Lindsay Griffiths is the International Lawyers Network’s Executive Director. She is a dynamic, influential international executive and marketing thought leader with a passion for relationship development and authoring impactful content. Griffiths is a driven, strategic leader who implements creative initiatives to achieve the goals of a global professional services network. She manages all major aspects of the Network, including recruitment, member retention, and providing exceptional client service to an international membership base.
In her role as Executive Director, Griffiths manages a mix of international programs, engages a diverse global community, and develops an international membership base. She leads the development and successful implementation of major organizational initiatives, manages interpersonal relationships, and possesses executive presence with audiences of internal and external stakeholders. Griffiths excels at project management, organization, and planning, writes and speaks with influence and authority, and works independently while demonstrating flexibility in thinking, especially in challenging situations. She also adapts to diverse and dynamic environments with constant assessment and recalibration.
In 2021, the ILN was honored as Global Law Firm Network of the Year by The Lawyer European Awards, and in 2016, 2017, and 2022, they were shortlisted as Global Law Firm Network of the Year. Since 2011, the Network has been listed as a Chambers & Partners Leading Law Firm Network, recently increasing this ranking to be included in the top two percent of law firm networks globally, as well as adding two regional rankings. She was awarded “Thought Leader of the Year” by the Legal Marketing Association’s New York chapter in 2014 for her substantive contributions to the industry and was included in Clio’s list of “34 People in Legal You Should Follow on Twitter.” She was also chosen for the American Bar Association Journal’s inaugural Web 100‘s Best Law Blogs, where judge Ivy Grey said “This blog is outstanding, thoughtful, and useful.” Ms. Griffiths was chosen as a Top Author by JD Supra in their 2019 Readers’ Choice Awards, for the level of engagement and visibility she attained with readers on the topic of marketing & business development. She has been the author of Zen & the Art of Legal Networking since February 2009.
This week’s Ask Friday! question comes to us from Jennifer Herendeen, the Marketing Manager for Wyrick Robbins Yates & Ponton. She asks "What are typical items included in a marketing/business development budget? I’m trying to create a first ever budget at my firm."
I think this is a question that a lot of
Today, we held our annual luncheon at the INTA conference for ILN members. I always enjoy this lunch because I get to meet and reconnect with attorneys who are not necessarily attendees of our Regional and Annual Meetings.
We had a wonderful lunch again today at One Market Restaurant here in San Francisco, with great
This week’s Ask Friday! answers the question of what blogs I read. I’ll break this down into three categories – ILN member blogs, the blogs I read for professional reasons and growth, and the blogs I read for fun – feel free to add your favorites to the list in the comments!
Professional Blogs:
With our Annual Meeting coming up in just a few short weeks, I wanted to dedicate this week’s "Ask Friday" to the question of "how can I make the most out of attending a conference?" You might think that just showing up and attending the events is enough, but with a little bit of strategy, your pre, during and post conference activities can really make a difference in your experience.
Pre-Conference
Before heading to the conference, take a few minutes to look over the agenda and the attendee list (if it’s available). The agenda can give you an idea of what topics will be discussed and where you can contribute – when you contribute to a discussion (especially in a conference like ours where the main purpose is to develop relationships), it can help people to identify you with a certain area of expertise, and make you a thought leader who is sought out for later conversations. It also makes you easier to remember.
Review the attendee list and identify who you’d like to build relationships with. This can seem a bit "icky," but you know where your clients are doing business, so it’s a good idea to connect with possible referral partners so that you start to build that level of trust necessary for referring work. You may even see someone on the list that seems to have a cool job, or a unique value proposition – meet these people just to expand your horizons if nothing else. When we stretch our comfort zones, that’s when we really learn and grow.
Here at Zen I’ve decided to start a weekly post called "Ask Friday!" where I’ll take a reader question and answer it. You can leave your questions in the comments for any post, if you’d like, or message me on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.
Today’s question comes from Larry Bodine, of Larry Bodine Marketing, who asks "What tips do you have to motivate lawyers to do business development?"
My number one tip to motivate lawyers is to share success stories. I’ve found that showing how other lawyers have gotten business through various types of business development activities give attorneys the comfort that someone has tried it before, and they’ve been successful.
But it’s not always enough for me to be the one sharing these stories – it’s often more helpful to get the attorney who’s been successful to do the sharing. For example, as you know I’m a big fan of social media. I give presentations to our attorneys at each of our Annual & Regional Conferences, and recently, my presentations have focused on social media.Continue Reading Ask Friday!
At the LMA Conference in Orlando, there were over 1,100 attendees. We were inundated with tips, new ideas, new products, networking opportunities, and more. It’s often hard to distill the entire conference into a few takeaways to bring back to the office and act on.
To get at some of the valuable nuggets from the
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.
A couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate to have the opportunity for an interview with Natalie Huha, of Just Engage, "a company dedicated to servicing the Legal and Professional Services markets promoting and educating on how social media is redefining current and future client communications." She wanted to talk to me about my
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.Continue Reading The Path to World Class – Exploring the Attributes that Distinguish Top-tier Legal Marketing and Business Development Teams
As I attended my sixth LMA Conference last week, it occurred to me that I couldn’t believe how fast my time in the legal profession has gone! But it also occurred to me that there may be many people out there attending their first conference, or just starting out in the legal or professional services fields, who never got any lessons in college about how to act in a business environment.
This week, I heard someone say during a session that if you’re going to be "Debbie Gossip" as a marketing professional, it will be difficult to gain the trust of your lawyers and as such, difficult to get the respect needed to get a seat at the table. I think the younger generation in the workforce (and at 31, I include myself in that) has a lot of enthusiasm, talent and incredible ideas. But sometimes we lack the professional polish that can get those ideas implemented. So I wanted to offer up some advice on what I’ve learned in my six and a half years in legal marketing – some of these things might seem silly or overly conservative, but they will help you stand out for your work instead of for a less professional reason:
Continue Reading Some Advice to New Marketers on Attending Conferences