Author: Arlan Yerzhanov is an experienced international lawyer with more than 25 years of experience in legal consulting in the countries of Eurasia and the USA.

When I began expanding our legal office’s presence in the U.S., I had credentials, brochures, and other marketing materials but no roadmap for business development (BD). Like many lawyers, I was taught to focus on legislation and technical excellence, rather than on how to get hired. What I learned is that BD isn’t about personality. It’s about process.

Between 2010 and 2013, I helped grow our office’s income and brought in more than 50 clients in the U.S. market, one of the most competitive legal environments in the world. At the same time, there was little awareness of Kazakhstan and limited demand for its legal services. That growth didn’t happen by chance. It was the result of trial and error, identifying what worked, and building scalable habits that delivered consistent results. This article offers a practical playbook drawn from that experience.

What BD Actually Means

BD is often confused with marketing or mistaken for rainmaking. In reality, it’s a structured approach to building relationships, identifying opportunities, and converting those into legal work.

• Marketing is visibility: your website, articles, social media, etc.
• BD is what you do after someone notices. It’s the tailored insight, the follow-up call, the quiet consistency that builds trust.

Here’s a simple example: You write an article on recent changes in Kazakhstani subsoil legislation. That’s marketing. But when you send it directly to someone who’s been exploring mining projects in the region, and offer to talk through how those changes might affect their structure. That is business development.

BD is not about selling services. It’s about staying relevant and useful, especially when there’s no immediate mandate. And yet, many lawyers stop at marketing, assuming that clients will come if they just publish enough. However, clients rarely hire based on legal directory listings or articles alone. They hire based on trust. Trust is built through consistent, personalized interaction.

The Three Ps of Growth

Sustainable BD depends on more than personality. It rests on three interlocking elements:

• Product – What do you offer, and why does it matter now?
• People – Who does the work and are they credible and responsive?
• Process – How do you track leads, follow up, and build proposals?

The challenge is that law schools don’t teach this. Law school teaches you how to solve problems, not how to get hired to solve them. Most of us learn about business development only by doing it or watching someone else do it, but many lawyers still treat it like improvisation: a lunch here, a LinkedIn post there, the occasional conference handshake. The process turns activity into strategy. The best rainmakers aren’t improvising, they follow a rhythm: they block time for outreach, log conversations, revisit contacts, and follow up. What looks like instinct is often just habit.

Two Ways to Win Work

In business development, complexity often hides a simple fact: there are only two ways to get more work.

1. Get new clients;
2. Get new work from existing ones.

That’s it. Every pitch, post, lunch, or proposal ultimately supports one of these two goals. Recognizing this keeps you focused and helps you choose the right strategies depending on where you are in the relationship.

New clients require credibility and visibility. Before someone hires you, they need to know you exist, believe you’re capable, and feel that you understand their world. This is where positioning, speaking, targeted content, and referrals play a critical role.

Existing clients, on the other hand, already trust you, at least for something. But many lawyers stop at that first mandate. They don’t explore how else they can help, or even ask what’s coming up next. This is a missed opportunity. Often, clients assume you only do what you’ve done. Unless you tell them otherwise, they don’t know your full capability.

Start As You Train

Young lawyers are told to “start early” with BD. That’s true but more important is how you start.

Treat BD like training. You’ll attend events that feel unproductive. You’ll send thoughtful notes that go unanswered. That’s normal. Like any skill, BD improves through repetition.

Each outreach, insight, or follow-up builds muscle. The lawyers who grow are the ones who treat BD not as pressure, but as practice.

Building Relationships

Law is a relationship business. Clients don’t just buy expertise, they buy trust, chemistry, and the confidence that when things get difficult, you’ll show up with answers or they buy a law firm brand. But even in this case, that trust doesn’t appear in a single meeting. It’s built over time, through a series of small, consistent, and meaningful interactions.

There’s a common mistake, especially among young lawyers or technically-minded professionals: they treat BD like a one-time pitch. But BD isn’t about pitching; it’s about staying relevant and useful long before and after any transaction.

Here are a few habits that make the difference:

• Stay in touch even when there’s no deal. Share an article, check in after a major development in their industry, or simply ask how things are going.
• Add value early. Before a formal engagement, offer a brief comment on recent legislative changes, market shifts, or how similar companies are responding to emerging challenges. For example, sharing a list of companies selected for tax audits or a notification about upcoming reporting obligations. A small, informed note can often do more than a 10-slide presentation. And don’t worry about finding the perfect insight every time. If you stay in regular contact and understand how the client’s business “breathes,” you’ll know what kind of value to bring and when.
• Keep it personal. Take notes on what matters to them, not just professionally, but personally. People remember when you recall the name of their project or ask about a milestone they mentioned.
• Don’t oversell. If every interaction is a pitch, you lose credibility. Build relationships even when there’s no immediate upside.

Good lawyers solve problems. Great lawyers are remembered when problems arise. That’s the power of relationship-based business development.

And one more important point: in most cases, lawyers select lawyers. Whether it’s a GC, a senior in-house counsel, or a partner at another firm referring a client, your technical expertise will be assessed by legal professionals. That means substance matters. Competence is assumed, but distinction comes from how clearly and confidently you communicate it.

Visibility, with Purpose

You can’t build trust if clients don’t know you exist. But visibility doesn’t mean becoming a social media presence overnight. It means showing up where your clients are, consistently and usefully.

Here are a few proven ways to increase visibility:

• Speaking engagements: Panels, conferences, webinars, and even internal presentations for partner teams, help position you as someone who knows and can explain the issues. Don’t aim for perfection; aim for clarity and relevance.
• Case presentations and project debriefs: Share (within confidentiality limits) what you’ve learned from completed or ongoing matters. For example, a recent legal development, a complex transaction structure, or how a client navigated a regulatory challenge. Clients and peers value insight more than self-promotion.
• Client training sessions: Offering to run a session for a client’s legal or business team (e.g., changes in labor law or sanctions compliance) creates real value and builds relationships beyond the person who hired you.
• Writing strategically: Articles still work, but they must be timely, concise, and client-focused. Think: “How will this help the reader do their job better?”
• Show up where your clients are: Industry events, local chambers, and sectoral working groups. These are often more valuable than legal-only conferences.

Choose methods that align with your strengths and then, show up consistently.

Measure What Matters

For many lawyers, BD feels like a black box: you attend events, publish an article, meet someone for coffee, and maybe something comes out of it. Or maybe not. But if you want to improve, you need feedback loops. And that starts by asking a simple question: How did I get this client or project?

It’s amazing how often that question goes unasked. But once you start asking it consistently, you’ll notice patterns, and that’s where metrics begin to matter.

Some practical ways to track what’s working:

• Client origin tracking: Keep a record of how each client first came to you: a referral, a webinar, a colleague, or an old contact. Over time, this shows you what to invest more time and money in.
• Realization and utilization: These financial metrics (especially at large firms) help you see not just how much you’re working, but how much of that work is translating into billable value. BD that doesn’t convert is just activity.
• Internal KPIs: These can either support or kill your business development efforts. The key is to avoid over-engineering. Don’t copy complex indicators from other law firms. Instead, use simple, easy-to-understand metrics that are actually recorded, such as the number of client meetings, introductions made to other practice groups, or successful referrals. If it’s too complicated, it won’t be used.

Now, beyond the numbers, there’s another type of feedback that’s even more valuable,  but much harder to get:

Client Feedback

Most lawyers rarely ask for it. Some are afraid to hear criticism; others assume that silence equals satisfaction. But without direct feedback, you’re guessing.

Client feedback doesn’t have to be a formal survey (though structured feedback programs can work well in larger firms). Sometimes a simple post-project call or message is enough:

• “Was the process smooth for you?”
• “What could we have done differently?”
• “Was there anything unclear or unexpected?”

These conversations show clients that you care, and they often reveal small frictions that are easy to fix but hard to spot from the inside.

And importantly, feedback is not just for fixing problems. It helps you understand what clients value most. That’s what you highlight in future pitches. Metrics tell you what’s working. Clients tell you why.

And finally, even if your project was long and stressful, and you don’t want to see this client for a while, or ever again: just ask politely: “Is there anything I can do for you?” That simple question can often accomplish more than you expect.

Conclusion: No Magic Beans

Business development in the legal world isn’t about tricks, charm, or being the loudest in the room. It’s about doing the work: consistently, thoughtfully, and with the long term in mind.

There’s no single formula. What works in one firm, market, or moment might not work in another. But the principles are steady: understand what you offer, stay visible, build real relationships, and learn from every project. And, most of all, treat BD as a process, not a one-off effort.

We don’t study this in law school. That’s a missed opportunity. But the good news is, any lawyer can learn it. You just need to start and stick with it.

There are no magic beans. Just good habits, good systems, and the decision to make business development part of how you practice law.