Conference/Webinar Session Re-caps

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Now, as I mentioned in my summary of the GC Panel at the LMA Conference this year, Jeff Carr says he’s banned the word "alternative," because there should be nothing alternative about alternative fees.

But, for the sake of this recap, we’re going to use it, as that’s what the session focused on.  Tim Corcoran shared with us the salient points from the alternative fees session that he attended at LMA (and often speaks on himself). 

  • Most law firms are reactive when it comes to offering alternative fees because they’re concerned that they’re dilutive to profits. But the firms that have figured this out and are acting proactively are seeing business development opportunities and more work. 
     
  • There’s a correlation between value and charging – lawyers need to understand this. 

Continue Reading Are you Thinking…Alternatively?

There were so many good tidbits that came out of our LMA New Jersey meeting last week! Amy Adams shared her comments on the session she attended about mentoring associates in business development.

Amy’s comments were particularly helpful, because she’s speaking from the perspective of an in-house marketer, so she’s implementing the advice from the Annual Meeting in her daily activities. Using a phrase from the SMORS session, Amy said she’s deploying a pilot program for mentoring – she’s identified a couple of partners who work well with associates, and using the formula of one partner to four associates. Continue Reading Mentoring Associates in Business Development

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…

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

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

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

As I was leaving the LMA 2012 conference, I learned that what many of us had been hoping for was coming true – we were starting up a LMANJ city group! Although New York and New Jersey are close together, getting in and out of the city can be less than ideal, particularly on a work night, so those of us working in New Jersey are happy to be piggy-backing off of the NY programs and doing our own networking. 

Our first session took place last Thursday, and after some initial networking among ourselves, we tapped into the NY session via Skype, which was dedicated to the topic of "Unpacking and Mapping Your Career Business Plan." The session was presented by Kelly Hoey, Business Network Strategist, and Jennifer Johnson, J.Johnson Executive Search, Inc. Continue Reading Unpacking and Mapping Your Career Business Plan – An LMA Re-Cap

My final session of the first day of the conference was “The Evolution of the Law Firm Brand: How to Promote the Individual Attorneys within the Parameters of the Firm’s Brand.” Panelists included Aden Dauchess, the Director of Digital Media with Womble Carlyle, Robert Algeri, Partner of Great Jakes Marketing, Joe Calve, the CMO for Morrison & Foerster, and Peter Winzig, the Director of Marketing and Corporate Development for Weltman, Weinberg & Reis. The panel was moderated by Adrian Dayton, CEO of Adrian Dayton & Associates.

The room was quickly filled with interested attendees, and soon it was not only standing room only, but full enough to turn people away. Continue Reading The Evolution of the Law Firm Brand – an LMA 2012 Re-Cap

The final session that I attended during the LMA Conference this year was “Creating a Culture of Client Service Excellence” with Leonardo Inghilleri, the EVP and Managing Partner of West Paces Consulting.

I was a few minutes late to the session, and the energy in the room felt a bit low, so I was initially concerned I may have chosen the wrong session. But I was quickly proven wrong as Leonardo provided us with fabulous insight and an interesting perspective that proved most valuable.

As his bio on the LMA Conference website states:

"Leonardo Inghilleri is a recognized business expert and author, and an opinion leader in the area of organizational effectiveness and strategies, client service excellence, and business innovation. As one of the key architects behind the Ritz-Carlton’s two Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards, he has first-hand experience in creating a culture of client service excellence. During this session, you will learn about proven techniques that will help your firm improve the quality of the relationships with your clients. Leonardo will share the concepts and practices that will help to create and maintain the kind of client service environment that can produce strong bottom line results.”

Continue Reading Creating a Culture of Client Service Excellence – an LMA 2012 Re-cap