(This article was originally published in SLAW). When I ask lawyers what their firm’s business goals are for the year, it’s shocking how few know the answer, often because those goals don’t exist. So, it’s understandable that when I ask those same lawyers for their personal business goals are, they don’t know those either. Firms [...]
Like most writers, I get inspiration from real-world events. Currently, I’ve been observing as the President of the United States refuses to concede the election to the President-Elect. While in many ways we’ve come to expect this kind of behavior from the current President, it reminded me of the importance of removing ego from leadership [...]
I have a lot of time for Law Firm Marketing Researcher Michael Rynowecer. So, when his blog “The Mad Clientist” arrives in my inbox, I usually read it. The latest edition highlights recent research his company, BTI Consulting, regarding the current US law firm mood, seven months into the pandemic. For fun, I thought I’d [...]
(On October 21st, I’ll be presenting a session on how to use the pandemic as a catalyst for positive change in law firms, through CLEBC. Find information on that session here: https://store.cle.bc.ca/productdetails.aspx?title=Using-COVID-19-and-other-Challenges-to-Progress-Your-Firm&cid=1821 . In this blog post, I’ll highlight one element of that presentation). When he first took office, Obama suggested that the only time [...]
It’s telling that only a handful of my clients have been asking for advice on how to market during Covid. Most of them are still trying to figure out how to be more productive with a workforce that is still at home at least part of the time. But for those who are ready to [...]
I’ve taken advantage of the relative quiet of the end of summer to take the free University of Alberta Indigenous Canada course. The course provides a summary of life and history in Canada according to those where were here first. I’m about halfway through as I write this blog post, and I’m finding it both [...]
I recently received an email from an organization in which I used to be quite active. The purpose was an announcement of an amalgamation of segments of the organization. The message was well-written in a technical sense. It included a summary of the change, some of the activities leading up to the decision for the [...]
Great marketing isn’t a single action; rather it’s a series of connected actions, each one building from the other for the purpose of creating a mutually beneficial and ideally ongoing relationship. This is a difficult lesson for lawyers to get, for three main reasons. Most lawyers don’t like marketing. It isn’t why they joined the [...]
(This article first appeared in SLAW) The line between bad strategy and a law firm collapse is as thin as a noose. Yet law firms practice bad strategy on a regular basis. Take heed from the lessons of a very public breakdown. A client recently gave me a copy of Norman Bacal’s book “Breakdown, the Inside [...]
Like so many of us, I’ve been glued to news programs observing (and where I can, participating in) the world’s response to the police murder of George Floyd. This is on the heels of earlier protests by individuals wanting the Covid 19 crises to be over and business to get back to normal. I’m not [...]