The previous lesson posed the question, are law firms looking in the wrong place when they think about client development? We all understand the concept of client development and the way the term is used. But it's not helpful.

Your clients are what they are, clients. The idea that they can be turned into bigger clients by you developing them is a myth. It comes from the wrong place. It assumes that your firm is a perfect offering, and that the clients just need schooling to see it. That's backwards. Your clients don't become bigger clients by you developing them, they do it by you developing yourself.

Here's the key question: If you need to develop yourself to make your clients bigger — such that they send you more of their business more often — how do you go about it? As the "wrong place" lesson explains, clients will always prefer to buy from healthy, well-aligned enterprises over unhealthy, dysfunctional suppliers. This is your goal: to fix the health and hygiene in your own firm, in all the ways that matter to clients.

You're probably addressing much of this already, but it bears repeating because so much is at stake. Long-term relationships, which yield repeat business for a number of practice groups, are based on a range of attributes by which clients will measure your firm.

Here's our Health & Hygiene Checklist for firms seeking to improve client relations by improving themselves:

  • Talent: Do you have the depth and bench strength where it matters?
  • Diversity: Do you hire, advance and retain diverse talent?
  • Technology: Do you have the right systems and IT to support the talent?
  • Work Methods: Do you equip your lawyers with a first-class legal ops toolset like Lean Adviser to imbue structure, efficiency and effectiveness?
  • Health: Do you create a good work-life balance and pay proper attention to mental health and wellbeing?
  • Culture: On a spectrum from "dysfunctional autocracy" to "enlightened meritocracy" where are you?
  • Client Orientation: Are you really client-facing, or are these just words on your website?
  • Decency: Are you decent people and good citizens, who do pro-bono for the right reasons and serve the community?

Whether you realize it or not, clients can tell how your firm answers those questions. And if you can't honestly answer "Yes" to all of them, it's time to strap on the running shoes and start getting client-healthy.