One of the other sessions that we covered during our LMA recap was about using video. There aren’t many law firms doing it right now (or doing it well, for that matter), and is it really just another fad?

Tim Corcoran says no – video is on the rise, not just on your PCs, but on other devices as well. Buyers are making purchasing decisions emotionally, and then justify these decisions using logic afterwards. Video helps people to connect with you and gives them a sense of loyalty.

A lot of times, we, as marketers, don’t distinguish between marketing and demonstrating expertise. Video can demonstrate this expertise. 

Important things to remember include: 

  • Keep it short: people only want quick snippets. There can be some value in recording your hour long seminar and posting it online, but for the most part, people’s attention will only be held by videos under five minutes (and ideally no more than three).
  • Create a video CV that you use as an addendum to your posts or client alerts (or even in your email signatures!). 
  • You can use video across multiple platforms.
  • Although little cameras these days have come a long way, and can take some great video, there is something to be said for doing video right – get the right people, the right lighting and the right sound for a dynamite finished product. 

Is your firm using video yet? 

I’ve been so excited that the LMA has formed a NJ city group of the NY chapter, and it’s been wonderful to connect in person with other legal marketing colleagues outside of the Annual Conference. Last night, we met up again to re-cap the LMA conference for those in the group that hadn’t been able to attend.  I added my experiences, but was able to learn a lot from Wilentz’s Amy Adams and Corcoran Consulting Group’s Tim Corcoran, who shared about sessions that I had missed. 

One of the sessions that Amy re-capped was taken from the pre-conference SMORS session – Smart Marketing on (Limited) Resources. She focused mostly on the presentation on managing your workload and gave us some valuable tips: 

  • Understand your firm’s culture – this can take time. 
  • Know who the influencers at your firm are – even the discontented ones (especially the discontented ones).
  • Identify where you can delegate your workflow, even outside of the marketing department. 
  • Put in face-time with your clients – email is not always sufficient. 
  • Use the words "pilot program" to launch something new – attorneys are more comfortable if it sounds like the firm won’t be overly invested. 
  • Use checklists and shared calendar reminders to communicate what you’re doing to the partners. 
  • Uncover the true motivation behind why a partner wants to do something to find out where your time is best spent. 

Continue Reading SMORS – They’re Not Just for Campfires Anymore

Things have been a wee bit hectic around here, so I’m late in getting the final installment of my re-cap of Adrian Lurssen and John Hellerman’s excellent webinar published.  But better late than never, right? 

The last section of the webinar was dedicated to the topic "Follow the Numbers." What does that mean? Well, you can tell by looking at analytics what people are interested in. (And good titles help encourage people’s interest). 

Topics that show high readership can be leveraged elsewhere by firms – they can pitch news stories on them, create roundtables, and put together recurring article series.   If something is hot, you should do multiple pieces of content around it. 

Continue Reading Use Editorial Focus & Insights to Create Content that Gets Noticed – A Webinar Recap Part III

We’re getting underway this evening with the ILN’s 24th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. Tomorrow, as I do at all of our meetings, I will be presenting to our attorneys and I thought what better topic to discuss than that of client satisfaction? 

My presentation is based on the client panel from LMA’s Annual Conference this year, and you get the first look! 

Continue Reading The Client is in Charge – Are You Listening?

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 ILN member, Jonas Forsman of our member firm Hellstrom in Stockholm, Sweden.  

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
My practice is within company law with focus on M&A, structural and managerial issues.

Who would be your typical client?
My clients range from listed companies to one-man-holding companies. In essence the typical client is a mid size shareholder-driven Swedish limited liability company with an international business, market and/or ownership.

What would you like clients and potential clients to know about you?
I strive to add value, not only invoices! I put the legal issue into context with the clients’ business for a legal and business-oriented way forward.

What has been your most challenging case? Why?
Probably the first court case when I joined the law firm. I came fresh from working at the local court and a couple of law suits waited on my desk to be handled. I had to do well with the cases to prove my worth.

What has been your proudest moment as a lawyer?
At the crash of the IT-boom I was defending a managing director, on a multimillion law suit from a shareholder claiming for his personal liability. It was a demanding case with unreliable documentation and many witnesses against us stating obvious lies. It was difficult to foresee the outcome of it all but my client never hesitated to rely on our strategy. When we received the verdict from the arbitration committee my client looked at me and said slowly that I had saved his and his family´s life.  I was unable to get any work done for two days just babbling around feeling good.

What do you do when you’re not practicing law?
I carry stuff home, mostly milk and groceries. The best days I spend time with my wife and family and/or do sports. I love to go to hockey and soccer practice with my son and to go swimming with my daughter. I very much enjoy water and alpine sports.

What would surprise people most about you?
Probably that I hold a silver medal from a national snowboarding championship (well, from a hundred years ago). And that I take a jump into the ocean just about every morning. Right now it is about four degrees Celsius, so you can see that my wife thinks I am losing it.

What has been your most memorable ILN experience?
The Singapore Conference: Me and my wife and a couple of ILN delegates were sitting outside the hotel in the warm evening having cocktails getting to know each other. Simon Ekins from London, Anad Krishnan, from Kuala Lumpur and Michael Samuel and Marie Macdonald from Glasgow struck us to be some of the funniest guys we had ever met.

What career would you have chosen if you weren’t a lawyer?
Alpine off-piste guide would not be too bad for a couple of years. Or an industrial designer.

If a movie were made of your life, who would you want to play you?
Arnold of course… But I would settle for a skinny Chandler in Friends, as they say I resemble him. But I don’t.

How would you like to be remembered?
With a laugh and a tear, and as a caring and active father, that at least tried his best to come home from work in time, with all the stuff.

 

In Monday’s post recapping Adrian Lurssen & John Hellerman’s recent webinar, we talked about their advice to see the world from your audience’s point of view. Today, we’ll look at their next point, to think like an editor.

Adrian kicked off this section with a quote from Barger & Wolen’s Heather Morse:

What are your competitors writing about? What new cases have been decided? What news articles are trending? What are the other bloggers saying? Any new legislative actions? I subscribe to numerous RSS feeds and have them all categorized so I can quickly scan to see what’s happening in our industry sectors. I can then relay story ideas to our team of bloggers.”

This is excellent, excellent advice. Heather is suggesting that you use various sources to stay on top of what’s happening in the marketplaces that your attorneys work in, and then filter through to them the story ideas that they can write about. You can then send them follow up topics.

Continue Reading Think Like an Editor – A Webinar Recap

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 ILN member, Dale Van Demark of our member firm Epstein Becker & Green in Washington, DC.  Dale will be one of our hosts for next week’s 24th Annual Meeting in Washington!

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
My practice focuses on hospital and health system mergers and acquisitions and the innovation of healthcare delivery domestically and abroad – such as new coordinated care models supported by private and government programs, telemedicine and cross-border provider and education programs.

Who would be your typical client?
In my transactional practice, my clients are hospitals and health systems of various types – independent community hospitals, academic medical systems and regional health systems. In my healthcare innovation practice, my clients are entrepreneurs, business lines of insurers, hospitals and health systems and technology companies.

What would you like clients and potential clients to know about you?
The nature of my practice has given me a lot of exposure both in the board room and C suite and with entrepreneurs. This experience has honed my ability to understand and help advise my clients on the strategic implications and goals of their efforts, whether in an affiliation transaction or the development of telemedicine technology.

What has been your most challenging case? Why?
My most challenging representation was of a health system going through a merger transaction. The matter was challenging because my client was in very bad condition – financially, organizationally and competitively. In addition, my client continually withheld information from us, which made representation of the client before government bodies and in negotiations very difficult.

What has been your proudest moment as a lawyer?
Closing the above referenced transaction! Despite the many challenges, posed by the client and the client’s situation we were able to successfully obtain required government approvals, negotiate a good deal and close on an aggressive time-table.

What do you do when you’re not practicing law?
I enjoy music, painting and reading – fiction and nonfiction. (I listen to music in my office all day.) I also enjoy working on my car when I get a chance. Mostly, however, I spend time with my family.

What would surprise people most about you?
That I am remarkably susceptible to cheesy, emotional stories or story lines in movies.

What has been your most memorable ILN experience?
Getting bitten by a monkey in KL. That one is going to be hard to top!

What career would you have chosen if you weren’t a lawyer?
Too many interesting choices to choose from! ALMS race car driver (GT class), park ranger or journalist.

If a movie were made of your life, who would you want to play you?
I would want a George Clooney, or some other heart-throb; but I think a younger Jon Voight could do a great job.

How would you like to be remembered?
With a smile.

 

There are some truly brilliant people in our industry, and the week before last, I was fortunate to hear two of them present in a webinar:  JD Supra‘s Adrian Lurssen and Hellerman Baretz Communication‘s John Hellerman.  The webinar addressed the topic of using editorial focus and insights to create content that gets noticed. 

They kicked off the webinar with the advice that we should be looking at the world from our audience’s point of view. Since there’s a lot of meaty information in the webinar recap, I’ll break the post up. 

Continue Reading Use Editorial Focus & Insights to Create Content that Gets Noticed – A Webinar Recap

Today, I had the pleasure of sitting in on a webinar presentation from my friends Nancy Myrland of Myrland Marketing and Lance Godard of JD Supra. The Social Media Special Interest Group for the Legal Marketing Association has been putting on monthly webinars, and this month’s focused on Twitter. 

Since it is a member benefit, I won’t give all the secrets away, but I did want to offer the highlights: 

Continue Reading Let’s Talk Twitter: An LMA Social Media SIG Webinar

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been working on developing a few sub-groups for our International Lawyers Group member group on LinkedIn.  These groups are online forums for our Specialty Groups, which member firm attorneys participate in throughout the year.

As I’m developing the groups, I’m going through my LinkedIn contacts to invite those who practice in those areas to participate. And I’m seeing a lot of this: 

Continue Reading Let’s Get Specific – On LinkedIn