Confidence goes up, risk taking goes up. The better you feel about yourself, the more likely you are to be able to focus on what's right for the client instead of what you need. The best opportunities come along when you're eyeball deep in a big case. It's one of life's little paradoxes. That's when the call out of the blue comes to submit a sole source proposal to handle the biggest and best thing you can imagine.
Successful lawyers find a way to rearrange their schedules and respond to the opportunity.
But just knowing them isn't enough. And the truth is, as much as we would like to cast them as unseemly snake oil pitches, sales fundamentals do apply to legal services. It just takes a little thought to do the translating. Age has little to do with a person's attitude about professional development. There are some very young, inventive, aggressive senior lawyers.