But what if, as part of the hiring decision,  law firms objectively and thoroughly assessed their potential hires for their “fit” within the law firm–and their “fit” at client relations?  What if law firms assessed candidates’ personality, communication style, cross-cultural skills, emotional intelligence, and the like? Many legal writers have blogged about the importance of emotional intelligence to lawyers’ success, including  Janet Rausch, (summarizing remarks by Dr. Laura Beltsen), and Ronda Muir. Knowing whether a potential client will likely be a rainmaker–or a rainmaking dud–may “make or break”  the hiring decision.

My speech this Wednesday at the International Bar Association conference will touch on the same:  the importance of assessing the skills (emotional intelligence, communication, and the like) of potential hires–and, ideally, of all of a firms’ lawyers.  For those of you who won’t be in Madrid this week, there are a lot good assessment tools that you can use to  evaluate a lawyer’s individual communication style, strengths and weaknesses, personality type and the like include: Birkman™ (www.birkman.com); Brain Dominance (www.web-us.com/BRAIN/braindominance.htm); Cultural Orientations Indicator (www.tmcorp.com);  DiSC™ (www.discprofile.com);  Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientations-Behavior (www.cpp.com); Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (www.eiconsortium.org); Meyers Briggs Type Indicator™ (www.cpp.com); and Strengthsfinder™ (www.strengthsfinder.com). NOTE particularly for international lawyers: test results may need to be evaluated/adjusted to take into account the test-taker’s culture of origin, cultural norms and influences.

Earlier this week I heard journalist and Middle East specialist Mona Eltahawy speak about this profusion of young Middle Eastern bloggers (particularly in Egypt; for more, read I blog, therefore I am), and how this is impacting world opinion about the region. These young bloggers are reaching a worldwide audience thanks to the Internet. The result, according to Ms. Eltahawy, has been that journalists (and others) are gaining new and critical insights, and  revising their Middle Easterner stereotypes.

As an international lawyer, you  can learn a lot from these Middle Eastern teens.  As these young bloggers know, blogs reach readers across boundaries imposed by culture, geography and politics.  Similarly, lawyer blogs (or articles posted on the web) are a great way to reach far and wide. Okay, if the content isn’t scandalous, riveting or shocking, you may not  get millions of hits.  However, with well chosen key words that maximize your SEO,  you are more likely to attract desirable readers.

Just as the blogs are allowing  Middle Eastern teens to express themselves to politicians, religious leaders and even teens of other genders (despite cultural and religious restrictions),  so can lawyers’  blogs speak to clients that are hard to reach. 

If you are looking for another marketing path, research those hard-to-reach clients, and figure out their pressing needs and interests. Then publish some blog posts or Web articles about these topics, suggesting solutions to the potential clients’ needs.

Blogging and/or article writing isn’t a magic bullet to developing geographically-distant clients.  But blogging is one more easy-to-use (and inexpensive) tool in a savvy lawyer’s marketing tool chest.

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International lawyers particularly benefit from this geography-and-time zone-crossing method of networking.

My LinkedIn profile has been invaluable for staying connected with friends and former colleagues across the miles–and also for bringing in new clients.  Other popular social networking sites for lawyers include:

www.EsqChat.com; www.LawLink.com; www.Lawyrs.net; www.LegalOnRamp.com; and Martindale-Hubbell Connected

Are you sufficiently, socially networked? If not, get social.

In Globalization of Indian Business:  The Significance of Singapore,  Ramkishen Rajan notes that from 2002-2008,  Singapore received the largest percentage (21%) of India’s governmentally approved foreign direct investment. However, he notes that this contravenes anecdotal evidence that Indian businesses invested heavily in the UK and US (for example, through Tata Steel and Tata Motors purchases).   In other words, there’s a discrepancy between the “official” numbers and unofficial figures.

As these discrepancies show, international lawyers must do their own homework to uncover areas of business growth, and the related rainmaking opportuunities.  Global rainmakers take such official (and unofficial) data into account, but don’t stop there.  Instead they use their personal network to delve deeper and uncover areas of growth.

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If you are an international lawyer working at a reputible firm, most clients will assume that you know your stuff. True, they may search out specialists in certain narrow fields (like Islamic finance). However, after that, it comes down to relationships.

Recently I worked with an international lawyer who  liked to talk about her expertise–ad nauseum. At cocktail parties, in elevators, in the subway and in meetings–she talked about her expertise.  The result? Instead of developing more clients, she turned off other people. 

Then, we had her pay attention to other people, how they reacted to her, and why. Eventuially, she stopped promoting her accomplishments and instead tried to cultivate relationships. Selling services takes time–and requires good relationships. 

If you have not read Selling the Invisible,  it shares basic principles about how to sell services. It’s an oldie but goodie (published in 1997), but is perhaps more useful than ever in today’s competitive market.

As I mentioned in the article, the first step in such a situation is to make the professional aware about how he/she comes across. A person’s communication style is learned over time–and engrained.  A professional may not realize that his/her communication style offends other people.