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 with you that may aid in your own efforts. Here is the second in our series.

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You might be surprised to learn what your clients expect from you. A growing number of companies have signed on to the United Nations Global Compact—more than 12,000 in 165 countries. They’re committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and they expect vendors and suppliers to also commit toward a more just and sustainable world.  Yes, this includes law firms and other professional service providers. Continue Reading Corporate responsibility and social impact for law firms: Growing Client Engagement and Expectations

Content marketing is a tool in your arsenal for building effective business relationships.

But like any tool, it’s not going to be useful to you if you don’t use it efficiently. In the past, you could get away with producing *something* and getting the attention of a client or potential client, because you were the only one writing or talking about it. But today, content is so ubiquitous, that if you’re not standing out, you risk being relegates to background noise.  Continue Reading Better Business Relationships Start with Better Content Marketing

We know and are comfortable with the idea that the legal industry is a business of relationships. Lawyers do good work, their clients talk about it (hopefully) and that brings them other clients. That’s the basic principle behind the standard “word of mouth” reputation.

But with the introduction of technology, and in particular, social media, the way that we form first impressions of people and build the relationships that lead to referrals has changed. It’s not simply about doing good work anymore – it’s about whether your online reputation matches your offline reputation, and meeting people where they are. Let’s look at two pieces of this, referrals and first impressions.

Referrals

As someone who espouses social media, something that I hear fairly often is “But am I really going to get BUSINESS from using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc?” Continue Reading Technology has Changed How We Build Relationships. Lawyers, are you Ready?

We’re so pleased to welcome a new member firm into our Network, Ahlawat & Associates, an Indian firm with offices in New Delhi, Mumbai and abroad.

Ahlawat & Associates aims at providing high quality, practical and strategic legal solutions to help clients achieve their goals by combining the highest global standards with local expertise. All their partners have specialized knowledge of both the legal framework as well as the specific business requirements of various industry sectors. They have a well-established track record in personally guiding companies and individuals based on their specific needs for doing business in India. A&A has been able to achieve this by adopting the highest standards of professionalism implemented by the top international law firms, which has been the primary reason for putting their clients at ease and ensuring smooth entry and operations for their clients’ business. The partners are confident in their ability to provide accurate and sustainable cross borders advise. The firm takes pride in identifying the clients’ requirements and working along with clients to help them achieve their goals. Continue Reading International Lawyers Network Welcomes New Member in India

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 with you that may aid in your own efforts.

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The Sustainable Development Goals are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. They address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate, environmental degradation, prosperity, and peace and justice. The Goals interconnect and in order to leave no one behind, it ís important that we achieve each Goal and target by 2030.”  (www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/)

The world is changing and so is the way we must do business. Continue Reading Corporate Social Responsibility for Law Firms: Understanding the Global Movement

The ILN is proud to announce our latest firm of the month, Lee and Li, Attorneys-at-Law, Taiwan!
Lee and Li is the largest full-service law firm in Taiwan, with its main office in Taipei and several branch offices/affiliated firms in other cities of Taiwan, Shanghai and Beijing. They maintain a strong international and domestic client base across an expansive range of industry sectors, from financial services to healthcare. They display a growing strength in cross-border work and have an impressive client roster that includes household names in the technology and automotive industries.

Continue Reading ILN Firm of the Month – Lee and Li, Attorneys-at-Law, Taiwan!

Recently, Greentarget and Zeughauser Group released their annual results for the 2019 State of Digital & Content Marketing Survey. I had the chance to chat with Greentarget President and Founding Partner, John Corey, about the results, which had some actionable findings for lawyers and law firms, as well as a few surprises.

First, the report – Corey notes that they work to take it somewhere new each year, and their six months of hard work are obvious. In addition to the report’s results this year, you also get access to some excellent thought leadership pieces that expand on the ideas revealed by the data. The data itself examines three categories of respondents – general counsel, the C-suite, and law firm CMOs, which gives a full and interesting picture of what your firm clients are looking for at various levels, and whether your firm may be correctly addressing these needs.  Continue Reading Lawyers: What’s the One Thing that Makes Clients Care About Your Content?

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a podcast with Deirdre Breakenridge for her Women Worldwide series, discussing how to build unbreakable bonds. One of the questions she asked me to think about in advance of the session was “What is relationship marketing, and where do you start when you want to build your business?”

Since we’re in a relationship business, I’d hope that most lawyers reading this would be comfortable with the idea of engaging in relationship marketing, and how to translate that into business for your practice. But in case you’re not (or in case you want to put a more formal name to something you’re already doing in your practice), let’s talk about what it is, and how to use it.  Continue Reading Why Does Relationship Marketing Matter to Lawyers?

While being interviewed for a podcast yesterday morning, the host asked me what I saw as the primary trend for the future of law firms. Although my answer is simple, the work behind it is not – collaboration.

We’ve talked about Heidi Gardner’s book, Smart Collaboration, before (and I again highly recommend reading it). One of the things Gardner addresses in the book is the barriers to collaboration. I’m sure many of these will be familiar to you, and that she’s so adept at identifying them should give you comfort that she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to why collaboration is so essential and useful to law firms and lawyers. Let’s examine a few of these, and how you may overcome them within your own firms or law firm networks to achieve better collaborative results. Continue Reading Overcoming the Barriers to Collaboration

Today, I’m bringing you a guest post from Dina Eisenberg, lawyer turned award-winning entrepreneur and Founder of OutsourceEasier.com. She’s talking about a law practice management topic that doesn’t get much attention – onboarding new lawyers to your firm. We tend to think long and hard about what it means to bring in a lateral, and do an extensive amount of work to bring them in, but what happens once they arrive? Do you have the right systems in place to bring them up to speed and ensure their success? What about associates, or other law firm professionals? See what Dina has to say.

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Would you give someone a driving manual then expect that person to know how to drive a car?

The answer is probably not, yet many lawyers give their new hire an employee manual, ask them to read and sign it and call that onboarding. Continue Reading Why Onboarding is Good for Your Law Firm