Cynthia A. McCollough

Guest post from Cynthia McCollough, Digital Marketing Strategist, University of Michigan Law School

Cyndy is senior-level marketing consultant with extensive experience at law firms and global technology organizations. Her achievements are primarily focused on implementing and managing strategic marketing environments that improve efficiencies, measure results, and drive new business. You can follow Cyndy on Twitter, where she tweets on the intersection of law and technology.


Learn how to deliver a persuasive pitch that will help get your project off the ground. Twitter #G019

ILTA Con Pitch Perfect Panel

First off, I LOVED the format of this session – 5 panelists acted as a Shark Tank review board for three different pitches. The pitches included improving conference room technology, bringing on project management as a service (PMaaS), and adding a new document composition tool to Word.

The feedback could be applied to any pitch for any product or service, and is a great reminder about how to tell your story to achieve your goals:
Continue Reading Pitch Perfect: Masterful Pitches to Get Buy-in For Your Next Project

Thank you to guest blogger  Gail Lamarche for recapping Lexblog’s webinar, Find Your Voice – Speak With a Purpose , featuring Faith Pincus.

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Faith Pincus
Faith Pincus delivered part two in a series of public speaking webinars on behalf of Lexblog. You can read the highlights of the

Thank you to guest blogger  Gail Lamarche for recapping Lexblog’s webinar, Find Your Voice – Speak With a Purpose , featuring Faith Pincus.

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Once again Kevin O’Keefe offered LexBlog’s clients a great webinar on March 16 with Faith Pincus, a licensed attorney who trains lawyers (and others) nationally on how to enhance their

Thank you to guest blogger  Gail Lamarche for recapping today’s Lexblog webinar, Making — Not Finding — Time for Client Development, featuring Kevin O’Keefe and Cordell Parvin.

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With 36 years of law practice behind him, Cordell Parvin now coaches attorneys in all aspects of legal marketing, client development and blogs at lawconsultingblog.com. When he just started his career as a young construction lawyer, his peers mocked him when he wanted to have a national practice from Roanoke, VA.  That is until the Secretary of Transportation for the State of Washington called him when the bridge collapsed. How did that call happen?  It was from writing articles and being known for a construction litigation law niche practice.  Cordell shared his best practices and tips during the webinar which was recorded and can be found here (UPDATED LINK).

  • 500 hours.  That is how many non-billable hours a lawyer should spend on client development per year or 20-30 per month.
  • Have a plan in place for not only non-billable time but personal time as well.  Review the plan every 90 days.  Plans should include:
    • Time for client development
    • Organizations to join
    • Networking events
    • Articles
    • Blog posts
    • Pro bono activities
  • Feeling overwhelmed with billable work, personal responsibilities and marketing?  Set priorities.  Start a journal.  Document your non-billable time and you will be able to figure out what worked and what didn’t.
  • Split your development time in two categories:  one for reputation building (writing and speaking); and one for relationship building (getting out and meeting people).
  • Tips for young lawyers:
    • spend time your first few years developing your skills to become a great lawyer
    • learn about your clients
    • learn people and communication skills
    • read books
    • attend seminars
  • Write articles:
    • Not sure what to write about?  What questions are your clients asking?  Take the memorandum of law and turn it into an article or blog post.  Every matter you work on can take a wider angle.
    • Create how-to guides for contracts, design builds.  Post the e-books on your website so clients can download.  Take what you learn and re-use it.  Provide valuable information to your audience and raise visibility and credibility.
    • Review the Encyclopedia of Associations for your state.  Every association has newsletters or publications.
  • Develop a niche practice, be focused.  How?  What are you passionate about?  Used great examples of lawyers who stepped outside the box, developed a niche practice and moved full steam ahead.  Staci Riordan incorporates blogging, Facebook and Twitter for the fashion law blog.  Alison Rowe with her Equine Law Blog and Kevin O’Neill started a weekly podcast Capital Thinking.

Cordell and Kevin also shared some great blogging tips:

Attorneys and legal marketers in Florida routinely face one of the most comprehensive and detailed sets of state restrictions on attorney advertising. Pre-publication review of advertisements, an outright ban on testimonial advertising, and rules that interpret Facebook “friend” requests as unlawful solicitation are but a few examples of the constitutionally-overbroad reach of the Florida