Making it Rain: Caring for Clients is Key to Success

Shannon S. Broome leads Hunton Andrews Kurth’s California environmental practice and co-leads the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and climate change practices. She has been selected several times (including this year) to the Daily Journal’s list of Top 100 Lawyers in California, was named an Energy and Environmental Law Trailblazer by the National Law Journal and is ranked in Band 1 by Chambers USA for nationwide climate change law. Shannon has served as the co-chair and is currently an at-large vice-chair of the American Bar Association’s (ABA’s) Climate Change Committee and serves on the ABA’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) Committee.

Could you describe your career trajectory?

I started out as an engineer, where I worked for a major oil and gas company. After a couple of years, I was promoted from engineering to the marketing and sales group, which turned out not to be a great fit for me. So, I decided to go to law school because when I was an engineer, I found that for many environmental issues I was working on, the lawyers had the final say. I could make recommendations, but everything was being driven by the law. So, I thought, “I really need to understand the law better.” I went to Washington, D.C., to begin my practice because the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was there, and I was lucky to land a position in a firm that specialized in environmental regulation. That was right up my alley. I knew a lot about refineries and chemical plants, having worked in them, so I did well at that. Then, after about four years, I was recruited to an executive-level position at a Fortune 5 company, which was a wonderful experience. My vice president was so supportive of what I was doing to support compliance and business objectives at the same time, and the general counsel was focused on our work and how we were minimizing risk for the company.

I had a fantastic time, and if I hadn’t ended up having twins, I probably would have stayed. But I needed more flexibility. Ironically, a lot of people leave law firms to go in-house because they want more flexibility when they have kids. But I found that law firm life was more flexible because, as long as you got the work done, it didn’t matter if you did it between nine and midnight after you finally got the kids to bed. My in-house position also involved a lot of travel, and with two babies at home, I wasn’t in a position to keep that up, even though I loved being out in the plants with the engineers solving problems. So, I incorporated as a law firm, and I worked directly for my former employer and was able to pick up work from my former law firm. This allowed for more flexibility in managing my schedule.

How did you approach getting clients when you started your own firm?

When I started my firm, I arranged with my former employer to hire me directly. Since I had been in-house and I knew so much about the business units and the organization, it just made it more efficient for them to hire me rather than someone else. And it was fun because I was working with former colleagues and friends.

While it was my own law firm, I was also subcontracted to my prior firm. During that period, I would do pitches, but it was under the auspices of that other firm. In the meantime, I had a new baby, so I now had three very little kids and I was nursing the youngest, and it was a lot to manage. I didn’t have to market at that point because I had more than enough work for the amount of work I was able to do at that point. Eventually, as the kids grew up, I came back into law firm life and became a partner. Now I have been a partner at two large law firms. It’s during my time as a partner that I focused more on business development.

Now you have a very impressive book of business. How did you accomplish that?

First, I worked to be as good of a substantive lawyer as I could be. In terms of trying to create new client connections, I focused on where my strengths and existing contacts were. My philosophy is simple: when working with a company or other organization, you’re helping (at least) two clients: the company and the individual trying to get their job done — this may be the in-house lawyer, or it might be the business person at the company who is the main contact for the project. My job is to solve the company’s problem, but in doing so, I also help the in-house contact put their best foot forward with their own constituency. This makes me feel good and the person I help feel good, helps them advance in their companies, and guarantees they’ll remember me.

Instead of just talking about what the regulations require or applying a case to their situation, I have focused on helping the individual at the client do their job well. This is especially true when the contact needs to explain the advice to their internal client without me in the room. If they can explain things clearly to their constituency, they succeed — whether by gaining the constituency’s trust or earning a promotion or salary increase. And for me, helping individuals succeed is incredibly rewarding — it’s a big reason I do this job.

In transactional law, when a deal closes, everyone celebrates, even though there were compromises on terms — the fact that the deal closed is a win. In environmental law, it’s different because you’re most often working on the cost side of the business. You’re trying to achieve compliance and avoid bad results (like an enforcement action for noncompliance). The success is often in what doesn’t happen — preventing bad outcomes. Clients don’t always see that because there’s no celebration — it’s just the bad thing that did not happen. So, it’s important to help clients understand the value of your work, explaining how it minimizes risk, both near- and longer-term.

When you have a client’s best interest at heart, they want to work with you, and they call you back again and again. And you can’t fake your intentions. So, if you don’t really have their best interests at heart, people will know. I truly want to help the individuals I’m dealing with — in addition to their organizations. I have considered so many of them my friends. Maybe we’re not able to go get coffee because we’re in a different city, but I truly wanted the best for them. And when they sensed that, they trusted me and so they’d call me again.

What other techniques did you use to enhance your business development?

I paid attention to the way that I spoke. Before, I used to try to show that I knew the answer. You know, it’s almost like you’re in grade school, and you’re like, ooh, ooh, ooh, and you raise your hand and then you get a gold star. But in a professional environment, people want to know that they can trust you, so you have to slow down your speech and recognize that it’s not about giving the answer. It’s about communicating with people and helping them understand so that they can internalize the message and convey it themselves.

When I give advice, I speak more deliberately than I would in a casual conversation. When you slow down your speech, it helps you to distill your idea into something digestible. Obviously, there are memos to provide your legal analysis as well. But when you’re speaking to people, I think it really helped build my practice that I could translate these super complicated regulations into understandable ideas. And maybe you’re thinking, “Shannon, you’re not talking about marketing.” But you’re marketing when you’re speaking to people, giving them advice. And I guess that’s a simple point. If you are understandable, that takes you a long way to being successful.

Another thing I did was that I was everywhere. I was on LinkedIn. I was commenting on people’s posts, doing my own posts, and giving speeches at the ABA. Looking back, one of the big things that really helped me build my practice was being active in the ABA. Some would say I was engaging with competitors, but I didn’t view them that way. Some of my best friends are my friends from the ABA. You have speaking opportunities and networking opportunities, and it just allows you to form relationships with different people. People move on from being at a sister firm to being in-house at a higher-level position. And I played the long game. Just last week, I got a referral from a former client who I hadn’t spoken to in 15 years, had moved to a new company, and needed my help. You just never know what’s going to come from where.

How do you approach requests for proposals (RFPs)?

I don’t find the RFP process particularly rewarding in terms of likelihood of success. That might be because of my area of practice. You put in a lot of effort, and even if you are selected to a preferred provider list, there may not actually be much work that results. Plus, I find that sometimes a company knows it wants to hire you or wants to hire someone else (for perfectly valid reasons), and the RFP process can be an exercise that is not really outcome-determinative. In other words, they have to have three firms bid, and you (or the other firms) may be doing the RFP solely as an exercise when it is really someone’s matter to lose. The key to getting clients is being interested in their business, being interested in their business success and personal success, and being in the right place at the right time. For example, we “won” an RFP to be a preferred provider to a major transportation company last year, but the company hasn’t needed us. It just illustrates that these lists are just that: lists.

How do you think about or approach “closing” a sale?

If I feel like I am selling, then I am not happy. I am here to help people, and if my team’s expertise is the right fit, that’s great. That said, if I think we can help people, I’ll just sincerely tell them that. I will also be candid about the competition — I usually know who it is, and I will give them the respect they deserve. I’ll also explain what our approach is and what advantages it might have for the situation. At the same time, I’ll recognize that there are valid choices to make and excellent folks on particular matters who could be retained at other firms. There are some things where I think we are truly the best, and I’ll explain why I think that if it’s appropriate. But to be clear, I am not really trying to “close” a sale. I just don’t view my role as trying to sell something to someone. I am trying to help the people I can help. If it’s a good fit, then I’ll tell them I can help, and the rest is up to them. I’d rather them pick somebody who they feel good about and who is good for them. For the most part, I think clients have a good sense of what they need. And you just respect it.

Do you have any advice specifically for women with regard to business development, something that might be different than it would be for a man?

I would pay attention to where other women are. Look for other women in your cohort. Now, there are many more women in private practice and staying in private practice than in the past. And I think it’s helpful to pay attention to the women at your general seniority level because some of those colleagues are going to go in-house, and you will already have strong relationships with them. Others will stay in private practice and be potential referral sources. So, maintain relationships with people who are close to your trajectory in terms of timeline — the people you will be able to work with over the coming years. And they may be your clients. At least they’ll be friends, which is a way to enrich your life, and that’s really the point anyway.