The American Bar Association recently asked lawyers to predict the future. Over 14,300 lawyers responded, and yesterday the ABA issued an early summary of the survey results to those who had participated. Some results:
- 19% of lawyers expect to lose their jobs,
- 78% anticipate that “everyone” will be affected in some way by the recession,
- 59% agreed that the profession will be “rocky for awhile,” and
- The majority held that the legal business won’t improve until 2010.
Based on these early results, it seems clear that it’s time to crank up your marketing going forward. The reasons are pretty straightforward:
- Take a look at my January 2005 post “Rainmakers Don’t Get Fired!,” and
- “Plan to Crank up Marketing Budget in 2009. Huh?,” because many firms are likely to be cutting their budgets next year, and that means it is a great time to get out ahead of the competition.
So, now is the time to increase, not decrease the firm’s business development efforts.