Re-caps of Sessions

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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…

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…

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.

Continue Reading Maximized Marketing: Budget Boundaries and Successful Strategies for Small to Mid-Sized Firms

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

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.

Continue Reading Using Client Feedback to Create Truly Meaningful Client Experiences and Deliver Greater Value

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.

Continue Reading Lawyers – We Are Still Missing the Boat with Clients

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.Continue Reading Potential Investment Opportunities in Vietnam – Electricity

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.Continue Reading Legal Framework for Foreign Investment & Establishment of Business Entities in Vietnam with Alex Larkin

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.Continue Reading Vietnam Lawyers Federation and Legal Practice in Vietnam with Mr. Nguyen Van Thao

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! Continue Reading Client Development 101 for 2011 & Beyond with Cordell Parvin – a LexBlog Webinar Re-Cap