No one has much sympathy for big firm lawyers.

They have it all. Loads of staff, sweet Nespresso machines in every corner of the building, and an endless stream of referrals from the other attorneys in the firm.

Those of us in smaller firms envy the formidable force you bring to bear in cases against us. We really envy those Nespresso machines making everything from lattes to espressos to hot chocolate.

You respond by explaining that it’s not all that grand in the big firm. You have issues, you tell us. It’s not all about you powering up the bulldozer and plowing us over with the great big blade.

You don’t have everything we claim you have.

What? You say you really don’t have a large staff? The management cut that back as the economy waned, you tell us. Okay, okay, but you still have the coffee machines and the endless referrals.

Yes, yes, you admit to the Nespresso machines, and you’re willing to acknowledge that they are awfully nice. After all, they sell for more than $3,000 each. Of course, you explain, they replaced the staff that used to run off and make the coffee drinks for you, so they’re actually a cost-saving effort. Who knew? Enough, enough (please) about the coffee machines. Is this a practice management blog or coffee connoisseur publication?

You’re Not Covering All the Bases

The thing you big firm lawyers need and don’t have (no matter how much we choose to believe it) is an endless stream of clients. While there are hundreds of other attorneys in the firm, they don’t automatically keep an eye out for new business for you, and they don’t automatically refer their existing clients when those clients have matters you can handle. The cross-selling we outsiders assume is such a strong piece of your culture isn’t really happening. In fact, in this dog-eat-dog world, your partners are far more concerned about keeping the business they have than sending clients to you. They’re letting work you could handle drift away from the firm because they can’t be bothered to pay attention to grabbing the matter and handing it off to you.

This is a serious problem. Big firm lawyers do not automatically refer business within their own law firms. This happens for a variety of reasons, including the following:

1. A lack of awareness by lawyers in the firm of the services offered within the firm.
2. A lack of incentive systems for compensating attorneys for referring internally.
3. A fear that sensitive matters, like family law disputes, could damage the relationship with the client if handled by the firm.
4. A lack of cultural norms encouraging internal referrals.

What are big firm lawyers to do if they’re feeling left out of the internal referrals? How do you address the problem?

It’s tough, even as a partner in the firm, to affect the compensation system for attorneys. That’s likely an issue beyond your control. Strike one.

It’s tough to change the culture of the firm. If others are looking out for themselves and lack interest in helping others, then it’s not likely that you’re going to reverse that attitude. Strike two.

If your partners believe that referring the cases internally will damage the firm’s relationship with the client, resulting in losing the primary business, then we’re really screwed. That could be strike thr—hold on a second, slow down, wait a minute—don’t strike us out. After all, we’re talking Nespresso machines with an endless stream of those ridiculously expensive, highly caffeinated refill packets. There has to be a solution that involves getting new clients and keeping the coffee machines.

Yes, there is a solution. There’s a way to keep the Nespresso machines, stay inside the protective walls of the glorious big firm, and keep busy with new clients.

Stepping Up to the Plate

What do you need to do? You need to attack issue number one above: the lack of awareness by lawyers in the firm of the services that the firm offers. Shockingly, much of the reason you’re not getting those internal referrals is simply that others fail to recognize that the problem could be handled internally. You’re not top of mind. They’re not thinking about you. They forget that you exist. One of the challenges of running a large firm is maintaining an awareness of cross-selling opportunities. The other attorneys are so focused on their own matters, concerns, and issues that they aren’t really paying attention to what’s happening throughout the rest of the practice. They’re busily focusing on the crisis of the moment.

Unfortunately, you’ve contributed to the problem. You’ve been busy focusing on your own crisis of the moment, and that internal focus has resulted in your neglecting to inform others of what you do and for whom you can do it.

Take a minute—right now—and ask someone to run some numbers for you. Ask someone to determine what percentage of your department billings are resulting from internal referrals vs. external referrals. If that number is less than half, then it’s time for action. You should be receiving referrals weekly from other attorneys in the firm, and there are steps you can take to correct the problem if the referrals are out of balance.

How to Knock It Out of the Park

Here’s the action plan for generating more—many more—internal referrals from other attorneys in your big firm.

1. Draft. Write a 30-page publication called “When a [Insert Name of Big Firm] Lawyer Divorces.” Think they’re going to want to read that? Detail the issues arising for partners and associates in your firm. Emphasize any particular elements of your partnership agreement that might create interesting concerns and delve into the firm’s employment benefits and how they’re affected by divorce. Hit the work/life balance concerns and the impact on child custody. Make the publication as specific to your firm as possible to really draw attention.
2. Design. Have the publication professionally designed by the department in your firm that does such things. Make it nice looking, and make it available in print as well as on the internal network.
3. Publish. Distribute the publication within the firm. Personally deliver it to as many partners and associates as possible so that you can meet more of the attorneys you haven’t met in the past.
4. Teach. Schedule a seminar to roll out the publication. Do a one-hour program hitting the highlights. Reserve time for Q&A. Make the seminar available to all of the firm’s locations via the videoconferencing system. Be sure to record the seminar and put the video on the internal network as well.
5. Publicize. Start a sequence of e-mails to all attorneys in the firm featuring the answers to the questions you received at the seminar along with other questions you received via e-mail after circulating the publication. Save every question so you can incorporate them into the e-mail: these questions are gold.
6. Follow up. If there’s interest, then repeat the seminar in a few months. You might want to break out the component parts and expand the material in any area that gets particular attention.
7. Lather, rinse, and repeat. Do it all over again in about 6 months with a new topic. Maybe “When a [Insert Name of Big Firm] Lawyer Commits Adultery.” That might get their attention, huh?

My guess is that getting graphic design folks to help will be easy. I’m also guessing that printing, the use of the internal network, the videoconferencing, and the e-mail system will come easily. There will be few obstacles in your way, and those that come up can be negotiated. The challenge will be getting the 30 pages written. How will you do it?

You’ve got several options to make the writing happen:

1. Make an associate do it. Maybe you can divide it into sections and get three or four of them to do it together.
2. Outsource it. Find a lawyer on Elance or oDesk and pay that person to do it. Where will the money come from? It may come from your own pocket if the firm doesn’t allocate budget for this kind of project. Cope with it, and you’ll recover your money in increased compensation when the revenues start to flow.
3. Gut it out and write it on the weekends or at night. After all, this is your career we’re talking about. If you have to kill yourself for a few weekends, then just do it.

Getting the material written is mostly what stands between you and increased internal referrals.

Will you execute on this plan? Will you make it happen?

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I guess that depends on how much you want to keep that Nespresso machine.