In the last edition of Capital Ideas, three of the six Capital Chapter member firms who received first place 2010 Your Honor Awards were profiled. The profiled winners included Blank Rome, LLP for their annual report, Miller & Chevalier for their inauguration event, and Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan for their practice development program. These firms received their awards at the LMA International Conference in Denver, CO this past spring.
Here are the highlights from the other three first place firms:
Morrison & Foerster, LLP, Marketing on a Shoestring: Most law firm marketers are familiar with being tasked with projects that have a small budget. However, it takes a really creative mind to execute those types of projects successfully. That is exactly what the marketing team at Morrison & Foerster did. As a way of generating positive awareness about the firm, MoFo partnered with the Burton Foundation to establish the Morrison & Foerster Regulatory Innovation Award. The award recognizes regulatory innovation and the need to be creative when thinking about and promoting regulation. The award recognizes thinkers who are committed to making the United States economy more competitive and better prepared for the future. The inaugural award was awarded to Sheila Bair, Chair of the FDIC, who accepted the award in person. The idea and implementation was a complete success for MoFo as they received positive awareness for the firm at very little cost.
Mayer Brown, LLP, Media Relations: During the financial market crisis in late 2008 and early 2009, many companies (and law firms) were scrambling for answers about the future of the global economy. One firm, however, examined the situation and decided to be proactive and position themselves as a resource for clients and prospective clients. Mayer Brown created an interdisciplinary group of attorneys from around the world called the Global Financial Markets Initiative (GFMI) as a way of bringing together extraordinary talent to advise companies and the media about issues relating to the financial markets. As a way of reaching their audiences, Mayer Brown set up bi-weekly teleconferences to provide timely updates on what was occurring in the markets. These teleconferences provided the firm with an excellent platform in which to showcase their attorneys as thought leaders. In the end, the creation of the team and the teleconferences were a media relations success. Approximately 250 reporters from 50 national business and trade publications participated resulting in 300 interviews being conducted and 250 articles quoting partners as sources.
Bingham McCutchen, LLP, Announcements, Brochure, and Intranet:The big winner from this year was Bingham McCutchen. Bingham walked away with three first place Your Honor Awards for Announcements, Brochure, and Intranet.
The announcement award was the result of a campaign that Bingham developed to announce their merger with McKee Nelson in August of 2009. Instead of relying on the traditional press release route, Bingham decided to create an entire announcement campaign that highlighted the fact that McKee's talented finance, tax and, and financial institution litigation practices now had the support of the Bingham's international capabilities.
Bingham's second award was for their development of a brochure that highlighted their securities team. Bingham had recently reorganized its securities regulation practices into a single platform which allowed them to put together an effective collateral piece that spoke directly to companies around the world who were nervous about the fragile economy.
The final award was for the firm's rebranded intranet. Like most law firms, the intranet is a critical device for communicating news and other information internally. Bingham recruited a network of in-house professionals to help keep content fresh on a daily basis and to make it the "go-to" destination for information about the firm, client victories, and new initiatives. The new intranet has been widely successful with 70,140 hits on news stories, 71,358 hits on the improved search engine, and 79,905 hits on firm applications.
Congratulations to all the Your Honor Award winners from the Capital Chapter. Your dynamic work represents how creative our chapter is.
By Mike Gray, communications & business development specialist at Williams Mullen, for the May/June 2010 Issue of the Capital Ideas Newsletter.