On Saturday, February 26th, it will be our two year anniversary here at Zen & the Art of Legal Networking!

In the past year, we’ve had a lot of exciting things happen:

  • We joined the LexBlog family of blogs.
  • We’ve been included in LexBlog’s “Best in Law Blogs” five times.
  • JD Supra has helped to increased our distribution.
  • We’ve been nominated for the ABA’s Blawg 100.
  • We’ve published 85 posts.
  • We’ve had over 10,000 views of our posts.

Our top posts included:

With all that excitement in the past year, we can’t wait to see what this year will bring us! Happy blog-i-versary to Zen!

 

Yesterday, one of my favorite Twitter people posted that her daughter had said "this is the best day of my life. We went to the park, we’re going to mcdonalds, I found a penny. The best day of my life."

She’s 5, but she’s already been through a lot, dealing with a very scary brain tumor last year.  And she got me thinking – the best days of my life really have been about the little things.  

Sure, graduating from college was exciting, buying my first house was exciting (well, more nerve-wracking and expensive than exciting), but were they the "best" days of my life? 

Nah.  

Those have been about the little things – the first time I heard my two-year old niece say my name. (Superbowl Sunday, if you’re wondering – she said "Okay Wizzy" – close enough).  Every time my dog comes racing over to see me like I’m his favorite person in the world (I am). My sister trusting me enough to be the first person to watch my niece overnight. An email from my best friend saying how much I mean to her. My niece wanting me to carry her in for ice cream, and squeezing me extra tight when my sister said "M loves her Aunt Lindsay."  Those are some of my best days.

Continue Reading Best Day of Your Life?

Being a part of the LexBlog network means I’m fortunate enough to participate in the webinars that they host.  Today’s webinar was with the fabulous Cordell Parvin, a nationally recognized career and client development coach.  According to LexBlog’s invitation, Cordell "is a lawyer himself [and] his 37 years of practice set him apart from other client development experts. He has actually done what he teaches and coaches; he knows the challenges lawyers face and helps provide solutions." 

No greater testimony to Cordell’s expertise can be found than from one of his attorney clients, who said "Nothing my firm has ever done for my development matches the investment that Cordell’s program has made in my maturation as a lawyer, leader and person."

With those kinds of accolades, I knew we were in for some valuable information! 

Continue Reading Client Development 101 for 2011 & Beyond with Cordell Parvin – a LexBlog Webinar Re-Cap

The short answer?

Yes.

The slightly longer answer? It depends – on the firm and its strategy, and on the consultant.

Let’s talk about firms and lawyers first – some people have claimed that lawyers need consultants to explain social media tools and how to use them, while others have claimed that lawyers can figure out these tools themselves.

And that’s where the "it depends" comes in.  Lawyers are well-educated, intelligent individuals – they’ve graduated law school and passed the bar, haven’t they? So they can certainly figure out these social media tools. It’s not rocket science.

The better question is, should they spend the time doing so?

Continue Reading Are Social Media Consultants Really Necessary for Law Firms?

Now that we’ve covered "the good" of the Superbowl commercials, let’s talk about the bad and the ugly…and what can be learned from them.

We’ll start with one of the more controversial series of spots…

Groupon

Save the Whales

This is the less tacky of the spots, though giving the idea that although it’s nice to save the whales, it’s better to save money is still missing the humor mark.  But in the next spot…

Tibet

https://youtube.com/watch?v=vXGYK1eP_wo

Some people seemed to think this one was funny, while others were offended.  I tend not to be too thin-skinned, but I did agree that this was a mistake.  I was surprised that after the Kenneth Cole debacle this week that they decided to go through with these spots, even considering the financial cost of them.  

Now, Groupon did clarify the thought process behind the commercials with this post. And while I think it’s great that they suggest people donate money to the causes they were parodying, the spots were still a tasteless mistake.  The lesson here is that humor is something you have to be careful with – what one person might find funny, a lot of others might not.  You’ve got to know and understand your audience.

Secondarily, I’m not sure how well the ads actually reinforce Groupon’s product.  I’m a big fan of Groupon, but I’ve had a lot of trouble describing to friends and family what they’re all about.  I don’t think I’m the only one.  Their commercials could have broken that down a bit better.  I think they were a fail all around.  

For a great explanation that delves into this a bit further, check out Liz Strauss’ post "Groupon Super Bowl Ad: When Being Clever Offends and How to Win One for Tibet"

Continue Reading Superbowl Commercials – The Bad & The Ugly – Lessons for Lawyers

Okay, I admit it. I love commercials.  

So much so that when I ordered the DVR service with my cable, I wasn’t sure I would fast forward through them.  (Don’t worry, I do)

Not all commercials, of course.  I just love the well done ones.  Like the Old Spice campaign – but that also combined my love of social media, so I’m a bit biased.

So for me, although I really enjoy football, the Superbowl is really about the commercials – they are the best of the best in advertising – at least, they’re supposed to be.  If you’re paying $3 million for a commercial spot, it should be the best work your company can get.  

What does this have to do with legal marketing? I’m not a huge fan of legal commercials, I must admit.  But I think there are solid marketing lessons to be learned from my favorites.  

And from the bad commercials – let’s be honest, there were more than a couple of those last night!

So without further ado….

Continue Reading Superbowl Commercials – The Good – Lessons for Lawyers

I’ve been debating whether or not I wanted to jump on the bandwagon and address yesterday’s social media debacle with Kenneth Cole.  If you’re not familiar with what happened, both Nancy Myrland and Gini Dietrich wrote great posts that also recap it here and here.

I decided that I did want to add my two cents – I was certainly dismayed by Cole’s tweet yesterday, though not surprised.  If you’ve driven down the FDR in Manhattan over the last ten years, you’ve seen his snarky political billboards on the side of the road.  Why I think non-politicians shouldn’t use their power and money to push their political philosophies on the rest of us is a whole other post, but I thought Cole really stuck his foot in his mouth yesterday.

As Nancy mentioned in her post, he needs some serious crisis communications work – we had a speaker on this very topic back in 2007, so I thought I’d dig through my conference report archives and share some of his wisdom with you.  Although I’m particularly disgusted by what Cole said yesterday, social media and other gaffes can happen to the best of us, and we need to know what to do if we’re in the same situation.

Continue Reading Communication Crisis – My Two Cents on the Kenneth Cole Scandal

If you love shoes like I do, you’re familiar with Zappos.com, the online shoe and clothing shop. Since it was founded in 1999, it has grown to be the largest online shoe store.  How did they do it? Largely, in thanks to their CEO, Tony Hsieh.  According to their website: 

In 1999, at the age of 24, Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) sold LinkExchange, the company he co-founded, to Microsoft for $265 million.

He then joined us [Zappos] as an advisor and investor, and eventually became CEO, where he helped us grow from almost no sales to over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales annually, while simultaneously making Fortune magazines annual Best Companies to Work For list. In November 2009, Zappos.com, Inc. was acquired by Amazon.com in a deal valued at $1.2 billion on the day of closing.

 Not too shabby, huh?

Continue Reading Lawyers: What Can We Learn From Zappos?

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, Stuart Gerson of Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. in Washington, D.C.

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
Representing corporations, many of them in health care and finance, in federal civil and criminal litigations and investigations, at both the trial and appellate levels, in areas including the defense of fraud, securities and antitrust matters, and where the United States government is often the opposing party.

Who would be your typical client?
A corporation, its management or board of directors, often involved in the business of health care, insurance or finance, and subject to a government investigation or private fraud suit.

What would you like clients and potential clients to know about you?
That I believe the law is a service business and that the client’s interests must be served, and that we win for our clients.

What has been your most challenging case? Why?
I once tried a criminal antitrust case in which there were originally 24 defendants. 23 of them pleaded guilty or nolo contendere, and many of them testified against my client, who insisted upon his and his company’s innocence. Notwithstanding the mass of the government’s case, the jury returned a verdict of acquittal.

What has been your proudest moment as a lawyer?
Serving first as Assistant and then Acting Attorney General of the United States, working directly with Presidents of both parties.

What do you do when you’re not practicing law?
Active sports including running, tennis and fly fishing, and reading history and science.

What would surprise people most about you?
That I am a Lay Eucharistic Minister in the Episcopal Church.

What has been your most memorable ILN experience?
Clearly it has been forming close personal, family and professional relationships with excellent lawyers, particularly, in my case, in Europe and Scandanavia.

What career would you have chosen if you weren’t a lawyer?
Cosmology.

If a movie were made out of your life, who would you want to play you?
My son; it would be a suitable revenge.

How would you like to be remembered?
As someone who did his best to contribute to society and his profession.

It’s that time of year again – the LMA Annual Conference is coming up in April!  It’s a great opportunity to make new friends and renew relationships, so I thought I’d keep a list of those attending as I’m advised, as well as their Twitter names (so anyone interested in the conference who can’t attend can follow along).  Also, don’t forget to follow #LMA11 for more information on the conference and during the sessions.  

If you’d like to follow along with a twitter list, check out Laura Gutierrez’s list of LMA attendees!

Lindsay Griffiths (@lindsaygriffith)
Heather Morse (@heather_morse)
Nancy Myrland (@nancymyrland)
Gail LaMarche (@gaillamarche)
Laura Gutierrez (@lalaland999)
Megan McKeon (@meganmckeon)
Karen Cariello (@karencariello)
Lydia Bednerik (@lydiabednerik)
Sally Schmidt (@sallyschmidt)
Nuno Lapirdo (@nlapirdo)
Matt Fankhauser (@mattfankhauser)
Amy Knapp (@knappmarketing)
Jonathan Groner (@jgronerpr)
Jasmine Decarie (@jasminedecarie)
Kristin Tyhurst (@ktyhurst)
Nat Slavin (@natslavin)

Continue Reading LMA Attendees