By Lindsay Griffiths on This fall, ILN members will have the good fortune to participate in a webinar with Pamela Cone, founder and CEO of Amity Advisory. Pam is speaking on the global movement behind corporate social responsibility and sustainability for law firms, and why firms should care, and in advance of that, I’ll be sharing some guest posts … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Today, I’m bringing you a guest post on a topic near and dear to my heart – collaboration. Gareth Stephenson, of Top3Legal has a different take on it, from his experience, which may be useful as you engage further in your own collaborative efforts. *** In-house counsel are increasingly recognising the benefits of collaboration – … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Remember the good old days when we just did a bunch of things and didn’t have specialized terms for them? Yep, these aren’t them. “Social media marketing” came about when social media platforms were introduced and we learned how to use online technology to build relationships that we’d previously been building offline (that’s tremendously simplified, … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on These days, it seems that everyone is looking for a quick fix to everything. How do I get clients fast? How can I do business development without being directly involved myself? How can I skip ahead to the final steps? Unfortunately, as with anything worthwhile, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. If you … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Of all the social media platforms out there, I’d venture to say that LinkedIn is the one that lawyers are most comfortable using. It has a reputation for being the most professional, and as a result, it’s had the widest adoption within the industry. In recent years, LinkedIn has really expanded their offerings, and provided … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Depending on your business/relationship development goals and strengths, one of your strategies may be to write and share content. When you’re considering augmenting your reputation and building your practice, it might seem counterintuitive to share the spotlight with someone else by quoting or referencing them in your articles and posts, but I’m here to tell … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on While I’m out of the office this week for our Annual Conference, I’m bringing you a guest post from Vince Robisch, of Minimalex – Vince coaches attorneys on improving their business development process to bring in more corporate clients. He practiced at an AmLaw 200 firm for eight years, and has sold millions of dollars … Continue Reading
By Lindsay Griffiths on Networking is not an easy task, which is one of the reasons that we discuss it so frequently here on Zen. Since I’m spending this week with my lawyers in Milan, facilitating their networking efforts at our Annual Conference, I have networking on the brain, and wanted to share with you a couple of the … 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 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 The curse of the marathon runner – we’re either running, or we’re talking about running. Apologies to everyone around me who isn’t a runner who’s had to suffer through my running and running-adjacent conversations over the last several months. I’m 12 days away from my first marathon (in PARIS!) and I’m both excited and anxious … 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 There are some people who can talk with anyone – my brother-in-law is like that. Put him in a room with a bunch of people he doesn’t know, and he excels at connecting with them without awkward silences. But for many of us, that is unfortunately not one of our strengths. I’m a prime example … Continue Reading
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
