Networking & Business Development

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alex-knight-199368For many of us in the legal industry, a hot topic of the moment is artificial intelligence – less because we’re actively using it, and more because we know we need to understand it, at least enough to be able to speak about it intelligently with lawyers, colleagues and clients. AI is not new, and once again, legal is one of the industries that’s lagging behind – but you know what that means: it’s rife with opportunity.

With that in mind, a large group of us packed into a conference room at the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference to hear a panel of experts talk to us about how AI is changing the practice and marketing of legal services. Before we dive into my recap of the session, though, a little homework for you – head over to Jordan Furlong’s post on Getting Over Technology, and continue to look to him as a resource. The key thing that Jordan says, and underpinned the comments of the panelists at LMA is:

The truest observation ever made about technology remains this one from American computer scientist Alan Kay: ‘Technology is anything that wasn’t around when you were born.’ British author and technophile Douglas Adams famously expanded on Kay’s comment: ‘Anything that’s in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that’s invented when you’re between 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re 35 is against the natural order of things.’

These two quotations should be borne in mind anytime you start talking about technology in law firms. Law firms are stuffed to the rafters with technology, and always have been.”

So basically, no, Chicken Little, the sky isn’t falling (my friend, Lance Godard, agrees, even in the face of JP Morgan’s COIN announcement). But AI is here, the pace of change is FAST, and the time for opportunity is now. 
Continue Reading Artificial Intelligence: Changing the Practice and Marketing of Legal Services

1471986_10152068718732792_63633386_nLast week, the Rotterdam School of Management posted the results to a study that showed that a lack of sleep leads to more arguments at work. I retweeted it with the comment “In other news, water is wet.”

But even though we may consciously realize that things like lack of sleep and hunger affect our mood and even our productivity, are we really paying attention to how much this impacts our business, and harnessing the power of persuasion effectively?

This was the subject of the keynote session at the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference last week in Las Vegas, which brought together 1,600 legal marketing professionals to learn how to do their jobs better, see the trends on the horizon, and yes, even let off a little steam that comes from working with lawyers on a regular basis (sorry lawyers!). LMA brought in Zoë Chance, Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Yale School of Management. According to her bio, she is an

expert on persuasion, leveraging behavioral economics to help individuals and businesses do better. Her MBA elective, Mastering Influence and Persuasion, is one of the most sought-after courses at Yale School of Management. Zoë will be applying her expertise on behavioral bias to the law firm environment and sharing the results of a customized survey during her presentation.”

Continue Reading Wooing the Gator Brain: A Lesson in Behavioral Economics

rawpixel-com-196464Recently, I had the opportunity to write a piece for JD Supra’s Perspectives, on 5 Ways a Law Firm Network Can Make Your Firm More Successful. Sure, I’m a little bit biased, but here’s how I feel:

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 client.

What we do know is that the client is king – they always were, but now they know it too. And that means clients expect their firms to get creative about ways and means to provide value. This can be accomplished in a myriad of ways, depending on your strategy, goals, and clients, but a piece of that puzzle is the law firm network.”

Continue Reading 3 Ways to Find the Right Network for Your Law Firm

suit-business-man-business-man-37547“Don’t talk to people you know.”

“Follow up immediately.”

“Meet as many new people as possible.”

“Jump into social media.”

Is any of this sounding familiar to you?

As you head off to yet another networking event or conference, is someone admonishing you not to spend time with the people you know, but to get “five new business cards” by the end of the evening? Are you dreading yet another long session of small talk about the weather, or worse, politics, with a crowd of people you’ve never met?

Never fear, I’m here to tell you that everything you know about networking may be wrong.

Yep, I said it. It’s wrong. 

How can that be? Two important reasons. 
Continue Reading Lawyers: Everything You Know About Networking is Wrong

suhyeon-choi-104926On this International Women’s Day, we reached out to some strong, smart women we know – the in-house counsel in our LinkedIn group – and asked them to say a few words about the mentors that they credit with helping them with their professional advancement. We’re all made better by the passion, guidance, and helping hands of those who have come before us, and my favorite thing about mentorship is that it inspires each of us to reach out to the next person who can use our advice or guidance. We give back because we have been given to so freely.

The ILN has launched our own mentorship program this year, and we’re in the process of pairing up our young lawyers with experienced partners, and I can only hope that both mentors and mentees gain as much from the experience as our in-house counsel have from their mentors. We’ll add additional responses to this post as they come in, and we invite you to share your mentors with us in the comments. Before we get to our in-house counsel commentary, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes for today:

Here’s to strong women. May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them.”

Continue Reading International Women’s Day – An Ode to Mentors

FullSizeRenderAvid readers of Zen will know that one of my favorite topics is networking. So I was immediately drawn to read J. Kelly Hoey‘s new book, Build Your Dream Network: Forging Powerful Relationships in a Hyper-Connected World, when Mark Beese recommended it in his latest newsletter. I’ve been following Kelly since the early days of Twitter, so her name was also familiar to me, though not her story. She started her career as a lawyer in Toronto, and has wandered a fascinating path since then. Her book jacket tells us that:

J. Kelly Hoey is a writer, investor, connector, and networking expert, lauded everywhere from Forbes (“1 of 5 Women Changing the World of VC/Entrepreneurship”) to Fast Company (“25 Smartest Women on Twitter”). A columnist for Inc.com, she’s appeared on CNBC’s Power Pitch, and her clients include The New Yorker, Coca-Cola, PBS, L’Oréal, Capital One, and Dove.”

Using her own experiences, as well as sharing direct interviews with other successful friends and peers, Kelly illustrates how to build and leverage various networks, and what works and what doesn’t when it comes to networking. Whether you love to network, view it as a necessary evil, or can’t understand why you need to do anything besides work hard at your chosen profession to get more work, this book is for you. Let’s talk a little bit about what Kelly has to say about networking, and then run, do not walk, to buy this book (available in hard copy and electronic). 
Continue Reading Build Your Dream Network: A Book Review

sofiya-levchenko-165628I am a couple of days late with this, due to travel, but nonetheless, happy 8th blogiversary to Zen & the Art of Legal Networking! It’s a bit hard to believe that 8 years ago I wrote my first post (Is the Billable Hour on its Way Out? – spoiler alert, it’s still dragging on), and the last eight years have been quite the roller coaster ride, teaching me an endless number of things about networking, writing, discipline, social media, and so much more.

Some fun stats for you – eight years has brought us:

  • 993 posts (WOW – we’re getting treacherously close to 1,000 blog posts!)
  • 19 topics covered (about seven or eight of those on a very regular basis)
  • Almost 36,500 page views and over 20,000 users
  • Our top audience is from the US, but we also see regular readers from Canada, the UK, India, Australia, Brazil, the Netherlands, Germany, and the Philippines!
  • My all time most popular post, by a landslide, remains last year’s “Instagram: How Lawyers Can Use it & Get Noticed“
  • Most of our readers come either from organic searches or directly, but for those that come from social media sites, you’re coming most often from LinkedIn, followed by Twitter

Continue Reading Happy 8th Blogiversary to Zen & the Art of Legal Networking!

Robin IoriThe ILN is extremely fortunate to have not only a lot of talented lawyers, but a number of other talented professionals as well. Included in that group are the hardworking marketing professionals at our member firms across the world. This year, I wanted to highlight some of their expertise in a series of guest posts here on Zen. Our first one comes from Director of Marketing with the ILN’s Illinois member, Arnstein & Lehr, Robin Iori. In today’s post, Robin is addressing the topic of business development training for associates, and this is a timely one for many law firms in the market. One of the hottest trends that came out of the submissions from this year’s crop of Your Honor Awards was an increased focus on young lawyers, and that bears out with what I’ve seen and heard in my daily engagement with firms as well. So as Robin says, when it comes to business development training for your associates, it’s never too soon to start.

***

Introducing the concept of business development to eager, young associates in a law firm can produce a variety of responses.  One response is the “deer-in-the-headlights” eyes that ask with trepidation, “I have to do this already?”  Then, there’s the furrowed brow look that may be saying, “Did I miss an email about this?” Or, there’s the response that involves nodding the head in agreement during the meeting and sheer panic once the meeting ends.

It’s not as if the topic of business development is new to the legal community today. Law schools still are not giving the subject as much attention as they could, but at least young lawyers know that ultimately they will come face to face with the concept if they join a law firm.
Continue Reading Associate BD Training: It’s Never Too Soon to Start

We are finally here at the “ugly” of the 2017 Super Bowl commercials – do you already have your list is mind? The first couple were really easy for me to come up with, and the last few were late additions after some extra thought was given to the crop of ads this year.

No need for extreme measures just Switch to Sprint!

https://youtu.be/w_8ms2RzSYk

Sprint, seriously?

The best that you could come up with after spending all of that money on this spot was the idea to fake your own death to get out of your phone contract?

Seriously icky and disturbing.

And while his family watches no less? Really? Just a no, all around.

We get it. You want to give us the message that it’s hard to get out of your phone contract. But is that really the reason you should switch to Sprint? Because it’s so hard to get out of your phone contract that you need to fake your own death? That’s the best you have to offer us?

Huh.
Continue Reading Super Bowl Commercials – The Ugly of 2017

Now that we’ve seen our lackluster list of “good” Super Bowl commercials for 2017, let’s dive into the ones that I thought weren’t so hot. The majority of spots made it into my “mediocre” category, so it’s harder to choose “bad” and “ugly” ads this year than you might think – but I’ve buckled down and come up with a few for you!

CURE Auto Insurance 2017 Super Bowl Commercial: Don’t Follow Too Closely

CURE Auto Insurance has never made an ad I’ve liked, and this year is no exception. But I find this one to be especially disturbing. The message in this spot is the idea that you shouldn’t “follow too closely” – they’re an auto insurance company, so they’re banking on a double entendre. They literally mean that you shouldn’t follow people too closely in your cars (though they’ll protect you from people that do, is the brand claim), but the metaphor in the spot is people who “follow” you too closely on social media.

However, the ad comes off as really creepy and stalker-esque. Which real-life following mishaps can cause too. Differently executed, this commercial might have been funny. But instead, it’s a bit traumatizing – for anyone who has ever been harassed online and off, cyber- or in-person stalked, this ad isn’t funny in the least. And they’re an auto insurance company, whose message also gets lost in there somewhere too. Not only is it a big miss on the messaging, it leaves me with a negative feeling about the company, which is really not something you want to achieve with your marketing.
Continue Reading Super Bowl Commercials: The Bad of 2017