Career Clinic: Do expensive BD activities win work?

I am an in-house lawyer and 99.9% of the time I hate such events. It's work at the end of the day and who wants to see a concert or sporting event - irrespective of how fantastic and coveted the tickets - with a bunch of work associates?

Okay - the occasional event is a necessary evil to cement the relationship and opportunity to discuss concerns or plus-points outside the office environment.

The primary aim is getting decent advice, on time and not at sky-rocket fees.

Anonymous -10 Aug 2009 | 13:51

Blow that - bring it on. Does it work in terms of winning business? No. I am going to pick the best adviser for a piece of work, not the person who last served me champagne in a hospitality tent. But to the extent that law firms are mug enough to deplete their PEP by taking me to international sport which I wasn't organised enough to get my own tickets for, long may it continue. If I don't want to go, I won't.

Simon -10 Aug 2009 | 16:58

Guys, you're missing the essential point. Taking clients is the key that lets the partners charge their own tickets to the firm rather than their personal income; and better still, to their partners it looks like they have great client contacts and thus deserve respect.
See you at Twickers!

Dullard -10 Aug 2009 | 18:07

There's a saying along the lines of 'don't do business with someone you wouldn't drink with'.

Over the years I've been to wonderful events in various locations with people I'm happy enough to drink with.

However not all of them I'd do business with - I can't help wondering if their spending £2,000 to take me for a couple of days shopping in Milan is going to be reflected in the fees they'll charge my company.

Best relationships I've got are with those lawyers that deliver quality on time at a sensible price - and that take time out during the day to meet for a coffee at Starbucks just to catch up.

Buyer of Legal Services -11 Aug 2009 | 08:53

The one thing that is worse than enduring some of these events is seeing the mark-up that the licensed bandits who promote them charge. I was hoping that the credit crunch would see most of them go to the wall so that we could go back to what is far more enjoyable, namely watching whatever it is with one or two mates and a few beers, rather than some indifferent lunch in a cramped box with some B-list celeb giving sundry views on the game through a haze of cheap booze!

Anonymous -11 Aug 2009 | 09:46

People have been doing some version of this glad-handing in business for three hundred years, probably longer. Of course, it works. True, it generally works better in terms of bedding down existing relationships than winning new clients. The other caveat is that it has to be well judged - not too lavish, not too cheap - and you need to have partners working the client who are genuinely impressive and with great people skills. But in that circumstance, it works. There are partners in the City who have built multimillion-pound practices off the back of this.

Anonymous -11 Aug 2009 | 10:58

First law of client entertainment

Dullard is essentially right. The first law states that: "Client entertainment is undertaken primarily for the benefit of the entertainer, not the entertainee". In this respect, lawyers and other professionals are no different to their clients. In a commercial business, to understand where most of the company's entertainment is spent, you just need to know what the Marketing Director likes to do..

A law firm observer -11 Aug 2009 | 14:30

Corporate Freebies

Aww, come on guys, stop beating yourselves up. I always give work to the last person who entertained me. I know you hate doing it, and most of you have the personal charm of a gorilla, buts that's why you became lawyers, eh? Anyway, you're nowhere as bad as the accountants. Am available for all sporting events, concerts, parties, free beer, champagne etc.

Insurance Claims Man -11 Aug 2009 | 17:02

Associate

Some of these responses are 'laugh out loud' funny, especially the negative ones. I've always suspected that some of these expensive BD activities are pointless (or at least not as useful at winning or maintaining clients) but I'm much too timid to tell that to some puffed-up partner (not all, just some) who wants to bore us to tears at meetings with details of his or her BD activities. Having said that, I think firms feel the need to have/host some marketing events because their competitors are doing the same.

Anonymous12 -02 Sep 2009 | 13:20