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

Following introductory comments from Alishan Naqvee, comments on the FCPA from Stuart Gerson and the UK Bribery Act from Charles Wander, the group discussed their thoughts on anti-corruption legislation in their own countries. The discussion was quite lengthy, so I've broken it up into multiple posts.

Sueli Avellar Fonseca began with comments about Brazil, which she noted is rated highly on the corruption scale. She said that all the public departments and politicians engage in corruption. The government had created a commission to investigate the existence of corruption and their conclusion was that there is no evidence. Despite this, over the last eight years of the current government, they have made approximately 20 commissions and these commissions are all paid duties to vote in favor of the government. 

Stuart commented that this is why a country like Brazil presents huge problems for outside companies doing business there.  Sueli agreed and said that the UK and US authorities don't care that it's customary in Brazil to take bribes.  She said that it's not the government receivers of the bribes who will turn you in, but your competitors. So there is risk.

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So far, we've re-capped Alishan Naqvee's introduction to anti-corruption laws, and Stuart Gerson's comments on the US's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.  Following Stuart's presentation, the group heard from Charles Wander of Fladgate LLP, who spoke about the new UK Bribery Act.

Charles began by saying that he would give a brief overview of what's coming on July 1, 2011 in the UK.  As he had mentioned during an earlier session, the firm has been doing some work on this with their clients, trying to understand what the issues might be.  As Stuart had said, this is going to be applied on a worldwide basis, so it will be applied to anyone with any kind of tenuous connection with the UK.  

The UK was not without anti-bribery legislation - through the end of June they would have a piece of legislation dating back to the 19th century. It was ultimately felt that this didn't have sufficient teeth.  The UK was criticized in 1997 by the OECD when the incoming Labour administration discontinued an investigation into alleged bribery by British Aerospace, as part of the Al Yamamah contracts in Saudi Arabia.  This was heavily criticized as being a decision made for political reasons.

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Yesterday, I shared with you this post re-capping Alishan Naqvee's introduction to the topic of anti-corruption at our 2011 Annual Meeting.  To follow up on that, we'll review Stuart Gerson's (Epstein Becker & Green) comments during the session regarding the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and its implications for those in the room.  

Stuart provided the attendees with both an article he and a colleague authored on the FCPA, and an overview that their healthcare group had developed.  Stuart said that as Alishan had mentioned, both the FCPA and the new UK Anti-Bribery law are extraterritorial - but not only are they applied overseas throughout the world, but they are also applied against non-US citizens, as long as the commerce that they're supporting is in the stream of interstate commerce within the US.

So non-US citizens who have never stepped food in the US are subject to the FCPA, which is a criminal statute that has long jail sentences associated with it.  Additionally, they have fines up to $2 million per offense - and an offense is an individual act, so there could be a long series of them that results in the fines adding up to immense sums.  And this is applicable all around the world.

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During our  2011 Annual Meeting in Lisbon, we had specialty group breakout sessions - and lucky for you, our corporate session was recorded! The group had a roundtable discussion dedicated to the topic of "Anti-Corruption Laws and Navigating Client Businesses in Foreign Territories," which was moderated by Alishan Naqvee of LexCounsel Lawyers in India.

Alishan began with some slides to aid the discussion, saying that there is an organization in Japan called Control Risks, who conducted a survey of about 50 companies in Brazil, France, Germany, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, the UK and the US.  All of them said that corruption is a major cost for international business, and at the same time, an increasing number of companies in the world, while they are not absolutely aware of the anti-corruption laws in their jurisdictions, most of their business is governed by them, even when doing business in other jurisdictions.

However, corruption brings a very different dimension in cross-border investments, because the country from where the investee is investing and the country where the investment is being made may be governed by separate parameters and laws.  These could be domestic, but at the same time, there could be laws from the country where the investment is being made.

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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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 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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Although I did attend a morning session on Wednesday on client retention, it ended up being a bit of a vendor commercial - and not for something I felt I wanted to endorse on Zen. So instead, we're jumping right ahead to Maximized Marketing: Budget Boundaries and Successful Strategies for Small to Mid-Sized firms.

The session was a bit introductory, but with over half the room saying that they were new to legal marketing, it made sense. Plus, it was a good refresher for the rest of us, and great to hear what a Managing Partner had to add to the session.

The session included Marguerite Downey, Director of Communications & Client Services for Adduci Mastriani & Schaumberg LLP and Patricia A. Harris, Esq., Managing Partner for Zetlin & De Chiara LLP.

Not only was most of the room new to legal marketing, but the majority of the audience also served as the sole marketer at their firm.  Although this can present difficulties, as the speakers pointed out, having a committee of one isn't such a bad thing!  They also said that you can leverage limited resources efficiently with creative solutions at a smaller firm. 

Patricia introduced herself by saying that she has something in common with the marketers in the room - "No one wants us in their office." This got a laugh out of everyone before we jumped into their presentation.

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The last session of the day on Tuesday was "The Path to World Class - Exploring the Attributes that Distinguish Top-Tier Legal Marketing & Business Development Teams." After a long day at the conference, this session was going to have to be very interesting to hold our attention - and it was!

The panel was moderated by Joe Calve of Morrison Foerster and featured Geoffrey Goldberg of Lowenstein Sandler, Anne Malloy Tucker of Goodwin Procter, and Barbara Sessions of Winston & Strawn.

The panel was designed to be a nuts and bolts tutorial that we could put into action when we got back to the office.  The panelists suggested that rock climbing by your fingernails is an apt analogy to what marketers do, so we'd need all the help we could get.

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After lunch, I headed to "Using Client Feedback to Create Truly Meaningful Client Experiences and Deliver Greater Value" - a session that proved to have some fabulous tips. The panel was moderated by Julie Meyers of Burns White and featured Ronna Cross, from Patton Boggs, James Perkins of Procopio, Cory Hargreaves & Savitch, Jennifer Skiver, Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis, and Tara Weintritt of Miles and Stockbridge.

Best Practices

The panel began by sharing their best practices for starting a client feedback program:

• Get a promise from the firm leadership that they understand that the feedback is critical and they're willing to take action.
• Know your firm's culture going into this - what's the best approach? 
• Get everyone involved and figure out what success looks like.

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During the LMA's opening session on Wednesday, we were treated to a great client panel on achieving greater collaboration - what you need to know to get a win-win relationship with your clients.  On the panel were Stephen Kaplan, the Senior Vice President & General Counsel for Connextions, Inc., Jeff Novak, the General Counsel for AOL Paid Services, and John Lewis Jr., the Senior Managing Counsel-Litigation for The Coca-Cola Company,

They gave us a lot of incredibly valuable feedback, which I'd like to share with you.  To qualify - at the end of the session, they did say that this wasn't to be taken as the "rules" for dealing with all general counsel.  The idea is for this to open a dialogue with your clients and get you thinking about how you can better service them.

Main Points from the GC's

• Don't treat all clients the same - that's like being a therapist and treating all of your patients the same.
• The GCs were amazed by how infrequently firms will come to them and ask how they are measured internally and what success looks like for them - doing this can differentiate you.
• It's your job as lawyers to make your clients look good.
• Find un-met needs for your clients - this is a different value proposition than that offered by your competitors
• Realization rates can go up when you can help the in-house counsel meet their legal spending budget.
• Client service should be very personal, tailored to the individual just as much as the institution.
• Firms that know the secret to cost containment in their own firms should be able to help General Counsel apply those principles in their department.
• When a client comes to your firm and you can divine that they're in need, that's an opportunity for the firm to embed a partnership.
• Meeting their needs transcends the vendor relationship and makes you a partner.
• Learn how to self-select - you can't be all things to all people.  It's difficult to discern any self-selection from the pitches that they get.  One of them recently got a pitch from a company that was obviously conflicted and should have self-selected.
• There is lots of buzz around AFA's - but not everyone is positioned to do this. A value relationship is one where you have value to deliver.

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The second half of Alex Larkin's presentation addressed the opportunities for foreign and domestic investors in the electricity generation sector. He began by saying that the government needs to make some good decisions to facilitate this, specifically when it comes to electrical pricing. Electricity is just too cheap at this point to attract foreign investors to come in and build power plants. They won't make any money if they're forced to sell at 5 cents per kilowatt hour.

For 2010, the anticipated demand for power was about 20,000 megawatts - by the time we get to 2025, this is estimated to quadruple to 80,000 megawatts. Alex said this information was provided by the MoIT, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, who might be a bit overly optimistic. These projections are based on the idea that electricity will remain very inexpensive, but if it does, they won't be able to meet demand because power plants won't be built.

So there's no doubt that the demand for electricity in Vietnam will increase dramatically over the coming years. The demand has doubled in the last five or six years - it was 10,000 megawatts in 2005.

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Following Mr. Thao's presentation on the Vietnamese Lawyers Federation and the history of the legal industry in Vietnam, the delegates turned their attention to Alex Larkin, who talked about the legal framework for foreign investment and the establishment of business entities in Vietnam.  Alex is a transplant from Washington State, so he had a unique perspective on the opportunities available to foreign investors.

Part 2 of this post will address Alex's comments on the energy-producing sector as a potential for foreign investment.

Alex began by saying that the government is taking action that attracts and encourages foreign direct investment (FDI)  They want to encourage the export of goods and reform the administration procedures in order to reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies.

Vietnam, because of its history, is a very bureaucratic place governmentally.  It's very slow - while you can get anything done, it will always take a long time.  So there has been a lot of effort recently to reform these procedures to make things more attractive for investors.  One such effort is "e-government" which will allow people to do things online more efficiently.

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During the ILN's 2011 Asia Pacific Regional Meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, we had a very interesting presentation with Mr. Nguyen Van Thao, the Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Lawyers Federation.  He treated the group to a fascinating history of legal practice in Vietnam, and the current state of the legal industry.  After a welcome from our chairman, our local host lawyer, Mr. Phan Nguyen Toan, translated the presentation for us.

Mr. Thao is the current and permanent Vice Chairman for the Vietnamese Lawyers Federation, which is the national organization for all practicing Vietnamese lawyers.  He began with some information about the establishment of the Vietnamese legal association, and the current status of Vietnamese lawyers.

History of the Legal Field in Vietnam - Pre-1987

Vietnam was a longtime colony of France, since before 1945.  At that time, they had two small groups of lawyers - one in Hanoi and one in Ho Chi Minh city.  But those lawyers were made up of only French lawyers - there were some members who were Vietnamese and had studied French law, but they were only paralegals or support staff for the French lawyers.

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Being a part of the LexBlog network means I'm fortunate enough to participate in the webinars that they host.  Today's webinar was with the fabulous Cordell Parvin, a nationally recognized career and client development coach.  According to LexBlog's invitation, Cordell "is a lawyer himself [and] his 37 years of practice set him apart from other client development experts. He has actually done what he teaches and coaches; he knows the challenges lawyers face and helps provide solutions." 

No greater testimony to Cordell's expertise can be found than from one of his attorney clients, who said "Nothing my firm has ever done for my development matches the investment that Cordell's program has made in my maturation as a lawyer, leader and person."

With those kinds of accolades, I knew we were in for some valuable information! 

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I had the good fortune of presenting to our members at the 2010 ILN Regional Meeting of the Americas on Social Networking and why it may matter to our attorneys.  I began by taking an informal poll of the room to see how many in the audience were regularly using social networking sites (I clarified that by "regularly," I meant logging in once a week and connecting with someone in their network in some way).  It was a fairly small number - about 15-20% of the audience.

Though social networking is a hot topic, there are still many attorneys who question how it can be useful to them in business development at all, so I gave them a few reasons why, starting with American Lawyer Media, Zeughauser Group & Greentarget's recent survey of in-house counsel.  I mentioned two important points for them that came out of the survey:

• Blogs are an increasingly preferred mechanism for obtaining business and legal related industry information.
• Corporate counsel are getting more of their business and legal related industry information online than from traditional print sources.

I also mentioned that the survey showed that in-house counsel are using blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to get their information and judge law firms.

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On the first morning of our 2010 ILN Regional Meeting of the Americas in Houston, we had a fascinating presentation from Beirne Maynard & Parsons' Brit Brown and Ben Escobar on "Deepwater Gulf Oil Spill - An Energy Update." 

A Little Oil History...

Brown started by saying that it used to be incredibly easy to find oil in Texas - it would just bubble up.  The first oil well was actually the Drake Oil Well in Pennsylvania and it produced about 400 barrels a day.  About the same time, they figured out how to distill oil into kerosene, and that became the cheap alternative to well oil.

The well oil industry started to boom, and the first gusher was Spindletop, which started on January 10, 1901.  Brown said that it was a phenomenal gusher by any standards, taking nine days to control. It only went to 1,100 feet, which is a relatively shallow well by today's standards.

Spindletop was outside of Beaumont, Texas and produced, during the gushing stage, about 100,000 barrels of oil a day.  To compare, Brown said that the government estimate for the Macondo well was a high of 63,000 barrels a day when it was gushing into the Gulf.

Brown said when that well came through, they started drilling "like it was going out of style," and within a year, they had about 300 producing wells.  This started to go down after a time, but in 1927, it hit peak production.  The field had a peak production of 21 million barrels a year, which was incredible for this period. 

However, things have changed. Brown said that in Texas, the railroad commission used to be like OPEC.  Even in the 50's and 60's, the railroad commission controlled all of the oil and gas production in the state of Texas.  They acted like OPEC and could actually control price.  They started to lose that edge going into the 1970's, when the US hit peak production.  Ever since, production has been going down.

Where Are We Now?

Brown said that the greatest oil production (based on barrels of proven reserves) is in the Middle East, followed by South and Central America, Europe and Eurasia.  The US proven reserves is right about 28 billion barrels, which is not a lot when you consider that the US consumes about seven billion barrels of oil each year and was once the largest producers of oil in the world.  

Brown compared US consumption of oil (7 billion barrels a year) to production, which is about 2.6 billion.  He said that oil provides about 90% of our motor fuel, and 40% for total power.  He commented that the demand for oil has increased, resulting in the US having to import 75% of its oil and added that at the current rate of consumption, it would take the world 45.7 years, approximately, to exhaust the world's current proven reserves.  

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One of our sessions during the ILN's 2010 Regional Meeting of the Americas in Houston focused on the always popular topic of law firm management.  The panel was moderated by our Chairman, Peter Altieri of Epstein Becker & Green in New York.  On the panel were Steve Arthur of Harrison & Moberly in Indianapolis, Indiana, Carlos Rodriguez-Vidal of Goldman Antonetti & Cordova in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Doug Winthrop of Howard Rice in San Francisco, California, Bill O'Neill from McDonald Hopkins in Cleveland, Ohio and Anders Lundberg from Hellstrom in Stockholm, Sweden.

Creating Demand

Altieri began by saying that one of the challenges in the current economy for firms is creating demand. In the past, they had much more pipeline work than there is now, in part because clients are trying to do more in-house. He added that even the big firms are coming in and being price-competitive, and asked the panelists to comment on this.

Winthrop said that his firm has been seeing a tremendous rebound in the litigation sector of the firm, which has them quite busy.  Now, they're facing the issue of whether to hire more attorneys on the litigation side, or ask the business lawyers to chip in.  He said they're concerned that they'll find themselves with overcapacity, so they've addressed the issue by doing both.

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During the ILN’s 2010 Regional Meeting of the Americas in Houston, Texas last week, we were treated to a presentation by our host firm’s managing partner, Martin Beirne of Beirne Maynard & Parsons, and Jeff Carr, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of FMC Technologies.  Jeff's presentation focused on "Getting Out of the Box in Counsel Engagement and Service Delivery - the Value Challenge." 

Beirne introduced Carr, saying that he's the author of the Associate of Corporate Counsel's Value Challenge - something that he's been talking about for fifteen years.  Carr said that FMC Technologies is a 9 year old company, with about 120 years of history, and is one of those that touches people's lives in many ways.  

Carr jumped right into talking about his experience as a general counsel, saying that his legal spend is less today than it was in 2001, in a world where firms' rates go up 10% a year.  He added that FMC Technologies pays, on average, 107% of their invoices to law firms - he would later explain how and why this happens.

How is it possible to have a smaller legal spend? Carr said companies need to change how they buy what they buy, how they pay for it, and go from being reactive lawyers to being proactive lawyers.  What drives him? If he can save his company $1 million, that equates to a half a cent of share earnings.  That's what drives companies.

He said that his legal team's mission statement says that they're not lawyers - they're there to help achieve business goals.  Only one person who is currently on his team was with him in 2001 because the others either didn't want to move when they changed their headquarters to Houston, or they didn't want to practice law the way that his team does.  They were not willing to embrace change and the discipline that they require to be successful lawyers at FMC Technologies.

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After lunch, ALM's Social Media: Risks & Rewards conference focused more on the rewards of social media.  The Brand Protection and Promotion of Social Media session featured Jennifer Arkowitz from Townsend and Townsend and Crew as the moderator, and David Morris, Senior Corporate Counsel of TripAdvisor, Alexandra Sepulveda, Trademark Counsel with General Mills, and Johanna Sistek, Trademark Counsel for Google, Inc. as speakers.  

Proactive or Reactive? 

Arkowitz's first question was whether each of the companies were more proactive or reactive in their social media efforts.

Sepulveda (General Mills) said that for them, it's a combination. When Facebook had a big land grab for user names, they went through their brand list and got all of those names.  She said that as trademark lawyers, they're classic hostages, because if they know about something, they have to do something about it.  

Sistek (Google) said that they have issues raised internally from employees as well as users, so they're able to be reactive instead of proactive. She added that all of their teams use social media in what they do.

Morris (TripAdvisor) commented that they're both proactive and reactive. Being an online brand is core to what they do, so although they don't have a dedicated social media team, about half the company is working on social media. They do that internally and externally. TripAdvisor uses small firms to scour the net for mentions of their company - this is at a cost, but it does help to find those mentions.

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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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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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On Saturday, we had another session that was of interest to the delegates - a presentation on Effective Benefit Programs. The presenter was Stanley Jeremiah, the Vice President and Managing Director for Asia Pacific HR Management at Convergys.  Stanley is also a chartered insurer with UK professional qualification, a fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute, and a council member of the Singapore Insurance Institute.  His talk focused on one small area of firm management, benefits, and he gave a general overview since benefits are country-specific.  

One of the characteristics of a benefits program is that it's a more subtle form of compensation than remuneration, because it's not often communicated to employees in terms of cost.  As a result, it's less comparable to benefits packages at other firms and isn't well-leveraged as a differentiating factor when recruiting talent.  Because benefits aren't given this importance, employees often don't know what benefits they have and as a result, are not as appreciative as they could be, because they don't understand the value.  Stanley said that if firms can use benefits packages effectively, they could become something that has a higher perceived value than the actual cost.  

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Although generally I would make every effort to offer posts from our ILN conferences as they happen, in this case I am forced to write them after the fact.  Because of the political turmoil in Bangkok, we had to make the decision four weeks before our Annual Meeting to move the conference to Singapore, so I was knee deep in last minute decisions and more on-site planning and execution as a result than is normally the case.  So without further ado, I bring you some of the highlights from the ILN's 22nd Annual Meeting in Singapore! 

In the first days of our visit, we had the pleasure of visiting Maxwell Chambers, the home of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, where we met their head of business development, Ms. Rachel Foxton, and their CEO, Mr. Ming Naing Oo.  We saw several of their hearing rooms and learned more about the benefits of arbitration in Singapore during our Saturday morning session.  

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On Wednesday, May 12th, I was fortunate enough to attend a couple of sessions at American Lawyer Media's Law Firm Marketing and Business Development Leadership Forum. The ILN was a marketing partner for the event, and I spoke on a panel called "Going, Going...Global? The Worldwide Marketing for Legal Services." Unfortunately, I have not yet mastered the art of tweeting from a panel I'm participating in (and so don't have comprehensive notes for a re-cap), but the first session of the morning on the changing nature of in-house and outside counsel relationships was full of great takeaways for law firms and their marketing departments.  If you're interested in the full list of tweets from the conference, you can check out the #LCMO hashtag transcript.

On the panel were:

• ILN member, Martin Beirne, founding and managing partner of Beirne Maynard & Parsons LLP in Texas ,
• Anne Chwat, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Burger King Corporation,
• Kenneth Handal, Former Executive VP and General Counsel and Head of Global Risk and Compliance for CA, Inc (retired),
• Bob Robertson, Chief Marketing Officer for Greenberg Traurig, LLP, and
• Moderator Anthony Paonita, Editor-in-Chief of Corporate Counsel Magazine.

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One of the hottest topics up for discussion at last week's Legal Marketing Association's Annual Meeting was social networking. From Twitter to Facebook, blogging and tweeting, it almost sounds like a foreign language to the uninitiated. The LMA even warranted its very own hashtag (#LMA) on Twitter to keep track of all the comments flowing through the twitterstream. My own affinity for social networking brought me to Friday's breakout session, "Emergence & Benefit of Social Networking for Legal Professionals," led by John Lipsey, LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell's Vice President of Corporate Counsel Services. The session turned out to be a broader look at social networking than some of the attendees would have liked, but a number of valuable points could still be gleaned. If you'd prefer to read my comments in tweet form, my tweets from the session follow this post.

Social networks involve reputation management: In a Web 2.0 world, you lose control over your own messaging, so a shift is necessary from attempting to control the message to managing your reputation and that of your firm. Because everyone has a voice on the internet, you never know where your next opportunity, or public relations crisis, will come from. As recent incidents have shown, what you say online can affect your career and is not easily erased. Similarly, what others say about your and your firm online can also impact your reputation. The key here is understanding that whether or not your are participating in social networks, the conversation is happening. So getting involved in social networking allows you some control over what is being said about you and your firm, and the ability to react to what others are saying. To monitor the conversation about you and your firm, John suggested setting up Google alerts for your name, your firm's name, and considering extending these to specialized practice areas to keep abreast of what online chatter might be affecting your reputation.

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