Annual

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During our 2011 23rd Annual Meeting, we were fortunate to welcome the Secretary of State for Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Mr. Joao Tiago Silveira, as our speaker.  His topic, "Modernization of the States and of the Administration," covered the Portuguese government’s efforts to streamline their services by putting them online and making them more efficient.

Mr. Silveira began by welcoming the delegates to Portugal, and sharing his pleasure at speaking to the group about cutting red tape and the achievements that the Portuguese government has had. He said that they’re pushing forward a strong policy around cutting red tape, mainly by using two plans – the Simplex plan, a plan directly linked to reducing bureaucracy, and the Technological plan, which is a plan for using the internet and new technologies.

The government identified three clears goals for these two programs: 

  1. To eliminate and simplify the acts and procedures, mainly in registration offices. In Portugal, civil registration, company registration, industrial property trademarks and patents, land registration and car registration are dependent on the Ministry of Justice.  So one of the government’s goals is to simplify the procedures in this field.
     
  2. To de-materialize by using the internet and electronic procedures in the registration sector.  The government now uses e-filing, the internet and new technologies to achieve faster and more cost-effective registrations.
     
  3. To de-materialize judicial acts and procedures before the courts. This also incorporates the use of the internet and electronic solutions to allow lawyers and people to get more access to the courts, as well as reducing costs and saving time.

Continue Reading Modernization of the States and of the Administration – Mr. Joao Tiago Silveira

As I attended my sixth LMA Conference last week, it occurred to me that I couldn’t believe how fast my time in the legal profession has gone! But it also occurred to me that there may be many people out there attending their first conference, or just starting out in the legal or professional services fields, who never got any lessons in college about how to act in a business environment.

This week, I heard someone say during a session that if you’re going to be "Debbie Gossip" as a marketing professional, it will be difficult to gain the trust of your lawyers and as such, difficult to get the respect needed to get a seat at the table. I think the younger generation in the workforce (and at 31, I include myself in that) has a lot of enthusiasm, talent and incredible ideas. But sometimes we lack the professional polish that can get those ideas implemented. So I wanted to offer up some advice on what I’ve learned in my six and a half years in legal marketing – some of these things might seem silly or overly conservative, but they will help you stand out for your work instead of for a less professional reason:
Continue Reading Some Advice to New Marketers on Attending Conferences

As you know if you’ve been following my Twitter stream, or checking Zen in the last couple of months, last week, I attended the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference in Orlando.

Tuesday morning, the conference business sessions officially kicked off with our keynote from Jeff Williford from the Disney Institute, who talked about Disney’s Approach to Business Excellence.  When he began by telling us that he’d be speaking for 90 minutes, I think the audience was worried, but the presentation was so engaging and informative that the time really flew.  And although his presentation was about how Disney creates a truly magical experience here, there were a lot of parallels for the legal industry – we’re also a service industry after all!  Any of the particularly important points that relate to law firms will be in bold throughout the post.

He told the audience that Disney employs more than 60,000 people from 65 countries, with 10% of those being interns, and warned us that his presentation on Disney’s approach to business excellence would be like drinking water from a firehose. But he did say that Walt Disney reminded everyone in 1955 that "it all started with a mouse."Continue Reading Disney’s Approach to Business Excellence – An LMA Recap