The Business Development Skill Most Attorneys Were Never Taught
Law schools train you to think like a lawyer. They don't train you to grow a firm. Here's the gap, why it matters more than ever, and what we're doing about it.
Law schools train you to think like a lawyer. They don't train you to grow a firm. Here's the gap, why it matters more than ever, and what we're doing about it.
Most attorneys were never formally trained in business development—the skills required to originate new client relationships, build referral networks, and grow a practice. Law school taught them to analyze cases, not run a business. The attorneys who grow their practices learn this skill on their own, often by trial and error. A structured program shortens that learning curve dramatically.
I've been in the legal industry for over two decades. In that time, I've watched hundreds of solo and small firm attorneys try to grow their practices. The ones who succeed almost always share a single, often overlooked trait: they figured out how to do business development.
Not legal work. Not case management. Not docketing or billing or trust accounting.
Business development. The act of having a conversation with someone who might need a lawyer—and turning that conversation into a client.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: most attorneys were never taught how to do this. And it's costing them.
Why the Gap Exists
Law school is rigorous. It teaches you to read cases, construct arguments, manage facts, and apply doctrine to ambiguous situations. These are essential skills, and they take three years to develop properly.
But law school doesn't teach you how to ask a prospect what's keeping them up at night. It doesn't teach you how to follow up without feeling like you're chasing. It doesn't teach you how to set fees with confidence, or how to convert a casual referral into an engagement letter, or how to position your firm so that the right clients find you in the first place.
These skills are treated as something you'll figure out on the job—as if they were peripheral to the practice of law. They aren't. For most attorneys in private practice, especially solo and small firm attorneys, business development is the practice of law. Without clients, there's no work to do.
What "Business Development" Actually Means
When attorneys hear "business development" or "sales training," many recoil. The associations are bad: aggressive cold calls, uncomfortable scripts, pressure tactics that feel beneath the profession.
That's not what we're talking about.
Business development for attorneys
The practice of building professional relationships, having diagnostic conversations with potential clients, communicating value clearly, and managing follow-up systematically—so that the right clients choose you, and the wrong clients self-select out, before either of you wastes time.
Done well, business development looks nothing like sales. It looks like a senior attorney having a real conversation with a stranger about that stranger's situation—asking better questions than anyone else has asked, listening more carefully, and being honest about whether and how she can help.
That's a skill. It can be taught. And like any skill, the people who study it deliberately get dramatically better at it than the people who don't.
What Happens When Attorneys Don't Develop This Skill
I see the same patterns over and over in firms that struggle to grow:
Inconsistent client flow. Some months are great. Others are dry. There's no system, no pipeline, no predictable process for generating new matters. The firm is dependent on whoever happened to call this week.
Underpricing. When you're uncertain about your value, you compete on price. You discount to win the business, then resent the work because the rate is too low. Confidence in fees comes from confidence in the conversation that precedes the engagement.
Reactive marketing. When a referral pipeline thins, the response is panic spending—a new website, a sudden push on LinkedIn, an SEO contract signed in haste. None of it is grounded in a strategy because there is no strategy.
Burnout. The attorney works harder and harder on the legal work to make up for the gaps in the business side. Eventually, the work itself starts to feel like a burden because every new case represents another scramble.
None of this is the attorney's fault. They were never trained for it. The system that produced them assumed someone else—a senior partner, a marketing department, a referral network—would handle that piece. For solo and small firm attorneys, there is no someone else.
What We're Doing at Amata
Earlier this year, I went through the Polin Performance Group's Rainmaker Program. Evan Polin runs it—he's been training lawyers, accountants, and professional service teams in business development for years.
I went in skeptical. I've sat through plenty of "sales training" that didn't move the needle. This was different. It wasn't scripts. It wasn't pressure. It was a structured method for having better, more diagnostic conversations with the people who might become your clients.
What sold me wasn't the program itself—it was what happened after. I started using what I'd learned with our own account executives, and the conversations they were having with prospective members shifted measurably. Better questions. Better follow-up. Better outcomes.
So we made a decision. We're now putting our entire account executive team through the program. We're also building a modified version for our intake specialists, because the same principles apply at the moment a prospective client first picks up the phone.
That's a real investment of time and money. We wouldn't make it if I didn't believe in what Evan teaches.
Why It Works for Attorneys at Every Stage
The Rainmaker Program is one of the few business development frameworks I've seen that's genuinely calibrated for the legal profession. The conversational style respects the gravity of legal work. The diagnostic approach mirrors how good lawyers already think. And the follow-up cadence is structured enough to be useful but flexible enough to fit the rhythm of an actual practice.
For experienced attorneys, the program works as a structured refresher. Most senior lawyers have developed business development habits over decades, but very few have ever had those habits examined by someone trained to spot the gaps. The program provides language for skills they developed by trial and error, and surfaces the parts of their game that have gotten rusty without them noticing.
For early-career attorneys—the ones launching solo, the ones who left a larger firm to start their own thing, the ones still finding their footing—the program is essentially the missing semester from law school. Group learning matters here, too. Hearing how peers handle the same conversations is itself a form of training.
The Takeaway
If you're a solo, small firm, or independent attorney in Chicago or Illinois—or anywhere else, frankly—and you've been quietly aware that the business development side of your practice could be sharper, you're in good company. Most attorneys feel this. Few do anything about it.
Doing something about it doesn't require a marketing degree or a personality transplant. It requires a structured way to learn the skill the rest of your training assumed you'd pick up by accident.
The next Rainmaker cohort starts June 9. Amata clients receive a discount. If you want to learn more, the program details are at polinpg.com/amata-rainmaker-program.
For a broader look at how Chicago and Illinois attorneys grow their firms—across referral networking, online presence, client experience, and community visibility—see our Law Firm Marketing Guide for Chicago & Illinois Attorneys.
If you go through the Rainmaker Program and want to compare notes after, my door is open.
Ready to sharpen the skill that grows your firm?
The next Polin Rainmaker Program cohort starts June 9. Amata clients receive a discount on enrollment.
View Program DetailsFrequently Asked Questions
- Why don't law schools teach business development?
- Law schools focus almost exclusively on legal analysis, doctrine, and procedure. Business development—originating new client relationships, building referral networks, structuring fees, and managing pipelines—is treated as something attorneys figure out on the job. The result is a profession where most lawyers reach senior practice without ever being formally trained in the skill that determines whether their firm grows.
- What is the Polin Rainmaker Program?
- The Polin Rainmaker Program is a business development training program designed by Polin Performance Group for attorneys, accountants, and professional service providers. It teaches consultative selling skills—how to have meaningful conversations with prospects, ask the right diagnostic questions, address client concerns, and follow up effectively—without scripts or pressure tactics. The next cohort starts June 9, and Amata clients receive a discount.
- Is the Polin Rainmaker Program right for experienced attorneys?
- Yes. Senior attorneys often benefit most from the program because they bring decades of practice experience but have never had their business development habits examined or refined. The program functions as a structured refresher—reinforcing what works, surfacing blind spots, and providing a vocabulary for skills most senior lawyers developed by trial and error.
- Do solo and small firm attorneys benefit from sales training?
- Especially solo and small firm attorneys. When you don't have a marketing department or a senior partner sending work down, every client comes from your own outreach, your own conversations, and your own follow-up. Business development isn't optional for solos—it's the work.
- How does Amata use the Polin Rainmaker Program internally?
- Amata's CEO Ron Bockstahler completed the Rainmaker Program in Q1 2026. Based on the results, Amata is now putting its full account executive team through the program and building a modified version for its intake specialists. Amata recommends the program to clients because Amata uses it itself.
