In my experience, most lawyers who don’t have a book of business would like to have one. And, if they don’t know how to build it, they’d like to learn how. Unfortunately, there are very real obstacles to business development success. The challenges lawyers often encounter are outlined and addressed below. With a little effort, most hurdles can be overcome.

Question: Do lawyers use print brochures anymore? I’d like to avoid that expense and get by with PDFs online. In this month's edition of "Ask the Experts from the Legal Marketing Association," LMA Hall of Famer Elonide Semmes and Andrews Kurth's Jessica Aries explain what kind of print pieces make sense and when to leverage your website.

Clio-using lawyers get paid on the same day they issue a bill. Most law firms wait an average of three months for clients to pay their bills. Clio-using lawyers have an advantage over these law firms because they don’t have to spend time tracking down clients and dealing with collections. Instead, Clio provides tools that make it easy for clients to deposit funds and pay their bills. These tools include automated trust accounting, integrations with online payment processors, and built-in credit card processing using Clio Payments, powered by LawPay. Clio has just added another tool to help lawyers manage their finances — Trust Requests.

It is a common lament: “My clients say they only want me. How do I introduce colleagues or juniors in a way that creates trust?”

Lawyers negotiate all the time — with other lawyers, partners, staff and clients. Even at home, you’re probably negotiating to get someone in your family to do what you want. One key to successful negotiation is creating a deep feeling of connection with the person you are communicating with. Think about it. Don't people say yes much more often when they’re already comfortable with you? With some people, you reach that level of comfort and connection automatically, but why leave it to chance? You can get to agreement much more easily when you master a few simple techniques to create ease and flow in your communications.

Working from home — even for part of the time — has many advantages. It saves money on office space, reduces time wasted on commuting, and can help you achieve greater work-life balance. According to the American Bar Association’s Legal Technology Survey Report, the percentage of lawyers with virtual practices has more than doubled since 2011. Disruptive Innovation, a recent study by the University of California-Hastings' Center for WorkLife Law, reports on the emergence of new practice models that aim to offer lawyers more control over their work and better work-life balance — and in large part, flexible scheduling and teleworking make it possible. But working from home or in a virtual practice also comes with challenges. Communications issues can contribute to a feeling of isolation and lost productivity. And without the camaraderie that develops from seeing your colleagues every day, it can be difficult to establish trust and a feeling of togetherness.

Recently, on a particularly spectacular day at work, two victories came my clients’ way. I couldn’t help reflecting on the emotions coursing through me — it was as if the events of the day belonged to me, to my life, when in fact they belonged to my clients. Ultimately, what I realized is that when you are really passionate about your practice, when your niche is your calling, you truly feel as if you are in the client’s shoes.

It’s nearly June. Time to update your LinkedIn profile again! After the inevitable January “fresh start” updates, many people leave their LinkedIn profile alone the rest of the year. If you’re a savvy social media user, you update it every three months with new pro bono work, awards and cases. So, if you haven’t refreshed your profile yet this year, I hate to break it to you, but you’re behind. General counsel may not post much on LinkedIn, or like or comment, but they are there. Data confirms that for a growing number of in-house attorneys, LinkedIn is the first place they look to learn about you. That means a well-curated profile is vitally important.

To truly succeed, a law practice can’t rely on growth that results only from isolated circumstances, seasonal trends or provisional impulses. Instead, you establish continuity and sustainability by developing a strategic growth plan, and by managing that plan with data. But simply collecting data is not enough — it has to be the right data. Unfortunately, many firms fall into the trap of collecting “vanity” statistics or one-dimensional measurements that don't give meaningful business information.

As of 2015, millennials are the largest age group in the workforce, according to American think tank Pew Research Group. More than 33 percent of American workers are millennials, and 20 percent of lawyers are millennials. And, according to an Ernst & Young study, in 2025 millennials will make up 75 percent of the global workforce. Here's another statistic to ponder: Heather Morse-Geller and Jonathan Fitzgarrald researched in-house counsel ranks as well as corporate C-suites and learned that millennials are found in greater proportions in those quarters than among law firms. Eight Things to Know About Working with Millennials. So what does this mean? It's time to improve communications with millennials to make the most of the valuable skills and resources they offer.