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Over the last couple of days, I’ve been working on developing a few sub-groups for our International Lawyers Group member group on LinkedIn.  These groups are online forums for our Specialty Groups, which member firm attorneys participate in throughout the year.

As I’m developing the groups, I’m going through my LinkedIn contacts to invite those who practice in those areas to participate. And I’m seeing a lot of this: 

Continue Reading Let’s Get Specific – On LinkedIn

Barry Camson is an organization development consultant and trainer who works with organizations to help them be more collaborative and effective. He is a former practicing attorney in Boston. He can be reached at bcamson@aol.com.

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In our first two posts, we discussed some of the pitfalls that befall law firms today, as well as how the ILN network of law firms is managing its members to avoid these same pitfalls. Today, we will look at the ILN’s “secret sauce” and identify how this can be translated to firms, themselves.

Theory of Change

Underlying all of this is the “Theory of Change” of the ILN vis a vis that of the law firms that Maister spoke about. The ILN makes the assumption that trust and relationships will make the network and its members successful in meeting the needs of its members’ clients. The ILN bases its actions on these assumptions. The law firms of 2006 that Maister spoke about believed that skepticism and detachment would make lawyers successful in the courtroom, boardroom and in performing the business of the law firm.Continue Reading Building Relationships and Trust in a Network of Lawyers, Part III – Guest Post from Barry Camson

Barry Camson is an organization development consultant and trainer who works with organizations to help them be more collaborative and effective. He is a former practicing attorney in Boston. He can be reached at bcamson@aol.com.

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In the first post, we discussed how the characteristics that may make an attorney an effective advocate for his or her clients can often lead to a less successful law firm environment. Today, we will focus on how the ILN handles things differently in their Network.

ILN Environment

Purpose

The purpose of the ILN drives its actions – to create a trusted group of partners for lawyers who are looking to do business in other jurisdictions. Trust is at the core of the ILN.Continue Reading Building Relationships and Trust in a Network of Lawyers, Part II – Guest Post from Barry Camson

Barry Camson is an organization development consultant and trainer who works with organizations to help them be more collaborative and effective. He is a former practicing attorney in Boston. He can be reached at bcamson@aol.com.

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What can the International Lawyers Network (ILN) of law firms contribute to our knowledge of what it takes for law firms to succeed in the 21st century?

David Maister in an article in the April 2006 issue of The American Lawyer raises the issue of: “Are Law Firms Manageable.” In that article he delves into the reasons why law firms may not be and why in meeting their contemporary business needs they should be. Maister wonders whether law firms will be able to respond to the need for effective cross-office and cross-disciplinary action in order to meet the needs of clients.Continue Reading Building Relationships and Trust in a Network of Lawyers, Part I – Guest Post from Barry Camson

So now we’ve created a very basic Facebook profile, and just as we did with LinkedIn, it’s time to expand on that. 

When Facebook welcomes you, they want you to fill in your profile information, activate your mobile phone, find people you know and control what information you share.  We’ll go through each of these steps, as well as the "why" behind them, in the coming days.  Today, we’re going to focus on step one – filling out your profile information.  Continue Reading Facebook Tutorials – Creating a Profile Part II

Now we are on to a new set of tutorials – Facebook! 

You may be wondering why I would choose Facebook as the next social media tool to delve into – isn’t that for kids?

No!

Also, during our LinkedIn tutorial, you may remember that I posed a question in LinkedIn’s Answers feature to illustrate how to do it – and people answered.  My question was whether Facebook or Twitter was more valuable for lawyers.  Of course, the answer is – it depends.  But overwhelmingly, the responses of the group were "Facebook."  So Facebook it is! 

One of the most valuable things on Facebook is pages (and groups), but since we have to have a personal profile in order to use those, we’re going to start there. Continue Reading Facebook Tutorials – Creating a Profile Part I

Last week, we talked about how you can follow companies on LinkedIn (and why you would want to!). Today, we’ll chat about creating and maintaining a company page. Attorneys, your firm may already have a company page, so make sure to check this out first – this may be something that your marketing department is handling.

We already have a company page for the ILN, so I won’t be creating a new one of those.  But I am in the process of launching a new website for my photographic services, so now is a good time to start a company page for that. Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Companies – How to Create a Profile