10. It’s an interview not therapy.

11. Stay positive about your current situation

12. Lead the conversation to where you want to take your career, not lingering on past beyond summarizing your background.

13. Be sure to qualify them as much as they are qualifying you.

14. Take good notes

15. Understand that they have a process and be flexible.

16. Be prepared to meet with more people than expected or less.

17. Treat everyone with the highest respect

18. Some firms put a lot of weight on their associates and legal secretaries opinions in hiring. They may be working the closest with you.

19. Have your information ready (revenue run, client list, business plan). If you are interested, this will facilitate the process staying on track and moving efficiently

20. Don’t just let the meeting end if you are interested. Set up next steps.

21. Confirm understanding and address any issues that may be unresolved.

23. Separate yourself by the types of questions that you ask.

24. The more you understand how they run their firm the better.

25. Not just talking about “the job”. You are a business person having a business discussion with another business person.

26. How do they define success?

27. As a firm.

28. In attorneys that work with them.

29. Are these expectations that you are comfortable with?

30. High level question > Facilitate discussion> Confirm

31. High level question- “What are you hoping to accomplish by bringing on a commercial litigation partner for your Miami office?” “How are you going about achieving your growth goals as a firm?”

32. Facilitate discussion (How much is it costing them to do it the way that they are doing it today? Are they having to send that work out to another firm currently? What is that costing them? What kinds of things have they found that are holding them back from achieving their goals? Cost issues around expenses, client development, training, IT systems, billing systems, research, turnover, etc. What is the average tenure of their support staff? (If they treat them well chances are they treat everyone well.)

34. If you are just going to cost them money, why should they hire you?

35. High level question > Facilitate value discussion > Confirm

36. High level question- “What options have you considered in attempting to solve these issues?”

37. Facilitate value discussion- “So when looking to be able to keep more construction work internally, would it improve your profits per case if you had an attorney within your firm that had specific experience in construction litigation, defects? How many cases do you think you could keep internally? What is the average case worth?

38. Confirm- So if you had someone with specific experience in construction litigation, you believe that you would be able to keep at least 90% of the work internally. This would increase your revenue by 500k per year. Is that accurate?

39. Remember they own the numbers.

42. 4 at most to start with. After first meeting should lower to 1-2.

43. Your questions and answers should be fresh. Hard to do if you have asked and given them a lot.

44. Go in with open mind.

45. Skeptical but open dialogue.

46. Have seen people go to first meeting kicking and screaming, only to fall in love with the firm.

47. Have seen people excited to meet a firm walk away disappointed.

48. Just because they may not be a good fit for you to work with as a firm, can be a great referral contact. Always be mining.

49. Take the meetings personally or don’t take them at all.

50. It’s okay to politely step back after meeting. If not interested, save everyone some time.

51. Remember the psychology of the meeting.