Matt Fawcett, SVP & GC of NetApp, is pissed off and he made sure we all heard about it. My question is, “could your client have written this letter?” and “Are you listening?”
Matt has a voice and his voice is being heard by other GCs. They are talking about this, and they are
LMA17 has kicked off with Zoe B. Chance (@zoebchance ) speaking on how the brain is wired to be influenced. As my buddy Jon Holden said,
Sneaking suspicion that @zoebchance will have more than 1691 followers after today… #LMA17pic.twitter.com/8nl7sEJvj3
— Jon Holden (@holdencalgary) March 28, 2017
Go read the Twitter feed at
As 1200 legal marketers start to gather in Las Vegas for the annual LMA Annual Conference, I am reminded WHY I am a member of this community: We have a deep passion for what we do.
But can we care too much?
And when I say “we,” I include all of us on the
It used to be that the worst things that could happen to a premium practice was for it to become commoditized. During the course of my nearly 20 years in legal marketing, I have seen in time and again.
Now the worst thing that can happen is disruptive technology. And when it happens, it happens overnight with the drop of a press release.
Financial services attorneys (oh, hell, all attorneys) need to be shaking in their boots from this headline:
Continue Reading Another premium legal practice bites the dust
It’s been a horrible weekend at airports across the United States as legal residents with Green Cards, valid visas, and immigrant refugees have been shut out at the point of entry to our county. While I believe we need a better vetting process and stronger border control, pure insanity and violation of our laws should
I am not one who is big on New Year’s Resolutions. I prefer daily resolutions, and last year I challenged myself (and all of us) to find our adventure:
For me, finding my adventure will be subtle. There’s an introspection I am exploring. It’s about fearlessly following my path and journey, wherever it takes me. It’s about treasuring life’s journey, today. It’s about growing through adversity, not overcoming it or pushing past it. It’s about treasuring life’s journey and not the destination.
That journey was more than just subtle for me. I had an epiphany mid-year: I’m really stressed and I take it out at home.
In the spring I joined some friends in a class that really explored my spiritual program. I went a little deeper than I had in the past, and then it hit me: Every stressful moment I have “out there” I recreate in my home. I was driving the Sports Dude and my kids crazy with my control issues. But rather than confront me, it created chaos amongst them, which just stressed me out further. We were in a bad loop, and it was really up to me to correct the course.
Continue Reading Resolutions or Intentions? How are you beginning your year?
Bob Glaves, executive director for the Chicago Bar Foundation, set off quite a Twitter discussion this week with his post, A New Year’s Resolution for the Legal Profession: Stop Calling People Non-lawyers! We even carried the discussion onto my Facebook group, Legal Marketers Extraordinaire (which topped 1000 members this week!). Inspiring Bob to write the post was something he heard Jordan Furlong say:
we are the only profession who describes everyone who is not one of us as a “non.”
[Jordan’s] right. You don’t hear doctors calling everyone else in the medical field “non-doctors,” or CPAs calling their colleagues “non-CPAs.” In fact, it sounds absurd to even imagine them or any other professionals doing that. Yet that’s exactly what we do as lawyers, and I have certainly been guilty of my share of it over the years.
Thank you, Above the Law, for your wonderful click-bait in today’s “Associates Bonus Watch” memo:
Associate Bonus Watch: A Litigation Powerhouse Announces
Some associates are pleased, but others don’t like the firm’s expanding marketing requirement
Oh, who, pray tell, could this firm be?
No need to click through. It’s Quinn Emanuel.
In the accompanying article, Quinn Emanuel’s New Marketing Initiative: An Interview With John Quinn, John B. Quinn describes the new initiative:
We’re asking every associate and counsel in the firm to participate in at least one marketing project during the course of the year. These projects might include contributing to a presentation to a prospective client about a potential new engagement, helping to write an article, doing some research on an industry, or a host of other things. The project must be approved by a partner.
emphasis added
Sounds like Quinn Emanuel just served up a big glass of legal marketing Kool-Aid to their associates, and they are not all too pleased about it.
Continue Reading Cry me a (marketing) river
Well, dear readers, today is the day I have been waiting for all year:
And now there are no more firm functions scheduled on my calendar until
2016 will be an election studied for decades to come. Professors, politicians, pollsters, statisticians, the media, Main Street, and Wall Street will try and make sense of it all. How did everyone (except the LA Times poll) get it wrong? From Dan Schnur this morning, his tip for us all:
“Take your earbuds out of your ears and listen to someone else’s music.” @danschnur great interview with @DougAndTRae. #Elections2016
— Heather Morse (@heather_morse) November 9, 2016
I suggest we bring the lessons of #Election2016 back to the law firm: How often are we ignoring the voice of the client? The voice of the differing generations? The voice of the non-equity partners, or the rising associates? The working mothers (and fathers)? Not to mention the staff?
Rarely does a client fire a law firm. They just stop giving you new matters.
Take a look at your client originations. Are they stagnant? Have the new matters slowed down? When’s the last time you had lunch to see how your client is doing? What’s new in their world? Their industry?
Here’s a freebie for you. Go to lunch and be prepared to ask the following:
Continue Reading Lessons for lawyers and legal marketers from #Election2016