Lawyers.com Editor in Chief : Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog : Law firm marketing, legal marketing, attorney marketing, business development, sales training, practice development, training, marketing consultant, legal consultant, individual lawyer coaching, business development, client team, practice development, business development, law firm coach

“You will motivate more people by capturing their imagination with an idea than with money.” – Cornelius Bodine, Jr., 1916-1987 – my father.

As you have noticed, there is a generation gap in your law firm. You and your fellow partners would like to plan your exit strategy, but meanwhile the younger generation is not ready to step up to become the new leadership.

The associates may resent being asked to generate new businesses. They say they want “work-life balance” when you suspect they just want to go home early. Some of the associates don’t even care if they become a partner! Some will leave just after they finish paying off their student loans – perhaps to enter another field entirely.

How do you motivate these “drone” lawyers who view their position at your firm as just a job?

The Solution: you have to make your practice cool again.

In the field of law, you need to bring back the élan of Perry Mason getting a confession on the witness stand, or Paul Newman winning in “The Verdict,” or how a personal injury lawyer represented families whose children died of leukemia in “A Civil Action.” What they’ve seen so far are slimy lawyers played by George Clooney in “Michael Clayton,” and “Boston Legal” with the bloated William Shatner playing the unethical Denny Crane, and brilliant yet ruthless lawyer Patty Hewes in “Damages.”

The younger lawyers already understand that running a law firm is a business. They’ll take a pay cut to work at a different place that they think is a happening office that’s fun to work in. What they need to understand that being a lawyer is a great profession, that in the past the halls of Congress and our national leaders were once primarily lawyers, and that being a lawyer comes with a lot respect and authority.

For the rest of the story visit the LawMarketing Portal at www.lawmarketing.com

from the Chicago Tribune:

Fixed-fee arrangements between lawyers and their corporate clients are gaining popularity, but are they economical for both sides?

For Lake Forest-based Brunswick Corp., its flat-fee contract for national litigation has exceeded expectations, said Kristin Coleman, general counsel. The maker of boats, billiard tables, and fitness and bowling equipment cut the amount it spent on outside lawyers working on litigation by 30 percent in 2009.

On the flip side, David Rammelt, a partner at K&L Gates, said the volume of work he did for Brunswick last year quadrupled, a positive outcome in a year that was slow for many lawyers. But Rammelt had to switch law firms to make the arrangement more profitable.

Coleman and Rammelt's flat-fee contract is in its second year and includes product-liability and breach-of-warranty cases. Their experience provides some lessons to other lawyers and companies considering alternatives to the industry standard of billing clients at an hourly rate.

They debunked several myths regarding fixed-fee arrangements, including the notion that lawyers working under fixed fees will not work as hard."The lawyers who provided the service did a great job," Coleman said. "There were some skeptics among my team."

The contract also forced Rammelt and his team of five lawyers to be efficient, an anomaly to the law-firm business model that incentivizes attorneys to rack up hours.

"Brunswick said, 'This is your all-in pot of money. You be efficient now,'" Rammelt said.

Cost savings also came via technology. Kelley Drye built Web-based case management software for Brunswick. The database contained every document for every case Rammelt's team worked on, eliminating the need to ship documents overnight. Brunswick lawyers could access the system at any time, eliminating the need for quarterly status reports from Rammelt. When Rammelt left for K&L Gates, the firm bought the software from Kelley Drye.

On the downside, using metrics based on the traditional hourly-fee model, Rammelt's realization rate — the rate of collection versus hours billed — is not as high as he would like. He and his team still keep track of the time they spend on Brunswick matters to have a benchmark to compare to the fixed-fee contract.

The two sides tweaked the contract in its second year to provide some protections for the law firm. For example, if a case hits a ceiling on fees then it gets removed from the fixed-fee program and gets billed by the hour.

Your legal work may have been stellar, but unhappiness with cost and billing, lack of response, incompetence, failure to understand client needs and a conflict with a partner or staff will make clients leave, according to Jeffrey Miller and Jill Kohn, Ph.D., marketing consultants at Kohn Communications.  

Lawyers often mistake a lack of complaining from clients as a sign of satisfaction. This may be an overly optimistic conclusion. Research indicates that most clients won’t express feelings of dissatisfaction; they’ll just leave. This is particularly true for consumers of services, who are less likely to complain than those who purchase a tangible product. For every client who does give you an earful, research indicates there are 26 others you won’t be hearing from. Ten of their friends and associates, however, will be told about their unpleasant experience with you and your firm in high-definition detail.

Maybe you have done nothing technically wrong. In fact, the legal work may have been stellar, but for some reason the client is unhappy. This is because it can be difficult for clients to accurately assess what you have done for them. They may not understand the complexity of issues involved with their matters or lack the technical knowledge to effectively evaluate services rendered. The client’s expectations can vary greatly from the attorney’s in nearly every aspect of the relationship, including the amount of time the matter requires, the scope of the issue, and the likely outcome.

Based on interviews with a wide va­riety of law firm clients across the country, there are five complaints clients express most fre­quently -- and there are strategies you can employ to effectively address your client’s top concerns, thereby prevent­ing client loss and enhancing client loyalty.

1. COST AND BILLING. Dissatisfaction with cost and billing can take several different forms, but the following are the most common.

For the rest of the story visit the LawMarketing Portal at http://bit.ly/cBJHbI

Arnold & Porter is the first AmLaw 100 law firm to publish an iPhone app, pioneering into new areas of marketing with technology.  The firm publishes the Consumer Advertising Law Blog, which provides commentary and news on emerging legal issues in consumer marketing, advertising and promotional activities. The iPhone application takes the content from the blog and makes it more easily accessible with an iPhone. Additional features are included, such as:

• Offline access to the blog's postings.
• Saving “favorite” articles for viewing on or offline
• An easy sharing of articles via Email, Facebook or Twitter
• Viewing of web content without leaving the application.

To distribute the blog’s content as widely as possible to current and potent clients and readers, the firm distributes versions of blog postings via RSS feed, Twitter, and Kindle. In addition, Arnold & Porter publishes a Consumer Products Marketing Newsletter. That newsletter contains blog content as well as additional features for those clients and readers who prefer that format (printed or not).

"The iPhone app provides clients and interested readers a unique way to access the high-quality reporting and analysis created by our multi-disciplinary consumer protection and advertising practice group," said Neil Rosenbaum, New Business Opportunities Manager for the firm in Washington, D.C.

The idea for the blog was an extension of that approach. The blog editors and Rosenbaum discussed the concept of creating the mobile application in connection with the blog.

Why create an iPhone app?

To read the rest of the story, visit the LawMarketing Portal at http://bit.ly/a9gyyu

The one thing everyone remembers about their visit to Disney World is how clean it is.  That's because it is every employee's job -- from the VP of Marketing to Captain Nemo -- to pick up any piece of trash they see and throw it away.

The marketers at Disney World know they are not selling rides, parades or cartoon characters. They are selling an experience. "What do we want our clients to say about their experience? Our brand is what our clients say about us, it’s not our marketing or logo. At most places it happens by default. We need to make it happen by design," said speaker, trainer and consultant Dennis Snow, who worked for 20 years at Disney World. He spoke at the 2010 Marketing Partner Forum in Florida.

"We want them to say in order to get repeat business:

1. It was a magical experience
2. They paid attention to every detail.
3. They made me and my children feel special."

It's the experience that matters.

To read the rest of this story visit The LawMarketing Portal at  http://bit.ly/7bRD0Y

Six law firms are on Fortune magazine’s list of the best 100 companies to work for in 2010, up from five last year.

New on this year’s list is Baker Donelson, with 560 attorneys in 16 offices. To pick the best companies, Fortune surveys a random sample of company employees to learn their attitudes about management's credibility, job satisfaction and camaraderie. It also factors in pay, benefits, diversity and communication.

Here are the law firms’ rankings and Fortune's summaries of why they made the list:

• Alston & Bird. “The law firm invites all employees—everyone from receptionists to shipping clerks to legal secretaries—to attend monthly firm meetings marked by the review of a project and kudos to all who contributed.”
• Arnold & Porter. “Employees who make successful referrals at this prestigious law firm are rewarded with bonuses ranging from $450 to $15,000.”
• Baker Donelson. “A strong commitment to diversity at this law firm founded in 1888 has lifted number of minority lawyers from 12 to 40; of 540 lawyers, 180 are women.” It is one of 17 of the top 100 companies reporting no layoffs.
• Bingham McCutchen. “Diversity has a high priority at this corporate law firm. Retreats bring together lawyers of color and openly gay and lesbian lawyers. In response to employee feedback, health insurance was amended in 2009 to cover additional benefits for transgender employees.”
• Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. “Recession prompted law firm to ask incoming associates to defer their entry until the fall of 2010 and offered to place them in legal jobs at nonprofits and government agencies, paying them an honorarium of $60,000 and a $15,000 bar stipend. Forty-three incoming lawyers (56 percent of the class) agreed to the deferment.”
• Perkins Coie. “Firm was proud to represent Obama for America, with 59 lawyers working on the campaign. Another 48 attorneys worked on the Al Franken campaign.” It is one of 14 companies on the Fortune list that pay 100 percent of their employees' health care premiums.

The picture tells the story: Twitter’s growth has fallen from a high of 13% in March 2009 to 3.5% in October 2009, the most recent month for which data is available, according to HubSpot's third ‘State of the Twittersphere’ report.

The Twitter ecosystem reaches about 60 million people, with 20 million coming from Twitter.com and 40 million coming from elsewhere, like bit.ly, Tweetdeck and Twitterfeed, according to TechCrunch. It's tricky to sort out the trend for Twitter by itself, but the chart below shows that Twitter's membership peaked in July 2009 and has been flat, at best, since then. Click here to see the chart full-size.

Furthermore:

• 53% of users have completed their profiles by adding bios and only 41% include a web address.
• 82% of Twitter users have less than 100 followers
• 81% of Twitter users are following less than 100 people
• 10-11 pm is the most active hour on Twitter, when most businesses are closed.

The Connecticut Statewide Grievance Committee has dismissed complaints against five Connecticut attorneys accused of violating the state’s Rules of Professional Conduct by subscribing to Total Attorneys’ group lawyer Internet-based advertising program. 

The Connecticut action was part of a campaign by a single Connecticut attorney, who filed complaints last spring against more than 500 lawyers  in 47 states.  The complaints were dismissed after the close of Chief Disciplinary Counsel’s evidence, before the Respondents offered a defense to the charges.

"This is In an unprecedented procedural move," said Total Attorneys General Counsel Pam Gracyalny. "To date, no state has found that the Total Attorneys model violates its Rules of Professional Conduct."

Total Attorneys President Kevin Chern, against whom the complainant originally requested criminal charges be filed, voiced appreciation for the consideration the Committee gave the issue.  “We are celebrating the Committee’s decision and we are eager to see the text of the full decision,” Chern said.

Total Attorneys is a managed service provider that helps small law firms and solo practitioners improve operations, save money and grow their businesses. Through the company’s Software-as-a-Service platform, it offers legal process outsourcing, search engine marketing, a professional call center, CRM solutions and answering services. Founded in 2002, Total Attorneys has seen revenue grow more than 9,000 percent over the past five reporting years, and the company now has more than 1,100 law firm customers across the United States.

This is a guest post by Joey Asher, President of Speechworks, a selling and communication skills coaching company in Atlanta. His new book “How to Win a Pitch: The Five Fundamentals That Will Distinguish You from the Competition” is available on Amazon and at www.speechworks.net.

My dog Balou is a 60-pound, black-lab mix that we adopted at a PetSmart rescue day last year in Sandy Springs, Ga.   And if he could only talk and write on a flip chart, I’m sure he’d be a great public speaker. That’s because he understands how to connect with people better than most humans.

It’s about connection not perfection

First, Balou understands that you can do a lot wrong if you establish great rapport.

Balou makes lots of mistakes. He eats the insoles out of shoes. He chewed the upholstery on our nice living room sofa. When he vomits on the kitchen floor, it’s truly disturbing. And I won’t bother describing the foul and prodigious “gift” he left for us in the basement on Thanksgiving morning last year. I guess we forgot to let him out the night before.

But we forgive Balou’s mistakes because we love him. When I’m working at the kitchen table, he sits at my feet. When my kids come home from school, he runs to the window and starts barking for joy. And he does this hilarious thing with this ratty stuffed panda where . . . Well you get the idea.

Like Balou, great public speakers understand that you can overcome mistakes with connection. They’re not worried about forgetting a point, using an awkward phrase, or having their hair out of place. They don’t worry if the projector breaks. They know that if they connect with the audience with energy, eye contact and stories, all will be forgiven.

My Dog Displays Lot of Passion

If Balou were a public speaker, his best trait would be his passion.   Balou has no trouble expressing his excitement. When I’m about to take him for a walk and he sees me grab his leash, he goes berserk. He leaps, twirls, and sneezes repeatedly (Sneezing is how Balou shows excitement).   That excitement is contagious and endearing.

Great speakers also show passion. I worked with an attorney that gave a presentation on how women attorneys can balance work and family. As she spoke, her face lit up, her voice became intense, and her arms moved wildly. Her passion was obvious and I was riveted.

Balou Makes Great Eye Contact

Balou knows that to connect with people, you need great eye contact. If I say, “Hey Balou”, he looks up at me.   If he wants to go outside, he looks at me and barks.   When I come home from work, he shows he’s happy to see me by looking right at me and wagging his tail.

Similarly, great speakers understand that eye contact is critical. I worked with a project manager recently who had great energy but looked at his feet when he spoke. We helped him by making him hold the eye contact for three to five seconds with individual listeners.

Balou just loves you

Finally, Balou understands that you win affection by showing affection. We love Balou because he loves us and shows us in dozens of ways.

The same is true with great speakers. They show their affection for their audience by addressing their key concerns rather than giving a generic speech. They leave plenty of time for questions. They then answer those questions with a helpful, sincere tone. Audiences return the love that you give.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that Balou knows how to sell himself so well. His livelihood depends on it.

FMC Technologies made headlines when it posted an RFP (request for proposals) on Legal OnRamp, the online social network for in-house lawyers. Jeffrey Carr, Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, put a two-page application online.

The last step was to state in a Tweet on Twitter (140 character limit) why FMC should hire the law firm.  The move took law firms aback as they considered what to do.

Carr had put the RFP "1° Law Litigation Value Challenge" online last spring with a deadline of May 31, 2009. He was seeking tech-savvy firms that offered alternative fees, online billing, and performance review plus a bonus.  50 Law firms downloaded the two-page form and as of last fall, 32 firms were being considered, including Drinker Biddle,  Valorem law firm (7 lawyers),  Morgan, Lewis and Pepper Hamilton.

He is an Association of Corporate Counsel Board member and the driving force behind the ACC Value Challenge Steering Committee.“The existing model for legal service delivery is unsustainable, and we've reached a critical milestone where the customers appear willing to drive change,” Carr explains. “The current business model used by most law firms is antiquated, inefficient and ineffective and it fails to deliver value to the client by avoiding -- indeed by punishing -- those that leverage prior work product, streamline processes and focus on profitability by cost reduction as opposed to top line revenue growth.”

So which firms tweeted and made the final cut?  They are:

• Beirne Maynard
• Fulkerson
• Littler
• Seyfarth
• Summit
• Sutherland
• Valorem
• Womble

It pays to be tech-savvy and to be concise!

YouTube has a global audience, so if you want to reach as many people as possible, you’ll have to make sure subtitles are available for your videos. You’ll want closed captioning to reach the deaf and hard of hearing, too. Thankfully, that process has shifted from relatively easy to an absolute breeze in recent months. Here’s how to make it happen.

Once you’ve uploaded a video to your YouTube account, you have two options for generating subtitles for the video:

1. You can use the CaptionTube web app that Google has created
2. You can upload a transcript you make yourself and use Google’s speech recognition technology to automatically assign the right times to each caption.

In either case, you’ll end up with a text file that you can edit to make corrections if need be, and viewers will be able to either read the captions in their native language or translate them on the fly when watching your video.

For illustrated instructions visit Mashable.com at http://bit.ly/6Ns5CN

The Hubbard One Marketing Professional of the Year Award went to Andrea K. Stimmel, Business Development Director of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle in New York.

The firm’s nomination states, “Curtis hired Ms. Stimmel in 2007. In just over two years, she has prompted a sea change in the firm’s attitude towards marketing, increasing visibility for the firm and establishing a far more tactical approach to business development. Among the many new programs implemented by Andrea, none has been more successful than the utilization of web 2.0 platforms to market the firm. ”

Already, the 215-lawyer firm has benefited from this approach. To date, the firm has established more than 400 online contacts including:

• 195 followers on Twitter
• 186 fans on Facebook
• 60 members on LinkedIn
• The Curtis blogs have been visited more than 12,000 times.
• In November 2009 alone, social networking activity was responsible for almost 9% of web traffic on Curtis.com, including more than 450 first-time visits.

Andrea has 23 years of professional marketing experience, and the last seven were in law firm marketing. She is a member of the Metropolitan New York Chapter chapter of LMA.  She established Curtis' social media presence with the launch of its award-winning Facebook recruiting page in 2008. A first among AmLaw 200 firms, the Facebook page helped increase name and brand awareness, primarily among law students, law schools and junior associates.

Andrea guided the firm's expanded use of the platform, including:

LinkedIn – Used to build relationships and generate new business. The firm also supports a firm profile and a group to maintain contact with alumni and other users interested in the firm's activities.

Twitter – Constantly updates our followers about the latest developments at Curtis. From deals and cases to media exposure, Curtis tweets on the latest firm activities.

Blogs – a series of blogs demonstrate thought leadership in several industry (e.g., international funds) and geographic (e.g., Oman) areas.  The blogs help establish Curtis as a thought leader with both current and prospective clients.

Using Yahoo!'s Tubes, the firm created a single RSS feed that could aggregate all of the content published by Curtis. This "master feed" was then routed to each of the firm's social networking applications. Once implemented, this system enabled all content updates to automatically distribute to the Curtis Facebook page, LinkedIn group, Twitter feed, blogs and website.

Many thanks to John Simpson, Managing Account Director, for furnishing a copy of the Hubbard One Social Networking Survey at the Managing Partner Forum in Florida:

Hubbard One Social Networking Survey

•          50 in-depth interviews

•          Law firms and Managing Partners: AmLaw 20

•          Companies and General Counsel: Fortune 20

Facebook Today

•          Firm Page

–      35% of top 20 American law firms have FB page

•          Firm Employee Groups

–      40% of top 20 American law firms have FB groups

–      60% of top 20 Fortune 500 firms have FB groups

•          Individual Profiles/Pages

–      0% of top 10 GC’s, 10 Managing Partners have public FB profiles

LinkedIn Today

•          LinkedIn Profiles

–      3 General Counsels of top 20 Fortune 500 Companies

–      3 Managing Partners of top 20 AmLaw firms

•          LinkedIn Groups

–      Current Employees

•          40% of top 20 AmLaw firms

–      Alumni

•          70% of top 20 AmLaw firms

•          LinkedIn Company Profiles

–      100% of top 20 AmLaw firms and Fortune 500 companies

General Counsel LinkedIn Usage

•          Only 25% visit LinkedIn more than once a month

•          Only 5% visit more than once a week

•          80% review firm website bios

•          17% also review LinkedIn profiles

•          10% have taken a call based on a LinkedIn intro

•          4% have looked for common connections

•          4% consider LinkedIn recommendations when considering giving work to a firm

Attorney LinkedIn Usage

•          68% of lawyers visit LinkedIn more than once a month

•          28% of lawyers visit more than once a week

•          56% have used LinkedIn to locate bios

•          32% have looked for common connections

•          4% have used LinkedIn to generate business

•          0% have connected with a GC they didn’t already know

How are Attorneys and GCs Using LinkedIn?

Twitter Today

·         Clients tweeting? 0 of top 20 Fortune 500 General Counsels are tweeting

·         Law firm leaders tweeting? 0 of top 20 AmLaw Managing Partners are tweeting

·         Law firms tweeting? 5 of top 20 AmLaw firms are tweeting

Blogs Today

•          ~45% of AmLaw 200 Blogging

•          Blawg.com is tracking:

•          2,788 legal blogs

•          1,400 active blogs

•          >680,000 posts

The interviewees:

•          50 in-depth interviews

–      25 General Counsel

–      25 Attorneys

•          20 Partners

•          5 Senior Counsel

•          Research sample typically includes:

–      Law firms and Managing Partners: AmLaw 20

–      Companies and General Counsel: Fortune 20

The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals has backed gripe site ConsumerAffairs.com in a defamation lawsuit filed by a car dealer. The appellate court ruled that the federal Communications Decency Act gives the site immunity from liability for libel based on posts by users. The ruling upholds a decision issued last year by U.S. District Court Judge Gerald Bruce Lee in Alexandria, Va.

This should give comfort to lawyer bloggers who have been reluctant to turn on the "comments" feature on their law firm marketing blogs.

The car dealer, Thomas Nemet of Nemet Chevrolet in Jamaica,N.Y., complained about 20 allegedly libelous posts that appeared on ConsumerAffairs.com. The comments listed in the lawsuit included criticisms about prices and fees.

For instance, one commenter allegedly wrote that she was told she had to purchase a $2,500 extended warranty and an $1,195 alarm system. "I am stuck with a car loan for $28,500 for a car that is worth about 23,500," she wrote, according to the lawsuit.

Nemet alleged in court documents that these remarks were "false, malicious and libelous" and that the commenter merely "suffers from buyer's remorse.'"

While Web sites generally can't be sued for libel based on user comments, Nemet argued for an exception in this case because ConsumerAffairs.com allegedly "funnels the complaints to consumer class action lawyers so the lawyers can make money filing groundless class actions and earn legal fees."

For a copy of the opinion, click here for Nemet Chevrolet v. Consumeraffairs.Com, No. 08-2097, December 29, 2009.

In addition, Nemet alleged that ConsumerAffairs.com helped develop the allegedly defamatory posts by contacting consumers to ask questions, helping them draft or revise complaints and telling them they could recover damages by joining a lawsuit.

Nemet argued that a separate court ruling involving Roommates.com supported the position that ConsumerAffairs.com forfeited its immunity by assisting in the creation of content. In the Roomates.com lawsuit, the 9th Circuit ruled that the site could be sued for civil rights violations because it helped users create unlawful ads.

But the appellate court said that ConsumerAffairs.com's alleged actions were not comparable to those of Roommates.com. "Nemet has merely alleged that Consumeraffairs.com structured its website and its business operations to develop information related to class-action lawsuits. But there is nothing unlawful about developing this type of content," the 4th Circuit wrote.

Nemet also alleged that some of the unflattering posts were not genuine, but were instead authored by ConsumerAffairs.com itself. But a majority of the appellate court found that Nemet had not alleged sufficient facts to move forward on that claim.

By Michael G. Cummings

At this time of year, most attorneys set ambitious goals and identify new marketing thrusts to realize these goals.

Fast forward to the end of the year, and what typically happens? In most of these cases, attorneys end up producing pretty much more of the same results.

Now, I contrast these traditional results with a group of 6 attorneys that I just worked with at a law firm for the past year. Each of the attorneys generated an increase of $400,000-600,000 in fees.

What makes this even more remarkable is that all of these attorneys were young and certainly not accomplished business developers. And the firm was located in Michigan – a state facing some dire economic times in the past few years.

What I have found in this work is that individual attorneys almost always have a wealth of business development opportunities. The obstacle to realizing this potential is the attorney, not the practice area, market or marketing programs.

Attorneys are either not recognizing their opportunities, lack the skills to convert them or are not putting in the work to get the business.

For those 6 Michigan attorneys, there were a lot of improvements and actions they took that led to these results. But the foundation for their success really came done to their mindset.  In each case, they were:

• Entrepreneurial: this means that they wanted to put their success under their own control.
• Humble: they knew that they didn’t know how to do business development – so they were teachable and open.
• Action-oriented: change requires that you take different actions on a consistent, systematic basis.
• Willing to take a risk: typically, this requires that attorneys have direct and clear business development discussions with clients, prospects and referral sources – and ask them for their business or introductions.
• Disciplined: they executed their plan on a week to week (and day to day) basis.

To see the rest of this article , please  visit Originate! or click http://bit.ly/5XLzh9

Sharon Geraghty and Matthew Cockburn, co-leaders of Torys' M&A Practice predict that 2010 will be a comeback year with significant M&A activity. While 2009 was a slow year in the M&A space, in 2010 the pickup in M&A activity will be considerable.

"We expect activity to include acquisitions in the "green" and media and telecom sectors. Life sciences will continue to be robust though mid-market focused. Well-run Canadian pension funds and banks will also take advantage of their relative strength to make international acquisitions. Large conglomerates, including financial institutions, will carve out their non-core assets. Private equity is also showing signs of renewed interest in acquisitions.

"Although foreign buyers will face some scrutiny from the Canadian government when national security issues are triggered, "national security" will not be viewed as broadly as was once feared. Canadian M&A deals may also face more lengthy and onerous antitrust reviews.

"In 2010, shareholders will continue their unprecedented level of activism, which began in 2009. Canadian directors may experiment by trying to “just say no” to unsolicited offers, while recent developments suggest that U.S. directors may tread more cautiously on this front.

Torys’ M&A lawyers are looking ahead to 2010, and this is what we see.  For the full story please visit http://bit.ly/79h09N 

According to LawShucks.com, 2009 will go down as the worst year ever for law-firm layoffs. More people were laid off by more firms than had been reported for all previous years combined.  The good news is that the layoffs peaked in March 2009, and were at their lowest point of the year in December 2009 -- auguring for a better 2010.

The site tracked 12,196 people laid off by major firms in 2009, of which 4,633 were lawyers and 7,563 were staff. Make sure to check the tracker for the methodology – and LawShucks is aware that layoffs are severely underreported, a trend that increased as the year went on.

All told, they tracked 218 reports of layoffs at 138 law firms in 2009. Clifford Chance led the way, with an astonishing 10 different events reported. DLA Piper had seven, Baker & McKenzie six, and Cadwalader, Dechert and Faegre & Benson each had four. Twelve other firms had three and 27 had two, leaving 93 firms that had a single round of layoffs reported.

From the New York Times: It took longer than some experts expected, but the recession and the resulting shortage of good jobs have spurred a jump in applications to law schools and a growing interest in graduate programs

The number of people taking the Law School Admissions Test, for example, rose 20 percent in October, compared with October 2008, reaching an all-time high of 60,746. “There’s a bit of lag time between when people start to worry about the economy and when they get their applications going,” said Wendy Margolis, director of communications for the Law School Admission Council, which administers the L.S.A.T.

Jeffrey S. Brand, dean of the University of San Francisco School of Law, echoed that view.“I think the crash was so severe that people were kind of catatonic,” Mr. Brand said. “They weren’t sure what to do. They’re coming out of that mode now.”

David G. Payne, the Educational Testing Service’s vice president and chief operating officer for college and graduate programs, said, “When job creation slows, there’s an increase in the number of people who pursue a graduate degree,” Mr. Payne said.

Officials at many law schools reported substantial increases in applications over last year. Washington University in St. Louis has had a 19 percent year-to-date increase in applications to its college of law. At the University of San Francisco School of Law, applications are up 35 percent over last year, and at the University of Iowa’s College of Law, applications are up 39 percent.

Some increases are more explicable than others. Applications to the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University have risen 54 percent this year, which may be related to its rise in the U.S. News & World Report rankings to 23 in 2009, from 36 the year before.

But at Cornell University’s Law School, whose ranking has remained relatively stable, applications are up 44 percent, and no one is quite sure of the reason for such a large increase.

Richard Geiger, dean of admissions, said: “I’m a little thrown off by the fact that our increase is much bigger than expected. There’s nothing big we’re doing to explain that kind of increase.”

Collins Byrd, dean of admissions at the University of Iowa’s College of Law, said “I think people spent the past year in a bit of shell shock,” Mr. Byrd said. “I don’t think people applied at as high a rate because they just didn’t know what to do. They sat there and did nothing.

“Now they’re seeing what they can do, seeing if they can take out loans or mortgages on housing. I think people are coming to grips with reality.”

Art Block, the general counsel top in-house lawyer at Comcast Corp., froze its legal spending in 2009 after years of annual law-firm increases of 5 percent or more. Block says the freeze was partly in response to the recession, but also was triggered by the belief that hourly rates, particularly for first-year associates, had gotten out of hand, according to Philly.com.

Now the company increasingly wants its outside lawyers to jettison the traditional hourly billing rate. It is pressing for flat fees or other alternative-billing arrangements that emphasize efficiency and expose firms to financial risk if matters drag on too long or conclude unsuccessfully.

Comcast, based in Philadelphia, has approved a 2.5 percent increase in hourly rates for 2010. But the law firm marketing message to law firms is unmistakable: The balance of power has shifted, and outside lawyers will have to scramble to keep the company's business.

"The objective is to get a sense that the law firm is managing its own business more efficiently for our mutual benefit so they have some skin in the game," Block said. "We are not looking to be punitive; we are looking to be more businesslike."

A decision by Comcast managers to push back against rate increases or to accelerate changes in the way law firms are compensated has ripple effects far beyond Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, with 24 million customers.

One reason is the size of Comcast's legal budget, typically between $75 million and $100 million a year but likely more than that in 2010 as the company moves to complete its acquisition of a controlling interest in NBC Universal Inc., a $30 billion transaction announced Dec. 3.

The law firms themselves say the push for greater efficiency and alternative-billing arrangements can work for both sides, provided there is a good working relationship.

"You have to have a good strong relationship for these things to be effective, and I think they can be very effective," said Robert Heim, chairman of the litigation department at Dechert L.L.P. who represents Comcast on some matters.

Comcast has 75 lawyers on staff. It will have many more once it completes its transaction with NBCU, which has 250 in-house lawyers.

The bulk of Comcast's legal work is done by about 25 firms; it is represented by seven in Philadelphia, including Morgan, Lewis & Bockius L.L.P., Dechert, Cozen O'Connor and Davis, Polk & Wardwell, and Freshfields of London.

Though the size and complexity of the NBCU deal likely means that Comcast's legal budget this year will grow significantly, the overall trend is toward clamping down on costs, Block said.

"We want to feel that the firms have a commitment to be businesslike and won't rely on asking us for annual increases without regard to facts and circumstances," he said. "We can be creative. We want them to be creative."

JDSupra.com, has transformed into a site where lawyers can upload articles, work product, forms and opinions and have them broadcast out to:

•  12 LinkedIn Groups
•  23 Facebook Legal Pages
•  31 RSS Legal Feeds
•  33 Twitter accounts

JD Supra was launched in 2007 as a repository of free legal information shared by the professionals who generate it. When lawyers upload documents, they get to create a profile for free. Visitors can search the site for legal documents, also for free, and they are linked to the profile.  It's an excellent marketing tool, which has been made even better now that JDSupra is a distribution service.

To top it off, JDSupra has even created an iPhone app to read the latest updates, alerts and case filings. Subjects covered include:

• Real estate
• Banking and finance
• Immigration
• Insurance
• Consumer protection
• Taxes
• Bankruptcy
• Intellectual property
• Health law
• Labor and employment
• Legal marketing
• and many others.

"We're not trying to be a social network, we're just getting our information out through the networks," said JDSupra founder Aviva Cuyler. "As the social web opened up, we are now distributing legal content that lawyers and firms want to get in front of potential clients." 

WEB SEMINAR PRESENTED BY: Apollo Business Development 
SPEAKERS: Michael Cummings and Larry Bodine, Esq. 
DATE: January 14, 2010; 1 PM - 2:15 PM Eastern time
LOCATION: Over the Web, on your computer
MORE INFO: CONTACT: Michael Cummings; (Tel) 630.572.4798 or  mcummings@sageprofessional.com
WEBSITE: http://www.sagelawmarketing.com/webseminar53
REGISTER: http://www.sagelawmarketing.com/webseminar53.htm#register

In this session, you will begin to Think and Act like other Rainmakers. The key is to develop a personal marketing program, a blueprint for getting new business on a systematic and disciplined basis. If you think like a rainmaker, take the same actions each day and build your skills over time – then you will start to produce the same results.

It is natural at this time of year for us to think about setting goals for ourselves for the upcoming year. Recognize that that it is especially vital for you to increase your business development proficiency in 2010. Marketing and selling are professional skills that attorneys must master now in order to thrive.

Taught by marketing experts Larry Bodine and Michael G. Cummings, attendees of this LIVE Web conference will learn what the rainmakers know about getting new business, and the make-or-break steps that the Best take, the steps that can also generate a record-breaking year for you in 2010.

Register Now for this key skill-building seminar, just in time for advancing your career right now in 2010. Any number can attend in one room. Just Click Here.

Who should attend:

• New partners or associates looking to advance a career
• Attorney aiming to become a top producer
• Aspiring entrepreneurs who need to build or re-vamp their practice
• Firm leaders, practice groups and office members whose success is dependent on the business development productivity results of their team

Topics Include:

• Eliminating the mystery, wasted time and effort of marketing by doing what really works to successfully market yourself
• 12 simple rules of success
• Leveraging your existing strengths as a professional and applying them to business development for results
• Defining your ideal clients and catching them with all-star marketing ideas
• How to unleash your current contacts into a fertile source of INTRODUCTIONS, not referrals
• The proven methods to turn your clients into your sales force
• Selecting and cultivating a committed Set of Allies and Business Partners who market your services for You
• Network building with a purpose
• Building your reputation through organizations
• Generating a steady stream of "pre-sold" prospective clients

To register: Click Here to register online by credit card; or call us at 1-630-572-4798.

Theresa Bomba, one of the sharpest knives in the marketing drawer, has been promoted from Goulston & Storrs’ Manager of Marketing to Associate Director of Marketing. She will be responsible for the firm’s overall branding and communication strategy andimplementation. Theresa has been with Goulston & Storrsand implementation for nine years.  

Prior to Goulston & Storrs, Theresa was with the law firms of Schnader Harrison and Goldstein and Manello. Theresa and the Goulston & Storrs Business Development and Marketing team have been recognized for their accomplishment by regional and national LMA Your Honor Awards and listed as a MLF Top 50 Marketing Department since inception. She is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and former LMA New England Annual Conference Co-Chair.

She's been with 200-lawyer Goulston & Storrs’ an amazing consecutive nine years. Goulston & Storrs, with offices in Boston, DC, New York and London, has been recognized and awarded for its marketing and communications initiatives, culture, service and employee satisfaction.

Law firms are cutting back on advertising and client feedback programs, according to a new survey by the LMA.  Instead their highest law firm marketing priorities are proposals, business development coaching and training, and client seminars and CLE.

According to the survey, more firms are ramping up their Web 2.0 presence.  LinkedIn is very popular with law firms -- more than 78% reported using LinkedIn, followed by Webinars at 53%, Twitter at 37% and Facebook at 35%.

We all know that we're not supposed to use easy-to-guess passwords, like our birth dates, nickname or the word "password."  It just makes it too easy for the organized crime hackers to break into your Twitter account (it happened to me) or web site (it happened to me twice.)

But we're lazy. We know we should create strong password and incorporate numbers and special characters like ~ ` ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ - + = { } [ ] : ; " ' < > ? / | \.  See "How To Choose Very Strong Passwords That Are Easy To Remember" at http://bit.ly/7zDq7y

Now Twitter has come up with a list of 370 passwords that you shouldn't use.  It just so happens that Twitter has hard-coded all banned passwords on its sign-up page.  It won't let you use an easily-guessed password.

See if yours is on the list below.  If it is, change it ASAP!

From Mashable.com:Money spent on social media-related advertising is already expected to grow significantly this year, and now we also know that the medium is considered the top priority in the digital space according to a survey of senior marketers.

The research, published in eMarketer, shows that 45.4% of respondents considered social a ‘top priority’ while another 42.2% deemed it ‘important’. That narrowly beat out digital infrastructure for the top spot, with other marketing tactics like search, mobile, and blogger outreach trailing significantly. Here are the full results:

Elsewhere, eMarketer reports on the metrics that marketers care most about, and the results support the notion that the page view is declining in relevance. The data, which was collected in the second half of 2009, indicates that ‘time on site’ is now the metric marketers are most interested in, followed by unique page views, click-through rate, and the traditional page view.

What does it all mean? For both the marketer and the publisher, that engagement is here to stay as the preferred way of doing business. That means both more engaging ads that leverage social media, and more engaging web sites that keep users around beyond a simple page view.