How to Build a Book of Business as a Lawyer

You can be an excellent lawyer, have a diary full of client work, be highly regarded by your colleagues and still have very little business that you can genuinely call your own.

It's quite common for lawyers to spend years developing their technical expertise, managing important matters and looking after clients who were brought into the firm by somebody else. Then, as they approach partnership, the expectation changes. Suddenly, they're expected to start bringing in work themselves.

The trouble is that being good at delivering legal services doesn't automatically make you good at winning them. They're different skills, and lawyers aren't always taught the second set.

So, how do you build a book of business as a lawyer?

You build it by consistently developing relationships with the right people, becoming known for the type of work you want to do, recognising opportunities and learning how to turn those opportunities into paying clients.

Some of those clients will instruct you again. Others will recommend you to people they know. Over time, those relationships and instructions can develop into a valuable book of business.

I always tell lawyers they should start learning these skills as early as possible—ideally while they're still at law school, rather than waiting until they're expected to generate work at partnership.

There's something else I want to challenge: the idea that building a substantial book of business requires lots of big business development (BD) initiatives. In my experience, lawyers who become successful rainmakers tend to understand the value of taking small, deliberate actions consistently over time.

What is a lawyer's book of business?

A lawyer's book of business is generally the portfolio of client relationships and associated legal work that they've developed, originated or are responsible for maintaining.

The precise definition can vary between law firms. Some place greater emphasis on who originally brought the client into the firm, while others recognise the lawyers who manage and develop the relationship.

There are three different contributions worth understanding:

One lawyer might be responsible for all three. In other cases, several lawyers contribute.

For example, a corporate partner might introduce a new client to the firm, while an employment partner subsequently develops a relationship with that client and wins employment instructions. Both have contributed commercially, although the firm's approach to origination credit may determine how that contribution is recognised.

The distinction is particularly relevant to associates who are doing excellent work for the firm's clients but haven't yet developed many client relationships of their own.

A contact list isn't a book of business

It's also worth distinguishing between having a large professional network and having a book of business.

A lawyer might have thousands of LinkedIn connections, attend networking events regularly and know plenty of people in their industry. That's useful, but it doesn't necessarily mean they've developed relationships that generate work.

Think about how those contacts might develop:

Not every contact will become a relationship, and not every relationship will result in instructions. Nor should they.

The objective is to develop the right relationships and become somebody people think of when they need the expertise you provide.

A book of business is worth more than its annual revenue

Lawyers often describe the size of their book in terms of annual fees or billings. Revenue is certainly relevant, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

Imagine two lawyers with similarly sized books. One generates most of their revenue from a single client involved in a major, one-off transaction. The other has several established clients who regularly instruct them, recommend them to others and value the relationship.

Both books may be commercially valuable, but their prospects for generating future work could look quite different.

We'll return to what makes a book sustainable later, because I think lawyers sometimes focus too heavily on the headline revenue figure.

Start building your book long before partnership

One of the biggest mistakes lawyers can make is waiting until they become partners before taking business development seriously. I would go further and suggest that lawyers should start learning BD skills while they're still studying law.

I'm not suggesting that law students should be trying to sell legal services. I'm suggesting they should understand how professional relationships develop, how law firms win clients and why commercial skills will become increasingly relevant as their careers progress.

When they enter practice, they can start putting those skills to work in ways appropriate to their experience and responsibilities. The earlier those activities become part of your professional routine, the less unfamiliar business development will feel when you're expected to generate work.

You can develop relationships before you're responsible for winning work

As a junior lawyer, you're unlikely to be expected to bring in a substantial amount of business. Your immediate priority will usually be developing your legal expertise and learning how to serve clients properly. But you have to start developing the skills that will help you generate work later.

You can learn how to have better conversations with clients, understand their businesses, build relationships with people in your professional network and become more confident speaking about the work you do. You can also become involved in the firm's BD activities, particularly where they give you opportunities to meet clients, understand their needs or see how new instructions arise.

Naturally, these activities need to be appropriate to your seniority and consistent with your firm's policies and supervision arrangements. The advantage of starting early is that, by the time winning work becomes a significant part of your role, you won't be approaching it as something completely unfamiliar.

Don't wait for promotion to change your habits

I've always found it strange that law firms can spend years developing somebody into an excellent technical lawyer, promote them into partnership and then expect them to become commercially capable almost overnight. Some lawyers manage that transition well. Others find it difficult, particularly if they've spent their careers relying on somebody else to bring in the work.

The difficulty isn't necessarily a lack of ability. They may simply never have developed the habits or learned the skills. Of course, if you're already a senior associate or partner and haven't done much BD, you haven't missed your opportunity. You can start developing those capabilities at any stage of your career. But the earlier you start, the more time you have to practise.

Decide what kind of book of business you want to build

Before you start trying to generate work, I'd encourage you to think about the type of clients you actually want. When I work with lawyers on their ideal client type (ICT), we look at much more than how much revenue a client might generate:

Which clients do you enjoy working with? Who brings you the type of work you want to do? Who pays on time? Who respects your advice? What sort of work do you want to become known for?

We also consider whether those clients are commercially appropriate, whether they need your particular expertise and whether there's potential to develop an ongoing professional relationship.

Your answers will influence the type of book you build. For example, if you want to develop a practice advising growing technology businesses, it makes sense to spend time developing relationships with founders, investors and other advisers who work with those businesses. You could spend the same amount of time networking indiscriminately, but you're less likely to develop the concentration of relevant relationships you need.

Trying to win everyone can weaken your book

One of the things I've noticed when working with lawyers is how easily they can spread themselves too thin. They want more clients, so they pursue almost every opportunity that comes along. They attend events, connect with people and agree to meetings without giving enough thought to whether those relationships are relevant to the practice they're trying to develop.

Before long, they're incredibly busy with BD but haven't necessarily made much progress. Being selective doesn't mean refusing every opportunity outside your ideal client type. It means having a clear idea of where you want to spend your limited time.

If you'd like to explore this in more detail, I've written separately about how lawyers can get more clients, including why defining your ideal client type is such a useful starting point.

Rainmakers understand the power of small, consistent actions

When lawyers tell me about their BD plans, I'm often struck by how ambitious those plans are. They're going to organise a webinar series, write a collection of articles, attend several conferences, launch a networking initiative, or develop an elaborate marketing campaign.

There's nothing inherently wrong with any of those activities. Done well, they can help lawyers develop their reputations and generate opportunities. The problem is that lawyers are busy people: client work has deadlines, colleagues need answers, and unexpected matters arrive at inconvenient times.

The ambitious BD project gets pushed back because something more urgent needs attention. Eventually, it either gets abandoned or takes so long to complete that very little else happens in the meantime.

Meanwhile, the lawyer who has been taking small, consistent actions may have developed several useful relationships.

Being busy with BD isn't the same as building a book

Lawyers often confuse the amount of BD activity they're undertaking with the progress they're making. A calendar full of networking events can look impressive. So can a long list of marketing projects. But if those activities aren't helping you develop relevant relationships or create opportunities, you need to question whether they're the best use of your time.

A lawyer who spends a few minutes engaging thoughtfully with a prospective client's LinkedIn post, stays in touch with an existing contact or arranges a useful introduction may be doing something commercially valuable without embarking on a major project.

Of course, simply repeating small actions won't guarantee results. You still need to be engaging with the right people, providing something useful and knowing how to recognise and develop an opportunity.

But small actions are often easier to fit into a working week, which makes them easier to repeat.

Make relationship development a habit

I would much rather see a lawyer consistently undertaking a handful of useful BD activities than creating an enormous plan they never manage to implement.

You don't need to dedicate an arbitrary number of hours every week or contact a prescribed number of people every day. Start with something manageable that fits around your existing commitments. Perhaps that means staying in touch with a former colleague, commenting on a relevant client's post, reconnecting with somebody you met at an event or finding out how an existing client's business is developing.

Over time, those actions can help you build a much stronger professional network. The important thing is to stop treating BD as an occasional project you undertake when you have spare time. For most lawyers, spare time is a rather unreliable resource.

Become known for the right expertise

If somebody in your network encounters a problem that you could help solve, will they think of you?

It's an interesting question because being technically excellent doesn't necessarily mean people understand what you do. Your colleagues may know you're a brilliant commercial litigator, for example, but does your wider network know the types of disputes you handle, the clients you work with or the circumstances in which somebody should contact you?

People are more likely to recognise an opportunity to introduce you when they understand where your expertise is relevant. Your professional visibility should therefore support the type of book you want to develop.

LinkedIn can be useful here, as can articles, speaking engagements and involvement in relevant professional organisations. The aim is to help the right people understand what you do and the problems you're equipped to help them with.

You don't need to become a prolific content creator or build a huge social media following. A smaller network of people who understand your expertise and have genuine relationships with you may be considerably more useful.

Build relationships, not just a network of contacts

Lawyers are often encouraged to expand their networks, and there's good reason for that: meeting new people creates opportunities to develop professional relationships.

But there's a limit to the value of continually adding contacts if you never do anything to maintain those relationships. I've seen lawyers put considerable effort into networking without giving enough attention to the people they've already met. They collect business cards, connect on LinkedIn and move on to the next event. Months later, they may struggle to remember much about the people they met, let alone what was happening in their businesses.

Get to know the people behind the work

The best professional relationships develop when you take a genuine interest in the other person. If you're talking to a business owner, understanding what their company does is only the beginning. What are they trying to achieve? What challenges are they facing? What changes are taking place in their industry?

You don't need to turn every conversation into a formal discovery meeting. Sometimes it's simply a matter of being curious, asking a useful question and listening properly. You may discover something that helps you provide valuable advice. Equally, you might be able to introduce them to somebody who could help with an issue outside your expertise. The relationship can become valuable long before there's any prospect of legal instructions.

Maintain the relationships you've developed

As your network grows, you need to make decisions about where to concentrate your attention. Some relationships will naturally be more relevant to your practice than others. Some people will become clients, others may be useful referrers, and some will simply be professional contacts you enjoy knowing.

You don't have to maintain every relationship with the same level of attention. What I would encourage you to avoid is continually chasing new contacts while neglecting the relationships that already have potential.

Law is a complex sale. That means people don’t agree to work with you having just spoken to you once. These are big, life-changing decisions that often need a lot of consideration, as well as trust to build up. That’s the same whether it’s a client or a referrer. A useful conversation today may not lead to an instruction for months or even years. If you've disappeared from the person's professional life in the meantime, there's a reasonable chance they won't think of you when they eventually need help.

Learn how to turn relationships into work

Developing professional relationships is an essential part of building a book of business, but relationships don't automatically turn into paying clients. At some point, you need to recognise when somebody has a problem or an objective that you may be able to help with. And then you need to know how to have the commercial conversation.

A good relationship isn't automatically a commercial opportunity

You might know somebody for years without ever having the opportunity to work together. That's perfectly normal. They may never need your expertise, or they may already have a lawyer they're happy with.

The difficulty comes when lawyers assume that having a good relationship is enough to generate instructions when an opportunity does arise. A prospective client may like and trust you, but they still need to understand how you can help them, what you're proposing and why they should instruct you.

Learn to have the commercial conversation

When a genuine opportunity arises, you need to be able to explore the prospective client's situation, understand what they're trying to achieve and establish whether you're the right person to help.

You also need to be comfortable discussing the proposed service, addressing concerns and agreeing what happens next. These are selling skills, although I know plenty of lawyers don't particularly like that description.

The good news is that selling legal services doesn't have to involve pressure, clever tricks or adopting a personality that doesn't suit you. Good consultative selling is based on curiosity, listening, understanding the client's needs and helping them make an informed decision.

I've explored those skills in more detail in How to Sell Legal Services: A Practical Guide for Lawyers.

The point I want to make here is that winning work is something you can learn. You don't have to be naturally outgoing or fit the stereotypical image of a rainmaker.

Build on the clients and relationships you already have

When lawyers think about building their books, they often concentrate on finding new clients. That's understandable, particularly if they have very little personally originated work. But I'd encourage lawyers to pay at least as much attention to the people who already know them. Existing clients, former clients, professional contacts and people who've previously referred work can all contribute to the development of a book.

Repeat instructions help sustain a book

A client who has instructed you once may need your expertise again as their circumstances change. For example, a business that originally instructed you on a commercial contract may subsequently need advice on a dispute, a new transaction or a different area of law.

You shouldn't assume that every new issue requires legal services, and the objective certainly isn't to manufacture work the client doesn't need. But if you understand the client's business and maintain the relationship, you're better placed to recognise when you or a colleague could provide useful advice.

Referrals can extend the value of existing relationships

Some of your most useful professional relationships may be with people who never instruct you personally. Accountants, other lawyers, consultants and business advisers may encounter clients who need your expertise. If they understand the type of work you do and have confidence in your ability to help, they may be willing to introduce you.

The same applies to satisfied clients. Of course, referrals don't happen automatically. People need to remember you, understand when you're relevant and have enough confidence in you to put their own reputation behind an introduction.

Ask clients what they think

One area I believe lawyers should pay more attention to is client feedback. It's easy to assume that a client who continues instructing you must be happy with the service they're receiving. That may be true, but it isn't something I'd take for granted.

Feedback can help you understand what clients value about working with you, where you could improve and whether their expectations are being met. A client who generates substantial fees but is dissatisfied with the relationship may not represent the secure source of future work you imagine. And sometimes the feedback will tell you something you wouldn't have discovered by looking at the financial performance of the relationship.

Is your book of business genuinely portable?

Portability becomes particularly relevant when lawyers consider moving firms. If you're a partner with an established book, a prospective firm may want to understand how much work you could realistically bring with you.

The difficulty is that lawyers can sometimes overestimate the amount of business that would follow them.

Originating work doesn't mean you own the client

Let's say you've developed a relationship with a significant client and are credited with originating a substantial amount of work. That doesn't necessarily mean the client will follow you if you leave. The client may have relationships with several other partners, depend on the resources of your current firm or simply prefer to stay where they are. Clients also make their own decisions about whom they instruct.

Any proposed move may involve contractual restrictions, professional obligations and other considerations that depend on the jurisdiction and circumstances. Those issues need to be assessed properly rather than assuming that a client relationship can automatically move with you.

Be realistic about what would follow you

If you're assessing the portability of your book, I'd encourage you to distinguish between the work you've originated at your current firm and the work you have reasonable grounds to believe you could generate elsewhere.

Consider how strong your personal relationship is with each client, how dependent the client is on your existing firm's wider capabilities and whether the new firm would be a suitable fit.

You also need to be careful about treating historic revenue as though it were guaranteed future income. A major matter that generated substantial fees last year may never recur, regardless of which firm you're practising at.

Your ability to build a book has value even when the clients can't move

There's another aspect of portability that deserves more attention. Even if you can't take particular clients with you, the skills and experience you've developed in building those relationships don't disappear when you change firms.

If you can demonstrate that you've consistently originated work, developed client relationships and created new opportunities, you're showing something commercially valuable: that you know how to build a book of business.

That doesn't mean you'll automatically achieve the same results at another firm. Different markets, clients, resources and reputations will affect what's possible. But a demonstrated ability to generate work is a valuable professional capability in its own right. I would argue that lawyers should be thinking about developing that capability throughout their careers, rather than concentrating solely on the size of the book they currently have.

A book of business reflects the work and relationships you've developed. Your ability to build one reflects the commercial skills you've acquired along the way. Both have value, but they aren't the same thing.

What makes a book of business sustainable?

A substantial book of business can be impressive on paper while being surprisingly vulnerable. If most of your revenue comes from one client, what happens if that client is acquired, changes its management team or decides to appoint another firm?

Similarly, a book that depends heavily on one exceptional transaction may look very different when that matter concludes. Annual revenue gives you useful information about the commercial performance of a book, but I'd encourage you to look more widely.

There isn't a universal formula for assessing a book's sustainability. Different practice areas and client types will naturally produce different patterns of work. A corporate lawyer handling major transactions may have a different revenue profile from an employment lawyer advising a portfolio of businesses on an ongoing basis. What I'd be interested in is whether the lawyer understands the strengths and vulnerabilities of their book and is doing something to develop it.

A book of business needs ongoing attention

Even an established client portfolio will change over time. Clients grow, sell businesses, retire, change advisers or develop different needs. Contacts move jobs. New competitors appear. If you stop developing relationships and generating opportunities because your current book is keeping you busy, you may eventually find that your pipeline is weaker than you realised. That's why I think your ability to keep building a book is just as interesting as the book you've already built.

How to start building your book over the next 30–90 days

If you're reading this as a junior lawyer or somebody who hasn't originated much work, the prospect of building a book of business might seem a little daunting. I'd encourage you to start small. You don't need to launch a major BD campaign or suddenly fill your diary with networking events. You need to begin developing the habits that will help you build relevant professional relationships.

Here are a few things I'd suggest concentrating on over the next 30–90 days:

Make your LinkedIn profile clear about who you help

Start by looking at your LinkedIn profile from the perspective of somebody who doesn't already know you. Can they quickly understand what you do, who you help and the types of issues you advise on?

If your profile simply says you're a solicitor at a particular firm, you're missing an opportunity to help prospective clients and introducers understand when you might be relevant. You don't need an elaborate personal branding exercise. Just make your expertise and the type of work you want to develop clear.

Connect with people who fit your ideal client type

Once you've identified the type of clients you want to work with, start finding relevant people on LinkedIn. You might look for people in particular industries, businesses of a certain size or professional roles that commonly encounter the issues you advise on.

Be selective. Connecting with hundreds of people indiscriminately isn't going to be particularly useful if most of them have little relevance to your practice. And don't assume that sending somebody a connection request gives you permission to launch straight into a sales pitch.

Engage with what those people are saying

Pay attention to what your new contacts are posting and discussing. If somebody shares something interesting, engage with it. Ask a relevant question, offer a useful observation or contribute to the discussion where you have something worthwhile to add.

You don't have to comment on everything, and there's little value in posting generic praise simply to get noticed. The aim is to start becoming familiar to people and, where appropriate, develop a conversation.

Move suitable relationships beyond LinkedIn

If you've developed a connection with somebody and there's a genuine reason to continue the conversation, suggest a video call or meeting for coffee. You might want to learn more about their business, discuss a shared professional interest or explore whether there's an opportunity to help one another.

There's no need to push every LinkedIn connection towards a meeting. Concentrate on relationships where there's mutual interest.

Don’t forget, LinkedIn is just one place to begin those relationships. The value comes from what develops beyond the connection request, not from the number of people in your network.

Don't overlook the people you already know

If you've already developed some client relationships, start there. Think about the clients you've worked with, the people you've met through professional activities and the contacts who already understand what you do.

Who would you like to know better? Which relationships have you neglected? Are there existing clients whose businesses have changed since you last had a proper conversation with them? You may find that you have more opportunities to develop relationships than you initially thought.

And if you're a junior lawyer without your own clients, your existing network of university contacts, former colleagues and other professional connections can still be a useful starting point.

You don't have to turn all of these activities into a rigid programme. Choose a few that you can realistically maintain and build from there. And don’t expect to have a substantial book of business after 90 days. The purpose of those first few months is to establish useful habits and begin developing relationships that may become commercially valuable over time.

A book of business is built, not inherited overnight

Building a book of business takes time, and there will be plenty of occasions when the effort you put into a relationship doesn't lead to any immediate work. Some contacts will become clients. Others will become referrers. Some relationships may never generate a penny in fees, and that's fine.

What I want lawyers to understand is that becoming a rainmaker doesn't depend on being naturally outgoing, having a huge network or spending every spare moment attending networking events. It depends on developing the skills to identify the right people, build meaningful relationships, recognise opportunities and win work when those opportunities arise.

It also requires consistency. The lawyer who keeps taking small, relevant actions is giving those relationships an opportunity to develop, rather than continually starting again whenever the next big BD project gets abandoned.

And remember, the commercial value you develop isn't limited to the clients you currently have. Your ability to build relationships and generate work can become one of the most useful skills you carry throughout your legal career.

Building a book of business requires more than knowing people. It requires the skills to develop relationships, recognise opportunities and win suitable work. Those skills can be learned and practised.

If you want to develop those skills, take a look at The BD Breakthrough Blueprint®️.

It's our practical digital training programme that teaches lawyers how to develop professional relationships, have better commercial conversations, handle objections, follow up and turn suitable opportunities into instructions.

You don't have to wait until you're a partner to learn how to win work. In fact, I'd encourage you not to.

Explore The BD Breakthrough Blueprint®️