A good portion of my time to date this year has been devoted to planning and launching Innovation Month at my firm, including our kick-off event called the “Osler Big Law Hackathon”, an event hosted in partnership with Ryerson’s Legal Innovation Zone to examine how big law could be done differently.

As part of the organizing committee, I got a better understanding of how my firm is approaching innovation (it’s a well-developed and experienced initiative, as it turns out). I also took it as an opportunity to see what all the fuss is about. Innovation is the trending topic du . . . [more]

Almost two years ago, I asked here on Slaw “Is It Time For A National Retail Law Firm?”. I argued that some twenty plus years on from the dawn of the national firm model in the business law context, there was a growing opportunity – at least to my mind – for the emergence of a similarly scaled venture focused on consumer-oriented legal services: family law, personal injury, simple wills, basic contracts and other legal services required by individuals and small businesses.

I left off that earlier column as follows:

The gradual loosening of inter-jurisdictional practice rules, the twenty-year . . . [more]

The friendly folks at SLAW remind us regularly when columns are due. On receiving one such reminder when I was at a family gathering, I asked everyone what I should write about next (my family happens to include five young lawyers). The youngest of them responded instantly: “Courtesy—and how little of it young lawyers have.”

This, from a first-year associate? It’s the kind of comment I expect from a grizzled veteran, accompanied by the inevitable “I dunno, kids today….” rant. When I asked her to elaborate, she noted that communications quickly become personal, as in: “If you had read my . . . [more]

Have you ever upset a client so much you thought there was no way you will ever be able to work for them again? Maybe it’s ok, as you did not want to work with that client again. But what if you do? What if they are one of your key or significant clients? Worse yet, what if they tell others about the poor experience?

In many ways our professional lives and our personal lives intersect, even if we don’t think they do. It has less to do with what we are doing and more to do with what we, . . . [more]

Once again, our team at fSquared Marketing are thrilled to present a group of wonderful legal marketing experts who are willing to share their wisdom related to the trends they foresee for the coming year.

Their predictions this year include mobilization of content, utilizing existing CRM systems to leverage and grow relationships, the evolution of client service delivery, storytelling as the PR tool of the moment, digital marketing (websites & social media) opening opportunities for legal directory exposure for smaller firms, and firms building marketing teams of the future.

A short excerpt from each contributor can be found below. To . . . [more]

It is a wise businessperson that asks… “If I invest X what will my return on investment (ROI) be?”

A good question… not so easy to answer.

There are many wrong ways for lawyers to calculate ROI.

The investment industry will calculate the ROI as: the return of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment; the result is a percentage. Some firms simply use multiples: for example, spend $1,000 and get a case for $10,000, and the return is 10 times the investment. Others use the comparison of hard dollar cost to hard dollar profit.

For most . . . [more]

In November, I was invited to speak as part of a panel discussion on “Legal Marketing 101” before an audience of new legal marketers. Near the end of the discussion, a member of the audience asked for some tips on how to get buy-in from lawyers on more meaningful business development and marketing activities – moving “beyond the USB keys,” as she put it. There was obvious frustration embedded in her question, and panel discussions being what they are, there was little opportunity to provide her with a thoughtful answer to what is a big question with a multi-faceted answer. . . . [more]

Lo and behold, it’s that time of year again when we will soon be exhorted to compile our recurring yin/yang list of a) all the things we’ll stop doing in the year ahead (eat too much, drink too much, work too much, buy too much) and b) all the things we’ll do oodles more of (eat healthy food, exercise like a triathalete, spend time with loved ones, get outside, save money, read fiction, be grateful, write more, make stuff, etc.) You get the idea.

For most of us, I am sad to report that positive change will likely not come . . . [more]

I started my career working for the medical profession. During that time, I heard many teachers of medicine say to their residents, “Listen to the patients. They’re giving you the diagnosis.” Now, as a teacher of business development, my key message is: “Listen to your clients. They will tell you what legal services they need.”

I write this as I’m preparing a presentation for Mackrell International’s meeting of its referral network. My topic is “20 Questions for Prospective Clients”. As I try to ensure that I have a good reason for asking each of the 20 questions, it strikes . . . [more]

Most often when an employer wants to connect with staff to find out how the firm is doing or where they can make improvements, they will create a survey that allows people to answer anonymously. Employee engagement programs and the surveys that go with them are usually led by the human resource department and (hopefully) an external, impartial 3^rd party. This makes sense but what can be lacking from these programs is an understanding of how to get the greatest participation through messaging and a marketing process. This is a bit off topic from the usual marketing and business . . . [more]

One of the cornerstones of building your profile as a lawyer is to give presentations—to client groups, referral sources, and other lawyers. The objective is to showcase your expertise, alert your audience to problems they may not know they could have (and that you can solve), and ultimately bring in new business. So the impression you make when you speak has a direct bearing on future business. However, in their haste to showcase their expertise, many lawyers end up making a very poor impression.

Any communication, whether it’s an argument presented to a judge, a talk to a trade association, . . . [more]

It’s been a fun stretch at my marketing agency of late. We’re busy, and the new business and new clients coming in are more consistently “the right fit” for our team and our talents. One intake route for that new business has been the contact form on our agency website. When new business inquiries come through this channel, a couple of really good things happen from my perspective as a business owner.

First, although our contact form has only five simple fields (name, email, company name, company website url, message), even that limited data set frequently provides us a pretty . . . [more]