Name: Kaye Courington
Firm Name: Duncan, Courington & Rydberg, LLC
Address: 400 Poydras St. Ste, 1200 NOLA 70130
Phone: (504) 524-5566
Nomindated by: Firm
Practice area: Toxic Torts, Insurance Defense

Most successful / favorite rainmaking tip:

Follow up and be persistent. Stay in touch. Think of the clients business needs and keep them informed of news in your area that will affect them.

Biggest influence on career / best career advice:

There’s no point being a lawyer if you don’t have any clients.

Percentage of time devoted to marketing:

In the past – 10 percent, now 50 percent.

Proudest accomplishment:

• Being a founding member of one of the largest majority female- owned defense firms in the South.
• Winning my first trial while pregnant with my first child.
• Representing half of the defendants found not liable in the longest running civil trial in La. history (six months - while pregnant with my second child).
• Helping take my firm from 4 to 22 attorneys in just a couple of years.

Knowing what you know now, if you were starting out as a lawyer today, what would you do differently?

I’d still have the contact information of the very first clients I reported to.

Tell me about one rainmaking strategy or tactic that you initially thought would fail, but it was a great success. Why was it successful?

None have failed. Some have just not panned out yet.

Tell me about one rainmaking strategy or tactic that you initially thought would fail, but it was a great success. Why was it successful?

All staying in touch and following up works and that’s all I really do. I never realized how important the personal approach is – drive the client to the airport, send them an e-mail on their birthdays. I really like most of my clients and the colleagues I deal with every day very much so this is easy.

What has been your greatest frustration about trying to get new business or new clients?

Companies who say they already have their panel of attorneys and won’t even discuss adding your firm.

If you were mentoring a young woman lawyer, what advice would you give her regarding rainmaking?

Stay in touch with all clients closely and always, even (especially) when they change jobs.

Would you say you ever had a mentor that made a genuine difference in how your career turned out? If yes, please describe.

Yes, I had one client, an officer of an assured whose company was insured by a major carrier. He insisted the carrier have me represent his other corporate entities, then I got more work from that carrier and then other carriers and it really built my firm from there.

Think about when you started out as a lawyer. Now think about the new female lawyers just starting out. What is different now compared to when you started?

Not much.

List words that best describe you:

Persistent, outgoing, assertive.