October 20, 2009

Sometimes business just walks through the door

In the olden days, business is as easy as setting up an office and wait for business to come to you. Actually, when I started business 10 years ago in a small town, I still managed to get 20% of my business in that way. People just walked into the office, asked to see the lawyer and we would be discussing whatever that was ailing them that particular day.

In my current office, that rarely happens. It was more than rare. I do entertain a few cases from some neighbouring office but in two of the cases which I did handled in 9 years I have practised in Kuala Lumpur, both cases were companies which share the same lift as us. I was even in trouble for one of the case when the authority discovered they were selling snake oil of the government contract kind (Luckily that ugly episode has passed).

So, on Tuesday, when my secretary told me there was a man in the reception waiting to see a lawyer, I personally handled his grievance (as I was also the only lawyer at that time). And lo and behold, it was a genuine case which involve them being sued for a very strange case, which is another matter.

When my senior associate asked him that evening as she was interviewing him to get more data for the case, she asked why did he choose our firm over a few other legal firms, numbering to 5, within the two blocks our offices are located.

He answered simply that, there were a few times he takes a smoking break, people who were looking for our office asked him for direction to our office. As we are actually opposite of each other, he just need to point our office to those who asked. Those episodes are the reason that our office became his choice that Tuesday morning.

You get all kind of clients but how you get it is very much a story of its own....

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