The first two meetings were primarily devoted to gathering information and becoming comfortable as a group. Now the real work needs to begin. -- meeting three is your opportunity to establish the checking-in and reporting regiment for the group. From here forward the primary business of each group is discuss each members business and relationship development activities. There may be other things to do, but most importantly it has to always be about checking in. Here are the items I recommend you encourage group members to report on (since the group meeting):
- Meetings with people not related to a client matter (referral resources, potential clients, events, social engagements, etc). Encourage members to talk about potential that may come from their activities.
- Client involvement since the last meeting. Don't allow the discussion to digress into an exchange about legal merit or technical issues.
- New clients.
- Upcoming meetings/events that other members of the group could attend.
- Information about competitors.
Down the road you can selectively add:
- Have one member bring an in-depth report on one client. Discuss business issues the client may be facing.
- Assign single-meeting leadership of the group to different members.
- Have one member each meeting bring in an article on business development for discussion.
In truth, a group of eight attorneys will use most of an hour just checking in and discussing their activities, which is just fine. As long as check in is firmly established anything else can be whatever you want.
