Re-caps of Sessions

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I’m bringing you another recap from LMA14 today – this one focused on "LinkedIn…or Left Out? An Opportunity to Big for Smart Firms to Ignore." The session description reads: 

LinkedIn is radically changing the way General Counsel evaluates outside firms. Greentarget’s 2013 social media survey found that two-thirds of in-house counsel use LinkedIn on a weekly basis. LinkedIn threatens to sideline firms who ignore its impact, and presents an opportunity for firms who mobilize their partnerships to embrace social business. In this panel, we’ll explore how leading firms are using LinkedIn to burnish their brands, enhance attorney reputations, and continuously engage clients with thought leadership." 

The panel featured Patrick Baynes (@patrickbaynes) of PeopleLinx, John Corey of Greentarget (@greentarget), Lindsay Gotwald (@lindsayweb) of Faegre Baker Daniels, Megan McKeon (@meganmckeon) of Katten Muchin Rosenman, and Michelle Woodyear (@mwoodyear) of Orrick. Continue Reading LinkedIn or Left Out – A Recap

On Friday morning, LMA delegates gathered to hear the annual general counsel panel, "U.S. General Counsel Discuss Global Needs for Outside Counsel: Is Your Firm on Their Short List?" produced by Inside Counsel and Lloyd Johnson.

The program description read: 

This panel of general counsel will discuss high priority needs, challenges and concerns related to managing a large law department.  In addition, the panel will discuss the complexities…related to managing a remote professional staff who work outside the United States. Topics covered will include: 

  • How law firms can help meet the needs of today’s law department challenges; 
  • What today’s law department leaders see as potential future challenges
  • How firms’ managing partners may engage in shared insight discussions with law department leader/counterparts
  • How is value received for fees paid assessed by the corporations today? 
  • What is most useful about a year-end review, aka client feedback meeting?
  • Last call: number one need on the law department side: from the relationship standpoint? From the substantive legal needs standpoint?"

Continue Reading US General Counsel: Global Needs for Outside Counsel

On Friday, we had an excellent, excellent panel following lunch with some truly brilliant people – moderator Nancy Mangan of Wicker Park Group chatted with Paul Malanowski (@pmalanowski) of Saul Ewing, Melanie Green (@melaniegreen) of Faegre Baker Daniels, and Dave Bruns (@dbruns) of Farella Braun + Martel about some of the innovative things they do to combat the most prevalent problems in business development. 

Whether you’re at a large firm, or a small firm (or a service provider), there were a lot of tips in here that we can use to better drive business development. 

Key Takeaway: Talk to your Clients

When I use the word "clients" here, it has different meanings for different people: 

  • For attorneys, it’s your clients. 
  • For marketers, it’s your attorneys. 
  • For service providers, it’s your clients. 

Continue Reading Takeaways from “Quick Fixes: Innovative Solutions in Law Firm Business Development”

The very last session I went to before our wrap up at LMA14 was "Can the C-Suite Lead the Social Media Law Firm?" with presenters Deborah Grabein (@dgrabein) of Andrews Kurth and Michael Hertz (@michaelhertz) of White & Case and moderator Kevin O’Keefe (@kevinokeefe) of LexBlog. 

The description of the session in the conference book reads:

While Fortune 500 executives are beginning to leverage social media, law firm executives are lagging." 

Two C-Level decision makers (not practicing lawyers) in Am Law 200 firms made the decision in the fall of 2013 to start using social media, personally . They wished to experience how their use of social media could help change the perceptions of their brand, better equip them to lead their marketing and business development teams, and help them guide individual lawyers in their use of social." 

With five months of strategic consulting and coaching, these executives became active content creators and social media contributors on blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+."

Learn about the personal and firm wide challenges and rewards these law firm executives experienced, and will continue to experience in their personal use of social media." 

Continue Reading Key Takeaways from “Can the C-Suite Lead the Social Media Law Firm?”

Yesterday, we discussed the first part of the excellent webinar with David Ackert & Jonathan Fitzgarrald on LinkedIn 2.0. When chatting last night with my fellow SIG leaders, Nancy asked me why it was I considered this to be the best session we’d had. She wondered if it was because they got into the "how" of using LinkedIn as opposed to the "why." 

My answer to her was that it was the 2.0 nature of it – it’s safe to assume that those participating in a social media group like ours would be those most likely to have already bought into the idea of social media, and are more focused on how to sell it to their attorneys and its practical use. Even more than that, pretty much everyone has a LinkedIn profile these days – but the idea of setting objectives and fine tuning your strategy to meet those objectives is something that’s really useful to both attorneys, and the marketing professionals trying to get them to use LinkedIn for business development.  

It also doesn’t hurt that Jonathan and David are not only excellent presenters, but also extremely knowledgeable – both when it comes to using LinkedIn and working with attorneys. 

So, if you’re a part of the LMA and have the opportunity to see the recording of the session once it’s circulated, make sure that you do so! Now let’s get into Part II…

Continue Reading LinkedIn 2.0: Efficient Strategies for Busy Lawyers – A Webinar Recap (Part II)

Apparently, this is the week for excellent webinars, because I had the privilege of attending another amazing one this afternoon. The LMA’s Social Media Shared Interest Group offered LinkedIn 2.0: Efficient Strategies for Busy Lawyers, featuring presenters David Ackert (@DavidAckert) of The Ackert Advisory and Jonathan Fitzgarrald (@JRFitzgarrald) of Greenberg Glusker, moderated by our own Nancy Myrland (@nancymyrland) of Myrland Marketing & Social Media. 

Before I get into the meat of the session (and boy, was it meaty!), I want to make sure to note that if you’d like to join the Legal Marketing Association, you can take a look at the options and categories for membership over here. 

And if you’re already a member of the LMA, and want to join the Social Media SIG (we’re cool, I promise!), you can join through the LMA website here. LMA members can also join our Facebook and LinkedIn groups (whether or not you officially belong to the SIG). Continue Reading LinkedIn 2.0: Efficient Strategies for Busy Lawyers – A Webinar Recap (Part I)

When I heard that Kevin McKeown (@kevinmckeown) of LexBlog and Marketing Brain Fodder’s Eric Fletcher (@ericfletcher) would be giving a webinar together, I knew I couldn’t miss it. So despite battling a low-grade migraine today, I tuned in, and definitely wasn’t disappointed. 

Their presentation focused on the top reasons to blog, and if you want to see the tweet stream that came out of the session, take a look at #LexBlogTop5. 

Not only did their presentation break down five reasons to blog, but it was broken into five sections: 

  • "Old school" networking
  • Networking is the "new normal"
  • Top 5 reasons lawyers should blog
  • Your call to action
  • Questions

Continue Reading Top Five Reasons to Blog – A Webinar Recap

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending LexBlog’s webinar "Daily Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers" with Kevin O’Keefe (@kevinokeefe). Kevin kicked off the session by saying that there is no perfect way to blog, but that over the past ten years, he’d develop some habits that work for him. 

The session covered: 

  • Essence of blogging
  • Listening tools
  • Posting
  • Complementary Social Media
  • Habits of LexBloggers

Continue Reading Daily Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers – A Webinar Recap

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of sitting in on another of the LMA’s Social Media Shared Interest Group’s webinars, this time with Adrian Lurssen of JD Supra. Adrian talked about some best practices for getting clients to read a law firm’s online content, using a case study to walk us through. 

As I’ve noted before, I won’t give away everything from the webinar, since it’s an LMA membership benefit, but there was some great advice that Adrian shared with us. 

His case study focused on the discussions surrounding the America Invents Act, for which JD Supra saw 82 firms producing content.  Of these firms, only one stood out, Pepper Hamilton. Adrian delved into the "why" of the popularity of their post, as well as defining the goals we should be pursuing as we produce content. Continue Reading Is Anybody Going to Click on That? Getting Clients to Read Law Firm Content, A Webinar Recap

One of the ILN’s member firms, Fogler Rubinoff, recently launched a new website, focused on responsive design and definitely very cutting edge for the legal profession. We invited Michael Slan to present on the site during our 2013 Annual Meeting, and Michael had some great best practices for law firms on redesigning their websites, which I’d like to share. 

Michael began by addressing some of the issues that they had with their current site, which had last been redesigned in 2005. The site itself was fine, but it had some issues: 

  • Looked like everyone else’s 
  • Required too many clicks
  • Too much scrolling
  • Inefficient layout of content
  • Text-heavy and lacked visual content

Continue Reading Law Firm Websites – Best Practices