In a competitive market, rainmakers are vital. They no longer belong to an exclusive club, though, as law firms teach all solicitors to develop their business, reports Stephen Ward



‘When people think of a rainmaker, they probably think of an extrovert who walks into a room of 2,000 people and works that room,’ says Kevin Doolan, head of business development at national firm Eversheds. Others see it as the pre-eminent lawyer in any field whom clients want immediately to hand. The rainmaker is part of a team, but personifies the virtues of a department or a firm.


However they do it, relatively few individuals bring in more than their share of extra business, says George Bull, head of professional practices at accountancy firm Baker Tilly, who specialises in law practices. ‘They represent the lifeblood of any firm.’ Rainmaking is a fairly new phrase for a concept that was always used, as Mr Bull describes. ‘Lawyers used to be divided into finders, minders and grinders. Rainmakers are the finders. All lawyers will be focused around doing their work but the ones who are good at bringing in business will be particularly valued in the firm.’


Rainmaking has never been more valued than it is now, and it is becoming more sophisticated. Michael Hatchard, a partner in the City office of US firm Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, was identified as a leading rainmaker in a recent survey by analysts Mergermarket, acting on more deals worth more than 5 million euro (£3.4 million) than any other Europe-based lawyer last year. He says the value placed on rainmakers lies in the fact that relationships with clients are more transient and fluid than ever before. That creates more opportunities, he says, but also a greater need for winning business than before.


‘This follows from the changing relationship with clients, and the way they are developed,’ explains Mr Hatchard. ‘The assumption that you can enjoy a broad-based and exclusive relationship is no longer reliable in an environment in which clients shop around and cherry-pick individuals and teams for specific projects. The provision of legal services in the 21st century relies heavily on individuals who are able to project the firm’s distinctive abilities. This reflects a world where increasingly you win business on a transactional basis.


‘To describe individuals as rainmakers is to identify them as people who are capable of presenting the firm’s differentiation, and of acting as an effective point of sale in garnering a particular piece of business.’


Mr Bull says the more transactional the field of work and the less it involves continuing repeat business, the more the rainmaker is needed.


The second reason for the importance of rainmakers in 2005 stems from the flatness of the market, Mr Doolan says. Mr Bull explains that if law firms are seeking to grow by 5% to 10% annually above the regular growth in the market for legal services, they need to be generating more than repeat business. ‘Then the rainmakers are the most valuable commodity,’ he says.


The response from firms has been to try to maximise the extent to which all lawyers are rainmakers in their way. Mr Doolan says: ‘Some people do it naturally but that’s pretty rare for lawyers, or in any profession. Some people do it very quietly. There isn’t one successful type; if you get five or six successful rainmakers into a room, there’s quite a range of personalities.’


As Giles Rubens, director at legal consultancy Hildebrandt International, says: ‘They can’t all be the hunter who went out and shot the beast and dragged it back down Cheapside into the office.’


Mr Doolan says the necessary skills can be taught. He maintains that solicitors at all levels in his firm and others are trained in developing the business. ‘When people think of rainmakers, they think of just two or three people in the firm who go out and bring in millions of pounds worth of business. In every firm you will find those people, but actually I think the change over the past few years is there are solicitors at every level doing the rainmaking. It’s a question of being more professional in how they build their practice.’ He adds: ‘To succeed in the kind of market we are in, every partner needs to be rainmaking.’


Eversheds teaches what Mr Doolan describes as ‘soft skills on top of being a good technical lawyer – keeping them up to date, keeping in touch, making sure there are no surprises on the bill – all the things clients say are really important to them. The strong message I get from clients is that they want the lawyer to spend the time to get to know their business’. Eversheds has reinforced this through sector-focused groups such as on food and energy.


‘This is a very important part of rainmaking – more than being a wonderful personality,’ he says. Lawyers will be able to use the skill to gain work from existing and new clients. ‘The most successful rainmaker is somebody who really understands his sector and is sensitive to the issues the client is facing and is able to leverage off similar experiences he has had working for similar companies.’


Although everybody has rainmaking in them, and all can increase their potential, those who are best at it will always be at a premium, and that premium has the potential to be even higher under the reform of law firm financial structures, as proposed in the Clementi report on the future of legal services, Mr Bull envisages.


He says sought-after rainmaking lawyers can already attract high remuneration under the partnership structure, but in future they may be able to extract equity from the firm by cashing in share options as well, becoming ‘carpetbaggers’.


Mr Bull says the ownership structure offered in the Clementi proposals would create a vehicle that may find it hard to hold on to its rainmakers. He says: ‘At the moment, it’s difficult to get capital value out of a partnership. If you feel in your partnership that you are adding considerable value, you may be interested in the Clementi reforms. The rainmaker may be happy to go into an AIM [Alternative Investment Market] listed vehicle where there is an income stream and some shares. After three years, he can sell his shares and after that go back to a partnership where once again he has the right service lines to make the most of his skills. Then after a few years building up the profile and building up profit share, he can do the same again. That’s why I call it carpetbagging.


‘The risk [for legal disciplinary practices] is if you have rainmakers in your firm, they will be the most potentially mobile after a flotation, and risk upsetting the profitability and dynamics of the business after three years.


‘But there’s plenty of money already chasing rainmakers, and the US law firms haven’t been all that successful in attracting them, so money isn’t everything.’


One characteristic of the most successful rainmakers used to be that they were predominantly male, because the social networks embracing clients and lawyers from golf clubs to college reunions were historically male dominated. Women were necessarily at a disadvantage in this market. In the US – where the rainmaking concept originated – women now have their own networking advice organisation, the American Bar Association Women Rainmakers.


Its chairwoman, Heather Jefferson, a lawyer with the Delaware Counsel Group, says it was founded 15 years ago because women were missing out on the networks that seemed to link even their less accomplished colleagues to clients. Those networks not only found clients for the firm, but the clients and their business were tending to follow the men from firm to firm.


‘The man would always seem to have rolodexes stuffed full of former room-mates from college,’ says Ms Jefferson. Women lawyers said they had no role models for successful networking. The group teaches how to network, market and develop business, provides informal mentoring, and encourages less male-orientated networking events, swapping golf days for visits to art galleries and dinner parties.


Women rainmaking role models are now fairly plentiful, and the group’s seminars and lectures are well attended by young women lawyers who want to learn the techniques of rainmaking, which in the US as in the UK is increasingly seen as an obligation for all and not just a few.


Mr Doolan says that in Britain, too, women have caught up. ‘There are areas where women find it more difficult to network, but I think if you took a typical cross- section, you would find women creating just as much business as the men, if not more.


‘Women are particularly good at listening and understanding clients’ needs – and that is something clients say they value,’ he says.


But male or female, the best connected, most strongly marketed and most assiduous networkers in the world can only generate business over time if they are good and successful lawyers.


Mr Hatchard says: ‘Some people have a sharper marketing edge than others, but at the end of the day reputation hangs on the quality of performance they deliver. The market has access to a lot of performance analysis that can be exploited to test whether what lawyers are claiming is an accurate and current representation of their capacity and competence – or just blarney.’


Stephen Ward is a freelance journalist