Our series recapping the Epstein Becker & Green webinar on the Supreme Court’s Decision regarding Obamacare continues! Today, we’ll be talking about the impact of the upcoming election on the plan, as well as the implications for employers. 

Impact of the Upcoming Election

Lynn asked the panelists to comment on the Presidential election and the swing states, saying that there wasn’t even agreement among the panelists as to which states are the swing states. Bill agreed, and said that both political parties count different states as swing states. He thinks that the six states that both parties agree on as swing states are Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania. 

Some Republicans think other swing states include Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire, while Democrats think Arizona and North Carolina are swing states. Bill said that if you look at the six, and you look at what the various parties and independent organizations are doing, they’ve centered on these states, and that’s where almost all of the money is currently being spent. 

Continue Reading SCOTUS Decision on the PPACA – Impact of the Upcoming Election & Implications for Employers

Last week, we talked about the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision for the states. Today, we’ll look at the potential Congressional response.

Lynn began by suggesting the panelists speak about the federal level, as she’s cynical about the 90% and 100% matching, when we’re going into a period of austerity. She said she would like them to talk about entitlement reform and deficit reduction, and asked whether the decision to expand Medicaid has a lot to do with people’s confidences that the 100% and 90% matching money will remain the law of the land at the federal level.  

Continue Reading SCOTUS Decision on the PPACA – Potential Congressional Response

Yesterday, we talked about the overview and analysis of the SCOTUS decision about the PPACA, and today, we’ll begin with talking about the implications for the states.

Lynn said that she wanted to build off of Stuart’s point about federalism, and discuss what’s going to happen at the state level. The state is going to have to decide whether to expand its Medicaid program, whether to do an exchange or not. States, like the federal government, also have an executive and legislative branch. The ACA requires the establishment of exchanges in each state, and if a state does not do it, there will be a federal exchange. Lynn said we’ve seen movement by the Obama administration for perhaps a hybrid exchange, where the feds come in where the states need extra capabilities. 

Continue Reading PPACA – Implications for the States – A Recap

After our 2012 Annual Meeting, I recapped a session from the conference that had focused on the topic of healthcare reform (See here, here and here). Once the Supreme Court announced their decision, Epstein Becker & Green’s healthcare experts once again came out to help us understand what’s in, what’s out and what’s next with their webinar on July 2nd. 

Since it’s always good to hear from the experts, I thought I’d recap the webinar here for you, again, breaking it up into manageable bites (so to speak). 

Continue Reading Overview and Analysis of the SCOTUS PPACA Decision – A Recap

Last week, the LMA NJ chapter once again piggybacked on to what the NY chapter was doing, and hosted a lunch where we Skyped into a panel presentation focusing on whether law firms should help promote individual attorneys (or just focus on the firm brand as a whole). The panelists included Robert Algeri, the co-founder of Great Jakes, which is listed in his bio as "a marketing communications firm that develops next-generation websites for mid-size and large law firms." 

We also had Andrea Crews, the Director of Marketing and Business Development for Levenfeld Pearlstein, a mid-size midwestern firm, and Jasmine Trillos-Decarie, the Director of Marketing and Business Development at Foley Hoag. 

 

Continue Reading Should Law Firms Help Promote Individual Attorneys? An LMA Recap

I consider myself to be a fairly savvy social media user, though as I often like to tell people, "we’re all still learning." And with a medium that changes SO quickly, there’s certainly always something new to learn. That was reinforced for me yesterday when I sat in on Samantha Collier’s webinar for the Legal Marketing Association’s Social Media Special Interest Group on Facebook for Law Firms. Sam offers a post inspired by her webinar here. 

Sam’s webinar covered personal Facebook profiles for lawyers, Facebook pages for law firms, some case studies, and resources. As you may or may not know, Facebook is the most prominent social network out there, with 845 million monthly active users. 

Continue Reading Facebook for Law Firms – A Recap of Sam Collier’s LMA Webinar

Who doesn’t love a good five-part series on Twitter? Don’t answer that. 

Today, we have the last installment from my presentation, which covers some frequently asked questions that I’ve gotten with regard to Twitter, as well as the questions that came in as I was preparing the presentation. 

What’s in a username? Should I use my name, or some fun little moniker? 

Some people will argue that it’s a good idea to have a keyword or subject as your Twitter name, but I (and many others) disagree. I think it should always be your real name. As we’ve talked about before, people want to connect and work with people they know, like and trust, and how can they really know you if you’re not transparent with your name? It’s also much easier for people to find you when your username is your real name. 

There can be some difficulties here, because Twitter only allows you fifteen characters. My full name has more than that, so I just chopped off the "s" at the end. You can work around this however you’d like. 

Continue Reading Twitter: Effectively Leveraging Twitter as a Business Development and Marketing Tool – Part V

We’ve now talked about a couple of uses of Twitter for law firms, but there was a third one that I snuck in there during my presentation, and that’s finding intelligence. 

Social media in general is an excellent way to research clients and potential clients, as well as competitors. The information is current and constantly updated, and it’s coming to you, rather than you having to go and find it. 

How would you do this on Twitter? 

Continue Reading Twitter: Effectively Leveraging Twitter as a Business Development and Marketing Tool – Part IV

In my last post, I talked about using Twitter as a broadcast tool, and Nancy Myrland added some valuable comments to the discussion about making sure to incorporate as much personality as possible.

Today, we’re going to talk about what many people consider to be the most important use of Twitter – engagement. As Nancy always says "Twitter is a contact sport." 

So how do you engage with your Twitter followers? It’s the same as you would in real life – share others’ posts and tweets, comment on their tweets, start conversations and periodically reach out to them. Then, take these relationships offline – meet people for lunch who are in the same city as you are, or when you’re traveling or at a conference. 

Continue Reading Twitter: Effectively Leveraging Twitter as a Business Development and Marketing Tool – Part III