Heather Morse

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First off my rant: Seriously. Could LMA have given this program the smallest room available? Strategy with Jennifer Manton, Nat Slavin, and Wendy Bernero. Come on … learn your audience all ready.

Here we go:

In the past, law firms did everything, now we need to focus.

If you’re not strategizing, you have put yourself in a disadvantage in the marketplace. This is our new normal. The good ol’ days are not coming back. The client is the general contractor and you are the sub-contractor. Time to rightsize your thought process.
Continue Reading #LMA18: Strategy-Are you a talent, service firm? or a hybrid?

Good morning LMA. The General Counsel Panel has now begun. Yes, this is important. These are the clients. Talking about what’s important to them. If there is only one panel you can attend, this would be it. (plus all the others, but, this is the information you need to bring back to your firms.

Who are the Decision Makers?

This is not a one answer fits all question. Smaller companies, GCs are usually the decision makers. Preferred vendor lists. Teams. Chambers to verify (no find).

Question to ask your clients:

  • How do you make the decision on how you hire outside counsel

Tip: Show your subject matter expertise. 

  • CLE
  • e-alerts that are succinct
  • Websites
    • Deeper dive into the subject matter (articles)

Where do you go to research potential clients?

Continue Reading #LMA18 – The General Counsel Panel

The Hall of Fame and Your Honor Awards are being honored and showcased this morning at the 2018 LMA Annual Conference. These are our best members and our inspirations. And we are celebrating them this morning.

  • At 8:15
  • In the morning
  • On Day 2 of a conference.
  • In New Orleans.

I’ll just leave that here.

LMA Recognition Awards | Hall of Fame

I want to personally thank Ann Gallagher and Jeff Reade for your contributions to our association and to our profession as a whole. Thank you for blazing the path that I was easily able to follow.

Congratulations to all who were recognized with a Your Honor Award. The LMA conference is all about connecting and inspiring, so PLEASE click through and learn more about what your peers (and competitors) are doing:

2018 LMA Your Honor Awards Winners

Continue Reading #LMA18 – Honoring and showcasing the best of LMA

Okay, let’s begin with the rooms size. Who would have thought so many people would want to participate in a deep dive program on strategic planning lead by this group ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Let’s begin with the why? Why is strategic planning so popular again?

What’s the difference between strategy and strategic planning?

Kim: A…

AI is more than just a buzz word. AI is touching everything that we do, even when we don’t recognize it as doing so.

So, let’s start with the room is too small for a topic this relevant, especially considering last year the room was three times the size and PACKED. So, when the room is standing room only, I have no issues sitting on the floor.

AI doesn’t just understand the words, but understands what the words mean for a phrase like “raining cats and dogs.”

WHAT IS AI?

Mark Greene, Market Intelligence LLC, goes over what AI is. I went to the session last year. I know I tweeted on it, but apparently I didn’t write a blog post … sorry about that. It was one of the best programs I attended. But here are a couple slides from today:

WHAT IS WATSON?

Continue Reading #LMA18 – How Legal Departments are Leveraging AI

Enough happiness, time for some reality from our friends at Peer Monitor (data based on billable information):

Sucks to be in the AmLaw 200 right now. But WTH with productivity v. lawyer growth. Sorry, 1Ls, there are too many lawyers out there.

And who is engaged?

And the hours …

And…

Dale Carnegie wrote the famous book How to Win Friends and Influence People that was the bible for business people going back to 1936. Today he might write, “How to win friends and influence content.”

I have a great legal marketing friend Roy Sexton out of the Detroit market. If you’re not aware, I’m in Los Angeles.

Whatever content I write and share, whether through my blog, Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook accounts, Roy shares it with his network. He usually adds a personal note showing me that he really read the content, and explaining to his network why they need to read it.

What happens from there is what I call the Roy Sexton Effect. My content goes viral, as you can see from this picture of a recent LinkedIn post of mine:

As you can see, the majority of the views of my post are coming from outside my direct network, and the majority of those people are in the Greater Detroit Area. Home to, you guessed it, Roy Sexton.

By way of comparison, posts not shared by Roy get a couple hundred views.

Be a Roy Sexton

Continue Reading The Roy Sexton Effect or How to win friends and influence content?

I received notice earlier this week that I am now a Class of 2018 Fellow-Elect with the College of Law Practice Management (COLPM). The notice is posted publicly, so I hope I am not breaking any rules or traditions by posting this.

I truly am humbled by this honor. It recognizes my overall contribution to the legal industry … not just the legal marketing slice of the pie.

Friends and Fellows

I had someone ask how/why I was selected. Truly, it has to do with my overall contributions to the business of law, not just my role in legal marketing. Along the way, however, I have met some incredible people. And many of these people have become friends, and now we’re going to be inducted into the COLPM together.

The early years and CRM

The business of law has changed over the course of my career. I was brought on board my first law firm in June 1997 to run a major conference and get out newsletters. Very quickly I ended up rolling out InterAction (which was still an InterFace product).  In fact, our firm was the first to go fully live with this CRM product. I was even featured on the cover of CRM magazine. Ironically, I have come full circle and recently redeployed InterAction at my current firm.

Early adopter and promoter of social media

I began this blog nearly 10 years ago because I had no idea what a blog was, and I wanted to understand the technology better. What I didn’t expect to find was my voice.

I eventually rolled out four blogs for my firm, and helped a practice group establish itself and create a line of business for the partner that is still overwhelming profitable today.

I was part of that group who were out there trying to figure out what Twitter was. I saw a Tweet one day from this guy, Kevin O’Keefe, wanting to know who would like to grab a beer at the hotel near my office. I ran over. I was the only one who showed up. We sat that afternoon getting to know one another and discussing blogging and Twitter. I remember having a very competitive battle with Greg Lambert over who could get the most Twitter followers over the course of a weekend (he far surpasses me today). And meeting this “kid” Adrian Dayton, who had gotten caught up in all those layoffs of associates and was building his own business around social media for lawyers.

If it were not for Twitter, blogging, and social media, I would not have these professional relationships that have all turned to personal ones. To be inducted into the COLPM with these men truly means the world to me.
Continue Reading Call me Fellow. I might even buy the plaque.