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

Social media should be part of every law firm's marketing and business development strategy. Join me at the Marketing Partner Forum on January 18, 2012 for a workshop where you will learn how to develop real opportunities through social media and sustain your effort through tracking and reporting. From creating content to creating buy-in, this roll-up-your-sleeves session will provide tools and ideas to help you fully utilize social media options to drive revenue.

My colleagues in this three-hour workshop are:

• Adam L. Stock, Director of Business Development & Marketing for Allen Matkins in San Francisco.
• Jasmine Trillos-Decarie, Director of Marketing & Business Development for Foley Hoag in Boston.

Adam, Jasmine and I made a presentation on social media to a packed room at the LMA Bay Area Chapter meeting earlier this year, and you won't want to miss this.

I've attended the Marketing Partner Forum for more than 10 years in a row, and I recommend it. This year the conference will be in Miami at the classy Turnberry Isle Hotel.

The MPF will have more than 50 speakers. There will be programs on legal industry trends, business development, relationship selling, competitive intelligence, client service, branding, alternative fees, staffing structures, and web trends for 2012.

The keynote speaker is Mario Moussa, Ph.D., Co-Author of The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas. The conference runs for 20 hours over a three-day period.

But the main reason I attend is to talk to the other attendees. More than 200 people -- practicing lawyers and top-level CMOs -- have registered so far, and many more will be there. I know I'll have many intelligent conversations with people who are see-in-the-dark smart. The MPF is the conference where the decision-makers go.

Here's a little tip from your Uncle Lar: you'll get 10% off your registration when you use promo code MPF10 when registering.

I expect to blog live from the conference, so stay tuned right here for daily updates. There are many reasons to go, and being in Florida in January has a certain appeal to a Chicago boy like me.

When your legal case is really important, you’ll want to find a lawyer from the nation’s Top Ranked Law Firms. And frankly, when is a legal case not important? 

Be sure to pick up the new copy of Fortune Magazine, where you’ll find a unique list of the nation’s top firms drawn from the LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings.

The list of Top Ranked Law Firms features US law firms with 21 or more attorneys in which at least 1 in 3 of their lawyers earned the AV^® Preeminent™ Peer Review rating — the highest rating available. An AV Preeminent certification is a significant accomplishment – a testament to the fact that a lawyer’s peers rank him or her at the highest level of professional excellence.

Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings are based on confidential opinions of lawyers and judges who receive invitations from LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell to review lawyers about whom they have professional knowledge. Unlike some “best,” “leading” and “super” lawyer ratings, Peer Review Ratings are not based on some mysterious, hidden algorithm. They are based purely on the confidential assessments offered by a lawyer’s peers.

The ratings will help you make an informed decision about hiring a lawyer who is respected by other lawyers.

• Peer Review Ratings are an objective indicator that a lawyer has been deemed by his or her peers as having the highest ethical standards and professional ability.
• The ratings methodology is sound, time-honored, well understood and well respected in the legal industry.
• Peer Review Ratings help consumers validate attorney credentials and to gather a more complete picture of lawyers they’re thinking about hiring.

Pick up a copy of Fortune on December 26 and keep it handy.

Allen Pusey, a veteran journalist, has been named the ABA Journal's editor and publisher after serving as managing editor since 2007. He's been the acting editor since May, after Edward A. Adams, left the Journal to become the Multimedia Editor for Bloomberg Law.

• Pusey worked for 26 years at the Dallas Morning News as an investigative reporter, feature writer, special projects editor and U.S. Supreme Court correspondent.
• In one signature project, Pusey worked on a study of 14,000 Dallas County jurors and a survey of federal judges regarding their attitudes about the jury system.
• He also was one of the first reporters in the country to uncover the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s.

Pusey becomes the fourth editor and publisher of the ABA Journal in the past 11 years. I was the editor and publisher at the magazine during the 1990s, and maybe we should start an alumni association.

In addition to directing the editorial and business operations of the magazine, Pusey will oversee the Journal’s email publications and website. The electronic publications are distributed to more than 400,000 readers each week. The magazine goes to all members of the association and some outside subscribers. Pusey also will be a member of the ABA’s senior management team.

“The ABA Journal is an extraordinary publication with a very unique place in legal journalism,” Pusey says. “We have a terrific staff who have fascinating stories to tell about the people and issues that shape the law in these very interesting times.”

Pusey served for 19 years as a board member of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C. He attended Davidson College in North Carolina before joining the U.S. Army and serving in Vietnam. He later graduated from the University of Texas-Dallas with a degree in sociology.

Congratulations Ed! Best of luck in your new position.

Just spotted this in Inc. online by Ilya Pozin. Here are his tips for staying productive:

1. Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks. Writing “launch company website” at the top of your to-do list is a sure way to make sure you never get it done. Break down the work into smaller and smaller chunks until you have specific tasks that can be accomplished in a few hours or less: Sketch a wireframe, outline an introduction for the homepage video, etc. That’s how you set goals and actually succeed in crossing them off your list.

 

2. Stop multi-tasking. No, seriously—stop. Switching from task to task quickly does not work. In fact, changing tasks more than 10 times in a day makes you dumber than being stoned. When you’re stoned, your IQ drops by five points. When you multitask, it drops by an average of 10 points, 15 for men, five for women (yes, men are three times as bad at multitasking than women). 

 

3. Be militant about eliminating distractions. Lock your door, put a sign up, turn off your phone, texts, email, and instant messaging. In fact, if you know you may sneak a peek at your email, set it to offline mode, or even turn off your Internet connection. Go to a quiet area and focus on completing one task.

 

4. Schedule your email. Pick two or three times during the day when you’re going to use your email. Checking your email constantly throughout the day creates a ton of noise and kills your productivity.

 

5. Use the phone. Email isn’t meant for conversations. Don’t reply more than twice to an email. Pick up the phone instead. 

 

6. Work on your own agenda. Don’t let something else set your day. Most people go right to their emails and start freaking out. You will end up at inbox-zero, but accomplish nothing. After you wake up, drink water so you rehydrate, eat a good breakfast to replenish your glucose, then set prioritized goals for the rest of your day. 

 

7. Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals. Your brain uses up more glucose than any other bodily activity. Typically you will have spent most of it after 60-90 minutes. (That’s why you feel so burned out after super long meetings.) So take a break: Get up, go for a walk, have a snack, do something completely different to recharge. And yes, that means you need an extra hour for breaks, not including lunch, so if you’re required to get eight hours of work done each day, plan to be there for 9.5-10 hours.

 

If you attack someone on your blog -- and post defamatory falsehoods against a private individual -- you will not be considered a journalist and you will be held responsible. It happened to a blogger who unleashed a series of unfounded personal attacks -- and it can happen to you.

Many states have special shield laws reserved for journalists, but a court in Oregon ruled that a self-styled "investigative blogger" didn't fit the definition and had to pay for wrecking her victim's reputation.

Here's an excerpt from the Lawyers.com blog, which I edit:

"It didn’t take long for the court to decide against the blogger on the defamation claim over her argument that she was protected by the First Amendment. There was no proof her statements were true, and applying long-standing Supreme Court principles, the court ruled that her victim was not a public figures and the blog statements were not matters of public concern.

Why the Fuss?

This case is cutting-edge, because the judge ruled, point-blank, that Cox was not a “journalist” entitled to special protection under a state shield law. In defending the lawsuit, Cox argued that she got her information from a confidential “inside” source and, under Oregon’s shield law, she wasn’t required to divulge that source’s name. She also claimed that her victim couldn’t recover damages for defamation because he never requested a retraction from the blogger as required by Oregon’s retraction law.

The judge didn’t buy it. In his rulings (PDF), he found that Cox was not a “journalist” within the meaning of Oregon’s laws and so she wasn’t entitled to the protections of those laws. A litany of “media” sources are listed as covered by the laws, such as newspapers, magazines, television stations and news services. As a blogger with no affiliation to any of these types of media, Cox was not a “journalist.” In fact, the judge noted, she had no educational background in journalism, no connection to a known news outlet and offered no proof that she followed standard journalistic rules, such as fact-checking.

For the full story, read Lying Blogger Must Pay $2.5 Mil for Defamation on Lawyers.com.

All that's missing from Wikipedia is a banner reading "Going Out of Business Once More!"

The world's source of cut-and-paste text for high school term papers now presents this green box hassling visitors for a gift. Wikipedia is more desperate for money than a Republican running for President.

Pumping up the drama is an accompanying message from programmer Brandon Harris saying, "I feel like I’m living the first line of my obituary." Oh, the pathos! Oh the humanity!

Then he goes over the top saying, "We’re not just building an encyclopedia, we’re working to make people free." Oh, please. All the over-controlling mothers of America will applaud this cloying guilt trip.

I'd feel more concerned but I remember that Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales demanded donations at exactly the same time last year. If the content is worthwhile, why doesn't he charge for it?

Gee whiz, if Wikipedia is such a great idea, why hasn't a venture capitalist drowned it in cash? Perhaps Wikipedia should come up with a business model to replace its strategy of begging. Or they could adopt a new tagline, "Will create content for food."

I find myself in a grateful place at this time of year. This is true even though it's been a year of double hand surgery, scrimping to pay off debt and a wrenching death in the family. On a public level it's been a another year of a bad economy, a government that can't do anything and prices going up everywhere. The evening news is horrifying because it's all about murder in the streets.

But then I think -- right here and right now -- everything is OK. Sure, my life could collapse in a shambles tomorrow. And my life is far from perfect today. But the Higher Power has been incredibly kind to me by giving me good work that I enjoy, a warm home with people and pets I love, and four days of free time this weekend.

Rather than focus on what I don't have or how things could be even worse, this Thanksgiving I'm going to focus on gratitude. I found a wonderful blog entry by Kevin Eikenberry on The Power of Gratitude, which outlines five ways that gratitude makes our lives better:

• Gratitude attracts what we want. The universal law of attraction says that we will attract into our life the things we think about and focus on. Since this is true, wouldn't you want more of what you are thankful for?
• Gratitude improves relationships. Express gratitude for people, their contributions, their talents and their actions - and make sure you let them know how you feel.
• Gratitude reduces negativity. One of the fastest ways to improve your mood or outlook is to count your blessings.
• Gratitude improves problem solving skills. We typically look at a problem by focusing on what is wrong, the barriers in our way and how we can fix it. Conversely, when we think about what we are grateful for we open our minds up to new possibilities and connections.
• Gratitude helps us learn. Being grateful for our situation - even if we don't like everything about it - allows us to be thankful for the opportunity to learn something new.

Thanks Kevin, I'm grateful for your blog entry.

The best law firm marketing program can be found at 800-lawyer King & Spalding, according to the new issue of the Marketing the Firm newsletter.

"Never before in the history of legal marketing have we seen such a powerful convergence of strategic marketing principles and today’s mind-blowing advancing technology. Social media, still in its infancy for most businesses (and definitely law firms), is coming into its own as a necessary component in the marketing mix. Blogging, tweeting, "linking in," and Facebooking have made their way into the law firm arena with a major blast," says an article by Kimberly Alford Rice, Wendy Stavinoha and Steven Salkin.

King & Spalding was named No. 1 in the seventh annual MLF 50 competition among law firms in marketing and business development. With the leadership of CMO Katherine D'Urso, King & Spalding has created:

• A secure client extranet with 400 users averaging 5,000 unique log-ins per month and housing more than 1.25 terabytes of data.
• Web-friendly URLs to optimize web pages for search engines. After a site optimization, organic search results jumped by 60%.
• Firm events that are searchable by practice and industry, with relevant lawyer contacts. Clicking an icon adds the event to your calendar.
• Free e-Learning webinars for clients, covering hot topics and offering CLE credit in many jurisdictions.
• A mobile intranet accessible by BlackBerry, Android, iPad and iPhone devices.
• QR codes in marketing materials.

Other law firms with top-listed marketing programs include:

• McGuire Woods
• Goulston & Storrs
• K&L Gates
• Goodwin Proctor

The death of Steve Jobs is a huge loss for America, especially in a world where we have billions of competitors in China and India. We need more innovators like Steve Jobs. We need more lawyers who are like Steve Jobs. 

I see several law firm marketing lessons from his work:

·        Develop a niche. It doesn't matter that Apple’s market share of computers is only 9%. His customers are fanatically loyal. The moment a new product was announced, his loyal base would immediately buy it. He developed a niche in computers, cell phones and table computers that no one could rival.

·        They way you do something is more important than what you do. Jobs personally designed the iPhone. They are renowned for their beauty and style. Sure, it has a “death grip” problem that causes the phone to disconnect a call and Consumer Reports recommended people shouldn’t buy it. But it didn’t matter. Customers forgave the technical flaw because they love its look and feel. People even pay a premium price for an iPhone. Lawyers should learn from the corporate world: present or package what you do in a new way.

·        Personalize the brand. A lawyer must realize that he or she is a brand. Clients don’t hire law firms – they hire lawyers. Every time Apple introduced something new, it was Steve Jobs presenting it on a big stage. Similarly, lawyers should get in front of audiences, make presentations on webinars and talk to news reporters. Clients want to find a lawyer they know, trust and like, and lawyers must be easily found by being in the public eye.

·        Don’t just compete, strive to make your competition obsolete. Steve Jobs never played catch-up; instead he was the guy to beat. When he introduced the Apple 1 computer in 1976, there was nothing else like it. Jobs instantly made the typewriter and typesetting obsolete. When he introduced the iPhone in 2007, it made the Blackberry and every other cell phone obsolete. When jobs released the first iPad in April 2010, it created an entire new category. Lawyers should similarly look for new ways to provide service and charge for it that leapfrog ahead of what other law firms are doing.

·        Constantly adapt. Jobs competed with some of the largest corporations on the planet, just as small-firm lawyers compete with the AmLaw 100. Being small gave Jobs the advantage of being nimble. While Microsoft slavishly kept releasing clunky new versions of Windows, which copied features from the Apple OS, Jobs pioneered cloud computing. This year more people will access the Web with a smart phone than with a computer, thanks to Steve Jobs’ ability to change ahead of the times. Lawyers should similarly look over the horizon and give clients today what they hope to have next year.

·        Make a donation right now to a charity that fights cancer. America has the ability to wage war remotely with drones, sent satellites to Jupiter and the technology to watch a movie on demand on a computer – but we haven’t beaten the disease that kills our loved ones and leaders. It’s time we put our treasure where our heart is. Don’t just write a big check to an anti-cancer charity, make it a big check.

I read the 75-year old book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" when I was in junior high, and it changed my life. I tried to adopt every recommendation Dale Carnegie made -- be a good listener, admit mistakes promptly and smile more often. His book is where lawyers should start when building their own clientele.

The new version How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age is written in corporate-speak with none of Carnegie's original charm -- but a book like this is definitely needed in the age of Facebook and Twitter.

The problem with e-mail and texting is that you can't see the other person, and thus can't apply the in-person techniques that Carnegie prescribed.  But there are workarounds:

• Take note of your friend's postings on Facebook and leave a comment.
• Thank people for re-tweeting your messages.
• Don't be a troll and attack or criticize people in public discussion forums.
• Take an interest in others' interests.
• Appeal to people's noble motives.
• Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.

"Digital communications have made it possible to reach more people in faster and cheaper ways," the book quotes Guy Kawasaki saying. "You could make the case that technology has made it possible to blow one's reputation faster and easier than ever."

That's why this is the right book at the right time.