“Resume builder.” It's a term we are taught at a young age. We join the band and play sports to get into a good college. We join clubs and volunteer to be attractive to law schools. We pull all-nighters with the hope of making Law Review. Before we know it, our resume building is over and we are first year associates. There is no longer a need for extracurricular activities, right? Wrong!

Extracurriculars should not take a back seat once you get a desk and a 401(k) plan. The link between extracurriculars and success, if anything, becomes stronger once a young attorney starts practicing law. Any young associate can be a workhorse, burn the midnight oil and bill 60 hours a week to generate income for the firm. However, what really sets a new attorney apart—and puts her on the partner track—is the ability to generate business. Money talks. To start building a book of business, a young attorney should network by participating in professional organizations, interest groups, boards, or legal publications. These extracurricular activities will help young attorneys to establish their names in the community, and inevitably, referrals will follow.

Unfortunately for young lawyers, most law firms do not pay you for the time spent to build the book. All the while, billing hours and producing excellent work product are imperative to success, and should be a young lawyer's very first priority. Indeed, what good are referrals if a lawyer has not learned to be an effective advocate? The challenge lies in the balancing these interests. How do you produce 200 hours of quality work product every month while still finding the time to plant the seeds to your future? When it comes to networking, the key is to work smart, not hard. While it is not easy, here are some suggestions that every young associate can rely on to juggle all of the balls that the legal practice throws in the air:

Be Picky. Your Time Is Precious

Young attorneys often do not know where to start building their network, so they throw themselves into every professional organization they come across. In theory, the strategy of casting a wide net is a good one, but not for a new associate still learning to manage a crushing workload. Overbooking yourself with too many events will affect your work product, which will result in unhappy clients and unhappy partners. Instead, start out small with more narrow, targeted networking.

But whom to target? Just ask. The partners in your law firm are partners for a reason: they built their book of business through trial and error over many years of practice. It would be a waste of a valuable resource if you failed to draw on their wisdom and experience in planning your own networking strategy.

Others can impart to you what has and has not worked for them, as well as provide insight as to the firm's saturated referral bases compared to those that remain untapped. For example, a partner would know if one of the attorneys in the firm already dominates referrals from contacts in a certain circle, in which case it would be a waste of time for you to focus your efforts there. Why compete with someone from your own firm for business?

Target Referrals Based on Your Practice

Think about the types of clients that retain your law firm. For example, if you work for an employment defense firm, then business owners, board members and in-house counsel will be your client base; if you work in real estate and do title work, then meeting real estate brokers should be your goal. Keeping in mind the kinds of people you want to meet will help you choose worthwhile networking events to attend and skip the ones that are not as likely to lead to business. When you are short on time (which new associates usually are), you must be selective when it comes to your networking opportunities.

When in doubt, networking with other attorneys is always worthwhile. Attorneys are constantly approached with cases they cannot take, either due to a lack of capacity, potential conflicts, or lack of experience with the subject matter, and must refer the case elsewhere. If you develop relationships with attorneys who practice in different areas of the law than you, they will think of you whenever they need to refer a case to someone in your area of expertise.  Additionally, attorneys are often called upon by friends, family, neighbors and fellow members of the PTA to make a referral.

Set Goals

You should set parallel goals for both work achievements and networking strides. For work achievements, set monthly goals for the number of hours you want to bill, and annual goals for the professional milestones you aim to achieve (for example, taking your first deposition or handling your first settlement conference).

For networking, set monthly goals for the number of events to want to attend, and an annual goal for the number of clients you want to bring in. Not only will the exercise of establishing goals for yourself increase the odds of your achieving them (studies show that goals written down with deadlines are more likely to be achieved) but it can also serve as a yardstick to keep track of your how you are balancing your time.

Keep in Touch with Law School Classmates

There is something to be said about friends that are made in foxholes, and law school classmates are no exception. Whether it is due to shared experiences, similar interests, or commonalities in work-life balance challenges, law school classmates often become lifelong friends. Fostering and maintaining these friendships is time well spent, from both personal and professional perspectives. That is because law school classmates can be excellent networking tools and referral sources in addition to being great friends. Keeping up with professional friends kills two birds with one stone, as it maximizes the value on the time you would be spending socializing anyway.

Law school classmates can help you build your book of business in two different ways. The first and most immediate way is by recruiting a few law school peers as networking buddies. Enroll in the same professional organization, or attend networking events together. Not only is it easier to walk into a room where there is a friendly face, but you can also motivate each other to show up to meetings or volunteer for bigger roles within an organization.

Second, you and your law school classmates can help one another build books of business is by referring cases to one another directly. Of course, it could be several years before you or your law school classmates have the opportunity to refer cases to one another; however, it is important to cultivate those relationships with your classmates now, and maintain them. This is as simple as getting coffee together or organizing a small happy hour every once in a while. It's fun, and it could benefit you professionally down the road. Keeping in touch with law school classmates is the easiest kind of networking; most likely, you are already doing it anyway.

Alyssa R. Angotti is an associate attorney at Pollock Begg Komar Glasser & Vertz with a practice spanning all areas of family law including complex equitable distribution and support cases involving business valuation. Contact her at [email protected].