By Lindsay Griffiths on If we were guaranteed to get business every time we met someone new, we’d all be networking all the time, right? But instead, networking takes time, it takes finesse and relationship-building, and often, you’ll find yourself talking to someone who may not be giving your their business or they may not have business to give … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on It’s a bit hard to believe it, but I’ve been blogging here at Zen for 10 years. A LOT has changed in the legal industry in ten years, and yet, in many ways, a lot is still the same. If you’d have asked me a decade ago if I still planned to be blogging and … 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 The International Lawyers Network’s Real Estate Specialty Group announces the third release of its publication, “Buying & Selling Real Estate: An International Guide.” This collaborative electronic guide offers a summary of key real estate law principles in 21 jurisdictions across the globe, serving as a quick, practical reference for those buying & selling real estate … 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 A question I get ALL the time is whether using social media actually has any impact at all on referrals and business development. Actually, the way it typically goes is this: Come on, really. Tell me. Does anyone get matters or referrals because they post to LinkedIn?” The short answer is yes, sometimes, it does … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on The ILN is delighted to announce the release of the fifth (and updated) edition of their corporate guide, “Establishing a Business Entity: An International Guide.” This collaborative electronic guide offers a summary of key corporate law principles in 40 countries across the globe (an increase of nine chapters over our 2017 guide), serving as a … 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 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 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 Welcome to ILN-terviews, a series of profiles of ILN member firm attorneys, designed to give a unique insight into the lawyers who make up our Network. For our latest interview, we chose ILN member, Jonas Forsman of our member firm Hellstrom in Stockholm, Sweden. In one sentence, how would you describe your practice? My practice is within company law … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on The ILN’s Real Estate Group is delighted to announce today the release of the second (and updated) edition of their guide, “Buying & Selling Real Estate: An International Guide.” This collaborative electronic guide offers a summary of key real estate law principles in 18 countries across the globe, serving as a quick, practical reference for … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Like with any relationship, the relationship you have with your law firm network will give back what you put into it. (This is true for any informal referral networks too, by the way) While we wholeheartedly advocate that you join a network with the goal of being able to better serve your clients by offering … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Most of us are familiar with a typical referral – a lawyer that you’ve built up a relationship with who has need of your practice expertise or a client with work in your jurisdiction will call you up and ask for your assistance. At times, they will pass your name directly to their client to … 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 hear an awful lot about it, … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on We’ve talked extensively on Zen about how to make the most out of conference attendance and networking. But with the ILN’s European Regional Conference coming up next week, it’s at the forefront of my mind! Before we jump in, I’d like to point out that I think the word “networking” can get a bit of … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on We’re so excited to announce that we’ve welcomed a new member firm – Torres Law, a United States-based firm with a focus on international trade and customs law. Torres Law has offices in Dallas, Texas and Washington, DC. The firm serves clients ranging from large, multi-national corporations to small importers and exporters. Torres Law also represents … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Four years ago, we were talking about the “new normal” for law firms. It’s almost comical to believe that we’re still talking about it as if it’s new. It’s not. Even at that time, Above the Law was telling us that the new normal was really more of the “old normal,” though if we’re honest, … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on How can we network better? Many posts offer the same tips, spun in a different way – and that’s important, because I can always get something out of implementing the tried and true. But when I find something unique, I’m always happy to share it. Recently, I came across this piece from Branding Magazine, with “5 Tips … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on “Change or die.” How many times have you heard that over the last eight years? A friend of mine in the legal industry pointed that out to me recently, along with commenting that it always sounds so dire. And it does sound dire. But after the statistics that we covered in a recent post (1/3 of clients are openly … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Over the last decade, we’ve seen a titanic shift in the legal industry, and one thing I know for sure is that we’ve all got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Change, innovation, disruption – it’s all here to stay, and how it shakes out will be different for each law firm and law firm … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on During the recent CLOC conference, attendees had the opportunity to receive a complimentary copy of Richard Susskind’s second edition of “Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future.” Susskind also spoke as the lunch keynote on the first day, and shared with us that while his first edition had been written for young and aspiring lawyers … Continue Reading
