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We’re so pleased to welcome a new member firm into our Network, Ahlawat & Associates, an Indian firm with offices in New Delhi, Mumbai and abroad.

Ahlawat & Associates aims at providing high quality, practical and strategic legal solutions to help clients achieve their goals by combining the highest global standards with local expertise. All their partners have specialized knowledge of both the legal framework as well as the specific business requirements of various industry sectors. They have a well-established track record in personally guiding companies and individuals based on their specific needs for doing business in India. A&A has been able to achieve this by adopting the highest standards of professionalism implemented by the top international law firms, which has been the primary reason for putting their clients at ease and ensuring smooth entry and operations for their clients’ business. The partners are confident in their ability to provide accurate and sustainable cross borders advise. The firm takes pride in identifying the clients’ requirements and working along with clients to help them achieve their goals.
Continue Reading International Lawyers Network Welcomes New Member in India

There’s been a lot of chatter over the last few years about the "new normal" for law firms, and what that might mean.  Yesterday, I was reading an interesting article at Above the Law, which addressed the idea that the new normal is a lot like the "old normal" (making the boom time an aberrance and not the other way around). 

While that part was enlightening (and I recommend reading the article in full), what I found most useful were the lessons that the author felt we’d learned over the past four years and advice for BigLaw firms in dealing with the new normal.  We all recognize that BigLaw and mid-sized firms are different, but in this case, the advice are very much the same for both. We’ve been hearing it again and again, so it’s definitely time to start making some changes (if you haven’t already), to remain competitive. 

Continue Reading Mid-sized firms and How to Adjust to the “New Normal”

In what proved to be our most popular webinar yet, the Legal Marketing Association’s Social Media Special Interest Group held a session yesterday on using video to market legal services. We were fortunate to have three stellar presenters – Adam Stock of Allen Matkins, Adam Severson of Baker Donelson, and Mark Beese of Leadership for Lawyers. 

Their presentation was very interactive, and answered the questions I think we’ve all had on our minds about video, starting with the most important…Continue Reading Using Video to Market Legal Services

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

Now that we’ve gone over the basics, let’s jump into the meat of Twitter for law firms. In my presentation, I went through what I consider to be the three uses of Twitter for law firms, beginning with the dreaded "broadcasting."

When I was initially using Twitter, I would have completely advised against this, but I’ve changed my mind. Twitter has become an excellent source of news, and pretty much every news source is using Twitter to share headlines these days, like CNN, Fox News, the NY Times, the Huffington Post, etc. If a law firm has individual attorneys and marketers who are using Twitter under their own account names and engaging with people, then I have no problem with the firm’s branded account being used primarily as a news feed. There are many firms out there who have been using Twitter this way, and they’ve been very successful in getting journalists and other influencers to follow them. Continue Reading Twitter: Effectively Leveraging Twitter as a Business Development and Marketing Tool – Part II

Yesterday, we covered the first part of the social media session from the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference. Today, let’s jump into part two! 

Next up, on the panel we had Melissa Croteau, the CMO of Nixon Peabody. Her role on the panel was to talk about how a large firm handles social media. Nixon Peabody started using social media in 2009, beginning with Twitter. They currently have 2,500 regular followers, with a majority of those being media.

Because I’m always trying to follow the tweet stream, as well as live tweet, when I’m at a conference, I also was keeping an eye on the tweets coming out of other sessions. From another session at the same time, Russell Lawson posted what turned out to be a timely suggestion for our group as well – he noted that journalists are using their Twitter stream to find interesting or out of the ordinary story ideas, so firms shouldn’t post the same old thing all the time. If Nixon Peabody has so many media followers, they must be adhering to this idea already!

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

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.

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