From April 2 to 4, 2014, several LMA Southern California Board members traveled to Orlando, Florida, for the National LMA conference. After three days of professional development and networking, key takeaways were discussed and shared with colleagues at the April member-only roundtables in Orange County and San Diego.
Take action on these real world practical tips gleaned from select sessions:
Trends in Media/PR for Law Firms in Terms of What’s Valuable and Effective Today
- Be proactive – some reporters are writing four articles a day and don’t have time to find stories. Send them story ideas and quotes.
- Figure out which rankings are credible and cut out the rest.
- Use your ranking testimonials in other places such as the website and proposals.
- Email Chambers researchers and clients together for an introduction. For example, “by way of e-introduction” – this way the researcher and client are in direct contact.
- Have a media and crisis communication plan. Make sure your attorneys and employees know the plan.
Redefining Thought Leadership: Using Content to Start Conversations
- Thought leadership: creates relationships, differentiates you, starts conversations.
- Your firm’s intellectual capital is your attorneys. Have them front and center.
- Get your attorneys comfortable “giving away” information in order to demonstrate value and capabilities.
- Leverage a piece of content in multiple ways: blog posts, webinars, website, events. Event example: for an industry conference, complete industry research ahead of time, publish a white paper and hand it out to conference attendees.
- Create a Twitter list to see what a certain segment is talking about and use that to create thought leadership.
What Your Clients Really Want from Your Firm – Practical Suggestions
- Do not bury important information for a GC at the bottom of an email. Put it in the subject line and first sentence.
- Provide early warning signs and assessments of risk factors for client's industry.
- Use the law to advance your client's strategic plan. That might mean having a team that can help change the law.
- Stay in touch with in-house counsel when they get worked out of an organization, it will come back to you tenfold.
- Develop individual marketing plans for your firm's largest clients.
- Provide in-house counsel with value added tools such as, checklists and guidelines.
- Develop a system to track previous and current relationships with GCs.
- Create meaningful opportunities for in-house counsel at different companies to interact. One firm created a roundtable program for GCs who are one-person shops.