photo-1457528877294-b48235bdaa68We continue to delve into the characteristics that will make up the most successful lawyers of the future. Last week, it was curiosity, innovation, open-mindedness, and a willingness to learn, which all really overlap. Today, we’ll look at what two more of the leaders in HighQ’s book on SmartLaw had  to say in answer to the question:

What do you believe lawyers and law firms need to do to prepare for the future of legal services?”

Continue Reading The Law Firm of the Future Will Need a Perfect Storm

photo-1447433865958-f402f562b843A couple of weeks ago, I shared HighQ’s eBook on Smart Law, addressing the question “What do you believe lawyers and law firms need to do to prepare for the future of legal services?” My response to their question is that firms need flexibility, and today and over the next few months, I want to look at what some of the other contributors consider to be essential to the future of the legal industry.

As I’m sure we all have our own thoughts on where the industry is headed and why, don’t be shy about sharing your answers to HighQ’s question in the comments, and responding to what the other contributors had to say as well!  Continue Reading The Right Way to be a Lawyer of the Future

photo-1469013078550-305e63b7c8f7Back in February, we talked about how lawyers can use Instagram to get noticed. Instagram still continues to dominate when it comes to social media, and whether you’re using it yourself, or you just want to have a better understanding of how it works because your clients are using it, it’s a great tool. That being said, I still stand by what I said at the end of my last post:

In summary, while I doubt that Instagram is going to bring lawyers new business, it’s another tool to have in your arsenal, and one you should know how to use, especially with the staggering usage statistics that we see, and the new account-switching feature that will make it immensely easier for brands to use.”

Instagram continues to roll out new features to stay competitive with other social media tools, and one of those features is what we’re focused on today! Continue Reading How Lawyers Can Embrace Instagram Stories

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August/September 2016

The ILN is proud to announce our latest firm of the month, Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth – Newport Beach, California!

Stradling is a premier business law firm with more than 130 attorneys in ten offices across California, Colorado, Nevada, and Washington. Stradling represents companies and other entities which seek a sophisticated law firm with experienced counsel to guide critical transactions and disputes. Originally founded in 1975 to represent Southern California’s most innovative emerging growth companies, Stradling is known today as a leading full-service business law firm representing high growth and established organizations at all stages of their existence, including formation, angel and seed financing, venture capital financing, mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions, IPOs, and debt financings. They bring a tremendous amount of technical expertise to each transaction ranging from extensive corporate, securities, and finance experience, to specialized proficiencies in core areas such as executive compensation and employment, tax, intellectual property, environmental, and real estate law.

In addition to its corporate practice, Stradling’s complex business litigation team has deep experience across a spectrum of matters, including securities class actions, merger and acquisition litigation, consumer class actions, trade secret and unfair competition cases, intellectual property disputes, and government investigations.  Their lawyers are experienced in handling matters from inception through appeals and in the event the dispute cannot be resolved, Stradling  has experienced trial lawyers that have tried cases before judges and juries in state and federal courts across the United States. They also handle the day-to-day litigation needs of their clients utilizing creative approaches to effectively resolve commercial, contract, and business tort disputes, as well as deploying strategies to handle portfolios of litigation.

The firm’s public finance lawyers represent municipalities and public agencies in finance and redevelopment transactions throughout the western region and ranked #1 as a bond, disclosure and underwriter’s counsel firm in California for the third year in a row.

Continue Reading ILN Firm of the Month – Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth – Newport Beach, California!

photo-1452690700222-8a2a1a109f4cToday, I’m bringing you a guest post from my friend, Lance Godard, a Business Development Manager at Fisher & Philips. I know that “cross-selling” is often a hot (maybe too hot!) topic, and Lance delves into some candid reasons for why it may not be working – if you really want to make it work for you, take a look at his thoughts on the subject.

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Whether you call it cross-marketing or cross-targeting or some other variation on the theme, cross-selling is not a new concept for most lawyers and firms. And it’s not particularly complicated to do: align the work you actually provide a client with the services they need, and implement a program for connecting their needs with your practices. Easy-peasy, right? Continue Reading Are Your Cross-Selling Efforts Stalling? Maybe You’re Doing It Wrong…

photo-1461783436728-0a9217714694Two weeks ago, we took a look at two brands (Rolex and Farmers Insurance) who are doing content marketing right, with the idea being that when we look outside the legal industry, we can often find transferable lessons that can be applied to our own strategy and execution to improve what we’re doing.

The original post by Neil Patel looks at 8 brands, and this week, I want to look at two more of them for some additional inspiration – let’s stretch our collective imaginations and see how what those in completely different industries to our own are doing successfully might translate to legal! Continue Reading Tune in to (Two) Other Brands for Inspiration

photo-1450101499163-c8848c66ca85A leading Hungarian commercial bank had been offered securities held on a securities account owned by a “Sparverein,” a specific Austrian legal entity similar to a savings club, as collateral for a credit agreement with a separate entity. As the bank was unfamiliar with the corporate form of a Sparverein, and the laws applicable for such entities, it raised several questions and the bank wanted to ensure that its collateral would be valid and enforceable. These questions, among others, related to whether the Sparverein is allowed to offer its funds as collateral in general, and with respect to loans granted to a third party in particular, as well as the enforceability of the security deposit in a liquidation procedure or any other insolvency situation.

The bank, being a key client of ILN Hungarian member, Jalsovszky Law Firm, approached the firm to get their assistance with the matter in Austria. Partner Gábor Pázsitka contacted Dr. Andreas Bauer of the ILN’s Austrian firm, Brauneis Klauser Prändl Rechtsanwälte GmbH (bkp), and following the necessary administration, bkp examined the case further and learned it would be a challenging one. Continue Reading ILN Member Firms Work Together to Assist Hungarian Commercial Bank

Young woman loking at virtual graphics in futuristic background

A few months ago, I was contacted about SmartLaw.

SmartLaw is the idea that there are three keys to a law firm’s success – their clients, their culture and the intelligent use of technology (this is per HighQ, a technology company who provides enterprise collaboration, file sharing & content publishing solutions to leading law firms, corporate legal teams, and banks). About SmartLaw, they said:

It’s no longer news that the business of law is changing. Business structures, billing models, and even client expectations are very different than they were just a few short years ago.

The way firms compete and who they compete with; the staff they employ, or choose to outsource, and where in the world they’re located; and the importance of business analytics and big data are all relatively new concerns in law.

No matter where your firm is at now, SmartLaw is about mastering the fundamentals to make sure you stay competitive in the future.”

We know that the business of law has been, and is changing – though there’s still some disagreement about whether there’s total “disruption” or just a gradual shift. But either way, most of us can agree that things are different today than they were 10 years ago. Even five years ago.  Continue Reading Are You Ready for the Future of Legal Services?

photo-1430462773665-fd261133b47fWhether you’re a law firm marketer or a lawyer who is writing, tweeting, posting to LinkedIn, or sharing content in another way, your primary goal is to remain relevant and valuable to your audience.

To do that, you’re constantly checking to ensure that what you’re authoring and sharing resonates with them – you review, you refine, you revise.

During that process, it is also extremely useful to look to what others are doing, both inside and outside the industry, to get inspiration for your own content marketing. It can be easy to discard what those outside of legal are doing as not “relevant” because you think the legal industry is too specialized. And while it IS special in its own way (as are all professions, by the way), it’s up to us to take what others are doing and translate that into useful lessons for our own use.

One of my favorite content marketing authors, Neil Patel, authored an excellent look at what eight of the world’s best brands are doing in their content marketing, and we’ll spend the next few weeks looking at some of them, and the lessons we can take for the legal industry. Your first impression may be to dismiss this as soon as you heard the word “brands,” but we’ll be looking at high-end companies like Rolex, and professional services firms like Farmers Insurance, so I think we can all agree that there are translatable lessons to be gained from them.  Continue Reading Imitation (in Content Marketing) is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

photo-1460400408855-36abd76648b9Now that it’s starting to be the dog days of summer, and many of you are out on vacation (me included – I wrote this post in advance!), it can be easy to let your content slide a little bit. “Nothing is going on,” “Everyone is away,” “I’m too busy,” “I don’t feel like it” – do any of those excuses sound familiar to you?

But the warm weather is no reason to let your content slide. If you stick to your editorial calendar, not only will you continue the momentum that you’ve started this year with strong, substantive work, but you’ll also stand out in a sea of people who are letting their content slack in the summer.

But it doesn’t mean that you always have to be coming up with something new and fresh – sometimes, you can revisit some of your old content, freshen that up a little bit, and repackage it in a way that doesn’t require you to invest too much time away from the pool or the beach, but still maximizes your efforts. Let’s look at two ways you can liven up old content this summer.  Continue Reading Two Ways to Liven Up Old Content