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, Paul Feldman of our newest member firm, Davis, Malm & D'Agostine in Boston.

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
I have a business practice specializing in real estate, environmental, and contract disputes.

Who would be your typical client?
Large publically traded companies and mid-sized closely held companies.

What would you like clients and potential clients to know about you?
My style of practice is to get the job done effectively and efficiently.

What has been your most challenging case? Why?
A multi-million dollar contract dispute, that involved calculating damages by analyzing some 80,000 transactions.

What has been your proudest moment as a lawyer?
The US First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a trial judge’s jury instruction in a copyright infringement case I tried resulting in a new trial and a favorable outcome for the client.

What do you do when you’re not practicing law?
I spend time with my family, attempt to play golf and frequently attend music concerts.

What would surprise people most about you?
Despite my Type A personality and aggressive advocacy for my clients, I am a softie.

What has been your most memorable ILN experience?
The Saturday evening dinner at the Palace in Lisbon.

What career would you have chosen if you weren’t a lawyer?
I love seeing things built- a real estate developer or architect.

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

How would you like to be remembered?
Great dad and husband.

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This afternoon, I had the good fortune to sit in on Kevin O'Keefe's webinar on "Beyond Blogging: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn." I'm already sold on the benefits of all three for law firms, but I love hearing Kevin's stories which I can relate to our attorneys to win them over. The five most important things I heard Kevin say in his webinar were:

1. Starting to use these tools isn't a strategy - it's a tactic. Saying that the strategy is to get on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook is like saying you're going to have the lawyers drive red cars. It doesn't make sense. Use them as relationship-building tools and tools that frame your identity.
    
2. Because media is more social, and a shared experience, you need to be doing those things that will cause your information to be shared by others who have people trusting them. 
    
3. Just because another law firm is doing something doesn't mean you have to do it. 
    
4. It doesn't matter if your clients or perspective clients ever see your information being shared or if they read your blog - influencers and amplifiers are seeing it and connecting you to the right people. 
    
5. Empower the lawyers at your firm to use social media to build relationships.

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Following my LinkedIn presentation at our Annual Meeting, we had a panel discussion about what some of our law firms are doing with social media.  I was joined by Charles Wander of Fladgate LLP in London, David Ellenhorn of Ogden Murphy Wallace, PLLC in Seattle, and Bill Holder of Clark Wilson LLP in Vancouver.

Because we had a rather in-depth discussion which I think raises some interesting points and questions I'd like to get your feedback on, I'll be breaking the post up into two - part one focuses on the social media activities that the firms represented on the panel are engaging in, and some of the challenges they've been faced with. 

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For this week's Ask Friday! we welcome guest poster, Cordell Parvin.  I've gotten to know Cordell through Twitter, and have been fortunate to see the excellent advice he has for lawyers through webinars and his upcoming video coaching series.  

According to his website, "Cordell Parvin has practiced law for more than 36 years. He has developed a highly successful national construction law practice. During his career, Cordell has been a rainmaker and taught, mentored and coached young lawyers on their careers, work-life balance and rainmaking. Cordell also has been a Practice Group Leader and worked with other Practice Groups helping them to develop their business plans and strategies."

Today's Ask Friday! question is "What separates super achievers from achievers?"  Huge thanks to Cordell for guest posting this week! 

"A few weeks ago I spoke to a group of first year lawyers during their orientation. As I neared completion of my presentation I asked for questions. One young lawyer asked a thought provoking question: “What is the difference between lawyers who are superstars compared to lawyers who are stars?”

"In my career I have been blessed to work with some really outstanding lawyers. I have also had the opportunity to witness differences between the super achieving lawyers and those successful lawyers who do not reach that status. Here’s my take on the differences.

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I've spent the last two days talking about how to make improvements to your LinkedIn profile, and getting the most out of your LinkedIn home page.  Today, I want to cover LinkedIn Groups.

On LinkedIn, there are groups for everything, from business networking to animal lovers.  Groups are an excellent way to connect with people outside of your immediate network in areas where you share an interest.

I'm going to focus on the ILN's group, because I'm the moderator and have the most familiarity with it, but most of this advice can be applicable to any business networking group for lawyers. During my presentation, I started with the "why" - why should the lawyers in the room have any interest in joining the ILN Group on LinkedIn? 

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Yesterday, I talked about what improvements you  might want to make to your LinkedIn profile to get the best results from it.  Today, I'll talk about the home page screen and why it's useful to be logging in to LinkedIn periodically - I have LinkedIn set to open as one of the tabs on my browser, so every morning, I open Outlook and Chrome, go through my emails, and check on my browser tabs.  This includes taking a quick look (no more than five minutes) at my LinkedIn home page screen.  Lawyers, I know you're busy, but if you make this part of your morning routine, you'll only have to spend a few minutes looking at LinkedIn, you'll stay up to date on what your network is doing, and you won't have to try to remember to visit LinkedIn.

There are four things I find of particular importance on your home page screen (which looks like this):

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If you read my posts regularly, you'll know that I have a passion for social media.  I don't think it's the be all and end all of business development tools, of course, but I do have a fondness for it and an interest in sharing that fondness with my attorneys.

So I jumped at the chance to present a more in-depth look at LinkedIn to our group at the 2011 23rd ILN Annual Meeting on Saturday morning.  I wanted to stick to what I thought were the most relevant points about LinkedIn, and what would give our attorneys the greatest impact - and for me, there was no greater joy than sitting with one of our attorneys during the subsequent breakout session and helping him fill out his profile, as he repeated back to me snippets of what I'd said. 

Last week, I mentioned a few best practices for LinkedIn, but I'd like to add in a bit more about our session in Lisbon.

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One of the things that came out of the social media panel I did with a few of our lawyers in Lisbon (more on that in a later post) was that our firms are all at different stages of development with social media.  I think that's true for most firms. 

A question that comes up frequently is whether firms have a social media, and how they should start crafting one.  The ILN's founding firm, Epstein Becker & Green, has drafted a great social media policy that they've graciously allowed me to share here.  It's a good starting point for your own firm's social media policy, and can also be a tool for tweaking an existing policy.  

Please click here to access the PDF of the policy.

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We kicked off the Saturday morning session with a presentation from Mr. Norman Zivin of one of the ILN's member firms in New York, Cooper & Dunham, who reported on their recent involvement in a Supreme Court case and the implications for ILN member firms, both in the US and abroad.

Norman said that the case involved a deep fryer, a product made by their client, SEB, a French company in Lyon.  A number of years ago, they brought a lawsuit against a company in Hong Kong for infringement of the patent.  The opposing side defended on the grounds that they couldn't have infringed the patent because the products were made and sold in China. They said that therefore, they don't do any business in the United States and couldn't have induced anyone to infringe, because they didn't even know that SEB had a patent.

The case was tried three or four years ago, before a jury. Norman commented that the reason that a lot of foreign companies bring cases to the US is that juries in the US tend to grant much higher damages than one would get in a case in Europe or Asia.  The jury took about 15 minutes to deliberate and came back with a judgement of $5 million in favor of their client. The case went up on appeal, and the decision was affirmed, so everyone thought the case was over.

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During our 2011 23rd Annual Meeting, we were fortunate to welcome the Secretary of State for Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Mr. Joao Tiago Silveira, as our speaker.  His topic, "Modernization of the States and of the Administration," covered the Portuguese government's efforts to streamline their services by putting them online and making them more efficient.

Mr. Silveira began by welcoming the delegates to Portugal, and sharing his pleasure at speaking to the group about cutting red tape and the achievements that the Portuguese government has had. He said that they're pushing forward a strong policy around cutting red tape, mainly by using two plans - the Simplex plan, a plan directly linked to reducing bureaucracy, and the Technological plan, which is a plan for using the internet and new technologies.

The government identified three clears goals for these two programs: 

1. To eliminate and simplify the acts and procedures, mainly in registration offices. In Portugal, civil registration, company registration, industrial property trademarks and patents, land registration and car registration are dependent on the Ministry of Justice.  So one of the government's goals is to simplify the procedures in this field.
    
2. To de-materialize by using the internet and electronic procedures in the registration sector.  The government now uses e-filing, the internet and new technologies to achieve faster and more cost-effective registrations.
    
3. To de-materialize judicial acts and procedures before the courts. This also incorporates the use of the internet and electronic solutions to allow lawyers and people to get more access to the courts, as well as reducing costs and saving time.

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Today's the big day! The International Lawyers Network is unveiling our new content-driven website at http://www.ilntoday.com. We gave our member firms a sneak peek at last week's 23rd Annual Conference, and this week we're revealing it to you! 

The redesigned site embodies the latest technology to best serve the growing needs of ILN members and their clients, and provides a variety of benefits, including:

• Up-to-the-minute legal content and news from law firms in 66 countries around the world.
• RSS feeds to deliver content directly to your desktop.
• Direct connections to ILN members and Administration through a member Tweet stream, Facebook and LinkedIn.

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I'm just back from our 2011 23rd Annual Meeting in Lisbon, and I'll have lots to share with you over the next week or so.  But what's fresh in my mind this morning is our session on LinkedIn from Saturday morning - I'd like to share some best practices for LinkedIn, which can be particularly useful when you're just returning from any conference:

• Review the attendee list, or the stack of business cards you returned with and make note of the people you met and chatted to at the conference. Search for, and connect to, these people on LinkedIn, making sure to send a personal note with your invitation that refers to your conversations.
   
• Set your browser to open to the LinkedIn home page when you start it up.  I use Chrome on my desktop, and have set it to open several tabs when I start it up each morning, including LinkedIn - that way I never have to remember to visit LinkedIn and check the latest status updates.  Then, each morning, I scroll through my news feed and comment on or like updates and news, or connect to anyone I might know.  It doesn't take a lot of time, and it keeps me plugged into what my network is doing.

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 We're here in Portugal, and the ILN's 23rd Annual Meeting is underway - we had a wonderful welcome reception and dinner last night and a very informative business session this morning.  Here's a few photos for your viewing pleasure from the meeting!

Our Chairman and Executive Director chat before the meeting starts

We welcomed three new firms at this conference

Okland & Co in Norway

Davis & Gilbert in New York

And Davis Malm D'Agostine in Boston!

After our Administration update and a coffee break, one of our host firm's attorney's introduced our speaker, the Secretary of State for Presidency of the Council of Ministers.

Mr. Joao Tiago Silveira

We hope tomorrow's session will be just as good!

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Today's Ask Friday! question comes from our very own Executive Director, Alan Griffiths, who asked me to share with you some tips for getting ready for a business trip.  We've all got our own lists and prep routines, but this has been on my mind this week while we're getting ready to head over to Lisbon for our Annual Meeting.  

So here are my Top Ten Tips for Business Travel Prep - feel free to add yours in the comments!

1. Check the TSA website- you can see what the travel conditions are, what you can and can't bring in your carry-on, how to get through the line faster, and what to do if you're traveling with a medical condition. 
    
2. Check the weather at your destination - it always surprises me when someone shows up at a destination thinking it's a tropical one, but it's cool or rainy at the time of year they're there, and they've got all the wrong clothes in their suitcase.  A quick check of the weather saves a lot of packing faux pas.
    
3. Get the necessities together - Make sure you have your passport or ID (don't forget that you need a passport to go back and forth to Canada from the US now!), information about your tickets, hotel confirmation, any cash you need on hand, etc.
    
4. Put any medication you'll need in your carry-on - you might be tempted to put this in your checked luggage, especially for a shorter flight, but don't do it.  It's always when you think the airline won't lose your bag that they do, and you don't want to be without anything you might need.
    
5. Along these lines, either wear business attire to fly, or have something you can wear in your carry-on.  If the airline misplaces your bag and you've got to meet clients or colleagues, you'll feel less flustered if you're not wearing stretchy pants or jeans.
    
6. Put a photocopy of your passport in your checked luggage - and even in your carry-on.  Leave a copy at home too.  If your passport is lost or stolen during your trip, it's FAR easier to handle it if you have easy access to a copy.  It may also be advisable to keep a soft copy on your laptop and smartphone so you're covered no matter what.
    
7. Check that you've got all your electronic bits and pieces - I forgot my mobile phone charger when traveling once, and had to scramble once I arrived to pick up a new one.  It was a big pain and stressor.  If you check beforehand that you have your chargers, phones, iPads, Nooks, laptops, cameras, batteries, and any power adapters (if you're traveling abroad), this will save you a lot of anxiety.
    
8. Review your itinerary - I like to go through what I'm scheduled to do each day of a trip, and what I might need to wear, while I'm packing. It gives me the opportunity to get my schedule straight in my mind, and helps me avoid forgetting to pack something essential.
    
9. Bring snacks - depending on where you're traveling to and from, you might not have easy access to the snacks you like (even at the airport), often leading you to end up with a bag of gummy worms that's just not satisfying or good for you.  I find if I pack some snacks both in my carry-on and checked luggage, I've got food that I want to eat and don't have to pay for snacks on the plane if I don't want to.
    
10. Check your flight information - You'll want to make sure that your flight is on-time and not cancelled before leaving for the airport, and it's a good idea to see what the individual airline's policies are for checked baggage fees, carry-on restrictions and anything else that might hold you up when you are trying to get on the plane.  Keep the flight information handy as well (including the airline's phone number), so you can get in touch with them quickly if your flight is cancelled or you need to make alternate arrangements.

And I'm going to throw in one more tip, because it's rather a big pet peeve of mine...

1. Before you board the plane, but once you know they're going to start the process, take out anything you're going to want in your seat during the time that the plane is taxiing, taking off and reaching altitude.  Please. Then, when you get on the plane, you can put that stuff on your seat, toss your bag into the overhead compartment, and any smaller items under the seat and sit down quickly without building a huge line behind you.  It saves everyone so much time, and means you don't have to keep popping out of your seat during the boarding process to get one more thing, or put one more thing in your bag.  This may seem like a no-brainer to some, but I was recently on a flight of almost entirely business travelers, and it was by far the longest boarding process I've ever experienced - so it applies.

Happy travels!

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The ILN's new website will be launched on June 14, 2011 and I can't wait! It's no longer going to be your typical law firm website, and both the ILN and our web designer/host, LexBlog are so excited for you to see the results.

Stay tuned...

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