How Lawyers Build a Book of Business | BE THAT LAWYER
By Steve Fretzin and Elise Holtzman
From random acts of marketing to a focused rainmaking strategy and what it takes at every stage of growth
If you are a lawyer who has ever felt like business development is something other people are just naturally good at, you are not alone. Most attorneys were never taught how to build a book of business. They were taught to be excellent lawyers. And so when it comes to growing a practice, the default tends to be scattered, a lunch here, a conference there, a LinkedIn post when things slow down.
That is exactly what my conversation with Elise Holtzman was about. She has spent more than 17 years coaching lawyers and law firms through this process, and her clarity on what actually works at every revenue level, makes this one of the more practical conversations we have had on the show.
Elise is the founder and CEO of The Lawyer’s Edge, a former Am Law 100 attorney, and the host of The Lawyer’s Edge Podcast. We covered how lawyers get started, what stalls them in the middle, and what it actually takes to break through to the highest levels of rainmaking.
Business Development Is a Learned Skill, Not a Personality Trait
One of the first things Elise made clear is that the idea of the born rainmaker is mostly a myth. Yes, it comes more naturally to some people. But the lawyers who build serious books of business are not the ones who were born charming. They are the ones who treated business development like any other competency, something to be studied, practiced, and improved over time.
That mindset shift matters because without it, most lawyers never fully commit. They dabble. They try a few things, do not see immediate results, and quietly conclude that it is just not for them. The reality is that anyone who has mastered a skill, law included, can apply that same approach to building a practice.
Hope Is Not a Strategy
Elise has a phrase she comes back to often: hope is not a strategy. And it captures exactly what goes wrong when lawyers rely on random acts of marketing.
The alternative is not complicated, but it does require intention. Who are your ideal clients? Who are the referral sources that can consistently send work your way? Where do those people actually spend their time? Until you can answer those questions clearly, you are essentially throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks.
The shift from scattered to focused is where real momentum begins.
The Three Pillars: Relationships, Visible Expertise, and Team
Elise structures her approach around three pillars, and they are worth understanding at every stage of a legal career.
The first is relationships, not just the ones you already have, but the ones you are actively building. Referrals remain the backbone of most practices, and that does not happen without consistent, genuine investment in people.
The second is visible expertise. You do not need to be famous. You need to be known by the right people in your niche. That means writing, speaking, appearing on panels, and contributing to podcasts. Anything that puts your perspective in front of the people who need what you do. The lawyers who become the best-kept secret in their area are the ones who skip this step.
The third pillar is what Elise calls the three T’s: thoughts, time, and team. Your mindset, how you protect and allocate your hours, and whether you are building people around you who can carry the load, these become increasingly important as your practice grows.
What Stalls Lawyers After They Hit Half a Million
One of the more useful parts of our conversation was about what happens once a lawyer starts gaining real traction. They hit a plateau. Things that worked before stop producing the same results. And it is easy to mistake that for failure.
What it usually signals is that the strategy needs to evolve. Maybe 80 percent of clients are coming through one or two sources and a lot of time and energy is still going into things that produce nothing. The answer is not to work harder. It is to look at the data, be honest about what is working, and have the discipline to stop doing things just because you have always done them.
The other factor is time. Once you are busy with real client work, business development is the first thing that gets cut. And that is exactly backwards.
Building a Team and Learning to Say No
The lawyers who make it to a million dollars and beyond share a common trait: they stop trying to do everything themselves. That means delegating client work to associates. It means saying no to partners who still expect you to carry their load. And it means building what Elise calls a lieutenant, a trusted second who can manage the work, maintain client relationships, and free you up to focus on business development and strategy.
This is not about abdicating responsibility. It is about recognizing what your highest and best use actually is, and then structuring everything else around protecting that time.
Elise also makes the point that this person should be compensated fairly, including through origination credit where appropriate. Sixty percent of something is better than a hundred percent of nothing. Lawyers who hoard credit tend to find themselves stuck, doing everything themselves, wondering why they cannot scale.
“Stepping outside the comfort zone with support is the way to go.” — Elise Holtzman
About Elise Holtzman
Elise Holtzman is the founder and CEO of The Lawyer’s Edge, a coaching and consulting firm focused on helping lawyers and law firms strengthen business development, leadership, and communication skills. A former practicing attorney with experience at Am Law 100 firms, including Fried Frank and Morgan Lewis, Elise combines her legal background with executive coaching to help attorneys grow profitable practices and build healthier firm cultures. She is a frequent speaker on leadership and rainmaking, the host of The Lawyer’s Edge Podcast, and has been featured in Law360 and The New York Law Journal. Elise earned her J.D. from Columbia Law School and her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Elise’s Biggest Mistake and the Lesson Behind It
Elise was candid about a pattern she sees in lawyers and lived herself: trying to do everything alone.
Early in building her business, she spent three days attempting to reconstruct a full year of bookkeeping on her own rather than simply hiring someone who was actually good at it. It cost her time she could not get back and created unnecessary stress. The fix? Hiring a bookkeeper. Turned out to be one of the best decisions she made.
The takeaway applies directly to lawyers. You are excellent at lawyering. You are probably not excellent at everything else. The sooner you let people with the right skills do their jobs, the sooner you free yourself up to do yours.
Connect with Elise Holtzman
Website: https://thelawyersedge.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliseholtzman/
Connect with Steve Fretzin
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Instagram: @fretzinsteve
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: [email protected]
Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
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