For women attorneys, how have you had the most success networking for BD? I need to start networking this year and professional network groups just do not excite me at all. Have you found any success from alternative paths, such as joining a Pilates studio or parent-child groups?

BD? Big daddy? Baby daddy? Big deal? Wtf is this acronym?

If there is another associate or partner that you trust, do a tag team. This year especially another associate and I (who work really well together and are in different practice groups but our work will sometimes overlap that we will bring each other into projects) made a deal to do some BD together. She reached out to some of her connections and I reached out to some of mine. It’s mostly about building relationships with people around the same level as you! They won’t have a say now but they will when they get into those bigger roles.

One of our clients even reached out and asked the partner that I work for if she had any junior/mid level associates that their junior/mid level person could connect with and we (I pulled in a few people and he did too) have had about 2 “BD” get togethers.

Involve your firm’s marketing/BD departments. They’re there to help you create, schedule, etc the more bigger BD events. We will be doing a cooking class with one of our existing clients more junior people but who we do not necessarily do work for in that area of law. Also sending out gifts or cards, etc.

Lastly, the biggest advice one of the partners gave me was to not expect these connections to send you work right away. Again, it’s about building those relationships and once they get into a position of decision making that you will be their first call or referral. This partner even mentioned that he had known this person for 15 years and is starting to get work from him now.

Not a partner but I’m a big fan of mani/pedis if you had a preexisting relationship or the vibes work

I think you’re overthinking it. You don’t have to be a part of a large group. I actually don’t find that method works that well tbh. It’s about meeting people, creating genuine connections, and reminding people that type of law you practice. And reminding them that you exist in general.

Do the non-exciting networking groups first, invite those people for coffee/lunch/drinks and once you get to know people you might find areas of interest that have a cut over with yours.

As an example: met an auditor at their annual networking event, went to lunches, we have done some wine tastings together. They are now in-house at a client and other industry people were at those wine tastings as well.

I treat all other people as actual humans and have made myself very well known for being good at my job. The rest came naturally. Seriously.

Definitely not for me. Maybe chambers of commerce or nonprofit board service