When Robert Metzler joined Hartford’s Cohn Birnbaum & Shea law firm nearly a year ago, he left behind most of the large brand-name clients he had helped attract to his former firm, Hinckley, Allen & Snyder. The move to a much smaller practice — CB&S has 13 attorneys and HA&S has more than 130 — hasn’t diminished his status as a rainmaker, but it has brought about a few changes.
“I’ve had to redefine what rainmaking is for me as I’ve shifted to smaller clients, but I’ve found that it hasn’t changed the nature of rainmaking. It’s just changed the targets,” Metzler said.
Whether the clients are the large utility companies he used to serve or the somewhat smaller businesses that now comprise most of his practice, the secret to bringing in and retaining clients remains the same.
“The key to rainmaking, in my opinion, is the ability to develop personal relationships with people in the business arena,” he said. “Those relationships are based on trust and as a lawyer, that’s the commodity you have to sell. More than experience or knowing people, what a client gets is the trust that you will be devoting your time and effort on a maximum basis for them.”
Having the ability to actually service the clients he brings in is one of the reasons Metzler decided to switch to a smaller firm just 10 years before he plans to retire. The lower overhead at a smaller practice lessens the need to constantly bring in new clients in order to generate the revenue necessary to support a firm with many associates, support staff and other expenses.
“In the large-firm model, rainmakers are expected to bring in business and then ‘push it down’ to younger lawyers who will do the work, and then when you retire they’ll have the relationship and they’ll push the work down to someone else. To a certain extent, I found that a little difficult as I became one of the older lawyers and didn’t have as much opportunity to be personally involved with the client,” he said.
Richard J. Shea Jr., a partner at Cohn Birnbaum & Shea, said that makes Metzler a good fit for his firm. “We’re much more of a hands-on firm at the senior level, which is one of our selling points to clients and I think one of the things that appealed to Bob as well. He has a lot of great relationships and is well known and well thought of in the community, which makes him a great asset for us.”
Unlike the stereotypical rainmaker who cuts deals on the golf course, Metzler develops most of his relationships through community service. Among other organizations, he has served on the boards of directors for United Way of Connecticut and United Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut, and the executive committee of the Connecticut Bar Association’s Public Utility Law section. He has discovered that there are two keys to success — be active and be genuine.
“It’s important that you really like the activities that generate personal relationships because the relationships can’t be superficial,” he said. “The people you want as clients have to be smart enough to see through superficial relationships. You also have to be active because you want to demonstrate that you’re smart and you can’t do that by just going to meetings. You need to be generous with your time and intellect.”
Ken Cook, managing director of Peer to Peer Advisors Group, has seen Metzler put that theory into practice. “Bob is generous to a fault. When he sees an opportunity to bring two people together, he does it generously and effortlessly. He also has a tremendous breadth of people that he knows and for rainmakers, it’s all about who you know. It’s not about what you’re selling. What makes a rainmaker is the ability to connect to people and Bob does that.”
Generating new business has gone a bit slower than Metzler had hoped when he joined CB&S, but that doesn’t surprise Cook. “ Any time you’re shifting arenas, regardless of the number of people you know, you’re going to have a little bit of an acclimation period, but knowing him and knowing how he works with people, I have no doubt he’ll be successful.”
While he continues working to bring in new clients, Metzler is justifiably proud of his ability to retain his older ones. “When I came to this firm, all the clients I asked to come with me came. Not a single one stayed at the prior firm, and I think that’s a real indication of the personal relationship and trust that’s at the heart of rainmaking.”
