We’re almost through a full month in 2019 – are you still feeling fresh and inspired about the new year? Or are you feeling bogged down by your routine and flagging resolve already?

If you’ve thrown your resolutions out the window, never fear – I’m not a big believer in them anyway. What I DO believe in is finding ways to find new inspiration that will allow you to freshen up your goals, your thinking, your business development, and ultimately, your practice. Continue Reading Lawyers: Three Ways to Inspire Your Practice in 2019

The ILN is proud to announce our latest firm of the month, Lutgen & Associés, Luxembourg!

The firm specialises in advice and litigation services in civil and commercial law, criminal business law, international mutual assistance, anti-money laundering regulations, banking law, administrative law and urban planning, and employment law. Continue Reading ILN Firm of the Month – Lutgen & Associés, Luxembourg!

We’ve saved the best for last – or potentially, I’ve just been avoiding this topic because time management is an area where I need to be taking my own advice.

If you ask a lawyer what one of their biggest issues is, you’ll find that time management is top of the list. Especially when it comes to maximizing billable client time.

Let’s look at five things you can do today to start to improve your time management skills. Continue Reading Five Ways to Improve Your Time Management Skills Today

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 favorites of the same.

It won’t surprise you to learn that I’m in a couple of Facebook groups dedicated to running, including a pretty large one, and we often share products we love. A popular one among the group is the sunglasses brand, Goodr, who have been known as a fun, edgy brand with glasses that stay put on your face during long, sweaty runs, have a basset hound mascot, and catchy names for their sunnies. I own three pairs myself.  Continue Reading Good( r ) Leadership Means Having to Say You’re Sorry

Has everyone got their “fa la la” on yet?

While the holidays are often a mad rush for all of us, it seems that this year especially, everyone is behind with wrapping up their end of the year duties (and wrapping up their gifts), while we try to figure out shortcuts for how to manage to get everything done before family and friends descend on us (or you head out the door yourself). In among all of the holiday madness are your professional pressures, which, of course, take priority.

So instead of adding to the pressure of asking you to throw some crazy business development, relationship building activities into your holiday mix, let’s look at a few easy and mostly quick ways you can sprinkle some engagement into your final weeks of 2018, and set yourself up for early success in the new year.  Continue Reading 7 Ways to Sprinkle Business Development, instead of Bah Humbug, Into the End of December

We’re so excited to officially welcome our newest member firm, Fenno Attorneys at Law, in Finland!

A regional Finnish law firm, Fenno provides legal services for both corporate and private clients.

For corporate clients, Fenno is called upon to assist with corporate law, mergers & acquisitions, company reorganization and/or insolvency, tax law, labor law, dispute resolution and more. Continue Reading International Lawyers Network Welcomes New Member Firm in Finland

The ILN is proud to announce our latest firm of the month, Royer Cooper Cohen Braunfeld LLC, Pennsylvania!
Royer Cooper Cohen Braunfeld LLC is a 40 lawyer, full service firm with offices in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. RCCB’s lawyers bring a wealth of prior experience to matters, ranging from large multi-national and regional law firm roles, to practicing in smaller entrepreneurial firms, to leadership positions, both legal and non-legal, within companies and clients. RCCB provides clients sophisticated, high quality strategic advice and legal counseling in a client-friendly and collaborative environment. RCCB practices include corporate and transactional law, real estate, commercial litigation, IP licensing and litigation, bankruptcy and restructuring, tax, trusts and estates, alternative energy and employment, ERISA, and employee benefits law. Many RCCB lawyers have significant experience with cross-border transactions.

Continue Reading ILN Firm of the Month – Royer Cooper Cohen Braunfeld, Pennsylvania!

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 in these jurisdictions.

I’m really pleased as the guide’s facilitator to offer the third edition of our guide, which builds on our previous efforts. We have a number of new jurisdictions, and the group continues to work collaboratively to update the guide with the latest figures and regulations for their countries. It’s a practical and valuable resource for firms and companies with multinational real estate needs.

To view the guide, please click here: http://bit.ly/ILNRealEstate3rd

About the ILN Real Estate Specialty Group
Co-chaired by Amy Fracassini of Davis, Malm & D’Agostine in Boston, Massachusetts and Kathryn Collie of Cleaver Fulton Rankin in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the Real Estate Group fosters relationships among practitioners in this area to support the making and receiving of referrals.

We’ve discussed the idea of change extensively here on Zen, and although it’s a long time coming in the legal industry, there are pockets of exciting innovation. One such pocket is the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium, or CLOC, which has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years (as in 40 members to 1800 members in 3 years). One of CLOC’s core tenets is bringing together the ENTIRE legal ecosystem in order to achieve real, systemic change, and that’s a tenet I can really get behind.

Last week, I had the pleasure to join their CIO/Cybersecurity Initiative task force, and it got me thinking about what’s really necessary for collaboration in the legal ecosystem (and other professional services industries, for that matter). I’d like to share with you my three tips that I saw in action during this CLOC meeting that you can implement today in your firms as you seek to ride the wave of change.  Continue Reading Lawyers: Collaboration Drives Your Success. Here’s How to Do it

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 do you currently communicate with others on a professional level? For this purpose, we’re going to consider all of your means of communications to be “professional.” The list may surprise you:

  • Verbally
  • Written (articles/blogs)
  • Email
  • Phone
  • Text
  • Social Media

All of these are means of communication and translating the message of who you are as a lawyer to colleagues, clients, potential clients, and referral sources. Knowing what channels you use is helpful to ensure that your communication skills are up to par across all of them. Continue Reading 4 Tasks to Improve Your Business Communication Skills