Limiting details does not come easily to many lawyers. As a junior associate, you learn to be thorough and are criticized for not paying enough attention to detail. Partners expect that the work you submit should be precise and as close to perfect as possible. Most partners highly value associates who they consider detail oriented.

Your non-attorney clients, on the other hand, are probably less concerned with the details that are the stock of your trade. They want to know that you can get the details right; but they don't necessarily want to hear a lengthy explanation about how you arrived at your conclusions.

Similarly, when you are at professional gatherings and have the chance to meet potential clients, you are much better off introducing yourself in a succinct fashion. Business people are more likely to connect with you and remember you if you aim for brevity when you describe what you do.

A well-crafted sentence or two about how you provide value to your clients is much more likely to open up a conversation than a lengthy discourse about the deals you have been working on.

Consider the following example: Imagine you are at a trade association meeting for the biotechnology industry. You are interested in doing more work for startup technology companies. You are standing by the bar when someone comes up to you and introduces himself as an inventor who works in the biotech sector. He then turns to you and asks what you do. Do you reply:

(a) "Well, I'm interested in doing work with startup technology companies. Actually, most of my clients are in traditional manufacturing although I'm working on one deal where an investment fund is trying to buy up manufacturing facilities in China. Lately, I've been advising a lot of my public company clients on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. I also just finished an interesting research project having to do with the domestic tax implications of the sale of foreign subsidiaries."

Or do you say:

(b) "I represent startup technology companies who are looking for early stage funding and need help with a mix of corporate, contract and employment issues."

Technically, answer "a" might be correct. But most readers would agree that it is not very effective. It contains too much detail in general and too much irrelevant detail in particular.

Answer "b" on the other hand is focused and targeted to the recipient (who in this case is an inventor.) Answer "b" is a much better way to open a dialogue with a business person and invite more questions about what you do.

Think of the brain as a giant filing cabinet. If information has no particular place to be filed, it becomes difficult to retrieve. The same is true if there is too much information to file.

By choosing a focus and keeping it brief, we make it easier for our contacts to help us by giving them a place to file the information that we provide. Once information is properly filed, it is more likely to be remembered.

It comes down to the adage that "less is more." Think about how advertisers boil their message down to something simple like "Just Do It, Nike." If you wanted to sell sneakers, you would not create a 10-minute commercial explaining in detail your manufacturing processes and how you procure inexpensive rubber to keep your prices low (though this is something that you might document in a prospectus or in other securities filings).

I am not suggesting that you come up with a slick advertising campaign to sell your legal services. "Law Suits 'R Us" would probably do little to generate legal work for you. Law is still a profession that requires intellect and we want prospective clients and employers to believe we have the requisite intelligence to help them identify potential problems and solve them.

But unless you are speaking to another lawyer who happens to share your subject matter expertise, keep shop talk to a minimum. Most clients have no real way to judge your technical proficiency and most non-attorneys will not be interested in the subtle nuances of your work. They will measure your value by the way you communicate.

If you communicate in a clear and responsive way and show that you really understand their business, they will be impressed. If you talk about how you cured title defects in your last real-estate transaction, you will lose them.

It is important to maintain your integrity in all your communications with existing or prospective clients or employers. But that does not mean you have to be entirely transparent when you talk about what you do.

If you are a litigator, talk about how you successfully defended a company in a trade secrets case. Don't talk about how the case was originally filed in state court in Virginia and removed to federal District Court in Massachusetts, at which point you were retained as local counsel and then filed a motion for summary judgment on the issue of punitive damages.

If your specialty is tax, talk about the million-dollar tax liability that you helped a client avoid. Don't talk about how you structured a deal using 1031 like kind exchanges.

As long as leaving out details does not distort your competencies, you should feel comfortable with sticking to the highlights of how you helped your clients. If the other individual is interested in getting more details about how you solved a legal problem, you can always add this information in later.

Marketing may not be your primary interest. Many lawyers are proud to say that they did not go to law school to become a salesman. But bringing good work into your firm will have numerous benefits for your career.

If you learn to master a few simple principals, you will get more of the work you want, have more control over your destiny and earn more respect from your colleagues. A great place to start is to find simpler ways to describe the work you do.

Stephen E. Seckler is managing director of the Boston office of BCG Attorney Search, a national recruiting firm. He counsels associates and partners on lateral moves and helps attorneys explore ways to increase their career satisfaction. He can be reached at seckler@bcgsearch.com. He thanks Dr. Harry Keshet for his valuable contributions to this article.

More Career Consult Articles by Stephen E. Seckler:

Inexpensive Ways To Build Business Relationships

Finding The Right Way To Explain A Negative

Is Anyone Out There Happy?

Overcoming Resistance To Change

Learning How To Close 'The Deal'

Lateral Hiring: Making The Most Of Your Investment

10 Ways To Reciprocate In Networking

Meditation, Mediation, Marketing And Medication

Survival Tips For Your Next Lateral Move

Finding A New Home For Your Practice

Ways To Leverage Your Network

Striving For 'Professional Mediocrity'

Teaching 'Soft Skills' Can Be Hard, Worthwhile Work

Some Tips For Job Hunting In A Recession

Responding To Criticism: Survival Strategies

Questions To Ask When It's Time To Listen

Dating — And Networking — Etiquette

Managing Your Career in a Declining Market

Lawyers See Benefit in Professional Coaching

Have You Gone For Your Annual Career Checkup?

In-House Salaries Are Not Always Evenhanded

Bush v. Gore: Career Lessons From Campaign 2000

In-House Salaries: Getting a Fair Deal

Marketing As A Career Development Strategy

Unplanned Problems When Changing Jobs

Help in Finding an Entry Level Job

In Search of Work/Life Balance

On Salary Inflation: Funds vs. Fulfillment

Evaluating A Job Offer--Non-Financial Issues

Offering Some Belated New Year's Resolutions

The Delicate Matter of Reducing Your Hours

Making a Practice-Area Switch