Kathleen Nilles faced a challenge familiar to many lawyers leaving government—high expectations but no clients. In January 1995, she left her position as tax counsel to the House Ways and Means Committee to join Chicago’s Gardner, Carton & Douglas as a partner in the firm’s Washington office. Eight years later, she is one of only a handful of lawyers specializing in tax issues involving Indian tribal governments and her practice is thriving. A summary of her key tips and excerpts from a recent interview with Nilles follow:

Lessons on Business Development From Kathleen Nilles

1.Strive to be creative and responsive. Clients have an objective. As a lawyer, you need to be a facilitator of that objective, not an obstacle to it.

2. Keep in touch with colleagues from your former lives. You can never predict when the opportunity will come along for them to use your services.

3.Send articles of interest or complementary summaries of key developments to your prospective and existing clients on a timely basis. Keep summaries short and to the point so that they are valuable to busy corporate executives.

4.Find an area of law that you really enjoy and become a recognized expert in that area. If you are only one of a handful of experts, your work can sell itself.

5.Political fundraisers and luncheons are great places to make contacts. They cost a little money, but it's well worth it.

6.Ask existing clients to recommend trade associations in which you should become involved. Clients are often aware of groups not widely know to other lawyers.

7. Long articles with hundreds of footnotes are not particularly helpful for business development. They are, however, useful for internally marketing your expertise within your firm.

8.Review your firm's own website frequently. It will help you to stay abreast of firm developments and acquaint you with the other members of your firm.

9.When you leave the government and join a firm as a new partner, you typically start with zero. It is extremely important that you make the effort to get to know your fellow partners and to show them what you can do.

10. After doing a speech or presentation, follow-up by not only sending the presentation to those who attended, but also to others in your contact list who might have an interest in the topic.

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SUGARCREST: Tell me about your background and how you got to where you are today. 
 
Nilles:  I attribute my interest in law to my family (my father and grandfather were both lawyers). However, I started out as a religious studies’ major in college, graduated from Yale Divinity School and then worked in the campus ministry for six years before going to law school. 
 
SUGARCREST: How did you go from being a minister to attending law school? 
 
Nilles:  I became interested in some specific aspects of law through the work that I was doing for the Catholic Church.  I was asked to take on a special project for the Diocese of Richmond involving refugee resettlement.  The Bishop asked me to gain a general familiarity with the legal risks involved in working with refugees – particularly individuals seeking political asylum.  I just became more and more interested in those issues.
 
At the same time, as a Catholic woman, I could see there were some real road blocks to my advancing in professional ministry.  I thought, “Maybe I should go to law school,” and that’s how it happened.  So, law is really a second career for me but one that now I am very confident that I will stay because I’m enjoying it very much.  
 
I came to my current position at Gardner, Carton after working on Capitol Hill for four years as a tax counsel to the Ways & Means Committee.  I found Gardner, Carton through a fellow partner at the firm who asked me to speak at a health tax conference she was chairing.  Bernadette Broccolo is a health care lawyer and partner in our Chicago office.  We had collaborated when I was on the Ways & Means Committee staff on several programs and panels, including the one she ran every year for the American Hospital Association involving tax issues and health care, as well as an American Bar Association panel on the formation of captive insurance companies by health care organizations.  When Bernadette heard that I was looking to return to private practice, she introduced me to the people in Gardner, Carton’s Washington office.  
 
When I left the Hill, I initially was on a slow track to find a job, but after my then boss, Chairman Rostenkowski, had to step down, I shifted to a very fast track.  That was over eight years ago.  It’s amazing that a job that I landed that quickly has proved to be my most long-standing employment to date.  And, I really enjoy the firm.
 
SUGARCREST: How did you make the transition from government to building a private practice?
 
Nilles:  The biggest challenge when you come from government is that start with zero.  You’re new to the firm, so you haven’t built relationships with partners who are going to share their clients with you or transition clients to you.  You don’t inherit anybody’s practice.  You really do start with big zeros in your columns.  It can be somewhat daunting.  
 
For the first eight months, I had no clients of my own.  In January of 1995, when I joined the firm, I immediately started to approach people I had met previously in my work for government.  Social contacts, business contacts – I am grateful to a number of folks who really were out there helping me.  One of the first people who really helped me was a gentleman I had met on the Hill who is a lobbyist for various Indian tribes.  I had helped him with the technicalities of a pension tax issue he was handling for some of his tribal clients and, in gratitude, he introduced me to the Executive Director of the National Indian Gaming Association.  That gave me the opportunity to suggest to the Association that they might be able to use my services if they had tax issues.  It didn’t materialize on day one, but nine months later when a major issue came up for them legislatively, I had already laid the groundwork and they became my first client.
 
SUGARCREST: From the first time you were introduced to them until nine months later, what did you do to keep up with them?
 
Nilles:  I looked for things that would be of interest to them and sent them along on a timely basis.  As a tax legislative attorney, I generally start my day by looking at the BNA Daily Tax Report and the Tax Notes Today, scanning for new legislative developments of interest to clients or prospective clients.  One morning in September 1995, there was a new proposal that would tax Indian tribal governments on their gaming revenue.  The proposal was going to be marked up by the Ways & Means Committee in short order, only five days after it was proposed.  It was a huge issue and I sent it to the Executive Director right away.  I was hired that same day.
 
SUGARCREST: That must have been satisfying.
 
Nilles:  It was.  And, it was funny because when it rains, it pours.  Within ten days, I was hired by three other clients.  Two of which were totally unrelated.  One was an educational organization here in town that had a tax issue involving colleges and universities and the other one was an insurance-related group that had some tax issues.
 
SUGARCREST: How did they know of you?  How did that happen?
 
Nilles:  In both cases, principals in the organizations had met me when I was on the Hill and I had kept in touch with them.
 
SUGARCREST: In the same way—by keeping them up to date on developments?
 
Nilles:  Yes, and that is one of the primary ways in which I continue to gain new clients.  Now that I am fully engaged with clients, I don’t have as much time to do that as I did when I was first starting out and had more time to devote to marketing.  Some of the things that I’ve done since then are more in the credentialing area.  In 1996, BNA asked Bernadette Broccolo and me to put together a book-length publication on the tax exemptstatus of health care organizations.  That has definitely resulted in some business and it also has put Gardner Carton & Douglas on the map as a “go-to” firm if you’re a health care organization with a big tax issue.  Michael Peregrine, another of our firm’s partners who has a national reputation, is also very involved in tax and corporate issues of health care organizations.  And, since that publication came out, we have been able to recruit T.J. Sullivan, who was the top IRS lawyer working on health care issues.  That consolidated that area for our Firm.  
 
There are really three main areas to my practice: tax exempt status issues for health care organizations; tax and business issues for Indian tribes; and then general tax legislative issues.  The Indian tribal practice actually dates back to my years as an associate before I went to Capitol Hill and before I joined Gardner, Carton.  I worked on a private letter ruling request for a major Indian tribe located in Oklahoma.  One of the tribe’s main business entities is a client of our Firm today and we’re doing work for them on a number of fronts – tax and gambling regulatory issues.  The Tribal practicehas grown in a number of ways.  One way we have gained new clients is by sending out complimentary summaries of new developments on a very regular basis.  We have about seven hundred contacts on our Indian tribal government’s mailing list and we send what we call “client alerts” out on a regular basis.  The alert is designed for a busy person – the CFO, the tax director, the outside general counsel of a tribe.  It gives a brief overview of some of the hot issues with which we have familiarity.  We’ve gotten very good response from it.  The alerts have directly led to tribal governments or their outside counsel hiring us as special tax counsel.
 
SUGARCREST: You do these rather than typical white papers?
 
Nilles:  Yes.  Occasionally, for a more specialized audience, I might do something more detailed.  For example, I recently spoke to the Native American Finance Officers Association on tax issues.  For them, I put together a detailed outline regarding the issues that they are interested in and in which we have done significant amount of work.  But even in this kind of situation, I try not to overwhelm people with extraneous detail.  That’s been my approach generally to marketing.  
 
Another development that has made a tremendous contribution to our marketing success in the past year has been our recruitment of three Indian tribal government attorneys to join our firm here in the D.C. office.  We now have a critical mass and they brought clients of their own.  The attorneys who joined us are Ginny Boylan, formerly a senior counsel on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, as well as Kevin Wadzinskiand Brian Gunn, both of whom are excellent lawyers and enrolled tribal members.
 
SUGARCREST: In some ways, you’re organized as an industry group around tribal governments.
 
Nilles:  That’s true.  It’s definitely a unique market segment.  However, much of the work that we do for our tribal clients is regular legal work.  It could be they’re acquiring a business and they need corporate due diligence, they need an M&A team to help them.  Or, their web site is attacked and they need a cyber law or intellectual property attorney.  By having a group of people who are dedicated to working with tribal governments, we have the sensitivity to really know their culture and way of approaching issues.
 
SUGARCREST: This all grew out of your first engagement on a tax issue for Indian tribal government.  Did you think that’s where your practice would go?
 
Nilles:  When I left the Hill, I had several interests and this was one of them, but it certainly wasn’t my only interest.  But, it is the interest that has really taken off.
 
SUGARCREST: And why do you think that is? 
 
Nilles:  I think it’s the combination of finding a unique niche where I could really bring value to the client, and the general economic success of gaming tribes.  There are not a lot of people that are doing federal tax work for tribes.  That’s the substantive part.  And, the tribes with successful gaming and other revenue-generating enterprises have become increasingly able to hire specialized legal counsel.  Because of their success, tribal governments are now players in the legal market.  Whereas in the past they might not have been able to hire specialized legal counsel, they’re now looking for the best people in the country.
 
SUGARCREST: And they can afford them.
 
Nilles: Believe it or not, I also get a lot of calls from people who have found me on the internet. Initially, everything came through personal meetings, referrals, word-of-mouth, but now you get people who call you out of the blue, having found an article that you have written posted on the internet or on our firm website.
 
SUGARCREST: Are tribal governments calling you as a result of internet?
 
Nilles:  It’s more often their advisors.
 
SUGARCREST: So, have you been affected by our down economy?  Has that impacted you?
 
Nilles:  Perhaps to some extent, but I’ve been very fortunate.  From last year to this year, my practice has grown and it will continue to grow this year.  I think it’s because of the two main areas that I focus on.  Tax legislative work and tax bills have been front and center of the Congress’ plate – last year and this year.  Also, the tribal governments are still an expanding economy.  Gaming is growing.  The number of tribes that are able to hire counsel is growing.  However, like other firms, our corporate transactional work generally has suffered, because the deals aren’t being done in the numbers they were in the 1990s.
 
SUGARCREST: So, where are the best places to meet your potential clients?  Are you in casinos all the time?
 
Nilles:  I actually meet many potential clients on the Hill, when I’m at committee mark-ups.  During breaks, you talk to people.  Sometimes you attend luncheons.  I also meet potential clients at political fundraisers.  Company lobbyists and government relations people attend them and they’re an excellent way of making contacts.  It costs you a little money, but it’s a very concentrated group of good contacts.  
 
The other way to meet clients for our Indian tribal practice is to attend trade association meetings, such as those sponsored by the National Indian Gaming Association and the National Congress of American Indians.  Recently, I have gotten involved in more specialized tribal groups like the Native American Finance Officers Association and the National Intertribal Tax Administrators (NITA).  NITA is having a conference in August at which I’m speaking.  Essentially, it’s a group of tribal tax directors.  Not all tribes have a tax director, but they usually have someone designated from either their general counsel’s office or the finance office to focus on for tax issues and tax compliance.
 
SUGARCREST: How have you identified these organizations?  How do you find them?
 
Nilles:  It was through my involvement in the more general organizations, such as the National Indian Gaming Association.  They referred me to these other groups.
 
SUGARCREST: Do you find that you’re the only attorney there?
 
Nilles:  Definitely not, but they’re not overwhelmed by other private practice attorneys.  There are a very large percentage of in-house professional people at these conferences.
 
SUGARCREST: Do you think business development is different in your practice area than it is in others?
 
Nilles:  I wouldn’t think so.  Some of the principles that I have applied in business development would certainly be ones that other people could emulate even if the substance and the particular niche were different.  One of those principles is striving to become one of the top lawyers in the country in a given area.  Even if it seems rather narrow, when you become one of the two or three people in the country who are considered experts in an area, your work can sell itself.  The other thing that I believe has helped me is just being more of a people person – focused on human values and focused on listening.  I’m not, by nature, very outgoing or extroverted.
 
SUGARCREST: You’ve had to work at that?
 
Nilles:  Yes.  If you love to sit and read and think, the law is perfect profession.  That is until you realize that you need to interact with and develop clients. 
 
SUGARCREST: Can you tell me a story of a business development strategy you used that didn’t work?
 
Nilles:  In my early years of being a partner at Gardner, Carton, I spent much more time doing articles with hundreds and hundreds of footnotes.  That didn’t work in the sense of bringing in clients on any kind of immediate basis.  It did, however, establish my expertise internally, so when other partners had that issue they knew that I was the go-to person.  One example I can give you is in the area of captive insurance companies.  I did my Masters of Tax Law thesis at Georgetown on the issue.  Of course, my immediate plan upon going into private practice was to take my Masters thesis and turn it into a hot article.  The problem was – it was still too much like a Thesis.
 
People who are making hiring decisions are just not reading law review articles with their hundreds of footnotes.  But, it wasn’t until a total waste.  I had several partners who already represented tax-exempt hospitals that were looking for advice in the area.  When I wrote the article and circulated it among my partners, business did manage to develop over time.  It’s been useful, but not in the way that I originally envisioned.   It’s turned out to be more of an internal marketing activity.
 
SUGARCREST: But, that’s really important.  It helped your partners to know what it was you did. 
 
Nilles:  And that is especially important, I think, when you first join a firm, before you generate clients on your own.  You mainly have to keep yourself busy doing billable work for other people, so it’s very important that your fellow partners know what you’re good at, what you can do and where you can add value.
 
SUGARCREST: Have you ever experienced discomfort with business development?  And, if so, how did you overcome it?
 
Nilles:  The one uncomfortable area is moving from, “here’s what we can do for you,” to “now here’s my billing rate, the retainer that my firm would like you to put up, and the engagement letter we would like you to sign.”  That can be difficult.  I’ve kind of gotten over it by just saying, “We have a process for signing up new clients.  These are some of the things our firm likes us to do and one of them is an engagement letter.  How about I send you a proposed letter and you can take a look at it?”  It’s an absolutely critical part of developing business because you really have to go from prospective client to real client.  The only way that you really do that is by having the client sign on the dotted line.
 
SUGARCREST: Have you found it difficult to go from meeting a prospective client and staying in touch with them to actually asking for their business? 
 
Nilles:  Yes.  I definitely hold back more than I probably should.  I would not ask on a first meeting, but I recognize that it is important.  And, it’s equally important to tell existing clients how much you appreciate their business.
 
SUGARCREST: Do you look to your existing clients to grow your practice?
 
Nilles:  I definitely do.  Not so much that I would expect them to refer me to others, but I think many of my existing clients have other aspects of their business that I or other people at the firm could help them with in addition to the work I’m already doing.  So, my number one goal is to serve the client and to make sure that whatever I am doing, I’m doing well and that the client appreciates it.  Beyond that, it’s taking the second step to look for opportunities where we might have somebody else in the firm who really can address other needs that the client has.  Recently, one of the clients that I had done tax work for – a hospital system in this area – called and was interested in an antitrust expert.  I was immediately able to refer one of my fellow partners from our Chicago office – Roxane Busey, who formerly chaired the ABA’s Antitrust Section and specializes in health care antitrust.  It was great to be able to get Roxanne involved with a client I previously done tax work for.
 
SUGARCREST: How do you keep up with the capabilities of the other partners in your Firm?  It is a great challenge for most law firms to cross-sell.  And one of the biggest obstacles is a lack of knowledge about what their partners do.
 
Nilles:  One way is by reviewing our firm’s own website often.  Beyond that, time really helps.  I have been with the Firm for eight years, so I’ve been able to assimilate a lot of information about my partners.  The main office of our firm is in Chicago, so I go up there whenever I can to actually attend partner meetings in person.  It’s important when you’re thinking about referring clients to another lawyer in your firm that you’ve actually met the person, talked with them and develop a comfort level.  It’s just as important as knowing their credentials and the stature that they’ve achieved.
 
SUGARCREST: Where do you find the time to market? 
 
Nilles:  The challenge now is that I commit myself to doing speeches and then it’s hard to find the time do adequate follow-up on the contacts I make at those speeches.  I recently did the NAFOA speech.  I can’t believe it’s been over two weeks since then.  I have a stack of cards and a to-do list in follow-up and I haven’t gotten to that yet.  Every day I feel that. 
 
SUGARCREST: What will you do to follow-up? 
 
Nilles:  Well, I’m going to e-mail a copy of the PowerPoint slide presentation to about ten people.  In some cases, I met someone within an organization who’s not the decision maker but I have on other occasions, met the decision maker.  I’ll not only send it to the person I met at the conference, but also to his or her boss.  Then I might do a follow-up call to say, “There seems to be quite a bit of interest in this presentation.  If you would be interested in my coming out to your Tribal Council to give a special presentation to them on this issue at any point, I’d be glad to do that.” 
 
SUGARCREST: How you keep in contact with all the people in your network?
 
Nilles:  The Indian tribal practice group has put together a collective list that we all have access to.  So, another thing that I will probably do is send this presentation out by e-mail to appropriate contacts on our list.  It will go out not only to my own client contacts, but also to my partners’ contacts.  I’ll always direct them to contact their own attorney if they have any questions.  In this way, we make contact with not only the people in my network, but also in those of my partners.  Things that we might do individually, we do instead as a team.  I think that’s very important.
 
SUGARCREST: So, what advice would you give to a young lawyer starting out?
 
Nilles:  The most important thing is to find an area of the law that you really enjoy – that you’re really passionately interested in.  Then, develop it.  Beyond that, I just think things happen.
 
SUGARCREST: A lot of it is luck, but you can put yourself in a situation where you are more likely to get lucky.
 
Nilles:  Right.  You can do some strategic thinking about what areas of your practice are likely to expand and whether doors are likely to be open to you.  Sometimes, I find there are some doors you just have to give up on.
 
SUGARCREST: What do you know now that you wish you knew then?
 
Nilles:  It’s hard to answer that because I think you have to go through whatever it is or you’ll never appreciate it.  My first five years, before I went to the Hill, I was a tax associate in a more traditional law firm setting.  I mostly did research and writing and I think that is an absolutely critical step in success as an attorney.  You have to master the fundamentals.
 
It’s also really important to be responsive and creative.  In fact, those two values are actually two key principles in our statement of firm values.  We print them on our firm phone books.  I even share them with clients.  I think that those two, in particular, have been truly guiding principles for me.  I think it has helped me as a tax lawyer to distinguish myself from my colleagues.  There are some tax lawyers who take the “no, no, no” approach.  Sometimes, unfortunately, you do have to say no.  But, I really strive wherever I can within the law, to go for things that are a little bit more creative.  If the law is not clear, I’ll suggest that we go to the IRS and ask them to issue a ruling.  As a result, I’ve been able to influence the issuance of rulings that have changed the landscape for our clients.  I try to do that in the legislative area as well.  I believe that a creative and responsive approach is an important aspect of developing business.  Clients are in a business where they have an objective or a mission.  As a lawyer, you need to be a facilitator, not an obstacle.