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You may have guessed that I have a certain fondness for social media. I’ve touted its benefits here before, so it should come as no surprise that I headed straight for the social media session while I was at the LMA Annual Conference in Dallas a couple of weeks ago.

Before I get into the nitty gritty of the presentation from the panelists and my thoughts, I’ll share what the CMO of Nixon Peabody said during the session – “The most significant thing a marketing department can do in 2012 is to develop a social media strategy.”

These are bold words from an industry that was still wondering whether social media had staying power only last year. And I couldn’t agree more. Although, I would go a step further than that and say that rather than creating a separate strategy, social media should instead be used to enhance and drive existing strategies and projects. If the tweets coming from the other breakout sessions were any indication, all of them were mentioning social media in conjunction with their topics – the possibilities for using it for law firms are exciting and valuable.

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Continue Reading Social Media is Here to Stay – An LMA 2012 Re-cap Part I

Yesterday, we talked about the first half of Jim Kane’s keynote presentation at the 2012 Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference. Now, let’s jump into the second part!

The Stages of Love

After discussing the various levels of relationships, Jim moved on to talk about the stages of love – the first stage is attraction, which is contextual and about recognizing something familiar in the other person. We desire what is familiar and what we aspire to. In the legal industry, this is known as “marketing.” Our job as marketers is to understand what attraction is for our various audiences – in particular, to understand that one size doesn’t fit all.

The second stage of love is passion – every new relationship needs something different than the existing relationships – they need to feel passion. Though Jim cautioned “Don’t bring technology into a relationship too soon – it makes you appear creepy."

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Continue Reading LMA2012 – Finding our Inspiration, Part II

Every year, one of the primary reasons that marketers give for attending the LMA’s Annual Conference is the sense of inspiration that they come back to the office with after the conference is over. Meeting with like-minded people, dealing with the same pressures that we all have, and finding creative solutions to meet the challenges of our clients is a surefire recipe for returning to the office with more than one good idea to implement.

As with any conference, some of the sessions will be inspiring, others will be necessary, and still others will be lacking a little something. This year, we were lucky to start out with a bang, first hearing from the LMA’s Executive Director, Betsi Roach, followed by LMA President Alycia Sutor. And the real kickoff to the conference started with James Kane’s keynote speech.

Before I get into their comments, I will say that I’m coming a bit late to the game here on the re-caps. A few people have already shared their comments about the sessions, and I’m working a bit out of order. But since I’m never one to keep my own experiences to myself, I’m hoping you’ll find value in my re-cap as well.

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Continue Reading LMA2012 – Finding our Inspiration, Part I

In my last post, we talked about the first part of the client panel session from the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Meeting, with panelists Jeff Carr of FMC Technologies, Janet Dhillon of J.C. Penney and Ron Barger of the Archon Group. The second part of the session was equally as valuable as the first.

One of the interesting points that the panelists made during their comments was that they need their attorneys to elicit the real end game from them – they went as far as to suggest that attorneys should ask them directly “What does ‘winning’ mean to you?” Jeff said lawyers need to get their clients to be specific, because they often won’t volunteer that information.

He joked that business development is like a relationship – people don’t get better with time. They’re on their best behavior in the “marketing phase,” so attorneys need to get past that, and force their clients to be specific about the results that they want.

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Continue Reading Change or Die? A General Counsel Panel – Part II

A few days ago, I offered my initial recap of the general counsel panel that we were treated to at this year’s Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference, focusing on some key quotes from the session. Now, let’s get into the meat of the panel, where even more value is to be found.

The one overriding thought I had (and I was not alone if you listened to the tweet stream) was that year after year, we’re hearing the same comments and advice from general counsel. What does that mean? It means that law firms STILL aren’t listening to what their clients really want. 

In the past, this has been manageable, because the economy was thriving and there was plenty of work to be going around. But now, as Jeff Carr of FMC Technologies warns:

There will be new business models that come into place. We’ll build them if you won’t. We don’t need YOU to survive. We need the [legal] industry to survive."

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Continue Reading Change or Die? A General Counsel Panel – Part I

I’m currently about 30,000 feet above the earth, flying back home after a whirlwind time at the LMA’s Annual Conference. I feel like my attendance at the conference was akin to drinking water from a firehose – there was a lot of information to take in, and a lot of great ideas and conversation. Now, it’s time to process all of that, and sort out what I can use and share.

In my mind, the most important session of the conference is always the General Counsel (GC) panel – I can best help my clients by telling them what their clients say to marketing folks when they’re not around. This year, the panel was its own breakout session (though I think it should really be required attendance for EVERYONE), and once again, it was an incredibly valuable session. 

The panel featured Ron K. Barger, the Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Archon Group, Jeffrey W. Carr, the Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary for FMC Technologies, and Janet L. Dhillon, the EVP, General Counsel and Secretary for J.C. Penney Company. It was moderated by Tom Duggan and Cathleen Flahardy of InsideCounsel.  All of the GC’s represented are active members in the General Counsel Forum. …

Continue Reading “Legal is the Only Industry Where Clients Act Like Sellers and Sellers Act Like Buyers” – A General Counsel Panel

It’s that time of year again – the LMA Annual Conference is coming up in March! It’s a great opportunity to make new friends and renew relationships, so I thought I’d keep a list of those attending as I’m advised, as well as their Twitter names (so anyone interested in the conference who can’t attend can follow along). Also, don’t forget to follow #LMA12 for more information on the conference and during the sessions. 

If you’d like to follow along with a twitter list, check out my list of LMA attendees!

Lindsay Griffiths (@lindsaygriffith)
Kate Lutes (@kklutes)
Laura Gutierrez (@lalaland999)
Jill Clark Rako (@JillRako)
Gina Rubel (@GinaRubel)
Laura Powers (@lppowers)
Gail Lamarche (@gaillamarche)
Heather Morse (@heather_morse)
Megan McKeon (@meganmckeon)
Stacey McGuire (@smcguire13)
Jonathan Groner (@jgronerpr)
Kathryn Whitaker (@KBWhit)…

Continue Reading LMA Attendees – the Twitter Edition!

So far, we’ve re-capped Alishan Naqvee’s introduction to anti-corruption laws, and Stuart Gerson’s comments on the US’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.  Following Stuart’s presentation, the group heard from Charles Wander of Fladgate LLP, who spoke about the new UK Bribery Act.

Charles began by saying that he would give a brief overview of what’s coming on July 1, 2011 in the UK.  As he had mentioned during an earlier session, the firm has been doing some work on this with their clients, trying to understand what the issues might be.  As Stuart had said, this is going to be applied on a worldwide basis, so it will be applied to anyone with any kind of tenuous connection with the UK.  

The UK was not without anti-bribery legislation – through the end of June they would have a piece of legislation dating back to the 19th century. It was ultimately felt that this didn’t have sufficient teeth.  The UK was criticized in 1997 by the OECD when the incoming Labour administration discontinued an investigation into alleged bribery by British Aerospace, as part of the Al Yamamah contracts in Saudi Arabia.  This was heavily criticized as being a decision made for political reasons.…

Continue Reading Corporate Breakout Session – Anti-Corruption Laws – UK Bribery Act

Yesterday, I shared with you this post re-capping Alishan Naqvee’s introduction to the topic of anti-corruption at our 2011 Annual Meeting.  To follow up on that, we’ll review Stuart Gerson’s (Epstein Becker & Green) comments during the session regarding the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and its implications for those in the room.  

Stuart provided the attendees with both an article he and a colleague authored on the FCPA, and an overview that their healthcare group had developed.  Stuart said that as Alishan had mentioned, both the FCPA and the new UK Anti-Bribery law are extraterritorial – but not only are they applied overseas throughout the world, but they are also applied against non-US citizens, as long as the commerce that they’re supporting is in the stream of interstate commerce within the US.

So non-US citizens who have never stepped food in the US are subject to the FCPA, which is a criminal statute that has long jail sentences associated with it.  Additionally, they have fines up to $2 million per offense – and an offense is an individual act, so there could be a long series of them that results in the fines adding up to immense sums.  And this is applicable all around the world.…

Continue Reading Corporate Breakout Session – Anti-Corruption Laws – the FCPA

During our  2011 Annual Meeting in Lisbon, we had specialty group breakout sessions – and lucky for you, our corporate session was recorded! The group had a roundtable discussion dedicated to the topic of "Anti-Corruption Laws and Navigating Client Businesses in Foreign Territories," which was moderated by Alishan Naqvee of LexCounsel Lawyers in India.

Alishan began with some slides to aid the discussion, saying that there is an organization in Japan called Control Risks, who conducted a survey of about 50 companies in Brazil, France, Germany, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, the UK and the US.  All of them said that corruption is a major cost for international business, and at the same time, an increasing number of companies in the world, while they are not absolutely aware of the anti-corruption laws in their jurisdictions, most of their business is governed by them, even when doing business in other jurisdictions.

However, corruption brings a very different dimension in cross-border investments, because the country from where the investee is investing and the country where the investment is being made may be governed by separate parameters and laws.  These could be domestic, but at the same time, there could be laws from the country where the investment is being made.…

Continue Reading Corporate Breakout Session – A Re-Cap