Last week, I mentioned that I’d had the chance to sit down with LexBlog’s Bob Ambrogi to discuss all things ILN, podcasting, blogging and more. I wanted to share the full interview with you this week. You can check out a written digest of some of the highlights of the interview here, or watch
“Hunker down” is not a growth strategy; it’s a survival strategy
These are the words from David Ackert of The Ackert Advisory during a webinar that he gave for our ILN membership yesterday, and oh boy do those hit home.
I can say that as an organization, we’re not just “hunkering down” when it comes to our strategy for 2020, but is that something that sounds familiar to you for your firm or practice? When COVID hit, was there an immediate flurry of “batten down the hatches!” and everyone just hold on for dear life?
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Law Firms: Change as a Challenge, or an Opportunity?
Four years ago, we joined with HighQ in looking at the question, “What do you believe lawyers and law firms need to do to prepare for the future of legal services?”
Considering how much has happened even in the past six months, and looking at the way the legal industry adapted to being fully remote in many countries in 1-2 weeks, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to look back at what some of the leading experts in the industry had to say in 2016, and put that into today’s context.
In reading what many of us thought in 2016, the overriding sense is less that firms have been preparing for change and more that COVID has forced firms to have to be innovative and creative because they have no other choice. The old adage that when something is painful enough, THEN we will make changes, is just as true for law firms as it is for each of us.
But is change a challenge…or an opportunity?
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Law Firm ILN-telligence Podcast | Episode 6: Melissa Kano | KLA – Koury Lopes Advogados
Melissa Kano is a partner with KLA – Koury Lopes Advogados, a law firm in Brazil and a member of the International Lawyers Network. In this episode, I talk to Melissa about why collaboration is so essential during a pandemic, how working remotely may last longer than the quarantine, and why it’s essential to
Keep Showing Up
“Keep Showing Up” is a phrase that Des Linden, an American long distance runner, and winner of the Boston Marathon, repeats often. It’s a mantra that I use in my own running, particularly as I come back from injury and need to regularly remind myself that training is about showing up, even when it’s hard, and even when I don’t want to. I recently put it on a letter board in my office to remind myself of its importance in my life.
But its importance in other ways really crystallized for me recently as the Black Lives Matter movement gained global traction and became something that (as it should) matters too to brands, to white people, to all of us.
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Are You Tone Deaf?
We don’t have a rainmaking recommendation from Jaimie Field this week, but we do have what amounts to a guest post. It’s a thought-provoking piece on the state of what’s going on in the US at the moment, and the impact that should be having on your firm’s messaging. But more than that, it’s about the impact that it should be having on your firm’s policies and practices moving forward, if it hasn’t already. Now is not the time for empty platitudes and social posts, but the time for real, sustainable change, backed up by engagement and education. We’re certainly not there yet here at the ILN, but we’re digging in and doing our part.
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I really thought about not posting a Rainmaking Recommendation for this week.
I thought that no matter what I posted, it would be considered to be inappropriate for what is occurring in the United States and in the world. But, after spending the past few days on social media (alternately crying and getting supremely angry), not only because of the actual events that have been happening but also because I am seeing a tremendous number of inappropriate posts that seem to just disregard what is going on, I felt I had to say something.
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Law Firm ILN-telligence Podcast | Episode 4: Pavla Kopeckova Prikrylova | PETERKA & PARTNERS
In our fourth episode of the Law Firm ILN-telligence Podcast, we welcomed Pavla Kopeckova Prikrylova, who is a partner with PETERKA & Partners, a Central and Eastern European Law Firm, as well as the chair of the International Lawyers Network. In this episode, we discussed why it is more essential than ever for
Law Firm ILN-telligence Podcast | Episode 1: Pal Jalsovszky, Jalsovszky Law Firm | Budapest, Hungary
We’re thrilled to announce that a few weeks ago, we debuted our new podcast, Law Firm ILN-telligence, where we bring you real intelligence from real law firms. The first episode, I interviewed Pal Jalsovszky, the managing partner of Jalsovszky Law Firm in Budapest, Hungary and a member firm of the International Lawyers Network. We
It’s Okay to Breakdown
I’ve been ruminating on this post for a few days, as I struggled to decide what to blog about this week. This is a tough and heavy topic, but I finally settled on discussing it because it *is* so important, particularly at this moment in time when so many people are struggling and vulnerable. Why add my voice when so many others have already provided great resources and their own stories? Well, I hope I have something of my own to add, because of my own struggles with depression for the past twenty-plus years and because I think that we can never talk about it enough to break the stigma and ensure that people get the help that they need. (Please note, **trigger warning** for this entire post).
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“I Don’t Want No Hubs” – a.k.a Show me the Value
My title my be tongue-in-cheek, but my message this week is quite serious.
We’ll get to that in a moment. First, I want to consider for a moment what happens in a crisis. We panic a little bit, right? Even if we stay mostly calm, our world gets very small, and we’re often looking only at the three feet around us. It sometimes means that we’re looking only at what our firm, our office, or our team is doing, and not focusing on the larger picture. We’re also trying to do everything extremely quickly and efficiently, because the needs all feel so IMMEDIATE – clients need us RIGHT.NOW. And that’s not imaginary – they do. Orders have come down from state or national governments asking them to shutter their businesses within hours. They’ve had to move employees from in-office to remote immediately, sometimes with no plans in place. You may be assisting them in doing this often while having to make similar decisions for your own firms.
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