One of our sessions during the ILN’s 2010 Regional Meeting of the Americas in Houston focused on the always popular topic of law firm management.  The panel was moderated by our Chairman, Peter Altieri of Epstein Becker & Green in New York.  On the panel were Steve Arthur of Harrison & Moberly in Indianapolis, Indiana, Carlos Rodriguez-Vidal of Goldman Antonetti & Cordova in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Doug Winthrop of Howard Rice in San Francisco, California, Bill O’Neill from McDonald Hopkins in Cleveland, Ohio and Anders Lundberg from Hellstrom in Stockholm, Sweden.

Creating Demand

Altieri began by saying that one of the challenges in the current economy for firms is creating demand. In the past, they had much more pipeline work than there is now, in part because clients are trying to do more in-house. He added that even the big firms are coming in and being price-competitive, and asked the panelists to comment on this.

Winthrop said that his firm has been seeing a tremendous rebound in the litigation sector of the firm, which has them quite busy.  Now, they’re facing the issue of whether to hire more attorneys on the litigation side, or ask the business lawyers to chip in.  He said they’re concerned that they’ll find themselves with overcapacity, so they’ve addressed the issue by doing both.

Continue Reading ILN Conference Re-Cap: Law Firm Management Panel

During the ILN’s 2010 Regional Meeting of the Americas in Houston, Texas last week, we were treated to a presentation by our host firm’s managing partner, Martin Beirne of Beirne Maynard & Parsons, and Jeff Carr, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of FMC Technologies.  Jeff’s presentation focused on "Getting Out of the Box in Counsel Engagement and Service Delivery – the Value Challenge." 

Beirne introduced Carr, saying that he’s the author of the Associate of Corporate Counsel’s Value Challenge – something that he’s been talking about for fifteen years.  Carr said that FMC Technologies is a 9 year old company, with about 120 years of history, and is one of those that touches people’s lives in many ways.  

Carr jumped right into talking about his experience as a general counsel, saying that his legal spend is less today than it was in 2001, in a world where firms’ rates go up 10% a year.  He added that FMC Technologies pays, on average, 107% of their invoices to law firms – he would later explain how and why this happens.

How is it possible to have a smaller legal spend? Carr said companies need to change how they buy what they buy, how they pay for it, and go from being reactive lawyers to being proactive lawyers.  What drives him? If he can save his company $1 million, that equates to a half a cent of share earnings.  That’s what drives companies.

He said that his legal team’s mission statement says that they’re not lawyers – they’re there to help achieve business goals.  Only one person who is currently on his team was with him in 2001 because the others either didn’t want to move when they changed their headquarters to Houston, or they didn’t want to practice law the way that his team does.  They were not willing to embrace change and the discipline that they require to be successful lawyers at FMC Technologies.

Continue Reading ILN Conference Re-Cap: Getting Out of the Box in Counsel Engagement and Service Delivery – the Value Challenge

Last week, the ILN hosted our 2010 Regional Meeting of the Americas in Houston, Texas.  I’ll be putting up some posts this week re-capping some of the sessions, but I thought I’d start today with my recommendations for what to do when you get home from a conference.

At our meetings, although the business sessions are very valuable, the key is relationships – our members rely on their relationships for both referral work and collaboration.  And these relationships don’t have to take a hiatus just because you’re back at work.  So what should you do once you get home?

  1. Reach out: At our conferences, we provide both a delegate & companion listing, and a listing of delegates with their photos.  It’s a great idea to go through these during and after the conference, make notes of who you met and what you talked about, and take a few minutes to email them once you’re back in the office to let them know you enjoyed meeting with them.  If appropriate, you can arrange a phone call to continue a conversation that you were having during the conference.
     
  2. Connect via social media: We talked a lot about social media at this conference, and I’ve found that it’s an excellent way to keep in touch once you return home.  The easiest thing to do is check on LinkedIn for the other attendees and connect with them.  That way, you can keep up with their activity more regularly.  For ILN members, we also recommend joining our LinkedIn group so that they can continue to interact with their colleagues online.

    Facebook and Twitter are good options as well – do a quick search for the attendees on these platforms if you’re using them and are comfortable connecting professionally on them.  
     

  3. Check your calendar: One of the things we recommend to our members is meeting with ILN attorneys when they’re visiting another member firm’s city.  When you return from a conference, it’s a great time to take a quick look at your calendar for the next few months and see where you’ll be traveling.  Check these cities against the list of the people you met at the conference, and drop them a quick email to arrange to have lunch or coffee.

Does anyone have any additional tips for what has worked for them after attending a conference? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

After lunch, ALM’s Social Media: Risks & Rewards conference focused more on the rewards of social media.  The Brand Protection and Promotion of Social Media session featured Jennifer Arkowitz from Townsend and Townsend and Crew as the moderator, and David Morris, Senior Corporate Counsel of TripAdvisor, Alexandra Sepulveda, Trademark Counsel with General Mills, and Johanna Sistek, Trademark Counsel for Google, Inc. as speakers.  

Proactive or Reactive? 

Arkowitz’s first question was whether each of the companies were more proactive or reactive in their social media efforts.

Sepulveda (General Mills) said that for them, it’s a combination. When Facebook had a big land grab for user names, they went through their brand list and got all of those names.  She said that as trademark lawyers, they’re classic hostages, because if they know about something, they have to do something about it.  

Sistek (Google) said that they have issues raised internally from employees as well as users, so they’re able to be reactive instead of proactive. She added that all of their teams use social media in what they do.

Morris (TripAdvisor) commented that they’re both proactive and reactive. Being an online brand is core to what they do, so although they don’t have a dedicated social media team, about half the company is working on social media. They do that internally and externally. TripAdvisor uses small firms to scour the net for mentions of their company – this is at a cost, but it does help to find those mentions.

Continue Reading Conference Re-cap: ALM’s Social Media; Risks and Rewards Brand Protection and Promotion and Social Media

The third session of ALM’s Social Media: Risks and Rewards conference focused on social media’s impact on e-discovery, and was presented by Michael Lackey, Jr. a partner at Mayer Brown LLP. 

Lackey started with an overview of his presentation, saying it would discuss how social is coming up in litigation and the roadblocks to be aware of. He commented that there are a couple of high profile cases that are defining the limits of what you can get and how you can get it.  For organizations that have social media content that becomes relevant in litigation, there are obligations for preserving this information.  Often, it is being hosted by someone else, so that creates challenges.  

As many of us involved with social media would agree, Lackey said that there’s no doubt that social media is not a fad – it’s here to stay.  He mentioned some of the more traditional platforms for social media, but also included lawyer rating agencies and other kinds of technology, such as FourSquare, for consideration in litigation.  

He said that consumers have a lot of trust out there and like the interactivity, especially in terms of connecting with corporations. Lackey added that digital word of mouth marketing would top $3 billion by 2013. 

Continue Reading Conference Review: ALM’s Social Media: Risks & Rewards – E-Discovery & Social Media

The second session of ALM’s Social Media: Risks & Rewards also focused on the risks of social media.  Orrie Dinstein, the Chief Privacy Leader and Senior IP Counsel for GE Capital spoke on Privacy and Security in Social Media.  

He started by saying that there had been a global conference of data commissioners the previous week in Jerusalem, and the most interesting thing about the conference had been its theme – a new generation (of users, laws and technology), which all converges in the social media space.

It was clear from the comments at the conference that there’s so much interest in the social media space, but no one knows what to do with it and it’s constantly evolving.  

Dinstein focused on privacy and security in social media – or a lack of privacy and insecurity. He didn’t offer any solutions, but instead raised a number of points about this complicated space, beginning with security. 

Continue Reading Conference Review: ALM’s Social Media: Risks & Rewards – Privacy and Security in Social Media

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to attend American Lawyer Media’s Social Media: Risks & Rewards conference as an ILN Marketing Partner.  As evidence of the popularity of the conference’s content, the room was almost standing room only by the end of the morning.  (For tweets from the conference, see the #LSMC hashtag results)

The first two sessions focused more on the "risks" portion of the conference, discussing a lot of concerns about social media.  The first speaker was Joel Reidenberg, Professor of Law and Director of the Center on Law and Information Policy at Fordham University School of Law. His presentation was "Beyond Terms of Use: From Handcuffs to Handshake?" 

Professor Reidenberg began by saying that it’s important to think about Terms of Service as an effort by social media sites to bring some certainty to their own environment where the law is lacking and vague. Terms of Service typically consist of two sets of documents:

  1. Basic user agreement
  2. Privacy Policy, which is normally incorporated by reference, so the two work hand in hand.

Continue Reading Conference Review: ALM’s Social Media: Risks & Rewards – Beyond Terms of Use: From Handcuffs to Handshake?

The ILN has offered a webinar series to our members for the past two years, and in 2010, we’re offering a three-part series on social networking.  Wednesday kicked off our first webinar in the series, "Social Networking Strategy & Blogging," with Kevin O’Keefe of LexBlog.  

After a short introduction from ILN’s Executive Director, Alan Griffiths, Kevin treated the audience to an overview of social networking strategy and blogging.  He shared his experience with getting involved with the internet and what it has meant for him, in order to give the audience some context for the presentation and the benefit of his experience.

The bulk of Kevin’s presentation focused on how lawyers can be successful using social networking tools and why good lawyers tend to gravitate towards using these types of tools.  He began by talking about how few people trust advertising – only 14% – and most law firms on the internet are advertising with their websites.  

He added that a website is necessary for law firms as one point of contact, but said that it doesn’t do much for the firm’s word of mouth reputation.  He likened it to bringing potential clients to see a billboard and expecting that to encourage them to hire their law firm.  For this reason, Kevin said that using social networking tools to drive traffic to the firm’s website is not an effective use of the tools.  

Continue Reading Webinar Re-cap: Social Networking Strategy & Blogging with Kevin O’Keefe, LexBlog

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, Plamen Peev of PETERKA & PARTNERS v.o.s. in Sofia, Bulgaria.  

 In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
We are a growing practice providing legal services in all main fields of business law – a young and ambitious team of professionals, which is the Bulgarian branch of the larger family of PETERKA & PARTNERS, operative in five countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

Who would be your typical client?
A foreign investor expanding its activities to Bulgaria and often looking for the quality services already known or recommended from previous experience with PETERKA & PARTNERS in other countries. Recently, we’ve also had more work in dispute resolution and litigation both for international and local companies.

What would you like clients and potential clients to know about you?
That good work means more to us than being good with the law. We try to hear what clients say and use our creativity to support clients’ ideas or solve a particular problem.

What has been your most challenging case? Why?
It’s a case which seemed to be in the beginning a more or less simple contractual dispute but gradually, it turned out to be a complex issue involving insolvency as well as criminal law aspects. We are still working on this case, trying to reach a happy end.

What has been your proudest moment as a lawyer?
Being 32, I am sure it is still ahead of me, but I feel proud each time when some problem has been forgotten because of my work.

What do you do when you’re not practicing law?
Mostly enjoy the time with my wife and little daughter. I am also happy if there is time for a book, to meet friends or play tennis.

What would surprise people most about you?
Perhaps that would be the fact that I am not an awful singer.

What has been your most memorable ILN experience?
Our office has joined ILN only last year, so it’s quite a new experience to me, but the 2009 regional meeting in Athens showed me that the Network brings a wonderful opportunity to be part of a community of excellent professionals and also to find good friends.

What career would you have chosen if you weren’t a lawyer?
Probably something related to art – writing, acting or singing.

If a movie were made out of your life, who would you want to play you?
Al Pacino. Nothing to do with the Devil’s Advocate. It’s just the fact that his acting is a piece of magic.

How would you like to be remembered?
As an open person who deserves to be remembered.

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, Andreas Bauer of Brauneis Klauser Praendl Rechtsanwaelte GmbH in Vienna, Austria.  Andreas and his firm are hosting the 2010 European Regional Meeting in Vienna at the end of September.

In one sentence how would you describe your practice?
We are a midsized Austrian law firm, serving our clients in all fields of Austrian and EU Commercial Law.

Who would be your typical client?
Our typical client is a midsized or larger Austrian company, either family-owned or a subsidiary of an international company. We are also working for large consumer protection organisations.

What would you like clients and potential clients to know about you?
We are not one of the big “law factories,” but have the same professional approach as these big firms. The personal connection to our clients is much closer than in these “factories” and we care about our clients.

What has been your most challenging case? Why?
I helped one of my clients to sell his family-owned business to a big US Company. My client was 74 years old at the time and had trouble adopting the “style” with which the American company tried to purchase his lifetime achievement. We finally sold the company for about 15 Million Euros.

What has been your proudest moment as a lawyer?
Working for my parents to sell their farm.

What do you do when you are not practicing law?
I try to dedicate most of my free time to my family, especially to my kids. I love to play soccer and to listen to classical music.

What has been your most memorable ILN experience?
I have to mention two things here.

First, my very first ILN experience more than fifteen years ago in Jerusalem where I met with other ILN lawyers in a more than impressive surrounding. Israel was, at that time, just signing the peace treaty with Jordan.

Second, the friendships that developed over the years within the Network. I don’t want to miss any of these experiences.

What career would you have chosen if you weren’t a lawyer?
I probably would have become some sort of manager, but luckily I decided to become a lawyer.

If a movie were made of your life, who would you want to play you?
Tom Hanks.

How would you like to be remembered?
As a person having a “back bone,” meaning a person that is straightforward, kind and honest.