General practice lawyers looking for ways to drum up new business might do well to learn from Paul Brennan. As well as using standard marketing methods such as attending networking events and doing voluntary work for community associations, when the UK-born solicitor bought a local practice in the eastern Australia's Sunshine Coast he decided on a more active method of self-promotion.
"In Queensland I didn't have the contacts that go with being in a place for a number of years. I needed to make them quickly and the best way to do so was through the mass media," he says.
Three years on, the 52-year-old London native has become something of a media personality in the small seaside community of his new home. He has his own weekly legal spot on the local radio. His cartoons and columns appear regularly in local and national publications. Earlier in 2006, he appeared on national television to promote his own layman's guide the law. And a professional speaking career is well under way.
"This kind of work has never been hard for me because I enjoy it so much," he says. "I don't see it as a second career; just the marketing work that all small practitioners do on top their five or six billable hours every day."
Brennan's foray into the media began in April 2004. Four months after buying out a retiring partner from his practice in the Queensland town of Mooloolaba, he hit on the idea of holding a small publicity event to raise awareness on an important but often neglected aspect of people's personal affairs: their wills. The local radio station Coast FM covered the event. They were impressed with his delivery and soon took him on as a 'Legal Eagle' a guest lawyer who gave a once-weekly five-minute talk on the radio on a legal subject of general interest.
At around the same time in July 2004, Brennan approached his local newspaper with the idea of writing a weekly piece on the same general legal issues covered in his radio show, such as managing noisy neighbours or handling defamation suits. His Saturday slot in the Sunshine Coast Daily gradually built up a following and, in April 2006, the national magazine My Business recruited him for a longer column to simplify business law. He now writes for them on simple issues, like negotiating leases or entering into partnerships.
The Sunshine Coast Daily's editor, Peter Owen, has admitted he was "more than a little sceptical" when approached with the British lawyer's business proposition. Lawyers, after all, are trained to write exhaustive, qualified English and not the brief, attention-grabbing copy that journalists specialize in, says Owen. He reckons many lawyers would find it impossible to cover an entire issue in 300 words. Yet, in the event, the editor was delighted with Brennan's filings. So how did Brennan do it?
"When covering an issue it's very hard not to tell someone everything you know on the subject. Some clients want every single detail and they are glad to have a lawyer who gives them 'chapter and verse'," says Brennan. "I find that tricky because I tend to assume my business clients just want the bottom line. I paint with a broad brush. When I write letters or documents I start with a summary, and then put the detail below for anybody who wants it."
Brennan feels his personal working style is closer to the way that journalists pen articles than many lawyers. To add to this, Brennan points to nearly 30 years of work in four continents and the belief this has given him that the law that people need to know is essentially the same in all developed countries, especially in countries that were once part of the British Empire.
"This occurred to me once when I was attending a trial in a Taiwan court and I realized that the setup prosecutor, defendant, grumpy judge could really have been anywhere," he says. "Because legal issues are similar wherever you go, people have been making the same legal mistakes. They've been entering into business deals without a proper contract. They've been dying without leaving wills. There's no difference."
Brennan's writings are not just interesting for their brevity and directness (to say nothing of his irreverent humour). They are also appealing because they offer common-sense advice on legal issues that are important to anyone anywhere in the world: avoid legal disputes with neighbours. Also, when heading for a divorce, Brennan says, don't insult your spouse, because the more gratifying the insult, the more you'll end up paying for it in legal fees. If arrested, keep quiet and call your lawyer, he adds.
Earlier this year, Brennan compiled his columns into a well-received Law for Dummies-style volume, entitled The Law is an Ass Make Sure it Doesn't Bite Yours! His basic philosophy was underlined at around the same time when he penned a column naming the 10 most common legal mistakes made, along with a preamble opining: "irrespective of country, social standing or occupation clients tend to make the same old Legal Mistakes again and again."
If Brennan's commentary on these issues is more than compelling, that may be because he has a wealth of experience to draw on. What's more, this experience has not just come from the clients he advised.
The rise to fame
Born in central London in the years following the Second World War, Brennan lost his mother to cancer at the age of 10. When his father a policeman died of alcoholism a year later he left no will, an oversight included in Brennan's Top 10 list of legal mistakes.
"My grandmother and uncle stepped in to raise me and my brother and it all worked out in the end, but it would have been better if it was neater," he says. "Inheritance aside, when people make wills they name guardians for their offspring and that avoids any conflict between others who feel they ought to look after the children but are not the best people to do it."
After finishing school with an O-level in art, at the age of 16 Brennan enrolled as a police cadet with the intention of becoming a policeman like his father. But then he enrolled on a 'Camp America' programme to teach judo (a skill he learnt during police training) at a US summer camp. Rubbing shoulders with more privileged students "who all wanted to be lawyers and doctors" changed his choice of vocation, Brennan admits. It inspired him to return to school to take A-levels and then a University of London external degree in law at Mid-Essex Technical College, which he finished at the age of 23.
After two years as a law clerk for MacMillan Binch in Toronto, Canada, Brennan formally completed his articles with Rimmers, a general practice firm in Buckinghamshire, England. He then moved to the well-known criminal practice Baldwin, Keenan in London.
A criminal law career
Brennan has spent enough time doing criminal work to know all about another of his Top 10 mistakes: that of trying to talk your way out a situation when under arrest, he says. "People who fare the worst are those who can't keep their mouths shut," suggests Brennan.
Brennan's 12-odd years in the field have included a year as a prosecutor at London's New Scotland Yard, a few years managing his own criminal practice in the inner London borough of Lewisham and a short stint as a barrister in the city's Middle Temple. Like anybody who has spent this long in one of the most colourful areas of law, Brennan has some good stories.
"Once in Lewisham, I was representing a 45-year-old man who was imprisoned for sexually assaulting his 77-year-old landlady. We managed to get him out because it became obvious they were having a relationship. She had started writing to him while he was inside," he recalls.
In Hong Kong in the early 1990s, Brennan worked at the well-known criminal practice of Haldanes, although he admits to feeling surprised with some of the work he was doing. "I was representing alleged smugglers and brothel owners; organized criminals I suppose. They were not like the London legal aid criminals. They paid their own bills for a start," he comments.
Brennan considers being taken on to do intellectual property enforcement (IP) work for Intel from Hong Kong in 1995 as his big break. The job involved tracking down and breaking chip-counterfeiting rings throughout Asia, particularly Greater China, in cooperation with the local police. It was a posting that led to his being hired as general counsel for the industry association Federation Against Software Theft in London at the beginning of the decade. This experience not only enabled him to write columns on IP protection and e-law, but because he issued press releases for the alliance, it also allowed him to hone the PR skills he has used to attract media attention to his own practice today.
A media personality
Alongside his columns, since 2004 Brennan has developed a talent for drawing cartoons under the alias of 'Leuht si' (Cantonese for lawyer) for the Australian Financial Review and the Queensland Law Society's journal Proctor. Since the beginning of 2006, his increasing profile as a media personality has garnered Brennan several paid speaking engagements, including forthcoming appearances at conferences held in Australia's Gold Coast by the Building Designers Association of Australia and in Melbourne by the Australian Institute of Management.
His Mooloolaba-based firm, Brennans Solicitors, now makes a specialty of handling migration applications. Brennan is therefore keen to espouse the charms of Australia. "The Australian government has put lawyers on its wanted list, which makes it relatively easy for them to get in," he says. "Our office here is a 10-minute walk from the most beautiful 1950s-style beach. The weather's good and the people are friendly. I counted 12 kangaroos on the golf course yesterday."
But what about his efforts at publicity? Have they worked better than standard networking methods in getting Brennan the kind of work he wants? "Like any marketing programme, this is like pushing cotton wool down a tube, where it takes time for the results to come out the other end," he says. "Nevertheless, I do get a lot of people coming to me now saying they read my columns and see my cartoons."
Brennan says his higher profile these days has enabled him to move out of low-paid work such as conveyancing and into more lucrative business law, trademark, leasing and migration work. These days, he says, he can also be more choosy about whom he takes on as a client.
These considerations aside, Brennan also says the real benefit of his work approach has been the sheer pleasure it has brought him. "I've always enjoyed speaking and writing," he says. "If I didn't I'm sure it would be very hard work. But because I do it's pretty easy and great fun."
