Legal Sales Conference
I would never have imagined 5 years ago that I would be attended a legal sales conference. But here I am in Boston, at the inaugural conference of the Legal Sales and Service Organization!
So far 100 people have registered, from firms like Akin Gump, Brown Raysman, Burr & Forman, Day Berry & Howard, Goodwin Proctor, Goulston & Storrs, Gray Cary, Hare and Dorr, Holand and Knight, Krasow Garlick, Mandell Menkes, Nixon Peabody, Nutter McClennen, Palmer & Dodge, Piper Rudnick, Ropes & Gray, Sullivan Weinstein, Swidler Berlin, Thompson Hine, Torys, Wilmer Cutler, Wolf Greenfield and Womble Carlyle.
Of course, Dorsey & Whitney is here in force, because Silvia Coulter, the CMO there, is also on the LSSO Board. Interestingly, she just hired Adam Severson from FindLaw to be her new Director of Sales (I believe). I also had a delightful chat with Adam Stock, Director of Sales, Western Region & Asia for Dorsey; he will be writing an article on law firm sales to be published this fall in Professional Marketing Magazine.
I picked up a reliable rumor: within the next month, several CMOs at big-name firms will lose their jobs because their firms are going to replace them (or have them report to) a Director of Sales. My source learned this from recruiters who said this was going to happen and they were calling to recruit people with a sales background to join the law firm staff.
I'll send a report later on today's topics, which are "Improving Your Sales Odds by Improving Your Techniques" and a general counsel panel including Patricia Gray or Arch Wireless, Gabriel Miller of Captivate Network and Christopher Mirabile of IONA Technologies.
