Name: Linda J. Ravdin
Firm: Pasternak & Fidis, P.C.
Address: 7735 Old Georgetown Road, Suite 1100, Bethesda, MD 20814-6183
Phone: 301-656-8850
Practice Area: Family Law

Linda J. Ravdin is a principal in the law firm of Pasternak & Fidis, P.C., where she focuses her practice in divorce and family law for both traditional and nontraditional families. Linda is trained in collaborative law and also works with clients who choose mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution. An experienced mediator herself, Linda is a facilitator in the D.C. Superior Court Family Court Alternative Dispute Resolution program and serves as a volunteer with the D.C. Superior Court Self-Help Center.

Most successful/favorite rainmaking tip:

I don’t have one single tip. I think it’s important to constantly remind people who you are and what you do for a living. There are many ways of doing that, such as speaking and writing, getting out and seeing people, and participating in professional activities. Successful marketing is the result of sustained efforts. It’s a lot like planting seeds: Not every one will grow a tree, but if you plant enough, you’ll get some good growth that will bear fruit for years.

Biggest influence on career/best career advice:

During the years I was regularly attending ABA Law Practice Management Section meetings I learned so much from hanging out with other Section members and exchanging ideas about practice management, marketing, fee collection, providing good client service, and technology. I am still using what I learned there.

One of the people I met was Kathryn Marshall, who was a family lawyer and one of the speakers at an ABA Annual Meeting program I helped to plan that took place in Chicago in 1990 called “The Last Frontiers: Women Lawyers as Rainmakers and Litigators.” Kathryn said one of her rainmaking secrets was never to take on more work than you can handle with loving care. I thought that was a profound idea about the importance of delivering the best client service possible. (This program, which attracted a huge number of attendees, was actually the kickoff program for a new LPM interest group then called the Women Lawyers Marketing Group, which evolved into the ABA Women Rainmakers group we know today.)

One of the other best pieces of advice I ever got was from a local colleague, Paul Pearlstein, who told me I would get more business by referring work to other lawyers than by being greedy and keeping everything that came in. I tried that, and he was absolutely right. Following his advice also made me decide what I wanted to specialize in and what work I wanted to refer to others. It helped me decide to invest time and money in developing knowledge and expertise in my specialty – Family Law – so that I could get the good cases I was most interested in and refer out work in other areas of law.

Percentage of time devoted to marketing:

The best marketing is doing an excellent job for existing clients, not just by providing good work product, but by providing good service. In that sense I spend 100 percent of my professional time marketing.

Proudest accomplishments:

Professionally, I’ve authored or co-authored three books while practicing law full time.

Personally, my son, Daniel, age 21.

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

I hung out a shingle and started taking court-appointed criminal cases straight out of law school. If I were starting out today, I might take an actual job and get trained on someone else’s nickel. On the other hand, had I done that, I doubt I would have gotten the intense, daily courtroom experience so soon in my career. That was a blast.

Tell me about one rainmaking strategy or tactic that you initially thought would work, but it failed.

I don’t really think in those terms. I never expect any one thing to lead to a new client. I don’t go to a professional meeting, write an article, refer a case to another lawyer, have lunch with a colleague or another professional, participate in a volunteer activity, or teach a CLE course thinking that one thing is going to bring me a new client. Sometimes you do something and all it does it open a door to something else that opens a door to something else. You teach a CLE program and someone asks you to turn your CLE materials into an article and someone else sees it and asks you to do another program, and pretty soon people consider you an expert and they start to send you clients in your area of expertise.

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

One of my most successful marketing strategies was more like an accident than a plan. In 1995, Kim Isaac Eisler, a reporter for The Washingtonian magazine was interviewing me for their “Best Divorce Lawyers” article and I started blathering about how I liked dealing with pensions and retirement benefits. When he wrote up the piece about me, one very short paragraph, he mentioned my expertise in dividing pensions and retirement benefits at divorce. The minute that article appeared, my phone started ringing with people calling who needed a divorce lawyer and had retirement benefits they were worried about. That made me realize the importance of having a niche within my specialty, and that the niche be related to something people care about, such as their pension benefits.

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

What are you waiting for?

Would you say you ever had a mentor who made a genuine difference in how your career turned out?

I never had a single mentor, but I encountered many lawyers who were very generous with their advice when I asked, and I asked a lot in the early years. When I was just starting out as a criminal defense lawyer, there were several older lawyers who were nice enough to tell me when they thought I was acting like a jerk in court, and I really appreciated that.

List words that best describe you:

Short.