Caution: Tight Curves Ahead in Handling Today's Labor & Employment Challenges

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Kent Zimmermann has been selected by Martindale-Hubbell to facilitate this best practice forum for in-house counsel, titled: Caution: Tight Curves Ahead in Handling Today's Labor & Employment Challenges.

Heading off potential crises: codes of conduct and ethics policies-including what to do about social media; training and employee complaints
Avoiding class actions: proactively identifying and addressing red flags
Trends in handling harassment, immigration and discrimination litigation, wage and hour, and compliance issues
Keeping up: managing local and federal regulations and the impact on your company's business
Coming and going: preparing effective employment and compensation agreements

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

1:30--2:00p.m. - Registration
2:00--6:00p.m. - Meeting
6:00--6:30p.m. - Reception

Se Hotel
1047 5th Avenue
San Diego, CA 92101
Phone: 619-515-3000

More information is available at Martindale-Hubbell

The Impact on the Legal Business of Capital Markets’ Growing Interdependence

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Peter Zeughauser, Partner, Zeughauser Group, will deliver the keynote address at the annual meeting of the College of Law Practice Management. Peter's topic is “The Impact on the Legal Business of Capital Markets’ Growing Interdependence.”

Place: JW Marriott Hotel, 1331 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC

For more information contact the College of Law Practice Management

In-House Optimization in the “New Normal:” A Working Session for General Counsel

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Peter Zeughauser, former Chair of ACC-SoCal and President, Zeughauser Group, joins as a panelist for this working session.

In the wake of the economic crisis, almost all General Counsel are under mandate to increase the effectiveness of their law departments and/or reduce legal spend – all without sacrificing quality and service levels or increasing risk to the business. Most have tried to achieve cost-savings by reducing law firm rates via RFPs, negotiated discounts, alternative fee arrangements and law firm consolidation. These efforts have delivered some savings, but are difficult to measure and generally limited to 10-15% at most.

However, by segmenting legal demand, embracing the benefits of new entrants to the legal services market, and aligning the appropriate cost-to-serve model for different kinds of legal work, corporate law departments can potentially realize savings of 50-70%. While this is generally accepted in theory, how do General Counsel actually initiate, implement and refine this process? What are best practices in unbundling complex matters that allow in-house departments to shift certain legal matters away from traditional firms to less expensive models? How does technology play a role in this optimization?

During this unique working session, leading General Counsel will share their successes, lessons and practical advice in operating in the “new normal” – an environment focused on value and ROI.

2 hours of general CLE credit will be available

Panelists:

Timothy Bixler (General Counsel, International Rectifier)

Samuel Gesten (General Counsel, Allergan)

Laurence Midler (General Counsel, CB Richard Ellis)

Joseph Schohl (former General Counsel of DaVita and founder, GCWest)

Peter Zeughauser (former Chair of ACC-SoCal and President, Zeughauser Group)

Moderator Mehul Patel (EVP, Axiom)

Thursday, October 14, 2010

The Shade Hotel

1221 N. Valley Drive

Manhattan Beach, California

4:00 - 6:00pm Panel (Green Room)

6:00 - 8:00pm Cocktail Reception (Sky Deck)

Space is limited as this is intended to be an interactive working session. Contact dgilinsky@axiomlaw.com as soon as possible to register in advance.

Corporate Governance, Risk Mitigation and Securities Compliance

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Chicago, IL

Kent Zimmermann has been selected by Martindale-Hubbell to facilitate this best practice forum for in-house counsel, titled: Corporate Governance, Risk Mitigation and Securities Compliance.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

1:30--2:00p.m. - Registration
2:00--6:00p.m. - Meeting
6:00--6:30p.m. - Reception

InterContinental Chicago
505 N. Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611
Phone: 312-321-8751

More information is available at Martindale-Hubbell

Effective Strategy: Establishing and Implementing the Right Vision for Your Firm

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The National Law Journal and The American Lawyer are sponsoring the Law Firm Leadership and Economic Forum

October 13 to 14, 2010

The Harvard Club of New York City

On Wednesday, October 13, Norm Rubenstein, Zeughauser Group partner, will moderate a panel discussion on Effective Strategy: Establishing and Implementing the Right Vision for Your Firm

The panel will discuss strategic planning and positioning strategy. In the intensely competitive marketplace for legal services, establishing goals related to practice mix and focus, footprint and ideal size are critical. Hear what this panel discovered when they began to ask questions such as:

- Are we a specialty firm, full-service, or something in between? Is our goal achievable and will the marketplace support the firm we want to be?
- Is our current size ideal for balancing capacity and profitability, or do we need to grow or rethink the viability of some of current practices and practitioners?
- Where do we get the market intelligence we need to make decisions for the future, and how do we both accommodate our partners’ diverse
perspectives and avoid the pitfalls of unscientific navel-gazing?
- What process works best for firms seeking to create a roadmap for their future?
- Who among firm leaders, rank and file lawyers, firm business professionals, and others play what role in the planning process?

October 13, 2010 at 9:45 AM

For more information or to register for the forum go to: Law Firm Leadership and Economic Forum

How to Win Partner Buy-In for Client Feedback Interviews: A GC's Perspective

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Program: How to Win Partner Buy-In for Client Feedback Interviews: A GC's Perspective.

Kent Zimmermann, a former GC and corporate chief executive, will share success stories and discuss why in-house counsel see value in the client feedback process, common mistakes to avoid, getting partners interested, and ROI.

Time: 11:30 am -1:30 pm

Where: LMA Rocky Mountain Chapter, Denver, venue TBD

For more information: LMA Rocky Mountain Chapter

Summit on Compliance, Reputation and Risk

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Kent Zimmermann has been selected by Martindale-Hubbell to facilitate this best practice forum for in-house counsel, titled: Summit on Compliance, Reputation and Risk.

Sofitel New York
45 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
Phone: 315-600-8294

Monday, September 27, 2010

6:00 p.m. - Registration
6:00-8:00 p.m. - Cocktail Reception

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

8:00 a.m. - Breakfast
9:00 a.m. - Counsel to Counsel Forum
1:00 p.m. - Lunch
1:30 p.m. - Panel Discussion

More information is available at Martindale-Hubbell

Best Practices in Client Service

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Kent Zimmermann, a former GC and corporate chief executive, will lead a panel discussion among leading law firm chairs and chief marketing officers during the LMA Los Angeles chapter's marquee annual event, its largest event of the year. The event, its annual Continuing Education Conference will be focused on client services, professional development, client communications, and client teams. The panel that Kent will lead will focus on a discussion of updated best practices in client service, based on the most recent experience and observations of participating leading law firm chairs and chief marketing officers.

Where: LMA Los Angeles Chapter, Sofitel Hotel, West Hollywood, CA.

More information: Continuing Marketing Conference

Better Marketing through Ethical Compliance

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Webinar: Better Marketing through Ethical Compliance

This webinar features ABA Division for Legal Services Staff Counsel Will Hornsby and Zeughauser Group partner Norm Rubenstein discussing how your firm can maximize its marketing and client-development endeavors while understanding and complying with state ethics rules.

Sponsored by the Legal Marketing Association.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
2:00pm - 3:30pm ET/1:00pm - 2:30pm CT/12:00pm - 1:30pm MT/11:00am - 12:30pm PT

For more information and to register contact The Legal Marketing Association at legalmarketing.org.

ZG Alert: The New Media Engagement Survey: Important Emerging Trends for Law Firms

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The New Media Engagement Survey: Important Emerging Trends for Law Firms

Highlights from the Survey

In April of 2010 Zeughauser Group collaborated with Greentarget and with ALM Legal Intelligence to conduct The New Media Engagement Survey. (The full report is available at www.consultzg.com or by clicking here.) The 164 in-house counsel who responded to the survey, which asked in-house counsel about their use of blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, and other new media to stay informed about the legal industry and to make decisions about outside counsel, confirmed that new media quickly are becoming important tools for information-sharing among legal industry entities. As importantly, the survey clearly suggests that when law firms, which as a rule have been slow to adopt new media tools and use them proactively in their external communication programs, enhance the content they place on Facebook or reference in their tweets, for example, in-house counsel will respond and make even greater professional use of new media.

And because law students and the press have been earlier adopters of new media technologies, we also believe that law firm focus on new media tools as mechanisms for sharing information and assessing audience attitudes and priorities has tremendous potential for recruiting as well as for business development and brand-building in general.

The survey underscores the extent to which electronic delivery is reshaping the way that in-house counsel receive

information, a trend that clearly has paved the way for the adoption and evolution of new media tools. For example, we found widespread adoption and acceptance of blogs by the in-house lawyers who responded to the survey. Even though many of them expressed concern about the credibility of information that is made available through many new media tools, we learned that several of the tools have been adopted widely for personal use, that they are being used increasingly to obtain professionally relevant content, and that some tools are starting to have an impact on in-house lawyers’ choice of outside counsel.

Accessing content electronically is now the preferred mode for obtaining business and industry news. Sixty-two

percent of those responding to the survey prefer to access such content online, compared with 42 percent who still prefer to obtain the information through print vehicles.

Making content accessible and readable on a PDA is increasingly important. Seventy-four percent of respondents

aged 30-39 prefer or somewhat prefer to use their smart phone or PDA over other means of accessing news,

compared to 47 percent of counsel aged 40-49, 37 percent of counsel aged 50-59, and 26 percent of counsel

over the age of 60.

Blogs have become mainstream. Of the respondents, 43 percent of in-house counsel said blogs are among their

top “go-to” sources for business-related news and information. In-house counsel ranked blogs as the fourth most

important source for helping them to research outside counsel for potential hire, although well behind “recommendations from sources you trust” at 73 percent, but only slightly behind speeches and articles at 38 percent and bios on a firm’s website at 30 percent.

LinkedIn and Facebook are used widely, while Twitter, a relatively new tool for professional content delivery, lags behind. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed used LinkedIn

in the previous week for professional reasons. Facebook is used more for personal purposes, with 50 percent of

the respondents having used Facebook in the past week for personal reasons and only 23 percent for professional

reasons. Less than 13 percent used Twitter in the last week for professional reasons and 14 percent for personal

purposes, but we expect the professional use of Twitter to increase as law firms and the media adopt Twitter as

a tool for digesting and pointing to important content in addition to as a way of staying in touch with friends.

u In general, new media channels will find more traction as law firms use them to provide relevant content. Fiftyone percent of respondents said that they would engage these channels to receive relevant information from law firms. This revelation suggests that when law firms start disseminating content-rich e-communications via new media channels, in-house lawyers will receive them more willingly, but their interest will be piqued by the substantive information rather than by the delivery mechanism.

A Call to Action for Law Firms

We believe there is no question that new media have penetrated the legal industry for good, be it today’s blogs and Twitter, or tomorrow’s rising innovation. Likewise, it is clear that law firms have opportunities to use these tools to deliver content as long as the tools and the content are aligned loosely with the needs and wants of their clients. Because these tools still haven’t been adopted widely, the firms that do it quickly and effectively may reap a competitive advantage. To that end, we urge law firms to:

seek to understand the role that new media tools are playing or could play in their clients’ and prospective clients’

decision-making about outside counsel and research the patterns and purpose of recruits’ and the press’ use of these tools. Pay attention to what key competitors are doing with the tools as well. As appropriate, incorporate these tools into your firm’s branding and credentialing activities;

develop policies to ensure that the firm’s lawyers who use new media tools do so in a way that helps to build the

firm’s institutional brand as well as their individual visibility and networks by showcasing knowledge and experience that is consistent with the firm’s brand and with the goal of institutionalizing client relationships; and

u pay careful attention to how the firm is portrayed on vehicles such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and

manage those tools proactively where possible. For example, Facebook recently has begun creating “Community

Pages” for a variety of entities, including individual law firms. These pages, created by the site without the firm’s

participation, feature content related to the firm that is obtained from sources such as Wikipedia and from unfiltered searches. Some law firms have expressed discontent about what they perceive as “inaccurately” negative portrayals on these pages.

Just as you would with other communications tools, only disseminate content to clients that is relevant to their

business needs.

Firms Are Diving In, Albeit Slowly

In our consulting practice, we have seen that many law firms are addressing the new media phenomenon head-on, and their management and marketing leaders are grappling with how to employ these tools to enhance their institutional brands as well as how to create policies “to govern” the use of social media by individual lawyers. But the adoption of new media tools in the legal space continues to lag behind

other industries. Take for example, blogs, which our survey indicated are used widely by in-house lawyers. According to LexBlog, as of March 2010, only 96 of the AmLaw 200 were blogging, with 297 blogs among them. This is up from 39 firms blogging as of August, 20072, but still cannot be considered

widespread adoption. Likewise, only 31 of the Am Law 100 law firms have “Fan

Pages” related to their firm on Facebook, and a survey by TheByrneBlog found that most do not have much content yet. And, according to research conducted through December 2009 by myCorporateResource.com, only 29 of the Am Law 100 actively use Twitter.

Conclusion

New media pose a series of opportunities and possibilities for law firms, although many law firm leaders have focused more to date on the threats and possible pitfalls these tools represent. However, if forward-thinking law firm leaders develop policies and strategies to promote their brand using the new tools at their disposal and to educate individual lawyers about how new media tools can support both personal and institutional marketing strategies, they have the opportunity to take a first-mover or leadership position that will be unavailable to followers. Clearly, the trend suggests that clients, prospects, and recruits potentially will look to law

firms that use new media for meaningful content as credible and credentialed sources on the topics with which they most want to be associated in the marketplace.

1. Jenna Greene, “Firms No Fans of Facebook Community Pages,” The National Law Journal, June 1, 2010, available at http://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.

jsp?id=1202458976792#.

2. Kevin O’Keefe, “State of the AmLaw 200 Blogosphere: March, 2010,” March 11, 2010, available at http://kevin.lexblog.com/2010/03/articles/large-law/state-of-the-amlaw-200-

blogosphere-march-2010/.

3. TheByrneBlog, “AmLaw 100 Firms on Facebook,” March 12, 2010, available at http://thebyrneblog.com/2010/03/12/amlaw-100-firms-on-facebook/.

4. “Twittering Classes: Lessons For and From the AmLaw 100,” mycorporateresouse.com, available at http://mycorporateresource.com/content/view/35128/548/.

Recent Articles

Caution: Tight Curves Ahead in Handling Today's Labor & Employment Challenges

The Impact on the Legal Business of Capital Markets’ Growing Interdependence

In-House Optimization in the “New Normal:” A Working Session for General Counsel

Corporate Governance, Risk Mitigation and Securities Compliance

Effective Strategy: Establishing and Implementing the Right Vision for Your Firm

How to Win Partner Buy-In for Client Feedback Interviews: A GC's Perspective

Summit on Compliance, Reputation and Risk

Best Practices in Client Service

Better Marketing through Ethical Compliance

ZG Alert: The New Media Engagement Survey: Important Emerging Trends for Law Firms