By Lindsay Griffiths on We’re already almost mid-way through September (can you believe it?) and this time of year can feel like a new beginning! Though January is typically the time for resolutions, September can also feel like a refresh as kids go back to school, and we jump back into the grind after our own summer holidays and … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on If you’re a regular reader of Zen, you know that I’m a big fan of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC). They’re working to revolutionize the legal industry, and engage all facets of it to do so. One of the ways that legal departments excel and law firms majorly lag behind is with tracking metrics. … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on In our most recent post, we broke down the art of persuasion, and looked at the styles for change that you may be seeing within your firm. I should also add that there’s really a fourth style too, and that’s the belief that no change is necessary – I didn’t cover this in any depth, … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Change can be intimidating. Whether you find it exciting or not, even those of us who are the most adept at it can find it daunting and exhausting. In the legal industry, where change is historically slow, when it happens at all, it can be even more overwhelming. We’ve been talking an awful lot about … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Continuing our discussion about SmartLaw and the future of the legal industry, which hopefully we can all say with some degree of comfort is here NOW, let’s consider another major theme of HighQ’s recent eBook – the intersection of technology and people. This idea is one that we touched on during our last series on … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on We’ve been discussing the NEED for change a lot lately, and while many of us may understand the urgency, and have even begun undertaking some steps to effectuate change within our firms and organizations, others may be asking what it actually means to be a leader of change. Fortunately, there are some great resources out … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on This is just a guess, but I suspect that most of us didn’t get into the legal industry because we love data, right? If we loved data, we’d be elsewhere. But…bad news. Data is one of those things that we have to start embracing as the industry changes in order to stay relevant. It sounds … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Altman Weil recently released their “Law Firms in Transition” survey, which is now in its tenth year. The survey, which includes responses from half of US law firms with 50 or more lawyers, was initially developed as a response to the 2008 recession, to help firms understand how other firms were reacting to the marketplace … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on We’ve had a lot of discussion over the past several years about what the future of legal services will look like, and what critical characteristics and ideas will be necessary for lawyers and law firms to embrace in order to operate within it successfully. Last week, we opened the conversation again with the release of … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Long-time readers of Zen may remember when we first started talking about the future of the law firm and the idea of “SmartLaw” in 2016, when HighQ asked the question “What do you believe lawyers and law firms need to do to prepare for the future of legal services?” Over the course of several posts, … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Legal directories have been both valuable, and a source of frustration, for lawyers and in-house counsel alike. Recently, a new directory appeared on the scene, threatening to disrupt what we’ve all been accepting for the last several decades – Top 3 Legal. In today’s guest post from founder Gareth Stephenson, learn more about the platform, … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on We’ve talked a lot in recent posts about the idea of “relationship equity” and I’d like to revisit it again today – it particularly struck me as a friend of mine recently accepted a job offer and when she announced the company she was working for, suddenly people were coming out of the woodwork to … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Today, I’m bringing you a post from an ILN marketer, Amanda Schneider. Amanda is with ILN member firm Epstein Becker Green, where she is the Chief Marketing Officer. Amanda provides tips on how firms can leverage the multigenerational attorney workforce through involvement in business development initiatives. *** It is critical for firms to understand that … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on It can seem like the reason that Disney is so successful is truly a dose of magic. But when you break it down, they have a real formula for excellence – excellence in leadership, creating and sustaining the right culture, and pursuing client satisfaction. All of the pieces of that formula are important, but even after … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on We’re ending the week on a high note, with a guest post from Lance Godard, of The Godard Group. For over 30 years, Lance has worked with lawyers and law firms to help them craft their messages, so if you’re looking for someone to help you with your content, look no further than The Godard … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Success that starts with leadership and continues with having the right people makes complete sense – but all of that doesn’t mean much if your clients aren’t satisfied. And that’s the third piece in Disney’s philosophy. Disney’s strategy is to exceed their guests’ expectations by paying attention to every detail of the delivery. Paying attention … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Starting at the top is essential, but you need the right mix of people within your firm to really be successufl. Disney calls this “cast excellence.” The corporate culture at Disney is, by design, well-defined, clear to all, and goal-oriented. It can seem challenging to implement this at a law firm, but I’ve seen it … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on We’re so pleased to announce that we have welcomed a new member firm, Royer Cooper Cohen and Braunfeld LLC, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Royer, Cooper, Cohen and Braunfeld is a 35 lawyer, full service firm with offices in the Philadelphia area. RCCB’s partners brought to RCCB a wealth of experience practicing in large multi-national law firms … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Several years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a keynote session focused around Disney’s approach to business excellence. The recap I shared has been among one of my most popular posts, and the advice provided by Jeff Williford from the Disney Institute proves to be timeless. Despite a changing marketplace, the tenets that underlie their success … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on It’s no secret that attending an industry event can lead to business opportunities. When you choose the right one, the networking alone provides the return on your investment. But we’re often so eager for the actual attendance to equal business that we forget that as with any business development opportunity, it’s not one-and-done. In the … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Here we go, folks, it’s the post you’ve all been waiting for. What are the truly ugly commercials from this year’s crop of Super Bowl ads? Before we dive into this year’s, I wanted to take a look back at some of the ugly commercials from previous years. Which made me realize that we’ve been … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Last week, we took some time to review my top spots from this year’s crop of Super Bowl ads. And now it’s time to take a look at where things got a little…yucky. While we were fortunate to be overwhelmed with good commercials the last two years, there are still a few brands that are … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on When I did a search back on Zen to see what else we’ve discussed about networking, the results revealed that it’s…a lot. We’ve covered everything from networking for introverts, to conference networking, to social networking, to networking for people who hate networking, and more. So why do we keep talking about it, over and over … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on All right kids, it’s that time again! Whether your team won or lost or you don’t care about sportsball at all, you might have spared a moment or two for the secondary contest of Sunday evening…and I’m not talking about the highly contested puppy bowl (everyone wins there). That’s right, it’s time for my annual … Continue Reading
