One attorney is great at sales. She’s got the knack for it, and the personality as well. Another attorney hates sales, and she’ll never be good at it. She’d rather do research than meet potential clients. But she needs to attract clients, and she knows it. If she doesn’t, she’ll never earn as much as the more outgoing attorney. What can she do?

If she can write well, she can use that skill to attract clients. If she can write something interesting about something interesting, she can get it published; and – if it’s really interesting – she can get it published where it will be seen and discussed by many – by potential clients, and by those who influence them.

If you’re like our shy attorney with strong writing skills, you can apply this formula to help attract clients:

1. Select an Interesting Topic
2. Write an Interesting Piece
3. Get it Published
4. Do it Again

Select an Interesting Topic

If you’re successful, your article will be published in a popular publication; lots of people will see it. And since it’s so interesting, they’ll discuss it. And they’ll talk about you.

To be successful, you’ve got to have something interesting to say. You need either an interesting topic OR something interesting to say about any topic. Without that, your article will NOT be seen by many, people won’t talk about it, and you’ll go unnoticed.

For most of us, selecting a topic is such a chore that nothing ever gets written. Fortunately, there’s no end to interesting topics, and here are some places where you can find them.

In your practice area.
No matter your practice area, there’s an engaging, amusing, or intriguing story about it. Who’s prominent in your practice area, and why? Think of a case that resulted in some notable decision, or one in which David beat Goliath.

Be constantly on the look out for topics. If you’re talking to someone on the phone and a potential topic comes up, jot it down. If you’re reading a client alert and it occurs to you that an important result of some court decision or rule change wasn’t mentioned, jot it down. If you’re watching the news, and it strikes you that something in your practice area is related to a big news story, jot it down.

Stay on the lookout, and you should be able to come up with a potentially worthwhile topic every day. Stay on the lookout for a month, and you’re bound to find something in your practice area that would make for a good topic – one of interest to a broad audience.

Far from your practice area.

If you’re writing to attract potential clients, then it makes perfect sense to write about your practice area. But – since potential clients are interested in much, much more than your practice area – it doesn’t make sense to so limit your range of topics (if your goal is to be noticed).

What interests you? What do you have a strong or unusual opinion about? What do you know that most others (i.e., potential clients) don’t? What should others know? And what would you like to learn more about? They say, “If you want to know your subject teach it.” Well, if you want to know about something, study it, and then write about it.

Let’s say you’ve always been interested in the legal systems of primitive societies. Then study that. As you do, it might occur to you to write an article that dispels a popular notion – that the natives of North America didn’t know individual property rights.

From the future.

What’s in the news today is what people are interested in right now. You could write about what’s happening now, but it’s going to take weeks or months to write your article and get it published. By then, what’s happening now will be old news.

So, consider writing about what’s yet to come. Let’s suppose the U.S. Supreme Court decides to hear some interesting case this fall. Then it will issue a decision next spring. That gives you six months to write an article about the case itself, or about something related to the case.

From the past.

Look for upcoming anniversaries, because editors often want articles tied to them.

Here’s one example. In April, 1990, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of Employment Division v Smith. (A central issue was whether the state could ban an uncommon religious practice.) Start now, and you’ve got a year and a half to write an article about any number of topics related to the decision – for instance, how growing concentrations of Muslims and Hindus in some communities affects long-time residents – that will be ready for publication when the anniversary arrives.

Say Something Interesting

It’s not enough to have an interesting topic. You need something interesting to say about it; either that, or a whole different take on it. If you don’t, then it won’t wind up in one of the more popular publications, because the editors of major publications want what’s interesting. As Dale Keiger, editor of John Hopkins Magazine puts it, “Editors want ideas they haven't thought of on their own.”

I’ll offer one very good example. It’s an opinion article written by David Adams, a partner at Venable LLP. It’s titled “A Two-Cigarette Society,” and it appeared in the October 22, 2007 issue of the New York Times.

Adams presents an intriguing idea on how to reduce cigarette smoking – sell two types of cigarettes: the old type that contains nicotine, and a new type that does not. Beginning on a certain date, you have to be 21 or older to buy the old type. If you’re 18 to 21, you can buy the new type – at a considerable discount!

Since teens start smoking to look cool and impress others, rather than to get addicted to nicotine, they’ll go for the newer, cheaper cigarettes. And since those cigarettes aren’t addictive, they won’t get hooked. They won’t have to struggle to quit smoking.

It’s an interesting idea. It’s such an interesting idea, and of such wide interest, that Adams simply sent his article to the Times’ editors, and they published it.

Get it Published

In your daily work, your audience is usually small (a few other attorneys) and captive (they have to read what you’ve written), and your topics are set (e.g., you must prepare a brief). But when you’re writing for publication (to promote yourself or your firm), the situation is much different:

1. First, you want to attract a large audience: the bigger, the better.
2. People don’t have to read what you’ve written.
3. You get to pick the topic.
4. And you have to convince someone to publish your piece.

Here are a few tips to help you get your piece published:

1. Target the publication you want to publish your piece.
   
   What’s your favorite magazine? Wouldn’t you like to open a copy of it and see your article featured in it? Do it!
   
   Now, it hardly matters what your favorite magazine is. It could be as popular as Field & Stream, Motor Trend, or Vanity Fair (each with a circulation of over one million). It could be as partisan as National Review or American Prospect (with circulations in the hundreds of thousands).
   
   Pick any publication you like. Write an article for that publication, and you’ve got a shot at getting it published. You’ll come to the attention of prospective clients (and yes, prospective clients read Field & Stream), and you’ll have the opportunity to impress them favorably.


2. Write your piece for that publication.
   
   It’s possible – you could write a piece that both the National Review and American Prospect want to publish. But it’s far more likely that if one magazine is interested in it, the other won’t consider it.
   
   Review your target publication. See what sorts of articles it publishes and how they’re written. If your article is written in some style that doesn’t fit the publication, it’s not likely to be published there.
   
   
3. Review editorial calendars.
   
   Magazines typically publish editorial calendars that list the main topics for upcoming issues. These calendars are there to help advertisers decide which issues they should run ads in, but you can use them to find the right venue for your piece. If the cover story for the October issue of Field & Stream is America’s Public Land, then the editors might be interested in an article about some dispute between environmentalists and logging or mining companies, or some new development related to the Endangered Species Act.
   
   
4. Contact the editors before you start writing.
   
   So often, getting your piece published in a popular publication is like getting a good table on Friday night at the hottest new restaurant in town – it’s not what you know, but who you know.
   
   So, get to know the editors you want to work with. Call them and ask what articles they want. Do some research on Linked In – discover who you know who knows that editor in chief you’ve been trying to reach.

When you’re done, start all over again. Publish article after article.