Legal Business Development Training: How to Develop Rainmakers for Sustainable Growth

Law firms have a strange habit.

We spend years teaching lawyers how to be technically excellent, then reach a certain point in their careers and say:

“Right. Now go and bring in some clients.”

And we wonder why so many struggle. Firms then become frustrated that too few lawyers generate work, while continuing to depend disproportionately on the same rainmakers.

I was a lawyer. I know how much goes into learning the law, understanding your area of practice, looking after clients and building the technical confidence to advise them properly.

Business development is a completely different skill.

Yet lawyers are regularly expected to work it out for themselves: go networking, post on LinkedIn, take a client for coffee, keep in touch with your contacts, build your profile.

All perfectly reasonable suggestions. None of them teaches you how to sell legal services.

If law firms want sustainable growth, we need to stop treating rainmaking as something a fortunate few are naturally good at and start treating business development as a professional skill lawyers can learn.

What is legal business development training?

Legal business development training teaches lawyers the skills, mindset and habits they need to build client relationships and win work consistently.

Good training doesn’t turn lawyers into stereotypical salespeople. It teaches them how to understand prospective clients, ask better questions, create value in conversations, communicate their expertise, handle resistance, guide decisions, follow up effectively and develop relationships over time.

Most importantly, it gives lawyers a process they can repeat.

That's the difference between doing some BD and knowing how to develop business. A networking event isn't a business development strategy. Posting on LinkedIn isn't a business development strategy. Having lunch with a client isn't a business development strategy. They're activities. They become part of business development when the lawyer understands who they want to build relationships with, why those people should care about them, how to create value for them, what should happen next and how to keep the relationship moving.

Sustainable BD is a system, not an event.

Why do so many lawyers struggle with business development?

In the work I do now, I hear some version of the same complaint:

“Our lawyers don't do enough BD.”

My first question is usually: Have you actually taught them how?

Because telling somebody they need to bring in work isn't the same as teaching them how to do it. And when lawyers don't know what to do, all sorts of other things start happening: They worry about sounding salesy; they fear rejection; they don't know what to say when they contact somebody.

They go to networking events without a clear purpose; they have a promising meeting and then don't follow up because they don't want to annoy the prospect; they convince themselves they don't have time.

We think these are activity problems, when, in fact, they're confidence, mindset and process problems. If you believe selling means persuading somebody to buy something they don't want, of course you're going to feel uncomfortable doing it. You're a lawyer. You're trained to advise people, not manipulate them.

But modern legal business development shouldn't be manipulative. It should feel remarkably close to good lawyering. Understand the person in front of you. Ask intelligent questions. Identify what matters. Bring your knowledge and experience to the conversation. Help them see risks and opportunities they may have missed. Give them clarity and direction. Help them make a good decision.

That's consultative selling.

And lawyers are far better prepared for it than many of them realise.

These are the outcomes I see all the time with the lawyers I work with. I’ve had clients convinced they’ll have to learn manipulation before we start, to then go on to discover very quickly that selling is helping and this is why they became a lawyer in the first place. With that mindset change, very little can stop them achieving business development success.

Can lawyers actually learn to become rainmakers?

Yes.

I feel strongly about this because I've seen too many firms behave as though rainmakers are born.

You know the type: the charismatic partner with an enormous contact book who seems capable of walking into any room and leaving with three opportunities and a lunch booked for next Thursday.

So everybody else assumes:

“I couldn't do that.”

Good, you don't have to. There isn't one rainmaker personality. There are quieter rainmakers; analytical rainmakers; brilliant relationship builders. There are lawyers who build authority through speaking or writing; lawyers who are fantastic at developing existing clients; and lawyers who ask such good questions that clients don't want to make an important decision without speaking to them first.

What they need is a way of turning their strengths into consistent behaviour.

That’s what I want lawyers to understand:

From technical expert who waits for instructions to trusted adviser who helps create what happens next.

That can be taught.

What should business development training for lawyers actually teach?

This is where I think the legal profession needs to expect more from BD training. Knowing that you should “build relationships” isn't enough. What do you actually do on Monday morning?

For me, effective business development education has to start with mindset because behaviour follows belief.

If you believe business development is pushy, you'll avoid it. If you believe rejection means failure, you'll avoid situations where somebody might say no. If you believe good work should speak for itself, you'll wait for work instead of creating opportunities.

Once that thinking changes, lawyers need practical skills. They need to know how to identify the clients they genuinely want to work with rather than firing in every direction. They need to understand consultative selling and how to lead a client conversation without turning it into a pitch. They need to ask questions that go beyond:

“What happened?”

“When do you need it?”

“What is your budget?”

Those questions gather information, but great BD questions help clients think.

“What would a great outcome look like for you?”

“What is driving this now?”

“What happens if you do nothing?”

“Who else needs to be involved in this decision?”

Those conversations help a lawyer understand what really matters to the client: the pressures, risks, ambitions, fears and outcomes sitting behind the legal issue. That is where trusted-adviser relationships begin.

Training also needs to cover networking, presenting, following up, handling objections and using CRM properly. Lawyers need a system that makes those activities easier to manage and repeat.

At Legal Balance Institute, this is exactly what I teach through The BD Breakthrough Blueprint®️: how lawyers sell legal services and develop the mindset, process and confidence to become rainmakers. It's business development education for lawyers who want to understand how to win work rather than hoping it arrives.

How is legal BD training different from generic sales training?

Legal services are not a simple purchase. People often come to lawyers when something important is happening: A business is being bought or sold; a dispute threatens a company; a relationship has broken down. Someone's employment, property, wealth, reputation or future may be affected.

These are life-changing, transformative moments in people's live, which means it's a very different conversation. The client isn't simply asking, “Can you do the legal work?”

They are deciding: Do I trust you? Do you understand what matters to me? Do I feel confident putting this in your hands? Can you help me make the right decision? Do you understand the wider consequences?

That is why generic sales scripts can feel so unnatural for lawyers. They want to help somebody make a decision with greater clarity and confidence, not feel like they have to learn a script that pressures someone into buying.

The best legal BD training should teach lawyers to become better advisers, not better pitchers.

How can lawyers do business development without being pushy?

Stop treating every conversation as something that has to end in a sale. Law is often a long sales process. Somebody you meet today might instruct you next week. They might instruct you in six months. They might never instruct you but introduce you to somebody who does. If every interaction carries the pressure of “How do I turn this person into a client?”, business development becomes exhausting for you and uncomfortable for them.

Change the question.

Ask:

How can I be useful to this person?

Maybe you share an insight, or challenge an assumption.

Maybe you introduce them to somebody or ask a question they haven't considered.

Maybe you simply understand what they're trying to achieve so that the next conversation can be more useful.

You're still trying to win work, but you're doing it by helping the prospective client make a good decision rather than forcing a decision.

Why traditional business development training often doesn't stick

I've seen the familiar model many times: Put a group of lawyers in a room. Give them a day of BD training. Talk about networking, relationships, pitching and referrals. Perhaps throw in some roleplay. Everyone leaves enthusiastic. Then Monday arrives. A transaction kicks off. A court deadline appears. A client calls. Someone is off sick. The inbox explodes.

And BD disappears.

The problem isn't necessarily the information. It's the assumption that knowing something automatically changes behaviour. It doesn't. Business development is learned by doing it repeatedly:

You learn how to ask better questions by having conversations.

You become more comfortable following up by following up.

You become more confident dealing with objections by dealing with objections.

You improve at networking by meeting people, trying different approaches and noticing what works.

That's why I prefer BD education that lawyers can return to, apply and build into their working lives.

The goal has to move beyond a lawyer finishing a training session feeling motivated and towards a lawyer who behaves differently six months later.

My clients focus on doing small activities every day. They understand that BD done consistently has a much bigger impact than working on bigger projects that are difficult to complete. One of my favourite quotes from a client is that it feels like he’s “using Jedi skills on a daily basis!”

How can busy lawyers make time for business development?

This question comes up constantly. What if this isn’t the right question?

If BD means adding hours of networking events, coffees, posting, prospecting and meetings to an already overloaded working week, then yes, time becomes a serious problem.

But sustainable business development means doing the right things consistently. I've learned that small actions maintained over time beat occasional explosions of activity:

A thoughtful follow-up.

A message to somebody you haven't spoken to recently.

Ten minutes updating your CRM.

A useful introduction.

Booking the next conversation before the current one ends.

Sending something genuinely relevant to a client.

None of those requires an entire afternoon.

More importantly, systems reduce the amount of mental effort BD requires.

You shouldn't have to wake up every morning and think:

“What should I do for BD today?”

Your system should tell you: Who needs following up? Which relationships need attention? What opportunities are moving? Who haven't you spoken to recently? What did you promise to send? What is the next action?

That's why CRM is so valuable. Because planning matters. Consistency matters.

Lawyers sometimes imagine successful rainmakers constantly doing BD. The best ones I've worked with aren't necessarily doing more.

They're making sure they lose less:

Fewer forgotten conversations.

Fewer contacts disappearing into a spreadsheet.

Fewer opportunities left without a next action.

Fewer months where client work becomes busy and BD stops completely.

Why law firms need to develop more rainmakers

This is bigger than individual career development. Law firms have to understand that this is a business risk. If a significant amount of your firm's work comes through a small number of people, what happens when one retires? Or leaves? Or takes their clients elsewhere? Or simply stops bringing in as much work?

If you don’t already know the story of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, you should read about it. 150 year-old law firm, historically very profitable, and a Top 50 AmLaw firm. In 2009, it dropped out of Top 100 when it lost two big clients: Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers. Its profits continued to decline over the next decade and more. And in 2025 it was dissolved.

How did it happen? Not all at once. After 2009, one rainmaker was poached. Then for a while, nothing changed. Over the next decade, the odd team was poached here and there. Eventually, other firms could smell blood, and the few rainmakers Stroock had left from its biggest practice areas were picked off in quick succession over the course of 2022 and 2023. Rainmaking was confined to a few, so when those few left, the practice areas were unable to plug the gap left.

A firm can look successful while carrying an enormous dependency on a few relationships and a few people. I've never understood why firms accept that risk while simultaneously expecting the next generation to spend almost all their time producing work. If you want tomorrow's partners to bring in work, develop client relationships and run profitable legal businesses, they need opportunities to learn those skills today.

You can encourage more fee-earners to engage in business development rather than leaving growth with a small group of established rainmakers, but I think firms need to go further. Don't just get more lawyers involved in BD. Teach more lawyers how to win work.

Those aren't the same thing.

Knowing who to target, how to start conversations, ask questions, identify needs, communicate value, progress opportunities, follow up and maintain relationships—those are the hallmarks of true rainmakers.

Should associates receive BD training before becoming partners?

Absolutely.

Waiting until partnership makes no sense to me. We train lawyers how to manage deals before we put them in charge of one, yet business development is often treated that way.

Associates spend years becoming excellent technical lawyers. Then partnership approaches and suddenly they are expected to demonstrate a business case, develop clients, generate revenue and show that they can contribute commercially.

Why wait? An associate who starts learning how to build relationships, understand clients, ask commercial questions, follow up and develop a network doesn't need to be under pressure to generate a huge book of business immediately. They have something more valuable at that stage: Time to learn.

I'd rather see firms develop lawyers gradually than suddenly announce at ten years' PQE that bringing in work is now part of the job.

What’s the difference between legal business development training and coaching?

When combined, training and coaching solve different problems.

Training teaches the skills and process. Coaching helps learners apply those skills to their particular circumstances, think through problems and maintain accountability.

There can be enormous value in coaching when it is done separately.

Coaching, particularly, individual coaching, allows a lawyer to go deeper into their own development in their own space, in their own niche, getting much more strategic than you can do in training. But coaching somebody who has never been taught the fundamentals can become an expensive way of trying to build the plane while flying it.

When done together, training lays the strong foundation first. It should teach the principles of selling legal services, client conversations, mindset, networking, follow-up, CRM and developing opportunities.

Then coaching can become much more valuable because you're working from a shared understanding.

Instead of spending the session asking, “What should I do?”, you can spend it asking, “How do I apply what I know to this situation?”

That's a much better conversation.

What should you look for in business development training for lawyers?

I'd ask a very simple question:

Will this change what the lawyer actually does?

What will they do differently afterwards?

Good legal BD training should make selling feel relevant to legal practice. It should be centred on clients rather than self-promotion. It should give lawyers practical ways to find opportunities, lead conversations, build relationships and follow up. It should address mindset as well as technique. And it should be realistic about the fact that lawyers have demanding client workloads.

I'd also look closely at whether the person teaching it understands lawyers.

I've sat on the lawyer side of the desk. I understand what happens when somebody tells you to “make more time for BD” while a client wants an answer today and your workload is already overflowing. Advice that ignores that reality won't survive contact with Monday morning.

Finally, ask whether the training gives lawyers something repeatable. Inspiration fades, but a process stays with you.

Sustainable law firm growth starts with developing rainmakers

Law firms don’t have a shortage of lawyers capable of becoming rainmakers. We have a shortage of lawyers who have been properly taught how to do it.

That’s actually far more exciting. If rainmaking were simply an innate gift, firms would have little choice but to keep competing for the same small pool of people who already have a book of business.

But if business development can be learned, the opportunity is sitting inside your firm already. It's in the senior associate who knows clients inside out but doesn't yet see themselves as someone who sells. It's in the new partner who is technically excellent but freezes when a prospect pushes back. It's in the quieter lawyer who hates traditional networking but is brilliant at asking questions. It's in the partner who has hundreds of contacts but no system for staying close to them.

The answer isn't to turn them into somebody else. It's to teach them how to turn what they already know into value for clients, conversations, relationships and work. That's sustainable business development. Not heroic rainmaking from a handful of people, or another burst of activity because the pipeline looks thin. A repeatable way of winning work that becomes part of how a lawyer operates.

That's exactly why I created The BD Breakthrough Blueprint®️.

It's the Legal Balance Institute's business development course for lawyers who want to learn how to sell legal services, build stronger client relationships and develop the habits and confidence of a 21st-century rainmaker.

Because lawyers aren't born knowing how to win clients.

But they can learn.

If you want to take your business development to a different level, The BD Breakthrough Blueprint®️ will show you how.

And if you’re a managing partner, L&D director, BD director or practice-group leader and want to discuss training/coaching for a cohort, practice group or firm, get in touch now and let's talk about how we can take your team's BD to another level.