Gary Lafayette is featured as a “Leading Law Firm Rainmaker” in Diversity & The Bar magazine:
For Diversity & The Bar’s fourth rainmaker feature, sixteen partners share their formula for success…
As in previous years, these rainmakers were selected from a pool of nominees suggested by leading firms from across the country. Each attorney maintains a regular book of business reaching or exceeding $2 million a year. . .
Similar to last year, many of those interviewed are uncomfortable with the “rainmaker” moniker, regarding it as a little outdated or over-the-top; however, when it comes down to brass tacks, they all concur that firms are businesses and the ability to bring in clients is key in determining both their firms’ success and the trajectory of their own careers. Call them what you will, but partners who consistently generate a sizable amount of business hold a vital, almost magical, place in the profession.
. . . .
“First, I put the potential client at ease,” explains Gary Lafayette, litigating partner of Lafayette & Kumagai LLP. “Then I present our track record—that’s important for an 11-person firm. We’ve argued at the [U.S.] Supreme Court, handled and defeated motions for class certification. We’ve tried difficult cases and prevailed. It’s important that clients understand the value that my firm and I bring to resolving problems.”
…Throughout his career, he has strived to maintain a nice book of portable business. Without it, Lafayette says, he feels vulnerable.
Growing up in what were essentially the projects of West Dallas, Texas, Lafayette remembers his parents telling him that, as a minority, he had to be “twice as good.” Throughout his career, those words have echoed through his thoughts: “Failing is never an option for me,” he says. “If I fail at something, I let down a lot more people than myself. That may seem like old-fashioned thinking, but that’s how I feel.”
More and more Lafayette is concerned with training the junior attorneys at his firm: “It’s great that I got to where I am, but now it’s time for me to help others realize their full potential, to make certain they have the confidence to be the best they can possibly be.”
Excerpted from Folliard, Patrick. “Leading Law Firm Rainmakers.” Diversity & The Bar, 12, no. 6 (2010): 28, 31. Print.
Source: Diversity & The Bar