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We’re so excited to announce that we’ve welcomed a new member firm – Torres Law, a United States-based firm with a focus on international trade and customs law. Torres Law has offices in Dallas, Texas and Washington, DC.

The firm serves clients ranging from large, multi-national corporations to small importers and exporters. Torres Law also represents government agencies and assists larger law firms with complex trade matters.

In the area of U.S. export controls, the law firm advises clients on compliance with the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR), and the various embargo and sanctions programs administered by the Office of Foreign Asset Controls (OFAC). In the area of customs, Torres Law advises clients on import compliance matters, including customs rulings, classification, country of origin, special duty programs such as NAFTA, focused assessments, C-TPAT, and seizures of goods by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. With respect to industrial security matters, the law firm represents companies in transactions subject to review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), and advises on measures to mitigate Foreign Ownership, Control, or Influence (FOCI).
Continue Reading International Lawyers Network Welcomes New Firm – Torres Law – Customs & Global Trade

Today, I’m excited to bring you a guest post from my friend, Jennifer Simpson Carr. Jenn joined Lowenstein Sandler as a Business Development Manager in 2013. With 10 years of experience working in law firms across the US, she has worked extensively to help firms and attorneys engage target audiences and win new business in competitive markets. She recently attended and presented at the Legal Marketing Association’s Southeast Conference, where she gained some excellent, actionable advice that firms can implement immediately. Below, you’ll see her five takeaways from the conference, which range from client service to analytics to succession, and her advice for what action firms can take to implement them.

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Last week, I had the pleasure of participating in the LMA Southeast Conference (LMASE17), which I found to be one of the most inspiring and thought-provoking conferences in my 10+ years in the legal marketing profession.

I find conferences energizing. They offer the opportunity to connect with the legal marketing community, share ideas and strategies, and gain new perspectives. This conference was no different and set new standards of excellence.

LMASE17 offered three days packed with educational programming, many sessions addressing the topics that are top of mind for in-house business development and marketing professionals as well as the agencies that support them.

As I reviewed pages of notes and contemplated how to use some of this newly-acquired wisdom to make an impact, five themes stood out to me as strategic and actionable, and yet easy opportunities for any professional to affect change.
Continue Reading 5 Actionable Takeaways from LMASE17 to Make an Immediate Impact at Your Firm

Raise your hand if you’ve received an overly friendly email from a stranger, asking you for a favor.

Everyone? I thought so.

Why do these bug us so much? Aside from the fact that we’re busy enough trying to do our own work, balanced with some personal time, and fitting in helping out people we actually know, the reason is that when a stranger asks us for a favor they’re doing so without having any relationship equity. 
Continue Reading Build Relationship Equity First

The legal industry is in the midst of challenging and exciting times. To many firms, so much change and uncertainty may feel like a bit of a crisis, while others see it as more of an opportunity. Regardless of how you see it, it’s certainly a time of upheaval.

I have finally gotten around to reading Jim Collins’ “Good to Great” which has been lounging on my bookshelf for the better part of several years. While there are many lessons in the book that firms looking to become “great” should take to heart, there was one observation that the authors made that really struck me as relevant for firms in today’s marketplace – the Stockdale Paradox.

Collins observes that every “good to great” company they examined in the course of the book’s research had faced “significant adversity.” The difference between those companies who became great, and those companies who didn’t is what Collins refers to as the “Stockdale Paradox.”
Continue Reading Great Law Firms Will Embrace the Stockdale Paradox

Four years ago, we were talking about the “new normal” for law firms. It’s almost comical to believe that we’re still talking about it as if it’s new. It’s not.

Even at that time, Above the Law was telling us that the new normal was really more of the “old normal,” though if we’re honest, there is a lot to show that it really is more new than anything else. But that being said, Above the Law’s advice from four years ago still manages to hold true today. Many firms move at a glacial pace, so we can still be learning and adjusting based on their suggestions (which is a bit scary, but let’s just go with it). 
Continue Reading Three Essential Lessons for the New “New” Normal at Law Firms

We’re thrilled to welcome a new member firm in South Korea, Lee International IP & Law Group!

Lee International is a full-service law firm, serving its clients with a range of practice areas in addition to its long-standing intellectual property practice. These areas of service include advice and representation in finance, real estate, M&A, general corporate, antitrust and fair trade, health care, domestic and foreign litigation and international arbitrations, labor, tax, general commercial, entertainment, customs, international trade remedies, government investigations, criminal matters and others.
Continue Reading International Lawyers Network Welcomes New Firm in South Korea, Lee International IP & Law Group

How can we network better?

Many posts offer the same tips, spun in a different way – and that’s important, because I can always get something out of implementing the tried and true.  But when I find something unique, I’m always happy to share it.

Recently, I came across this piece from Branding Magazine, with “5 Tips to Network Like the Pros.” Despite all of the change happening in the legal industry, we still know that relationships are paramount – and maybe even more so than ever.

Bearing that in mind, let’s work on supercharging our networking. Branding Magazine offers 5 tips, but let’s take a look at two of them, and how they relate to the legal industry.
Continue Reading Two Easy Tips to Power Network Like a Pro

“Change or die.”

How many times have you heard that over the last eight years?

A friend of mine in the legal industry pointed that out to me recently, along with commenting that it always sounds so dire. And it does sound dire.

But after the statistics that we covered in a recent post (1/3 of clients are openly dissatisfied with their outside counsel, chief legal officers rank firms at a 3 on a 1 to 10 scale for commitment to change, and clients are moving their legal work to other firms or to non-firm vendors), it would seem that we should be properly incentivized to speed up the pace of change. From the Peer Monitor/Georgetown 2016 Report on the State of the Legal Market, which cautioned BigLaw against a “Kodak moment”
Continue Reading What’s Holding us Back from Real Change in Legal?

Over the last decade, we’ve seen a titanic shift in the legal industry, and one thing I know for sure is that we’ve all got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Change, innovation, disruption – it’s all here to stay, and how it shakes out will be different for each law firm and law firm client.

What we do know is that the client is king – they always were, but now they know it too. And that means clients expect their firms to get creative about ways and means to provide value. This can be accomplished in a myriad of ways, depending on your strategy, goals, and clients, but a piece of that puzzle is the law firm network.
Continue Reading 5 Ways a Law Firm Network Can Make Your Firm More Successful

Who wants to think about work while they’re on vacation?

I know, the idea is to get AWAY from work. And I fully endorse that. But there are two things I know to be true:

  • You never know who you’ll meet, and where – you may meet a potential client or referral source while you’re sitting on the beach!
  • Sometimes, doing thirty minutes of some type of work during a vacation day actually can make the rest of your day feel MORE enjoyable. (I didn’t make this up – Gretchen Rubin, of the Happiness Project, figured this one out)

With those two things in mind, you can start implementing the following business development tips during your summer vacation and set yourself up for future success! 
Continue Reading Nine Business Development Tips to Practice on Your Summer Vacation