Law firms are committed to developing long-term relationships with clients, built on a foundation of trust and well-informed representation. Business development, or the development of relationships with prospective clients, is also nurtured with the credibility gained through good listening and research and by your awareness of the issues your prospects face and the opportunities available to them. Your firm’s librarian is a key resource to practice group leads and business development professionals as you prepare to engage with new clients. Let’s say you want to establish credibility with an industry. The information professionals at your firm can:
- Create news alerts about an industry and lead businesses;
- Research the industry. Find out market share, main competitors, and industry news sources;
- Determine key industry professional organizations and events;
- Find local or regional groups, meeting schedules, and speaking opportunities;
- Identify organizations’ newsletters and editors for offers of articles;
- Track legislative developments that affect the industry; and,
- Provide publicly accessible and permanent links to cases discussed in your blog posts.
And when you want to vet prospective clients and prepare for meetings with them, your research team can, for example,
- Use public records resources to discover background information including financials;
- Create news alerts on businesses and individuals;
- Check LinkedIn and professional association news;
- Provide biographical information and CVs;
- Research case law for prior legal issues and track current litigation; and,
- Check public social media sites.
Your librarian can surface information about your client’s competition by researching their legal issues, industry news, developments with products and services, and more, keeping you in the know with news as it happens. When you partner with the information professionals at your firm on business development, you will approach prospects credibly with solid knowledge of their history, mission, challenges, and opportunities.
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