A friend of mine recently asked me to comment on a conversation he had about business development. During an afternoon on the golf course, one of my friend’s neighbors, a CFO at a public company, was expressing concern about an exchange he just had with the SEC. He was worried. My friend, a transactional lawyer, offered to connect him with a securities specialist at his firm who could help review the filings. Yet the CFO hadn’t called. In fact, my friend just found out his neighbor had opted to hire a competitor instead—one who, according to my friend, charged 200 percent more. “Why?” is what he wanted to know from me, “What did I do wrong?”
After years of interviewing corporate clients about why they hire—and keep working with—law firms, it was clear to me: “You answered the wrong question,” I told my friend. Let’s look at this from both sides:
