Last week during our annual conference, one of our delegates wanted to sit down with me and talk about content. He mentioned that his firm’s website didn’t have the capability for publishing articles, and there were no current plans to change that, but indicated that he had things he wanted to say about his area of practice. 

While some of you may think a blog is the answer, he had some other caveats – he wanted something that he could update and publish to as frequently or infrequently (due to his busy schedule) as he liked, and something that wouldn’t require too big of a learning curve.

"Ah ha!" I thought – LinkedIn’s new publishing platform is exactly what he needs.

I know I said last week that I wasn’t sold on it yet, but I’m coming around – it’s exactly right for this type of attorney: someone who doesn’t have the ability to publish articles on their website, is looking to get more information out there, but without as big of a commitment as a blog would be. 

On a side note, bloggers, I can hear you arguing with me already – I LOVE blogs, and I think they’re a great tool for many people. But I see LinkedIn’s publishing platform as providing a compromise between blogging and not blogging, and offering a comfortable place for lawyers such as the one I’m referring to to get their feet wet. Plus, I like that for an infrequent writer, having a full and complete LinkedIn profile keeps the page from looking abandoned, which can be very obvious on a blog, with the date of the last post always so visible. 

Continue Reading LinkedIn’s Publishing Platform – Could I Be Convinced?

It’s time for another Two for Tuesdays here in muggy New Jersey, and what better topic to discuss than conference follow up? We just wrapped up the ILN’s 26th Annual Meeting in Chicago, which was a whirlwind of business sessions and social activities designed to facilitate relationships. And we managed to squeeze a little fun in there too! 

As with any conference, it can be easy to return to your office and in the chaos of catching up with work and getting back into your regular schedule, forget everything you learned at the conference. So especially for my ILN attorneys this week, I bring you two tips for conference follow up.

Tip One: Connect on LinkedIn

When you attend a conference, you either receive a pile of business cards, or an attendee list to draw from. As you get back to your office, take a look at the list or the cards – hopefully you made note of who you met, and a distinguishing characteristic of that person, but if you didn’t, take a couple of minutes to jot it down.

Then, head over to LinkedIn. Search for the people you talked to on LinkedIn, and send them an invitation to connect. 

Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Conference Follow Up

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 an ILN member who I had dinner with yesterday evening, Johan Sund of our member firm, Ekenberg & Andersson in Sweden! 

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
Solving problems for clients in an international environment.

Who would be your typical client?
A small or mid-sized company looking to expand its business.

What would you like clients and potential clients to know about you?
That my field of practice is wide and that I work with most of my clients on various issues such as M&A, litigation, employment law and IP law.

What has been your most challenging case?
Hopefully still ahead of me.

What has been your proudest moment as a lawyer?
The same day as I graduated from law school, I managed to settle a contractual dispute in court. I had been working on this case for quite some time during my internship at a law firm, and this was the first time I achieved something in court.

What do you do when you’re not practicing law?
Spending time with my family, working on my summer house in northern Sweden.

What would surprise people most about you?
In the ’90s, I used to play in a band inspired by Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk and Erasure.

What has been your most memorable ILN experience?
The European meeting in Istanbul in 2007 – Saturday night, our hosts took us to the best club in the city just by the waterline, we closed the place in the morning hours.

What career would you have chosen if you weren’t a lawyer?
Musician with my own band.

If a movie were made about your life, who would you want to play you?
Alexander Skarsgård or Ethan Hawk.

How would you like to be remembered?
As a good friend.

 

We have a late, breaking Two for Tuesdays for you tonight, and even better, it’s a special guest post from my dear friend Nancy Myrland! I’ve arrived in Chicago for the final prep and overseeing of our Annual Meeting (which accounts for the delay in getting this published) and Nancy kindly agreed to offer you some words of wisdom for this Tuesday. Without further ado…

***

TWO WAYS TO REPURPOSE YOUR CONTENT

First, thanks to my good friend, Lindsay, for allowing me to grace the virtual pages of her blog by bringing you this week’s installment of Two for Tuesdays.

Lindsay and I talk a lot about Content Marketing these days. It’s the marketing phrase du jour, or at least one of them. Whether you choose to adopt the industry vernacular, or not, it is important to have this overarching umbrella term, and its related components, in mind when discussing legal marketing.

In a moment, we are going to talk about two simple ways you can repurpose content you may have already created.

Let’s take a half of a step back, and define Content Marketing. To do so, we need to know what Content is. In a recent post of mine on LinkedIn called What Is The Difference Between Content and Content Marketing, I offered this simple definition:

Content is the words and messages you deliver, regardless of the delivery mechanism. Content Marketing is the use, or marketing, of those words in an effort to reach other people.”

 

Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Repurposing Your Content

Last week, when we talked about thinking like a marketer, I shared the following statistic from Blue Kite Marketing: 

People use hundreds of products and services every day. About 95 percent of those interactions go completely unnoticed. Another three percent of those experiences are ones that you are complaining about."

What that tells us is that people will share bad experiences and great experiences, but the "good" experiences just get forgotten.  Creating excellent experiences for your clients are obviously the goal here, but just as important is avoiding the bad ones that will stick with people and motivate them to market on your behalf…in a negative way. 

There are two little words that can diffuse an unfortunate situation, and they are just not used enough these days: 

I’m sorry."

 

Continue Reading Client Service: The Power of “I’m Sorry”

We’ll be getting to know Arnstein & Lehr in person next week when they welcome us to Chicago for our Annual Meeting, but today, we highlight them as our firm of the month! 

   

 

 

Member of the International Lawyers Network

The ILN is proud to announce our latest "Firm of the Month" – Arnstein & Lehr LLP!

Arnstein & Lehr is a full-service law firm founded in 1893 that serves a diverse client base comprised of large corporations listed on the public stock exchanges, middle-market companies, nonprofit organizations, and emerging businesses. Clients include government, healthcare entities, financial institutions, trade associations, and businesses in the retail, industrial, manufacturing, distribution, technology, and services sectors. The firm also counsels individuals as to their personal needs, including estate planning, probate matters, and the transfer of wealth and business interests from one generation to another. They practice in six main service groups: Business, Litigation, Trusts & Estates, Domestic and Foreign Tax, Government and Real Estate.

REWARDING THEIR CLIENTS WITH INNOVATIVE, INSIGHTFUL SOLUTIONS
They proudly enjoy long-standing relationships with many of their clients, having counseled numerous businesses for decades. In at least one case, their client relationship with a major publicly held corporation spans more than a century. In addition, they have considerable experience and expertise in addressing their clients’ international concerns.

GOING BEYOND EXPECTATIONS
Arnstein & Lehr commits itself to providing quality, result-oriented legal services in a cost-effective manner. In today’s competitive economic climate, businesses and individuals must react to the ever changing complexities of legal and business environments while containing legal costs at the same time. That’s why they take pride in their ability to deliver legal services in a timely and efficient manner.

Their attorneys regularly give presentations and offer seminars on a broad range of topics. In addition, they publish practice-specific newsletters that help disseminate current legal developments of interest to their clients.

They encourage their lawyers to offer their legal expertise through pro bono work, law reform, and professional service. Many attorneys are active contributors to legal and business publications and serve as speakers and faculty at numerous continuing legal education programs and seminars. Several of their attorneys have also achieved peer recognition by their election and appointment to leadership positions in a variety of civic, charitable, and professional organizations.

Full descriptions of Arnstein & Lehr’s  services, expertise, and lawyer profiles are available on their ILN profile.

Lindsay Griffiths
Director of Global Relationship Management
International Lawyers Network

Lindsay Griffiths

 

Learn More

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Main Contacts: 

Howard Swibel

Howard J. Swibel

Email: hjswibel@arnstein.com
Telephone: (312) 876-7164

Practice Groups:
Business & Organizations, Health Care

sidebar-divider.gifJeffrey Shapiro

Jeffrey B. Shapiro

Email: JBShapiro@arnstein.com
Telephone: (305) 357-2005

Practice Groups:
Litigation

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Alan Griffiths

“Arnstein & Lehr has been a member firm for almost 20 years, and we’re thrilled to be showcasing the firm in our upcoming 26th Annual Meeting in Chicago.”

Alan Griffiths
Executive Director
International Lawyers Network

+001.201.594.9985

www.ilntoday.com

 

Attorneys, do not panic. I haven’t lost my mind when I ask you to think like a marketer (I promise, bear with me). 

How many of you (raise your hands) think of marketing as something that some group in your office does once in a while? 

How many of you think of marketing as brochures and advertisements? 

How many of you think marketers are just people who ask you for money and then put pretty logos together or make sure you have enough business cards? 

Okay, put your  hands down. I’ve got news for you – marketing is everything.

So says this excellent blog post from Blue Kite Marketing that I read this morning. The truth is, and we’ve talked about it here before, every interaction that you and your firm have with clients, potential clients, and influencers counts as marketing. 

Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Think Like a Marketer

For our third installment of our General Counsel Corner, we’ve brought in an In-house Counsel at a leading independent fiduciary services business. 

Our question to him was: 

What is your preference for how a lawyer tries to learn more about you and your business?"

He told us, "Good question. I’d say it’s like any client relationship – get to know me, ask the right questions without being obtrusive or cross-examining me, and certainly without presuming to know my needs.

"In trust, I’m not sure lawyers I come across spend enough time on this – they tend to focus on the transaction or the problem in hand – they get to know that really well, but do they get to know me and my business – not so much!

"There was one firm (actually 2 lawyers in that firm acting on their own initiative) that really did work on building that relationship with me and my colleagues last year. And there is no doubt that they grew the financial value of their relationship with us more or less directly as a result. This personal touch, combined with the more traditional seminar/newsletter approach that you get with other firms made the difference.

"I’m like anyone else in business – I tend to instruct firms – and individuals within firms – that I like. If there isn’t much to choose from in terms of service/competence – and in my line of business, that is often the case – then the ones who I’ve got to know, and who I feel understand me and relate to me and my colleagues are always going to have an edge."

Wow, is there ever some great information for outside counsel in this answer: 

  • Most firms are focused on the issue at hand, and not getting to know their client & their client’s business – so there’s a real opportunity to differentiate yourself here. 
  • Focusing on building the relationship can lead directly to growing the financial return of the relationship for the outside lawyers. 
  • Don’t assume that you know what their needs are already – ask. 
  • Inside counsel do business with those they know, like and trust. 

Take a look at your client relationships today – are you doing as much as you can to get to know them and their business? 

A huge thanks to this month’s GC! 

This afternoon, I was thinking back to my very first "official" job, as kennel help at a pet store in northern New Jersey. It was hard work, and long hours, but playing with puppies was a pretty great benefit of working there. It also taught me a lot, and one lesson I remember being crystal clear – don’t be afraid to ask questions. 

The story is that after working there for a little while, the store’s owners let me assist with other kinds of work at the store, including running the register. This was not too complicated, but a job that involved a lot of trust (we were dealing with pretty big sums of money, for one thing). Most of the charges were paid either by credit card or cash. But there was one afternoon when a woman wanted to pay for her puppy and his associated gear with a check. 

Thanks to my fourth grade teacher who had done a unit where we all got "checkbooks" and had to learn to use them to make payments, my 16-year-old self was pretty comfortable with what a check looked like, and which fields needed to be filled in. But there was one extra thing I was required to get from this woman in order to process the check. 

Continue Reading Client Service: There are no Stupid Questions