Canada’s government keeps missing the mark when it comes to dealing with drugs.

The following is an excerpt from Patrick D. Kelly’s new book Rainmaking 101: How to Grow Your Client Base & Maximize Your Income:

 

Millions of people embark on professional careers as CPAs, engineers, insurance agents, financial advisers, bankers, lawyers, and corporate managers only to discover that being technically proficient is just one element of being successful. Few receive any formal training in selling their services and themselves. For most, developing business is a sink-or-swim proposition.

For years, law firms have relied on a few rainmakers to bring in business to keep a slew of other lawyers working. Even in small firms, there’s often one lawyer who spends much of their time out there going to events, meeting people, and generally being the face of the firm in order to bring in new clients. But it seems the time has passed for firms to rely on these old ways.

Contracts are sacrosanct. This principle has been pounded into law students’ heads since legal education began. Professors pontificate as follows: provided certain formalities are met, and public policy is not offended, individuals (including juridical persons, corporations being the most important of these) are free to create private law between themselves. If necessary, courts will enforce this private law. Our freedom, our economy — gosh, our very way of life — depend upon this being so. (Full disclosure: I taught the law of contracts over many years in several law schools, and always toed this traditional line.)

When Ishwar Sharma, a Toronto criminal and immigration lawyer practising in the heart of Little India, received a phone call from a practice management reviewer from the Law Society of Upper Canada to schedule an appointment, his heart began thumping. Sharma had misgivings and was filled with apprehension over the notion that an outsider working for the profession’s regulatory body was going to spend a day at his office, asking questions and sifting through books, files, and records to ensure his practice management was in compliance with established standards. “And there you are standing exposed,” says Sharma wryly.