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Meet the Women Rainmakers!

Wendy Lazerson

Interview by Natasha Innocenti

This labor and employment partner takes the time to innovate to achieve good results for clients.

Name: Wendy Lazerson

Firm Name: Bingham McCutchen LLP

Address: 1900 University Avenue , Palo Alto, CA 94303

Practice area: Wendy is the Co-chair of Bingham McCutchen’s Labor and Employment Group. For over 30 years, she has been providing strategic advice to employers to keep them in compliance with California and federal laws, and handling disputes related to all aspects of the workplace in the courts, arbitration and mediation.

Nominated by: Natasha Innocenti

Most successful/favorite rainmaking tip:

To always view every situation as an opportunity and to have a long-term strategy. Any relationship, regardless of its origins, may lead to business opportunities down the road. By being perceptive and at your best at all times, you create the optimum scenario for business development. Someone you meet today may remember how you treated them five years past, with the result being a choice work opportunity.

Biggest influence on career/best career advice:

I spent my first year of practice in Rochester, New York, in what was then considered a large firm, with 75 attorneys. Two senior male partners in the Litigation Group took an interest in me, perhaps because I arrived at the office before other associates—who knows why. The gentlemen had very different personalities. One was very tough and demanding (I carried his bag), while the other was Abraham Lincoln-like. They took me along to the courthouse from day one, and gave me the opportunity to second chair jury trials and prepare witnesses. They taught me how to write by marking my briefs with a red pen (before computers). They taught me how to be a responsible thinking lawyer, with the buck stopping with me. Thirty years later, I still think back to their lessons and am grateful for their investment in me.

Percentage of time devoted to marketing:

Twenty-four hours a day except when I’m sleeping. Seriously, I spend at least two to three hours a day on concerted business development. The practice of law has changed and loyalty has become more rare. Some individuals hiring attorneys (not all, by any means) think of lawyers as interchangeable commodities, with the obvious choice being the lowest priced. This naïve approach (among other things) has eliminated the ability to assume that if you do great work and get great results, that the client will continue to remain loyal. Thus, in addition to doing excellent work, one must be mindful on a daily basis of how to maximize business opportunities. If my only work was practicing law, I would get the recommended daily sleep allowance!

Proudest accomplishment:

In terms of the big picture, remaining committed to the best interests of clients, doing great work and achieving great results for them, while keeping our workplace congenial makes me proud. In terms of the smaller picture, I am very proud of our record in wage and hour cases. I know when we are doing well when I have colleagues from other defense side firms calling me to ask for advice. I am proud of taking the time to think and innovate to achieve good results for clients.

Knowing what you know now, if you were starting out as a lawyer today, what would you do differently?

I had no idea as a law student or new attorney what it meant to sell one’s time, a concept that is now being reevaluated by the profession. Selling time (as opposed to for example, making ice cream and selling it) can lead to some unhealthy habits, such as working all the time. I do not know if I would have been able to do anything differently, but I might have been more attuned to the realities of the law practice. Perry Mason was never shown working at his desk!

Tell me about one rainmaking strategy or tactic that you initially thought would work, but it failed. Why did it fail?

I prepared an amazing presentation, which I am confident could not have been surpassed by any other firm presenting. This took hours and hours of strategic thought and writing. At the end of the day, the case went to a firm that had a long-standing relationship with the company, though the firm had far less experience and no track record compared to our unblemished one. The lesson I learned is that attorneys need to assess whether a situation presents a real opportunity. I would now ask the question directly, if there is a firm that has been used in the past that has the advantage. There is no sense fighting company politics.

Tell me about one rainmaking strategy or tactic that you initially thought would fail, but it was a great success. Why was it successful?

I had a relationship with a client that was long-standing. When a new managing attorney entered the picture, I thought this would impact my relationship. I nonetheless made an effort to speak with the new person and developed a relationship, and it led to a very rewarding expansion of the previous relationship. I think I was successful because I took the time to figure out what was important to this person and how I could be of assistance in achieving the goals set by that individual. I have also been successful in “matchmaking” by what we all refer to as cross-selling, but what is really knowing your clients’ needs in areas of practice outside of one’s own, and finding the right person to help them out. It is very gratifying when a client relies on your judgment to give work to your partners based solely on their trust in your judgment. I do not just focus on my practice area only, but always ask how we can help across the board—like a matchmaker for lawyers and business.

What has been your greatest frustration about trying to get new business or new clients?

The notion that lawyers are commodities and that “we’re all good so just go for the lowest hourly rate.” Lawyers are not interchangeable either in skill or commitment.

If you were mentoring a young woman lawyer, what advice would you give her regarding rainmaking?

Start now. Rainmaking is one of the most important roads to independence. I would and do tell young women I work with to be activists, take charge of their careers, and think of ways they can develop business by doing what they enjoy. Every room, playground or exercise facility is filled with opportunity and that is how you have to think. Also, young women (and older women!) need to learn how to directly ask for work. Don’t just have lunch when you go to lunch.

Think about when you started out as a lawyer. Now think about the new female lawyers just starting out. What is different now compared to when you started?

The biggest difference is that when I started in 1979, there were almost no other women in the practice, and I literally had to prove that I could do the job. Now women have automatic credibility to the extent that they are no longer the only female in the courtroom or in the office with a law degree. For example, when I graduated, the top three students in the class automatically were considered as the clerk for the chief judge of the highest court in the state. There was me and two males. The chief judge told my school that he would not be comfortable having a female as his clerk. No one blinked an eye, as this was accepted behavior. That would never happen today, obviously. While there still is a glass ceiling, it is much easier to get to the ceiling than it was.

List words that best describe you: