My line of work makes me sleep and wake up every day with problems; seven days a week, 365/6 days a year, with no day off, if I take a day off things might go wrong. The intriguing fact is that these problems are not my personal problems but other peoples’ problems.
Before I left for the church today, a prospective client called me to intimate me of his problems and how he needs my legal help. I was still in church, an old client called me to prompt me of his own pending problem. As I got back from church, I got an email from a prospective client too, telling me about his problem and how he needs my immediate intervention, in fact he wants to come down to my office today not minding that it is a Sunday afternoon. It is always more than this on working days. I also do get calls at midnight from old clients and prospective clients.
Well, I am not complaining, in fact, it is the prayer point and the earnest wish of every lawyer, especially the ones that want to be active in the legal field to have people telling him and involving him in their legal problems. That’s how lawyers make their money, if you have nobody involving you or engaging you to solve their problems then the legal fee will not come.
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I remember my earlier years in the practice, a leading lawyer whom I really admire so much did a question and answer series on his Facebook Live and I asked him how he get his clients and what does he do when he does not get briefs; he answered me and said that there is no day that passes without someone; either a prospective client or an old and existing client calling him and getting him involved or briefing him. I really thought at that time that he was bluffing about getting briefs on a daily basis because then I can go days, weeks without getting a single brief, but I don’t think so anymore because I can fully relate now.
I further asked him what he does or how he does it to get clients to engage him on daily bases and he answered in one word; “positioning”. He said that all a lawyer needs to do is to position himself or herself on where clients can find him, locate and believe him to engage him or her. Positioning yourself to be found by problems is the key to a lawyer sleeping and waking up to problems and getting the corresponding legal fees that come with the problems too.
I have followed his advice religiously on the positioning and it worked and it is still working. Everybody has legal problems, even those who are not aware that they do, actually do have legal problems. Some have been actively looking for a lawyer to take up their matters. Some have searched for lawyers for years; all a lawyer needs is to position himself in a way a client finds or locates him and trust him to solve the problems in the best legal way.
I repeat and I can tell you for free that there are a lot of persons in Nigeria with active legal problems seeking legal solutions. The hundreds of thousands of lawyers already in existence in Nigeria and the thousands birthed by the Nigerian law school every year cannot handle them all. Clients actively search for lawyers on social media and Google and they always go with the first options suggested to them by Google or the option that ticks their boxes. In fact, according to data available, an immigration lawyer and divorce lawyer ranks amongst the most searched key phrases in Google currently in Nigeria i.e People are actively searching on Google; for a divorce lawyer in Nigeria or an immigration lawyer in Nigeria.
In all these, the key point to take home from this as a lawyer is to Position yourself for a client to find you; make yourself appear confident and as an authority in that area of law so that the client after finding you will trust that you will handle his or her problem very well. Most importantly, do not be robotic or mechanical with your clients, relate with them well; relate with each individual based on their own uniqueness and handle their problems well and I promise you that they will bring more of their problems to you and as well refer their family and friends who have other problems too to you, that way you will no longer be idle as a lawyer; you will be sleeping and waking up to problems and if you are a lawyer and you don’t like problems or wahala, then you should consider another line of work, the law field is not for you.