the last two years more than 7,500 attorneys, worldwide, have read "Making Rain." The book is about Brad Talbot. Brad is bright, presentable, hard working and loyal. He just can't seem to attract clients and, as a result, he's a service partner... a good one, but without clients of his own. Throughout the book Brad faces the challanges of seeing himself through his own eyes and those of his wife and partners. By understanding how Brad resolves his problems, many lawyers have been themselves more clearly.

Download the first chapter of "Making Rain" together with its questions. Download the second chapter. Download the third chapter together with its questions. Download the NEW YORK LAW JOURNAL's Book Review.

Laterals is published monthly by Sears & Associates, a national attorney search firm since 1979.

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Executive Editor: Jerry Sears jerry@mentoringpros.com
Publisher: Ellen Caravello ellen@mentoringpros.com
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Sears & Associates
RECRUITING AND DEVELOPING RAINMAKERS SINCE 1979
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