By Joy Long and Sydney Iglitzen
The Sixth Annual LMA Midwest Your Honor Awards ceremony was held with a touch of Latin flare on Wednesday, February 29, at Nacional 27 in Chicago. For the second year running, the emcee duties were masterfully handled by Paul Friedman, the Director of Corporate Sponsorship and Business Development at WBEZ 91.5/Chicago Public Radio. LMA’s Executive Director, Betsi Roach, welcomed a packed house and LMA Midwest Chapter President, Tasneem Goodman, addressed the crowd, thanking board members, committee chairs, and a host of volunteers among the LMA membership. Betsi and Megan McKeon, our YHA co-chair, also provided the descriptive commentary on the winning entries in each category.
Photos from the awards ceremony can be found here, with thanks to LMA Midwest's official photographer, Curtis Linder of Linder Legal Staffing.
THANK YOU!
It is with gratitude that we express our heartfelt thanks to the sponsors, who make our annual celebration of marketing, communications, business, and practice development success stories possible:
SPONSORS
Law Bulletin Company and its Leading Lawyers Network – Lead Sponsor
Gittings Photography – Diamond Chapter Sponsor
Executive Counsel – Name Badge Sponsor
Jumpmaster Productions – Video Production Sponsor
Herrmann Advertising Branding Technology – Presenting Sponsor – Websites
ALM – Table Sponsor
Duo Consulting – Table Sponsor
VISOgraphic – Table Sponsor
Curtis Linder of Linder Legal Staffing – Event Photographer
WBEZ 91.5 – Awards Emcee
JUDGES
Our new application process resulted in a record number of nominations this year. Selecting winners was the task of this year’s judging panel, consisting of Mary Doherty, an accounting marketing veteran at Miller Cooper and a board member of the Association for Accounting Marketing (AAM), Jan Anne Dubin, Principal of Jan Anne Dubin Consulting, longtime member of LMA, and four-time LMA Midwest Your Honor Awards Judge, and Jocelyn Brumbaugh, Senior Manager of Global Communications at Baker & McKenzie and President of Legal PR Chicago. The judges independently reviewed each and every entry, and then collaborated on naming finalists and awarding winners. Impressed with the consistently high-quality and superior execution of this year’s entries, this year’s judging panel elected to name honorable mentions in several categories as well as award the optional “Best in Show” honor.
2011 Award Winners
Advertising: Campaign
Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP was the Your Honor Award winner in this category for its “One Office. Worldwide.” advertising campaign, which demonstrates the firm’s international footprint with flair and creativity. Especially impressive was the fact that the marketing team met internally with 17 practice groups to understand attorney pain points and client needs, which were then translated into a winning campaign that has generated marketplace buzz well within budget.
Community Relations
Also winning in the Community Relations category, Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg found a way to leverage one of their professional’s involvement in an organization by assisting with business development strategy and messaging, as well as event support. The result for their senior associate was a seat on the organization’s board, a robust and growing organization, and help for dozens of people in the community.
Events
Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP and the NGE Women's Network received an Honorable Mention from the judges.
This was a particularly tough category for the judges and they have issued a TIE – Two winners for this category! Congratulations for excellence in the Events category to Faegre Baker Daniels for Connect. Collaborate. Cultivate!, a fresh approach to an internal all-attorney meeting, which tailored the program based on feedback from the previous year's event and specific challenges their attorneys faced throughout the year. This resulted in measurable success metrics and was 15% under budget.
Congratulations for excellence in the Events category also goes to winner McDermott Will & Emery, for the Boot Camp for Private Equity, which played perfectly to the market they were targeting, delivering a high-quality technical seminar that enhanced the firm’s reputation in the M&A sector and generated excitement among M&A professionals by holding the event at a hip venue, allowing McDermott attorneys the opportunity to network with young private equity professionals—the decision-makers of the future.
Identity – Budget in Excess of $20,000
The Your Honor Award for excellence in the Identity category goes to Locke Lord LLP for their new shortened name and redesigned logo, which is visually bold and immediately recognizable, in keeping with the firm’s goal to strengthen their U.S. reputation and increase their international presence. The Locke Lord marketing team delivered on the identity change across the board—logo, electronic, and print newsletter templates; collateral material; and website banner—within a brief four-week period and under budget.
Marketing on a Shoestring
Locke Lord LLP again took top honors in this category, with a lack of a budget forcing the marketing team at Locke Lord to look for new ways to push global expansion and meet the needs of clients. Their QR code in the firm’s distinctive color appears on all of their materials. The result: A 6% increase in mobile traffic. The cost: $97.90.
Media Relations Campaigns
Faegre Baker Daniels's winning media relations program thought through every detail on the merger between Faegre & Benson and Baker & Daniels. This well-executed campaign resulted in positive third-party messages about the combination and was handled exclusively in-house with minimal budget.
Online Interactive Marketing Tools
The Your Honor Award winner for excellence in the Online Interactive Marketing Tools category was Levenfeld Pearlstein LLC for their fresh use of video on their website, which allows clients, prospect,s and laterals to get to know the more human side of the firm's attorneys, an idea in line with the firm's overall positioning. The production quality and engaging nature of the videos impressed the judges, particularly in light of their small budget.
Practice Development
Thompson Coburn LLP received an Honorable Mention, while the winner of the category was Locke Lord LLP for its Transitional Business & Marketing Plans, which helped the firm strategically focus on the integration of new laterals and the clients of those attorneys. In its first year of implementation, the plan aligned with the firm’s strategic plan and has impacted the integration of over 1,000 clients and helped to increase and generate revenue.
Promotional & Collateral Materials – Firmwide, Office, or Practice Group Brochure
Locke Lord LLP earned an Honorable Mention in this category.
Promotional & Collateral Materials – Holiday Card
The Your Honor Award for excellence in the Promotional & Collateral Materials – Holiday Card category was Much Shelist and Hype, Inc., for their fun, engaging holiday e-card that had an impactful tie to the charity of its choosing. The marketing team's execution and results-tracking were flawless.
Promotional & Collateral Materials – Newsletter or Alert
The winner in this category was Locke Lord LLP for its Locke Lord Quick Study, a campaign that created a concise client alert template using 800-1,000 words to inform clients and other critical audiences of relevant information. The “Quick Study” template integrates into the suite of other collateral materials, maintains a global focus, and supports the need to promote the depth of the firm’s practice and resources.
Recruiting
Congratulations to Thompson Coburn LLP, the winner for excellence in the recruiting category for creating a clean-looking and high-quality lateral recruiting brochure. The firm used in-house resources at a cost of under $3,000. The brochure succeeded in increasing visibility and name recognition for the firm, and the results included an uptick in leads from recruiters with whom they had not previously worked and an increase in the number of laterals joining the firm.
Websites - Portions
Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard P.C. was the winner in this category for a satellite website called Illinois-AccidentLawyers.com. This was the first Plaintiff’s firm in Illinois to implement such a strategy, allowing the firm to differentiate itself and build up a very specific category of clients. The new site generated more than 3,500 unique targeted visitors, which resulted in more than 25 new client calls a week and approximately 50 new cases.
Websites – Total Website
The judges felt one firm deserved Honorable Mention. Congratulations to Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP.
Winning the category was DeWitt Ross & Stevens SC. They transformed their website by incorporating a clean design and user-friendly features that showcases robust information. The firm cleverly “hooked” clients into the website launch with an invitation to participate in an interactive “fishing expedition.” In the first weeks after the launch, web traffic increased to 400 daily visitors, and the firm received six new client inquiries.
Best in Show
This category is not available for entry and is awarded solely at the discretion of the judges to honor a submission that combines leading-edge originality in design with best-in-class execution. This year, the judges thought one entry stood out and awarded the “Best in Show” to Levenfeld Pearlstein LLP for their Online Interactive Marketing Tools entry, which earned Best in Show for their willingness to break the mold of "how it's always done" within law firms. Their video bios were engaging and well-produced, despite a small budget, and the execution included both an internal communications plan to ensure firmwide buy-in and an external communications plan with a social media component. Their results were well-tracked and impressive. Levenfeld's marketing team blazed their own trail with this program that stayed true to the firm's roots and culture.
Double Take: The Rising Stars
Established in 2010, the “Rising Star” award is bestowed by the LMA Midwest board of directors to acknowledge contributions to the legal marketing industry and service to our chapter by an outstanding young member. This award strives to recognize individuals who have shown leadership beyond his or her years, has stepped up to lend a hand wherever needed in the chapter, and represents the potential that LMA Midwest’s next generation has to offer.
Molly Kean
Last year’s Rising Star winner, Melissa Marshall of Clark Hill, had the pleasure of presenting the 2012 Rising Star Award to Molly Kean, Marketing Coordinator with Swanson, Martin & Bell, who has been a member of LMA Midwest for the past three years. Molly became active in LMA from the start, working closely with a Shared Interest Group by facilitating dialogue and creating networking opportunities for LMA Midwest members with common interests. In her case, serving as her firm’s first full-time marketing professional, she was instrumental in redesigning her firm’s website last year. She has worked very hard to better organize the firm’s marketing program and bring that knowledge back to her SIG so others in similar positions may also succeed.
Colleagues and peers describe Molly as a personable, detailed-oriented, and energetic professional with a positive attitude who is proactive, innovative, and responsive. A pleasure to work with, she is an asset to her firm and to LMA Midwest. Molly is considered vital to her firm’s growth and contributes greatly to our chapter’s value.
Sarah Stachowicz
Detroit City Group Co-Chair, John Cornwell of Plunkett Clooney, presented Detroit City Group member, Sarah Stachowicz, Marketing Coordinator at Bush Seyferth & Paige, a growing woman-owned law firm in the northern Detroit suburb of Troy, Michigan. Sarah was nominated by both John and Detroit City Group co-chair, Rich Marsolais. Sarah became active in LMA Midwest back in 2008, and has since become a passionate LMA member, serving as an original member of the Detroit City Group’s Steering Committee.
In addition to doing yeoman’s work as a solo marketer, Sarah is one of those people you meet who seems high on life. She’s filled with boundless energy, possesses a quick wit and has eastside Detroit “street smarts.” Those qualities serve her well in this field, and she is definitely a talent on the rise in the Detroit City Group and in the Midwest Chapter.
LMA Midwest Hall of Fame Award
Ross Fishman
The LMA Hall of Fame was created to recognize extraordinary contributions by individuals in our industry. This award represents the highest levels of experience and leadership in legal marketing and contributions made to LMA Midwest, the legal marketing profession, and our community of professionals.
Ross Fishman of Fishman Marketing embodies the definition of Hall of Fame inductee. Ross is one of the original founding members of NALFMA, which is now the Legal Marketing Association. He is known for some of the industry’s most well-known campaigns. Ross’s creativity and sharp sense of humor have helped him do something that few legal marketing professionals have been able to do—inject humor into law firm advertising and branding campaigns.
Ross’s campaigns have received numerous Your Honor awards. He has been the recipient of the optional Best of Show award five of the nine times it has ever been presented.
Ross’s creativity was at its best when he won the 1996 Best in Show honor for developing the nation's first written service guarantee for Ungaretti & Harris, leading to a 50% increase in revenue in 12 months. In 2000, Ross showed that a little humor can go a long way when he won Best in Show for his Bug Law strategic targeting and integrated marketing campaign for Crosslin, Slaten & O'Connor, or as most of the universe knows them, the Bug Lawyers! And, in 2005, Ross won Best in Show for Laner Muchin’s Two-Hour campaign, in which the firm branded itself as the nation's most-responsive firm, returning all client calls within two hours.
A fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and a Board Trustee, Ross has written more than 200 bylined articles, including five monthly columns, given more than 200 speeches globally, sat on the editorial board of five national magazines, and conducted more than 250 law firm retreats. He is also the first legal marketing professional to testify as an expert witness in a highly publicized branding-related lawsuit.
An active LMA International member since 1990, Ross was the 1998 Vice President, a member of both the Strategic Planning and Best Practice Task Forces, and chair and moderator of seven consecutive national day-long QuickStart/Boot Camp programs. He has continued his record of service with LMA Midwest, most recently serving as chair and moderator of the chapter’s 2011 Midwest Conference.
While he is known to many of us as a “recovering attorney” who’s known for his educational and entertaining presentation style, Ross is also known as a caring and generous mentor who is always available to answer a question and provide sound, impartial, and impassioned advice when called on. Ross was one of the first people we met at an LMA meeting way back in the early 1990s. He took the time to get to know us and to introduce us to others in the organization. As our careers progressed, we both often checked in with Ross to seek advice or just catch up.
When Ross was inducted into the LMA International Hall of Fame, Laura Meherg said that “he connects people and connects with people. A true leader, friend, and mentor, Ross’s creative mind has helped redefine our field.” We wholeheartedly second that!
Congratulations to Ross Fishman and to all 2012 award winners and finalists on their outstanding achievements!
Joy Long, Director of Marketing for ORBA, and Sydney Iglitzen, Director of Marketing & Business Development for Schopf & Weiss, served as Co-Chairs along with Megan McKeon of Katten Muchin Rosenman for the 2012 LMA Midwest Your Honor Awards.