Zen & The Art of Legal Networking : Lawyers & Attorneys in an International Legal Network for Relationships & Referrals

Welcome to ILN-terviews, a series of profiles of ILN member firm attorneys, designed to give a unique insight into the lawyers who make up our Network.

For our latest interview, we chose ILN member, Maxim Avrashkov of Maxima Consulting & Law in St. Petersburg, Russia.

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
We are a mid-sized firm, practicing in all fields of Russian and international private law.

Who would be your typical client?
Our typical client is a mid-sized or larger Russian company leading an International activity or a nonresidential corporation making investments in Russia.

What would you like clients and potential clients to know about you?
The professional level of our team, the internal standards we set upon ourselves, and the spirit of our team.

What has been your most challenging case? Why?
That was a serious financial transaction between our Russian client and one of the Bahamian banks, which required me to stay for three weeks in the Bahamas. I wish I had more such deals.

What has been your proudest moment as a lawyer?
When I provided my first consultation to my grandma during my last year in college.

What do you do when you’re not practicing law?
I travel a lot with my family and play my favorite sports: tennis, football, boxing, and car racing.

What would surprise people most about you?
That I am going to be a champion in rally race next year.

What has been your most memorable ILN experience?
My most memorable ILN experience was my first ILN European meeting in Rome, especially the Gala Dinner in Castel Sant`Angelo.

What career would you have chosen if you weren’t a lawyer?
I would have been dealing with some kind of finances or maybe become a race driver.

If a movie were made of your life, who would you want to play you?
Al Pacino.

How would you like to be remembered?
As a professional and respectable businessman, and a charity activist.

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I like to think that I have a good sense of humor and believe that there is room for friendliness in a professional relationship.  But I'll admit to being surprised, and not in a good way, when after sending a thank you email to an events planner I'm working with, I got this response: "Always at your service, mylady[sic]."  I've only been conversing with this person for a couple of months, and we certainly are not at that level of friendliness (although, as a friend of mine pointed out, a comment like this really only would have been appropriate had I signed off on my email "Until the morrow, my lord."). 

But all joking aside, most of my Facebook friends agreed that this crossed the line.  It inspired Christine Pilch's post "Avoiding inappropriateness to safeguard your brand," where she makes this important point (see her full post for the second example): 

"Both of the above examples were likely innocent mistakes, however they illustrate how easy it is to damage your reputation by simply crossing a line. Your reputation is very closely intertwined with your brand, which is a reflection of your constituency's perception of you. To illustrate my point, consider how BP's reputation over the past 3-months has affected their brand.

Your brand is critical, so be careful to avoid any inappropriateness that could potentially damage it. Resist the temptation to be cute because it might not be perceived that way on the other end."

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I read an interesting article this afternoon from the New York Times, called "Mind Your BlackBerry or Mind  Your Manners." It brought up the controversial topic of whether or not it's appropriate to be fiddling with your smart phone during a meeting. Since I know that lawyers are often tethered to their Blackberries (and I'm starting to see a lot more iPhones with our group!), I thought it might be an interesting topic to delve into further.

Though there are some things I take a firm stand on (dogs, not cats, coffee, not tea), this is one of those grey areas for me. And I think the answer is "it depends."

In the article, the author mentioned an instance where a company required all of its employees to take meeting notes on their Blackberries, which made one VP look as though he was paying less than full attention.  I'm often found in a conference tapping away on my iPhone, not because I'm checking email or Facebook, but because I'm tweeting the relevant points to my followers and using that as my note-taking system for a later blog post.

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Last week, one of our firm's marketing directors emailed me to see if I had a list of law firm social media policies. Though I've seen a few floating around, and know that Doug Cornelius includes law firm policies in his list, I haven't seen a strictly law firm-based listing.  

Yesterday, in a post called "Social Media Policies for Legal Types," Above the Law mentioned Fast Company's series of policies, including the guidelines from Harvard Law.  Obviously, a law school's social media guidelines would be different to that of a law firm, so they offer Adrian Dayton's (who advises firms on social media strategy) suggestions for law firms, which can be summed up by his opening thought "Don't say stupid things." I know Kevin O'Keefe would shorten that further and say "Don't be an idiot." 

But if your firm is looking for something more comprehensive, I'll pass along the links I gathered for our legal marketer, with thanks to my friends on Twitter who passed some of these along.

• Larry Bodine's Sample Template Social Media Policy
• John Byrne's Sample Social Media Policy
• Jaffe's Template
• Corporate Social Media Policies from 100 organizations (not strictly law, but perhaps helpful)

Please feel free to add your own firm's in the comments as well, and check back to Above the Law's post, where they've invited commenters to do the same.

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This afternoon, I had the good fortune to sit in on a webinar put on by Kevin O'Keefe & LexBlog, focused on getting back to basics. The topic was on networking through the internet  (I'll post the link to the recording when it's up on Kevin's blog) and since I've seen Kevin speak before, I knew the audience was in for some valuable information, which I'd like to pass along to you.

Since we've already talked about why social media should matter to lawyers, the next step is to talk about "well, here I am, now what?" Kevin did a great job of addressing that question and more in his webinar and focusing on the concepts that mean the difference between success and failure.

He started by talking about advertising, and that's something we've gotten a lot of requests from our members about. Without fail, every six months or so, I'll get an email or see someone in person who says "shouldn't we be advertising as a Network?" As a marketer, I love advertising - I watch tv for the commercials, enjoy a really snappy, slick print ad, and even like to see how some television commercials translate to radio.  

But for our group, it's not the right fit - to do it successfully would require a major campaign and lots of money, which is generally what I tell our attorneys. But now I can also tell them this - Kevin said that only 14% of people trust advertising. He reasoned that the percentage who trust lawyer advertising is even lower, and said that essentially, websites are advertising too.

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Now that I'm back from my vacation, I'm very excited to share with you a piece of news we learned in Singapore - a great ILN success story from our member firm in Italy!

CFMP – Studio Legale Associato has successfully developed an ambitious project to establish its operations in China as well as Italy, by opening a desk office in Shanghai. The project has taken its first steps in connection with this opening by assisting an Italian client in the luxury furniture business that has established a subsidiary in China. The legal assistance for this client was facilitated by the presence in China of ILN member, Jade & Fountain, who have provided the local legal support to optimize the assistance to the client.

More than that, J&F has been a key element in CFMP feeling enough confidence to enlarge its horizons and target a more ample development of inbound and outbound legal business between Italy and China.

"The establishment of a desk office in Shanghai would not have been possible without the added value constituted by having the support of the ILN Chinese member firm of Jade & Fountain, capable of joining our firm in responding with the respective national expertise to the needs of clients and potential clients in China," said Antonello Corrado, partner of the Firm.

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Yesterday, part I discussed the Chinese and Hong Kong perspectives on the global financial crisis and its effect on their business. Part II will talk about the Vietnamese perspective and the justice systems in China and Vietnam.

Peter asked Phan Nguyen Toan from LEADCO what he was seeing in Vietnam, saying that a number of US companies are looking to Vietnam as an alternative for production and manufacturing. Phan agreed that Vietnam is similar to China, in that they didn't suffer much from the economic downturn. He cited their recent entry into the international community as one reason for this. He said they are struggling in some ways, saying that a company recently opened a big factory, where they were planning to recruit 10,000 workers. After two years, they had only been able to hire twenty percent of the qualified workers. He added that they were also facing additional issues of poor infrastructure, particularly the seaport, airport, and transportation systems. 

However, Phan noted that they have some distinct advantages in Vietnam as well, such as the lower costs for good resources. Secondly, he said that the Vietnamese people tend to be very hardworking and eager to learn. The country is rich in natural resources. Phan added that the population of Vietnam is very young, with about 50% being under 35.

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Welcome to ILN-terviews, a series of profiles of ILN member firm attorneys, designed to give a unique insight into the lawyers who make up our Network.

For our latest interview, we chose ILN member, Erik Bettin of Michel LLP in Berlin, Germany.

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
We are a Berlin based mid-size law firm offering high quality services for companies, especially in the real-estate-business or in real-estate related matters.

Who would be your typical client?
Our typical client is a national or international company or individual investing in the German real-estate-market and asking for advice in such transactions.

What would you like clients and potential clients to know about you?
That we try to make a difference by being creative, knowing about our clients' business and offering a very personal approach.

What has been your most challenging case? Why?
Several years ago a big commercial German bank was sued for a very large amount and the in-house counsel gave me the case, remarking that he saw no chance of avoiding payment for his bank. I disagreed and in the end, the German federal court dismissed all claims. It was my first case for this bank and surely it wasn’t the last one.

What has been your proudest moment as a lawyer?
Every time clients realize that it was the right decision to take our advice.

What do you do when you’re not practicing law?
Enjoying time with my wife and kids and practicing all sorts of sports.

What would surprise people most about you?
That as a kid, I lived in Peru for five years.

What has been your most memorable ILN experience)?
Dining in Castel Sant´Angelo on a very lovely night at our meeting in Rome.

What career would you have chosen if you weren’t a lawyer?
I was always dreaming about being a professional in sports, but I wasn´t talented enough.

If a movie were made of your life, who would you want to play you?
Daniel Craig

How would you like to be remembered?
I hope life gives me some more time to think about that.

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In addition to our regular Annual Meeting, we also had a special session for our Asia Pacific delegates to discuss the strengths of the firms in the region, recent cases they had been handling, and the interesting and important question of "How has the 2009 world economic downturn affected the Asia Pacific Region?" This question prompted a discussion of the current marketplace that may be of greater value than just to the attendees.

Scott Guan from Jade & Fountain in Shanghai kicked off the discussion with an update from China, saying that they hadn't been hit as hard by the global financial crisis as some of the other markets. The effects that they'd seen were mostly in the areas of cross-border work, as well as foreign-related financing, M&A, and capital markets work. He'd seen a greater impact of the crisis on multinational law firms in China, who have had to lay off a lot of lawyers.  

But this has turned out to be an opportunity for a local law firm with international expertise, such as Jade & Fountain.  The firm was recently ranked as one of the top 10 fastest growing Chinese firms by the Asian Legal Business journal. Scott said that because there are so many qualified lawyers on the market from these multinational firms, who his firm wouldn't have had access to in a more prosperous economic situation, they have been able to actively recruit these attorneys. Because of the firm's well-designed partner incubation system, the firm has brought in attorneys from Allen & Overy, Freshfields, Allens Arthur Robinson, Baker & McKenzie and Jones Day.

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Welcome to ILN-terviews, a series of profiles of ILN member firm attorneys, designed to give a unique insight into the lawyers who make up our Network.

For our latest interview, we chose ILN member, David Williams Russell of Harrison & Moberly LLP in Indianapolis, Indiana.

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
I am a transactions and securities lawyer handling complex matters (including dispute resolution) in the U.S. and abroad.

Who would be your typical client?
Principally technology and manufacturing companies and financial institutions.

What would you like clients and potential clients to know about you?
In addition to my comprehensive grasp of business law, I hold an M.B.A. from Dartmouth (Tuck), and once managed a college; so I afford practical business savvy and experience with solid legal services.

What has been your most challenging case? Why?
I once took on an appeal from the worst possible result in a trial in bankruptcy court and made such a persuasive argument for reversal that my client wound up settling for more money than he had been sued for.

What has been your proudest moment as a lawyer?
As a pro bono volunteer, I helped a disabled Vietnam veteran suffering post-traumatic shock syndrome and his wife avoid obligations under a home purchase contract they had been swindled into signing. They had been absolutely distraught, and their tears of joy and delight at being relieved of this burden remain with me still.

What do you do when you're not practicing law?
I am Vice Chairman of a foundation dedicated to establishing a new university in Cameroon. I write the annual updates to the four volume West Publishing Indiana business law treatises. I serve on the advisory board of the Supply Chain & Global Management Academy of the Kelley M.B.A. program at Indiana University. I hold a federal appointment as Chairman of the Indiana District Export Counsel.

What would surprise people most about you?
I am a published poet.

What has been your most memorable ILN experience?
It has been an incredibly rewarding experience to have had the opportunity to establish close, personal relationships with so many outstanding lawyers throughout the world during the time I have been privileged to participate in ILN. I am very grateful for the many courtesies and kindnesses of which I, and my law firm, have been the recipients as a result of our connection with ILN.

What career would you have chosen if you weren't a lawyer?
I would have been an educator (in a way, I have been).

If a movie were made out of your life, who would you want to play you?
Steve McQueen (if he were alive).

How would you like to be remembered?
As someone who helped others reach solutions to their problems.

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