Local Lawyer Talks His Way to New Clients
My cousin Jeff passed the bar exam last fall and immediately landed a job in a local law firm doing legal grunt work. I had a chance to talk with Jeff at the family picnic earlier this year. I should have known that Jeff had serious career plans because he seemed to have a unique air of confidence about him that day. I found out exactly what it was when we spoke.
Jeff told me he hated schlepping around the courthouse gathering evidence and doing what essentially amounted to legal busywork. But… he knew he’d need that kind of experience to open his own law practice, so that’s what he did. Right now he’s in the middle of opening his office in town. He tells me that most of his law professors have tried discouraging him from starting his own law firm so soon. He just shrugs that stuff off. He tells me that his favorite instructor has cautioned him about the heavy up-front expenses involved in opening a law practice.
This law professor told Jeff that it’s difficult for a new attorney to secure enough billable work in the early going. But that doesn’t seem to be bothering Jeff much. He’s been accumulating paying clients for the past year while working for his present firm.
In fact, it seems that Jeff might actually be more popular than some of the more established attorneys in town. How could that be?
The answer is actually pretty surprising. Jeff has been hosting his own legal advice radio show. And the show has developed a good following.
Here’s how he did it.
In college Jeff had a hobby. He hosted an Internet radio show and talked about the stock market. At first he relied on word of mouth to get the word out about the show. But in time, the show took on a life of its own and listeners began to flock to the Thursday afternoon show titled, Trader’s Wrap-Up. Once he became comfortable with the show’s format Jeff began to give advice on investment and money management. This topic is closely related to his legal specialty which is asset protection and estate planning.
Jeff explained how he took transcripts and recordings of his trading show and shopped them around to local radio stations looking for the opportunity to host a legal advice show. He was certain that such a show would be a great service to people and deliver a lot of clients in the process. He told me he had two offers from local stations. The first was a fairly large station that offered to sell Jeff a half-hour spot every week. He could pretty much do what he liked with the time.
The station would provide all the resources he would need. This included a producer, a studio and an engineer. He’d be able to talk about estate planning, asset protection, take live calls, and give advice. And of course, he could mention his own law practice as much as he saw fit. The only wrinkle was he’d have to pay the station $2000 a week for the privilege.
The second deal at another station was much more to his liking. He was offered his own show which would be used in part to attract sponsors for the station. The show’s format was designed to give Jeff a forum to talk about asset protection and estate planning. He would also take calls on those topics and give advice to the callers. Here he could mention his practice on this show but he really couldn’t over do it. What he found attractive about this arrangement was the value the station placed on his expertise. The station wanted him because they felt he would attract new listeners.
Jeff opted for this arrangement. He doesn’t earn any pay but he doesn’t have to pay for the air time either.
I was impressed and began to make a fuss about having a radio celebrity in the family. I asked if the college stock trading show opened the door for him. He said it helped but it wasn’t what sealed the deal. Jeff explained that it’s fairly easy to get on the radio, especially for credible professionals. Obviously you need to have something to offer listeners and he certainly has that. But he told me there are many radio stations with significant ‘dead air’ time. This is time that isn’t scheduled for anything in particular. During this unassigned time radio stations often re-run some of their more popular talk shows.
There are plenty of radio stations that would entertain good show ideas to attract listeners. Jeff told me he was surprised that there were no other attorneys in town who were hosting advice shows. But even if there were, chances are good that they wouldn’t be in his specialty.
He went on to say that on his second asset protection show he received a call from a gentleman who had some excellent questions about corporations and trusts and Jeff fielded the questions more like a seasoned pro than a rookie. The caller was impressed and later called the station looking for Jeff.
The two men met and Jeff walked away with a sizable piece of business re-engineering some of the man’s trusts and partnerships. Jeff told me that the financial commitment from the new client allowed him the foothold he needed to secure a lease on some nice office space. He claims he’s gotten several decent clients from the show and he’s not even in full swing yet.
Look out when he is!
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