Catherine Alman MacDonagh

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I am attending the Los Angeles Business Journal’s Women’s Summit. Our firm is a sponsor, and our partner Karina Sterman was a panelist.

Image of LABJ's Women's Council & AwardsFor the legal marketers reading this post: get out of the office and attend the events you sponsor. I am always “too busy” to attend, but I am reminded once again today why it’s so important.

First of all, I now understand this event, the nuances, and how to market this event within our firm. Even if our table is filled, the “sales” side of the program will always makes space for you to stop by and “get a personal feel” for the event.

Secondly, Karina and I were able to brainstorm some strategies in the back of the room and we are going to create a program for our clients based on some information we heard.

Beyond seeing how our firm can be a better sponsor and take advantage of the program, I’m gleaming good information for ME.

It’s a professional women’s summit. The panels are all about our careers. With 20 years invested in my legal marketing career, there is always more I can learn, and pass along.
Continue Reading Free advice on a Friday afternoon

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.

Continue Reading It’s time to “Ban the Nons”

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Confession time. I’m crazed. Crazy busy at work. A thousand moving pieces. Eighty six internal clients today (and two more joining on Monday). Then there is home. My personal life. Spiritual life. Still haven’t made it to the market. It’s crazy. Nothing has fallen through the cracks, but we’ve gotten close a few too many…

cropped-11149468_10153176009878926_9114104145154145142_n1.jpgI remember taking my first Myers-Briggs assessment way back when. I was an ENTJ. The “E” completely confused me. I hated people. I preferred to be alone. Ugh. I had to be an introvert. Right? Wrong.

Fast forward 20 years and I have completely come into my extroversion (is that a word?). I get my energy from being around others. And, more than anything, I get my work energy from the LMA Annual Conference.

Transitioning to a new firm this year has really taxed my mental energy. I have so many ideas swirling around my head every day. There are so many things to do, and many more possibilities as well. I have a great support team back in the office to help me process, wade through my ideas, help me to decide what’s a go, and what’s a no-go.Continue Reading I don’t need to zone out, I need to zone in.

imageThe Sports Dude and I are sitting on a plane right now headed to Chicago. I have had the privilege for the past six months of attending and participating in The SmithBucklin Leadership Institute, which is culminating this weekend, and we get to bring our +1. If it wasn’t for the merger, and all the work that took place behind the scenes prior to the merger being announced, I would have written on my experience in the Institute more. In short, I don’t think I could have provided the assistance to my partners without the lessons and skills I have learned. I have specifically employed new techniques, avoided some pitfalls, and smoothed over some ruffled feathers, all because of my new leadership skills. As I finish up my final homework assignments, and prepare my final presentations, I am struck most by how prior to the Institute I did a lot of these things, and I knew a lot of these things, but it was instinctive, or by intuition. I had never been taught, or learned it. I picked it up along the way through good examples and incredible mentors, specifically Frank Moon and Steve Barrett; incredible friends and colleagues, like Catherine Alman MacDonagh; and, to be completely candid, some really shitty situations and interactions with some really crappy human beings. What I am walking away with most from my experience these past six months is a heightened awareness of who I am as a leader, and what that means and looks like within the legal industry, my professional association, my job, with my team, my HOA, Girl Scouts, my family, and the list can go on and on. If I could sum it all up: I have become more intentional, and less dependent on my intuition and instincts. So what’s on tap for today?
Continue Reading M(erger) – Minus 13 Days: Intuitive v. Intentional

I know I’ve covered this topic before, but I had another reminder this week about how you should be living your passion. And, if you don’t know what your passion is, you need to find it.

What do I mean by that?

When you love what you do, or who you do it for,…

Are you getting excited? The Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference kicks off in just one week. I know many of you are going through the online materials, flipping through the agenda, trying to decide which sessions to attend. Just remember, there’s MORE at LMA. The MORE sessions (Mentoring Opportunities with R…