Who wants to think about work while they’re on vacation?

I know, the idea is to get AWAY from work. And I fully endorse that. But there are two things I know to be true:

  • You never know who you’ll meet, and where – you may meet a potential client or referral source while you’re sitting on the beach!
  • Sometimes, doing thirty minutes of some type of work during a vacation day actually can make the rest of your day feel MORE enjoyable. (I didn’t make this up – Gretchen Rubin, of the Happiness Project, figured this one out)

With those two things in mind, you can start implementing the following business development tips during your summer vacation and set yourself up for future success!  Continue Reading Nine Business Development Tips to Practice on Your Summer Vacation

ming-jun-tan-122694Today, I’d like to use a recent bad customer service experience to illustrate a couple of key points about client service:

  • Listening to your clients may enable you to get at the root of the issue, and find a way to resolve it.
  • Sometimes you can resolve an issue in a way that will strengthen and secure the client relationship, even if the client doesn’t get what they want.
  • Making every effort to solve an issue, even if you can’t achieve the desired result, is sometimes sufficient to please the client.

Last year, I had the opportunity to use a dress rental company for a gala event. Everything about the rental and the return process went flawlessly, and I was so happy with the results, that I shared the experience with a number of people, especially anyone who complimented me on the dress that evening, and when they saw photos. I was sure I would rent from them again and many years into the future.  Continue Reading Turning Bad Experiences Into Good Client Service

rawpixel-com-250087During the recent CLOC conference, attendees had the opportunity to receive a complimentary copy of Richard Susskind’s second edition of “Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future.” Susskind also spoke as the lunch keynote on the first day, and shared with us that while his first edition had been written for young and aspiring lawyers in the profession, he had found that everyone interested in the changing legal ecosystem wanted to hear more about (and sometimes argue with) what he had to say. And so the second edition was updated and published.

Towards the end of the book, with respect to the future of the legal industry, Susskind says:

Given our economic conditions, the shift towards liberalization, the new providers in the marketplace, and the burgeoning, exponential increase in the power and uptake of technology, I find it unimaginable that our current legal institutions and legal profession will remain substantially unchanged over the next decade. Indeed, it seems to me that the least likely future is that little will change in the world of law. And yet, the strategies of most law firms, law schools, and departments of justice assume just that. In truth, for much of the legal market, the current model is not simply unsustainable; it is already broken.”

Those are strong words, but we’re living in a time when change is fast-paced, faster than it’s ever been. And while most leaders in the industry are willing to accept that change is happening, not many of them are either willing or able to do anything about it.  Continue Reading Turning Innovative Ideas Into Results: A Practical Guide

FirmoftheMonth1

The ILN is proud to announce our latest firm of the month, Hall & Wilcox – Australia!

Hall & Wilcox is a leading independent Australian law firm with 70 partners and offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and Newcastle. Continue Reading ILN Firm of the Month – Hall & Wilcox, Australia!

foto_home1Welcome 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, you get two for the price of one, with responses from two of our lovely lawyers, Sebastian López-Sansón and Rafael Salaberren Dupont, with new member firm, Salaberren & López-Sansón Abogados (SyLS), in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
Rafael heads the Corporate-Finance practice of SyLS which comprises M&A, General Corporate and Corporate-Finance transactions; Sebastian leads the tax practice of the firm; and they both co-ordinate the internal teams within the firm to make sure the firm’s motto is achieved, which is to provide an excellent, sophisticated, fully blended corporate-law / tax-law- service, tailor made to the needs of each of our clients. Continue Reading ILN-terviews: Sebastian López-Sansón and Rafael Salaberren Dupont, SyLS

Change - Speedometer Races to RevolutionAt the recent CLOC Institute, Connie Brenton, CLOC President & CEO, along with Chief of Staff/Director of Legal Operations for NetApp gave us a challenge:

Stop thinking about how we can fit into the world around us. Start thinking about how we can change the world around us.”

For many of us, that change has started with sharing what we heard at CLOC with our own corners of the legal ecosystem, and keeping that drumbeat for change sounding. While I plan to recap some of the key sessions I attended, I first wanted to share with you some of the excellent articles that have come out following the conference, which should be further galvanizing the legal industry. Continue Reading Change is Not Just a Six Letter Word: CLOC Urges Lawyers to Put Ideas in Action

clem-onojeghuo-122041Any time you pick your head up from the daily work you’re doing in the legal industry, “change” is the drumbeat that you hear.

Nowhere was that more apparent to me than at last week’s CLOC Institute – for those of you who aren’t familiar with CLOC, it’s the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium. They’re a relatively new group in the industry, bringing together legal operations professionals for networking, education, to share best practices, and really, to drive change. But they’re more than just legal ops – in fact, their mission states quite clearly that this drive for change involves working with “other core corporate legal industry players” in addition to legal operations professionals. Their goal is to “optimize the legal service delivery models needed by small, medium and large legal departments to support their clients,” and they recognize that this can only be done together.  Continue Reading CLOC: Change is a Drumbeat

FirmoftheMonth1

The ILN is proud to announce our latest firm of the month, Hellström – Stockholm, Sweden!
Hellstrom was founded in 1991 by three young lawyers who left well-established law firms to focus on international actors in London, Paris and New York and supply these with advanced finance and transactional law services for their Swedish operations. A contender. Much has happened since, and today they are a well-established, full service law firm with expertise in a range of areas. Hellström is a large firm in a small format. They think it works better that way. Their approach remains the same as in the beginning. They are proud to have employees and procedures that enable them to compete successfully with the largest firms in Sweden. Hellström delivers international quality services with the availability, dedication, personality and client focus that a smaller firm can offer.
“Lawyers you want on your side” – what does that mean? For them, it means a promise of commitment and innovative solutions that meet their clients’ needs in all phases of their business processes. Ask their clients, they are the lawyers you want on your side!
Full descriptions of Hellström’s services, expertise, and lawyer profiles are available on their ILN profile.

Continue Reading ILN Firm of the Month – Hellström – Stockholm, Sweden! 

carl-heyerdahl-181868Does this sound familiar?

  • “I wrote a blog post, but no one called me to give me a case, so blogging must not work for business development.”
  • “LinkedIn is just a rehash of your resume, so it can’t work for business development.”
  • “Twitter is full of people talking about what they had for breakfast, so there’s no way I’m spending any time on there.”
  • “People only use Facebook to see what their friends and family are up to.”

Raise your hand if you don’t think social media works.

If you’re a long time reader of Zen, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of social media. I’m not here today to tell you that it’s the right tool for everyone – any more than I would tell you that public speaking or writing articles or attending networking events is the correct tool for everyone. But I AM here today to tell you that you’re asking the wrong questions about it.

All the time, I hear from my own lawyers, from marketers, and in the industry, people wanting to know whether anyone is “really getting business” from this “social media stuff.”  Continue Reading Social Media & Lawyers: You’re Asking the Wrong Question

JFR PICTUREWelcome 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 one of our newest ILN members, Juan Felipe Roldán Pardo, a senior associate with VGCD Abogados in Bogotá, Colombia

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
Enhancing the development of clients’ projects while granting them the tranquility that their interests are not left unprotected.

Who would be your typical client?
Having a typical client is something unusual these days. There is an ample diversity on the type of clients that knock on your door, from large and mid-size local and foreign corporations, high net worth individuals and families to start-ups. However, the common denominator behind them, the typical client, would be hard-working, honest people. Continue Reading ILN-terviews: Juan Felipe Roldán Pardo, VGCD Abogados