By Anne Pyburn Craig
Photograph Courtesy Arthur G. Levin
The conventional wisdom has long been that law is a recession-proof line of work. Tough times hardly lead to fewer disputes. So it’s entirely possible that some attorneys were blindsided when this recession began taking its toll on their profession right along with everyone else’s.
A U.S. Department of Labor study last April illustrates the problem: the number of unemployed lawyers jumped 66 percent in 2008 to a 10-year high of 20,000. The first three months of 2009 saw more than 3,000 jobs cut within the legal profession. This isn’t much in comparison to the million construction jobs lost, but it’s extremely bad news for young adults carrying high-dollar educational debt. For the first time in 135 years, the New York City Bar Association has begun offering career counseling to unemployed members. And some firms—even some large and venerable ones—have outright closed.
So how does an attorney avoid becoming a statistic? The first step may be contained in two words of ancient Socratic wisdom. “‘Know thyself’ positioning is what we specifically work on,” says Arthur Levin, who founded AGL Associates in 1990, after working as a law firm administrator at three major firms. “You’re selling a relationship. Law firms spend quite a lot on marketing, but over 90 percent of their business comes from individual relationships.”
Levin, a non-attorney, found himself working in the field by sheer serendipity. “I was working for the federal government, commuting from New York to Trenton every day,” he recalls. “One day I was home sick, and I saw an ad for a law firm administrator. I called and they said, ‘We’re not quite sure what we need—what would you do?’ I said, ‘I have no idea—shall we try to work it out together?’”
When law firms first recognized the need for non-attorney business administrators, Levin recalls, many attempted to bring in retired military officers. It didn’t go well. “They tried colonels and generals—most lasted around three months,” he says. “Actually, one even committed suicide.” Levin, however, found the unique issues presented by a company made up of dozens or hundreds of independent-minded, highly educated competitive spirits to be refreshing.
“I spent 15 years educating vendors on how to effectively market to law firms, and began to realize that the one thing firms need the most is always new business,” he says. “No one was coaching lawyers on how best to do this.”
Eric Wagner is administrative partner and chair of the marketing committee at Kleinberg, Kaplan, Wolff, and Cohen, P.C., a firm employing about 45 lawyers and specializing in business and investment law. He says Levin’s approach is helping them weather the recession. “We brought him in to work with a number of partners on marketing, and he taught them to put together highly individualized branding plans based on their strengths,” he says. “People learned how to focus their efforts better. If you ask a bunch of lawyers to think about who they know, many will say, ‘I don’t know anybody!’ But they do—it’s a matter of finding the right ones.”
Actually, says Levin, lawyers tend to know two distinctly different but equally useful groups of people. “Many lawyers in their forties have two social groups—other lawyers, and the parents of their kids’ friends,” he notes. “I teach them how to catch the opportunity that may fly by on the sidelines of the soccer game.”
“He did a great job,” says Wagner. “We’ve noticed a good uptick in motivation and effort—people are excited about marketing. One junior partner organized a networking group of people with different specialties. And we’ve been seeing a nice increase in business despite the downturn—we’ve actually been hiring.”
Scott Baken, a partner at employment law firm Jackson Lewis, says Levin’s approach can help a lawyer become a better marketer regardless of experience, and can have benefits that transcend the financial.
“I met Art a couple of years ago and had him come in to coach, mostly for mid-level partners,” he says. “He urged us to figure out what we really love, and spend our client development time doing what we enjoy on a recreational and personal level. When you find people you click with, that’s where you’ll more likely find business. And I’ve found that philosophy to be very useful in terms of enjoying every aspect of life.”
Baken claims “music, vintage pinball games, and Jewish education” as his “own passions,” and confesses that he “used to keep those passions separate from [his] work.” But not since working with Levin. “Art taught me to recognize that my skills can help people, to think of myself and my education as a resource to be shared,” he says. “He’s really good at consciousness raising and knows a lot about law firms—and it removed the mental friction caused by feeling like I was putting the ‘bite’ on people.”
Levin says he’s well aware of the turmoil clients often go through in choosing a lawyer. It’s “a big deal with big consequences, and it’s often done with a lot of care and recommendations from others,” he says. “The term ‘represent’ means that someone has an issue that they’re unable to handle by themselves—often with significant personal, business, or monetary consequences. And clients often have to give the lawyer information they’d normally not give to anyone. It has to be a good match. We build our programs based on those things the lawyer is willing and comfortable in doing; otherwise, it won’t work. We’ve built programs around hobbies, sports activities, political interests, family and child raising activities—whatever works for the lawyer.”
Although Baken used to keep his work out of his private life, he now melds the two in favor, he says, of aiming to be a Renaissance man. “Rather than shy away from talking about what I do,” he says, “I now embrace it, and it has led to referrals. The pinball game part hasn’t really taken off, but lots of people love music and lifelong learning, and some of those people need a good attorney.”
Plus, says Baken, working with Levin has led to reaching a new level of personal fulfillment. “Art has some great techniques that helped me see how many of my impediments are self-imposed,” he says. “And part of the deal is, once you hire Art, you have lifetime access to his consulting at no further cost, which is just amazing. My wife’s a matrimonial attorney, and she had a question bugging her, so the three of us are going to have dinner next week.
“I’m fascinated by the whole world of work and what motivates people. I like getting people to realize what giving to others can do for them, and Art helped me tap into all this. I’ve always liked my work—now I enjoy it on a much deeper level.”
