By Lindsay Griffiths on In our discussions over the last few years about the future of the law firm, the one thing that has become abundantly clear is that for lawyers and firms to be successful, they will have to learn to collaborate effectively and efficiently. In her book, Heidi Gardner calls this “Smart Collaboration.” I had the chance … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Lawyers know better than most people that words matter – after all, who knows better than a contract lawyer that a nuanced clause can make or break a deal? But who knows better than your marketing team that “marketing” is a four-letter word? It shouldn’t be – and I’ll explain why in a moment. But … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Lawyers, don’t panic – this isn’t as scary as it sounds. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to participate in a workshop on leadership that encouraged some out-of-the-box thinking – the session integrated improv techniques into various business applications. I hate anything that feels like an icebreaker (I prefer routine and structure), so I … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on While I’m out of the office this week, I’m really pleased to be bringing you a special guest post from one of the ILN’s member professionals. Alice Steen, Knowledge Manager at Holmes O’Malley Sexton, discusses best practices for developing a learning culture in your organization. *** Alice Steen, Knowledge Manager, at Holmes O’Malley Sexton reflects … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Being a strong leader is something that a lot of us aspire to, whether we’re serving in a position of leadership or not – whatever our role in our firms, the way we work, collaborate, and engage with others has a big impact on them. Knowing your strengths, and leveraging them, can help you create … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on I’m thrilled to announce that JD Supra has included me in this year’s Readers Choice Awards, which acknowledge top authors and firms for their thought leadership in key topics. I was selected from among thousands of authors published in 2018 for the level of visibility and engagement attained with readers on the topic of marketing … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Following on our last post about Steve Harmon’s trends to watch in legal, I wanted to share some of his other key takeaways from his session at the CLOC Institute in London. Each of these takeaways, while directed at the legal operations audience, is relevant throughout the legal industry and are key driving factors for … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on We’re a few weeks out now from the CLOC (Corporate Legal Operations Consortium) Institute in London, and I’m finally jumping into some recaps. There was some truly excellent content during the conference, and not just for legal operations folks, but with transferable lessons for everyone in the legal industry. Over the next few weeks, I’ll … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on I’m bringing you a treat today, Zen readers! A post from the ILN’s own Jenn Smuts – and it’s a good one. Prepare to get uncomfortable and start asking yourself the hard questions. *** Last week Lindsay asked the Zen audience about whether they were still feeling inspired with the arrival of the new year, … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on A few years ago, I wrote a post centered around the idea of needing a strong audience in order to make the content that you’re writing valuable. While content development is a piece of the overall puzzle, this idea is easily expanded, especially in today’s market. Something that I’ve heard a LOT from lawyers is … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on We’re almost through a full month in 2019 – are you still feeling fresh and inspired about the new year? Or are you feeling bogged down by your routine and flagging resolve already? If you’ve thrown your resolutions out the window, never fear – I’m not a big believer in them anyway. What I DO … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on We’ve saved the best for last – or potentially, I’ve just been avoiding this topic because time management is an area where I need to be taking my own advice. If you ask a lawyer what one of their biggest issues is, you’ll find that time management is top of the list. Especially when it … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Regular Zen readers will know that I’m a runner. When you first start running, you tell yourself that it’s the cheapest sport – all you need is a pair of sneakers, and you can head outside and do it. While this is (essentially) true, we runners love our gadgets and our products, and sharing our … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on We’ve discussed the idea of change extensively here on Zen, and although it’s a long time coming in the legal industry, there are pockets of exciting innovation. One such pocket is the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium, or CLOC, which has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years (as in 40 members to 1800 members … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Successful communication comes in many forms, and we may be already convinced either by virtue of our training or personality that we’re naturally good communicators. Whether you’re confident in your communications skills, or looking for a refresher, there are four tasks you can undertake today to improve your business communication skills. Audit Your Communication How … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on This post was originally published in Legal Business World on November 5, 2018 It’s no secret that the legal market is a challenging place to be today. Mergers, non-law firm players, clients continuing to take work in-house, increasing investment in technology, changing demands from different generations…the list goes on. With a staggering number of reasons … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on “Innovation” is a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot these days, right up there with “disruption.” It sounds like something that’s foreign in the legal industry, but it shouldn’t be. Believe it or not, we, too, can be innovative. If you’ve been following along here for a while, you may know that I have … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on We’re continuing our series on soft skills that lawyers require in order to achieve success. We’ve looked at some suggestions for improving networking and presentation skills, and the next item in our series is raising the level of our business writing. You may feel that this is something that you’re already pretty adept at, since … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on We’ve been talking about the soft skills that young lawyers need to hone in order to become successful, and how these translate for more experienced lawyers. Another skill I reviewed for the ABA student law blog was that of presentations (and I think we can agree this is something that many of us can work … Continue Reading
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
