The bar association holiday parties are here. As much as I hate to acknowledge it, bar association parties are amazingly effective at building your network and generating new business for your practice. Why do I hate to say it? Read on.

Here are my tips:

1. Go to the party. I know you might not want to go. Personally, I don’t want to go. Many of us kind of hate these things, but they’re usually much more fun than we imagine they’ll be. Just go.

2. Don’t drink. Or, alternatively, drink very little (like one drink maybe?). Drinking won’t help you accomplish your networking objectives.

3. Don’t talk to other practitioners in your area of the law except to say hello. Spend your time talking to lawyers who can refer business to you, not lawyers who compete for business with you.

4. Make it a game: go in with an objective like meeting 10 new people. Beat your goal.

5. Don’t make people ask you what kind of law you practice. Work it into your introduction. If they’re asking, you’re not mentioning it early enough.

6. Get contact info from anyone new that you meet. You should follow up with those people later and have lunch or coffee.

7. Don’t assume others remember you from the last time you met. Tell people your name as you shake hands. Always tell them your name unless they mention your name first.

8. Put your nametag on your right lapel so it comes forward when you extend your hand for a handshake. That makes it more visible.

9. Don’t bring your spouse or a date. Not everyone will agree with me here. Spouses make meeting new people harder: fly solo tonight. You’re there to build your practice. If you wanted to have fun, you’d be somewhere else. Jettison the spouse for the night.

10. Don’t talk to your old friends for more than a minute unless they’re already talking to someone you don’t know. If that’s the case, then go horn in on the conversation and get introduced.

11. Don’t dance. Nothing good comes from dancing.

Some folks are natural party animals. They aren’t reading these tips. They’re on their way to a party. For the rest of us, parties are harder and less fun. It is what it is. Go to the party; you’ll be glad you did.