The Important Of Being Approachable For Those Just Beginning Their Legal Careers

If you've recently graduated from law school and are planning to join a small firm, hang your own shingle, or hire on with a large corporate law firm, you're probably aware that it's essential to craft a reputation that inspires consumer confidence in order to succeed in a legal career. Besides cultivating a great reputation, it's also important for an attorney to generate a healthy amount of billable hours. If you're going to be working at a law firm, your monthly amount of billable hours will be taken into consideration when the time comes for higher-ups to consider you for a promotion. If you're going out on your own, the amount of money you make will directly depend on the amount of billable hours that you are able to generate. 

One of the key components of creating billable hours especially when you're first starting out and don't have a solid established reputation to recommend you is to be approachable. Here's what you can do:

Don't Be Afraid to Talk Shop in Social Situations

The biggest mistake most lawyers make is being reticent about talking shop in social situations. Naturally, no one appreciates being hit up for free legal advice, you can often turn the person asking into a paying client. That doesn't mean you should spend all your time at social gatherings discussing legal matters -- however, if someone approaches you with a legal question, instead of cutting them off by telling them that you don't talk shop at social occasions, try spending a few minutes discussing it and then present the person with your business card and encourage them to make an appointment for more information and assistance. 

Not only can this strategy increase your client base, it helps create a good reputation because it makes you come across as approachable.

Find a Good Legal Marketing Service

It's important for anyone who is in business to have a positive, approachable online presence, and this includes attorneys. The right legal marketing service will work to create the type of professional persona that inspires potential clients to reach out to you with their legal issues. They'll keep your webpage updated with articles on timely legal issues in language designed to appeal to the lay reader as well as devise a customized marketing plan to designed to highlight your particular strengths as an attorney. Most attorneys, however, simply don't have the time to handle their own online marketing.

Keep in mind that even though many large law corporations have in-house marketing teams, many individual attorneys opt to be proactive and work with independent marketing specialists. Please feel free to reach out to your local marketing law firm service for more information on how being approachable can boost your legal business.