In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Dave Johnson discuss:
Key Takeaways:
"If you present yourself in a way that generates confidence in the prospective client in the audience, you're going to get called." — Dave Johnson
Connect with Dave Johnson:
Professional Bio: law.stanford.edu/directory/david-johnson
Website: davidwjohnson.co
Email: dwj@law.stanford.edu
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/djohnsonllc
Twitter: twitter.com/Johnson_DavidW
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: The Ambitious Attorney: Your Guide to Doubling or Even Tripling Your Book of Business and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
Dave Johnson 0:00
One of the reasons doing public speaking, presentations etc as a lawyer from a law firm is not that somebody is going to come up and introduce themselves or you're going to get a chance to shake their hand after the talk. Although that might happen. If you present yourself in a way that generates confidence in the prospective client in the audience, you're going to get called.
Narrator 0:29
You're listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer coach, Steve Fretzin, we'll take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here's your host, Steve Fretzin!
Steve Fretzin 0:52
Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. I'm Steve Fretzin. And as the announcer just mentioned, and I hope you're having a terrific day today, thinking about marketing, business development, branding ways to grow your law, practice. Listen, it's you know, you only got one chance at this thing. And I think you want to make everyday work better and better. And in order to help you with that, today for the show, I've got a really unique guest. This is different than any other type of guest I've had on in the sense that he's a lecturer, a teacher at Stanford Law School. He's a lawyer himself. He's a writer. He's an advisor, Mr. Dave Johnson. How's it going, Dave?
Dave Johnson 1:25
Hey, Steve, how you doing? I'm doing well. I'm doing well, man.
Steve Fretzin 1:28
Good to have you. So how are things out in California? Very good. We just moved back. My wife and I just moved back here from Singapore, a year and a half in Singapore. So we're getting settled back into home and really enjoying it and hoping to get out of a, you know, out of a COVID. lockdown. So yeah, we're all we're all getting there are getting vaccinated pretty quickly out in California.
Dave Johnson 1:52
Yeah, actually, I've already been through it. And my wife's about to go get hers. There was a little hiccup with j&j, as you know, sure.
Steve Fretzin 1:59
We're in good shape here. Wonderful, wonderful. If you wouldn't mind just give get kind of a different interesting background, if you wouldn't mind just sharing that a little bit.
Dave Johnson 2:06
Yeah, sure. So my professional career began as a trial lawyer in downtown Miami, Florida in the 1980s. And although my advocacy professor in law school wanted me to go into criminal because I get trial experience there in Miami, I chose not to do that. So I stayed on the civil side entirely. I was lucky enough to work on both sides, plaintiffs in defense side of the of the world and get a lot of trial experience I did 10 years in Miami, went back to school for an advanced degree jsm came back out west I was born and raised in Seattle, came back to Stanford did a degree and went back to work in intellectual property in Silicon Valley in the 90s. Worked for Fenwick and West for quite some time when in house and probably four or five General Counsel jobs in mostly tech, just finished a four year twist with the nonprofit and started teaching about 10 years ago at Stanford, I teach basic and advanced negotiation at the law school. With some bleed over to business school, I get some business students in the class. And I also lecture at the design school at Stanford, more familiarly known as the D school teaching negotiation by design class over there. And I am starting just finished an article that came out the Singapore Academy of law. I'm starting, you know, in a book right now, and asked me to you, and here we are.
Steve Fretzin 3:39
Yeah, yeah, terrific. And so let me ask this. I mean, and I don't know you can speak to this, because you're doing that you're in it every day. But what type of training are you providing for lawyers in negotiation? And maybe you can you know, where you are in Stanford, and then across the country, what's being taught as it relates to helping them with negotiation?
Dave Johnson 3:59
So, you know, I don't think a whole lot has changed with respect to teaching negotiation in the last decade or so there have, there are new books out and occasionally there are some interesting books that take a new peek. Look at a new angle. There's one out of Harvard, Daniel Shapiro has a book on the emotion, the emotional component of being a negotiator, how to manage your emotions, how to manage the emotions of other people I like, I like that kind of fresh take. Dan Shapiro is not a negotiator. He's a psychologist. So he has a lot to say about emotion. But basically, there's two or three I say steps to teaching negotiation. There's the basic introductory aspect and whether it's in school, like I teach, or it's in seminar or conferences, much the same rule set for lack of a better phrase and sort of the parameters and language that we use to understand what works in negotiation and there is a real set of tools that work in negotiation. And there's a real set of do's and don'ts. And most any basic negotiation book you pick up will, will guide you on that. Then there's the second level what what I tend to drive towards, in my advanced class and also my design class, which is a little bit more sophisticated approach, depending on those basics that looks at process design. And that's a big, fat, boring phrase. And so I don't want everybody to fall asleep, the minute I say process design, but the difference between a straightforward negotiation to buy or sell a used car, etc. and a complex business negotiation, oftentimes, the difference is who in the room or in the figurative room of the negotiation manages the flow, the process, that timing, the information released the information gathering, and if more effectively, can control how the negotiation conversation, the negotiation, communication rolls forward, and it can be rolling forward for a period of three hours. And negotiation can go six weeks and be you know, 810 12, three, our exchanges, but the timing of what happens in a negotiation and the management of things that happen that cannot necessarily be predicted or anticipated. That's what separates the average negotiator from somebody who's becoming what I would call a grand master. At the negotiation. Believe me, I just had this when I was a young lawyer, I got schooled by many a grand master. And you know, I've made plenty of mistakes in in negotiation in my years of practice. And, you know, one of the best ways to learn is actually to take a close look at how things went in your negotiation and see where you might have made a difference. Because it's such it's like a trial that way for those lawyers out there that have actually stood in a courtroom alone, in front of a judge and jury with a witness on the stand and realize there are so many things going on live unscripted, in real time that you have to be able to react to and react to correctly, or your clients interests may be damaged. That's the center of the crucible. And in negotiation, it's the same thing, you have to be able to manage this process of unpredictability, and work your way through it.
Steve Fretzin 7:29
And I apologize, I interrupted you. But I was just curious, I'm anxious to ask, which is, you know, you mentioned someone like the who are right. So is that, for example, a mediator is that there's a person that is controlling the flow? And then you have to figure out like how to negotiate within around that person.
Dave Johnson 7:47
Yeah, it's, it's interesting. What I mean, is the negotiator, themself being the person who is in who is controlling or trying to control or manage, manage is probably the better word than control. As an aside, I had a conversation with a former partner who became a judge, and as a judge, she took the position that it's my courtroom. And any judge you talk to, I'll tell you, it's my courtroom. And I said to her, no, you may think that, but I guarantee you that the lawyers on the floor in front of you believe it's their courtroom. And you have to take that mindset to believe that it's your courtroom, of course, you respect the judge. And of course, you respect the judges, rules and rulings, etc. That goes without saying, but if you don't have the mindset that you are running the show, in some way, shape or form, then guess what the show is be rough is being run on you. It's one or the other, either you're in control or somebody else's control. Otherwise, it's chaos, if nobody's in control, so best to be the person who has the mindset that I'm the one who is managing this. Now, when you get into a negotiation with four or five, really good negotiators, all of whom are struggling to manage the process. That's where it gets really interesting. It's, it's a little bit more like a chess match there. But now let me segue back when there's a mediator involved, of course, the mediator is trying to control the process as well. But as an advocate, 234 lawyers advocating in a complex mediation, all of those lawyers are also trying to manage the process. And they see the mediator as a piece on the board that they are trying to manage as well. If you go into a mediation and you just sit down and say, okay, mediator, do your thing. And let's see what happens, you're probably going to get less of a deal than you might otherwise be able to.
Steve Fretzin 9:45
You almost have the game the system a little bit by being an active negotiator, bid being actively looking at everyone on the board as a player that you've got to, you know, not manipulate, but you've got to make sure that you're getting your fair shake.
Dave Johnson 9:58
Right and You know, this isn't pejorative derogatory or negative in any sense, you can manage some of the best negotiators I've ever watched. And negotiators who can really manage a process are the nicest folks you'll ever meet. And they're gentle and calm, and they don't talk a lot. They listen a lot. But they know when to push a lever or pull on a knob and make a shift in the flow of the negotiation, when to take a break, when do engage, when to become competitive, when to move over to a collaborative style, etc, etc. It comes with experience, to be sure. But this is the sort of level of negotiation skill that you need to get to, I think, to really practice the art of Law at its highest level, and everybody can get there. But there is some training that is very, very helpful in the process. And there are good books out there. One of them is titled 3d negotiation by David lacs, and Jim Sebelius, also at Harvard. And they talk at length about the three dimensions of managing the negotiation. And the first two do not occur in the negotiation room. And so if you want to look at a book that talks to this subject, that's a good place to start. But going back to your original question, additional courses, CLE, video trainings, seminars, etc, that speak to a more advanced level can really be beneficial. I did that myself before I started teaching. And I found it made me a better negotiator, as a lawyer on all facets, all fronts.
Steve Fretzin 11:40
Gotcha, gotcha. So here's something interesting out this isn't a curveball for you. But I'm just curious, you know, one of the most common things that I hear from lawyers, and again, I'm in the business development space, helping them grow law practices, and the most common thing I hear is, geez, they never taught me this in law school. Right? So it's all the business skills, all that things, the marketing, the business, the sales, all the different words that that lawyers never needed to know, you know, in the 70s 80s, and 90s, that they now do. Are you tipping in or tapping in or touching on anything related to business development as you teach negotiation? Or is it strictly legal negotiation, and like we're talking about in the, in the boardroom courtroom?
Dave Johnson 12:20
No, I don't put that into my negotiation class. Because I tend to have a blended class of lawyers and non lawyers. And so I think it's unfair, in my particular instance, to try and teach specifically lawyer business approaches. However, when I talk to young lawyers, or when I was in a law firm, managing young lawyers, that changes, I like to talk to young lawyers first, second, third year associates about how to start building business and how to start working towards building a practice a book of business that they can take with themselves. Because although it's harder as an associate, then as a partner in a law firm to build your book, you can still build the network that will segue into a book of business, the minute you start practicing law, whether you're solo, even if you're in government, or nonprofit, but specifically or if you're in a law firm, there are a lot of things a young lawyer can do to start building the network that then becomes a book of business. And it's just the it's unfortunate. But when I was in law firms, the general rule was you don't even start thinking about thinking about marketing or building a client base until you are close to or actually becoming a partner. And I, in my view, that's too late.
Steve Fretzin 13:43
Yeah, that's there are some law firms that want to get that going early, because they see value in building up their people. And I have to tell you, one of the lawyers I work with is at a mid market firm and one of her seniors got everybody together all the senior associates and said, don't think about it, don't worry about it, don't think about it, you all have work to do crank out the hours. And she came back to me very upset about it. And so it's, it's it's a I think a lot of it's cultural, a lot of it is is the mindset of the firm, what are they, you know, they're looking at the they're looking at the numbers and the profits and all that. And it's short sighted and sad, but it's every firm is different and has different cultures. And I think that you know, the stronger gonna survive and the weak are going to are going to get bought, or they'll die out.
Dave Johnson 14:28
But it makes sense. If you think take the narrow view of what a law firm partner is doing, then it's in their best interests for their associates to spend all of their time working on their cases. That's how they make money underneath them, yes.
Steve Fretzin 14:46
It's just not it's just not gonna fly with millennials and others that actually, you know, care about, you know, their careers and their balance and all that. So let me get into the weeds if you would, for a minute here. And so, clearly, you know, my show is about about, you know, business development, growth, etc. And I'm just curious to hear if you've got a couple of thoughts or tips around negotiation for new business negotiation, whether it's to get a meeting negotiation, whether it's to, you know, lock up a client to identify what their needs are, and how they're, you know, what's really motivating them to change or your but but I'm giving ideas, you you share your your thoughts, a couple of things that might, you know, benefit my audience would be would be wonderful.
Dave Johnson 15:29
Yeah. Okay. So let me start with this idea that negotiation kind of has a, what I would say, a small bandwidth and a large may width, scope, meaning, the narrow is this more specific technical term of negotiation in the sense that we're going to negotiate a deal. It's it's focused, it's it's defined, the larger view is that most everything we do in business, internally and externally, let's say internally, in the firm and externally, is in some way, shape, or form plausibly a negotiation, but it's really communication with the with the interest of either persuading someone, or working collaboratively with someone to achieve a positive result. And so under the heading of that communicative aspect of negotiation, I would say that, the I've had a few interesting takeaways from when I left the law firm, chair and the law firm lens of the legal world, and I moved over to the general counsel chair, and the general counsel lens, which, generally speaking, I would say, is the client view of the legal world, meaning the law firm, and services world. And, you know, we've all heard of the six degrees of separation, Kevin Bacon notion, I like to think in terms of three or four degrees of separation when it comes to getting business on from the law firm side. Now, I happen to know, personally, here's the hypo, I'm sitting in my office chair, thinking about trying to expand my network, expand my reach, or specifically, get in touch with somebody who I think might be a prospect. So I think of who I know, and can easily pick up the phone, send an email and say, Do you know this person? Or do you know somebody who knows this person. And generally, I have found that within four degrees, so myself, the people that I know, well, the people that they know, well, when you get to that third level, somebody at that third level, may well actually be able to make a connection to that fourth level. And I'm going to say here, although I occasionally have looked at LinkedIn, to see the, the tearing the and there's a reason they use that model, that tearing model of degrees, I rarely use LinkedIn for this purpose. And that's a personal choice. One of the reasons is, if I go use LinkedIn, for, to sort of search for contacts, I generally feel like I have to do it in a private window, because I don't want to leave my my footprints laying around and have people you know, seeing that I've been nosing around, but within those four degrees of contacts, in a community, whether it be New York City, Silicon Valley, or you know, Springfield, Illinois, within four degrees, there's likely somebody who has a way of reaching out to somebody that I'm interested in, in getting to. So one aspect of the communication slash negotiation slash persuasion is calling in the favor, usually of the second and third tier person. And one way that I, I like to think about when I was in the law firm, what I would do is just the first concentric circle around myself, I would just make regularly sure that people with whom I have a close relationship, always were reminded that I'm looking to build my business that they know what it is I do, as a lawyer, whether they are lawyers or not, and that they can always they always have permission, express permission to send a link of my bio, which is happens to be in my signature block, but also online bio, whether it's on the firm page or whatever, to anybody who they think that they might be interested. So there's sort of a passive seed setting there. Then if I find out that that person is somebody might know somebody in the space, let's say they work in the industry, and they might know somebody who if that's the industry that my target is in, then I can every now and then call them up and say, Hey, you know, I've been looking for business I see you're in this industry, could you specifically see if you know somebody who can reach out to person At the fourth level, and just if nothing else, just for read my bio. And as now I'm gonna flip over to GC side, I didn't realize it until I was on the GC side of the world and I had the job of hiring new lawyers, moving work from lawyer for lawyer to lawyer or law firm to law firm, I did not realize how much I would rely depend on and make judgments based on a lawyers bio, photo, and description, self description on their law firm website. It's a whether one agrees or disagrees that that's a good way to make a judgement, I find that I sifted the first layer of sifting that I did was always just by it that way I was I was looking for certain characteristics. And also, I was looking for a firm that had a certain scope. So one thing that I would say, as a GC who shopped for lawyers, make sure your bio is perfect.
Steve Fretzin 21:12
Excuse me, if it sounds like it's the proverbial book cover, right? I mean, if the book cover doesn't grab your attention, and give you the headline, or give you the, you know, it's the third edition or whatever it is you're looking for, you're going to move on to the next book. So that's, that's where the importance of this bio photo professional photo, maybe LinkedIn, you know, might be a thing too, because that's like an online resume of sorts, that those things have to be really impressive.
Dave Johnson 21:40
They do. And I'll take your analogy one step further, is the book cover, and the preface or introduction, it's more than just the cover, I'm going to open the book, I'm going to I'm going to look at the site, but I'm going to really dig in to the words you choose the end the things you choose to say or not say, in the bio, how you position yourself, I expect a little bit of self promotion, but too much self promotion is for me, likely to get me to move to the next person. But and I might look at 10 or 15, some of whom will be recommended by close friends or colleagues of mine. And the others will have just been from a you know, searches for specific subject areas. And it may be that I'll go look at that bio based on something I saw in LinkedIn. But almost always go to the firm website bio, rather than read what's being done in LinkedIn. I don't know, that's just my, maybe I'm a dinosaur. But that's just my, my preference.
Steve Fretzin 22:47
Well, and I want to go right to Facebook and see who they're hanging out with. And now, are they are they at the bar getting drunk? Are they doing things for charity? Maybe that's something?
Dave Johnson 22:58
Yeah, it is. And I laugh only because I am somebody who gave up Facebook 12 years ago, and have never allowed myself to get pulled back in. You know, occasionally somebody will post a link to some text that I want to read. But they've posted it on Facebook. And I don't know if you know this, but if you're, if you're never Facebook, or like I am. And that's because I'm in the valley, and I don't care for Mr. Zuckerberg or miss Sandberg, method of doing business. It's a personal choice. And I don't want to be critical, but it's a personal choice. If I go and click on a link for some text that's in facebook, facebook jumps down my throat, because he knows still know that I used to have an account 12 years ago, so I don't even go there. But that's that is. That's I'm sure I'm in the minority on that. I just that that's why I chuckled about that. So yeah, Facebook is a place to look to.
Steve Fretzin 23:56
But Dave, let me bring you back. Because this is something that lawyers struggle with. I mean, every day, it's they want to get a meeting with a GC because they know or believe that they could add value to that company. And obviously they're looking for that business. There's obviously you know, a twofer there. And so having their bio and having their photo and having all that up to snuff is important. What's the next or more another layer down from there? Or even more important, is it who introduces you to them? Is it what that you have an actual need at the time? Who are you willing to take meetings with versus not?
Dave Johnson 24:36
Yeah, it's a good question. And you know, there's no easy answer to that. It is there. There is definitely something to who introduces you or your name, your information and your expertise into the GCs office. One good pathway to a GC is through the associate GCS and Because there is an enormous amount of trust between a general counsel, the deputy general counsel, the senior associate counsel, Director level, associate general counsel's and the rest of the team, you know, GC could have a team of four could have a team of 40, or 400. But there's a level of trust there. And the good news is that the junior lawyers at a GCS team tend to put themselves out there, they are either invited to go to panels and give talks, or they go to panels, and listen to law firm, people give talks, or industry people. And so one way to go meet them is in those venues. Now, for the last year and a half, that's sort of been shut down. But we're going to go beat, we're going to go back to some live work, I'm sure in the next six months or nine months, and getting to know the junior people is a good pathway in. And most companies will have bios of not just the GC or the senior people, but oftentimes bios of the younger lawyers, not always, but sometimes. And then this is where LinkedIn can be a service, you can go in and search LinkedIn and find out every AGC of a team of 400 to add, you know, a major company is going to have their current job posted on LinkedIn. And so you can start looking for people who are working in the company there. So I would work I would mind that space with some diligent research and then see if you can make a connection in and maybe I undersell LinkedIn i've i've cold called people on occasion on LinkedIn and gotten responses.
Steve Fretzin 27:02
Well, let me let me let me add to that, Dave, just because I've been I've been actually teaching LinkedIn for about 13 years before he even knew what it was. And I asked to speak on it regularly. And it's it's possibly the best business development tool that's ever existed. If it's used, right, if it's used properly and with intention, yeah, so there's a lot of people on there, there's some people that maybe comment on posts are just kind of like things or whatever. But if you're looking to get value from your content, that you're publishing, if you're looking to get your name out there and build your brand, and validate that you're an expert in something without saying it, and then on top of that, all of the proactive things that you and I've been talking about already with getting inside connections and getting in the door, in places that you'd never would have thought you could have gotten in, because you didn't realize you had a connection there, or you didn't realize there was an avenue. I mean, it's it is the the tool. So it but that being said, It's not easy, everything is hard, it's just easier than just trying to pull it out, you know, pull it out of thin air, or just call around and ask people if they have an inroad at a company, you know, because then it's just, you know, you're just throwing darts at, you know, if the ground, you're going to hit, you're gonna hit the ground, but you're not hitting what you want.
Dave Johnson 28:18
Yeah, so let me just add to that is, when I've, when I've made successful, cold calls in LinkedIn, it's, it's, there's a little bit of a head fake involved. But I think everybody understands that. I don't go in and say, Hey, I see you work at such and such, can you introduce me to so and so inside your company? It's, I see that I read your latest post, etc, etc. I see you're at AGC at at Apple. And ask a substantive question that is not related to your search for business. You know, so if you're a patent lawyer, and you ping an AGC who's doing patent applications at Apple, you might ask for just sort of a reality check on this. This particular most recent patent ruling that came out something like that, can you just give me an informal two cents on on whether how this affects your business or affects technology, generally, something that's substantive, informational, entices them to share some of their expertise, because everybody wants to talk about what they know well, and let that evolve into a conversation even if it takes a few weeks of back and forth before. before it turns towards maybe I can do something with your firm. And the person on the other end, if they're savvy at all will, will read your question and look you up. So they're going to find out and so if they engage the conversation that means they're not averse to the idea of having a conversation with outside lawyer at XYZ firm who does this kind of work
Steve Fretzin 30:08
in So Dave is that is the negotiation that you're teaching and that you've experienced in your career? Is it maybe less about, you know, you want this for four, I want you to have this for two, and we negotiate to try to find a win win at three, is it more about then communication, reading people and understanding, you know, maybe different inroads within those behaviors or within the, you know, the human condition versus, you know, just flat out like, you know, just negotiation in the in the, in the common sense that we think about it.
Dave Johnson 30:41
It's, it's what you are alluding to, it's communication, a sophisticated communication, one of the things I like to teach to students is word choice. And I learned this in any lawyer who's taken a lot of depositions, or taken, done a lot of trials knows that word choice from witnesses, discloses a great deal. So, here's the example that sometimes I use. When you were at the corner of the intersection, did the PLU did the blue car run the red light? Or did the blue car have the green light? Well, witness could say, I saw the blue car run the red light, or I think the blue car read that ran the red light, I believe the blue car ran the red light. And they answer the question without thinking what the words are they just pick a word? Well, you know what, there's a big difference between I saw think, believe, or no, and the witnesses telling you the degree of certainty they have without even realizing the degree of certainty that they have. And so this is, you know, a savvy trial lawyer is going to suss this out. And in fact, most of them if you get that answer, if you get believe, for example, in a deposition, you're going to lay in the weeds, you're going to use that on cross if you if you happen to be doing a cross or this person. And hopefully on direct, you're going to coach your witness to be a little bit more affirmative in their identification. What's the point here, word choice matters. And we have to be really conscious about word choice. Can't just sort of negotiation, communication is not a dinner table conversation. It is affirmatively, not a free flowing stream of consciousness, dinner table conversation. It is a structured, conscientious, intellectual, sort of sophisticated conversation, where your word choice matters, and the other side's word choice matters. And it gives you information.
Steve Fretzin 32:51
Well, I would just Dave, I would disagree and say that it is. I'm just trying to start a negotiation with you. Sorry. No, no, go ahead. No, I was joking. I was joking. There didn't go over it. No, I mean, now that we have an audience to laugh at it, but you know, I'm just trying to lighten things up. But it's, again, I get it. This is this is heavy stuff. This is academic stuff. And it's are there things that you know, that can be worked on in a classroom setting that maybe aren't appropriate for three couples at a dinner at a dinner table?
Dave Johnson 33:19
Yeah, and I'm not trying to, to let the i'm not i'm not trying to make this sound like it's an academic undertaking. Okay. The idea here is that the communication that I'm having when I am trying to make inroads to get in touch with the right person, a decision maker who can bring business to my firm, or I can deliver services to their firm, the kind of decisions we make about what to talk about, in developing that conversation, what to talk about when and how is, is something that is warrants a lot of planning a lot of strategy, because it will get you down the road, if you're patient, and you're careful. It takes time to build trust, it takes some reciprocity to build trust. And whether you're doing it in LinkedIn, whether you're doing it by email, or whether you're doing it by friend, referring friends versus referring colleagues. It's still a very careful process. And ultimately, you get there but one of the things I can say as a general counsel when a new lawyer is put in front of me, by recommendation from one of my associates or by recommendation of a personal friend, or by recommendation of a lawyer at firm x, who doesn't do practice why and so I asked for somebody in the white space. When that person when that name is put in front of me. I make some decisions based on how aggressive or non aggressive they are in pushing me to give them business. But you know, the one of the first interviews with the first GC job Had I interviewed maybe 35 or 40 people in this.com fast growth company, and I had it narrowed down to two or three candidates. I remember this distinctly. And the one candidate who had the best credentials, the best resume you came from the Hot Shot firm of the century, Wilson Sonsini sat down and tried to bulldoze me into giving him the job. And I instantly knew I wasn't giving it to him, because he tried to bulldoze me if he'd have been patient, and just talked about sports or something, he would have gotten the job. Now, that's just an example of what I'm I mean, by letting the conversation in the communication play. And again, maybe this is a little bit personal on my part, I just don't like to be sold.
Steve Fretzin 35:44
But I don't think there are too many people. And I deal with this every day that, geez, I just can't wait to get sold today, I hope somebody is going to pressure me into something because I, you know, I'm bored with life. I mean, really, that's, you know, that even back in the 80s, when that was the only way to do things, people probably didn't like it so much today. It's considered, you know, terribly offensive. So I think you know, what I'm teaching every day. And this is how we're going to maybe wrap things up in a nutshell is, you know, I'm teaching skills around relationship building, listening, understanding, empathy, asking great questions, qualifying, identifying if there's a fit, versus pitching, presenting convincing, which is very old school, yet, that's what a lot of attorneys are still doing, because they haven't either learn, or really come to grips with the idea that a new model, you know, is taken over. And it's not only great for both parties, because we're looking for a fit, and we're looking for a collaboration that's going to be meaningful, but it takes away all of that anks that we feel about being sold to. So I think a lot of the things that you cover today, whether we call it negotiation, whether we call it communication, whether we call it you know, the human experience, it's much very much in line with what I think you know, I'm dealing with every day. And I just want to tell you, I appreciate your being on the show, sharing your expertise, your intellect with us. I know you don't have anything to really promote, you've got a book you're working on. But if people have questions on negotiation, or people want to learn more about how negotiation plays out in law, how would they get in touch with you?
Dave Johnson 37:21
emails, the best way my email address is on my bio Stanford faculty directory, just search my name Dave Johnson, Stanford, you'll find it the slim me add that I'm really, really pleased to hear the description you just provided, what you could call the new school of teaching empathy as a central component. It's what we teach at the D school every single day. It's the designers mindset, it starts with empathy. And so I want to just hammer that word here. And I'm glad to hear you say, say it and use it. It is the way that you reach people, you know, I had on my notes, and I'll close with this, that one of the ways that one of the reasons doing public speaking presentations, etc, as a lawyer from a law firm is not that somebody is going to come up and introduce themselves or you're going to get a chance to shake their hand after the talk. Although that might happen. If you present yourself in a way that generates confidence in the prospective client in the audience, you're going to get called. And I've called plenty of lawyers that I've watched from afar, based solely on that person gives me confidence in the way they've handled themselves the way they speak authoritatively. They speak with kindness, they speak with empathy, they tell a personal story about themselves. They don't thump their chest, that sort of thing. That tells me a whole lot more about that person as a potential addition to my team, then any amount of accolades that might be listed on their website.
Steve Fretzin 39:00
Yeah, that's great. Well, thank you so much, Dave, for being my guest and in my out my people, yes. Okay. Yeah, it's been great. And listen, everybody just want to thank you for spending some time with Mr. Dave Johnson and myself today. And again, the goal is to get a couple of good takeaways some things that you can take back to the office or take back and you know, look you know, whether it's trying to get some appointments with some new general counsel's be a better communicator negotiator. You know, that's all good stuff and all things that you need to continue to sharpen so appreciate your time. And listen, the idea here is always to be that lawyer someone who's confident organized in a skilled Rainmaker. Take care everybody, be safe, be well.
Narrator 39:42
Thanks for listening to be that lawyer. Life Changing strategies and resources for building a successful law practice. Visit Steve's website Fretzin.com. For additional information, and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today's episode, check out today's show notes.