Are you talking the talk? Walking the walk?

Or just sitting at home, watching the world go by from the comfort of your office? When was the last time you traveled outside the country? What languages do you speak? Can you carry on a conversation in a foreign tongue? Have you ever tried? Can you find your way through a crowded Japanese city, negotiate a contract in Columbia, interview a client in Paris? In Japanese, Spanish or French?

On a flight to Asia a few years ago, I struck up a conversation with my seat-mate. Like me, he spent a lot of time on planes and as often happens, our conversation turned to the mileage elite threshold of our favorite airline. I told him that I'd made the 100,000-mile mark over the past two years, but I didn't think I'd reach it for a third year in a row. He told me he already had. It was February.

The world keeps getting smaller. Clients, from corporate executives circling the globe to retirees on vacation to entrepreneurs looking for ideas, are spending more and more time outside the United States. They're seeing the world through different eyes, discovering unknown cultures and traditions, meeting new people and eating new foods and getting new ideas about the way things are done. Shouldn't you be doing the same?

Have you made your resolutions for the New Year?

I was interviewed Friday by Chelsey Lambert at Total Attorneys for their Total Expert Radio broadcasts. I'm not used to sitting on the interviewee side of the table, and it was a lot of fun. Chelsey did a great job keeping me on topic. Thanks too to Kevin Chern and Kate Battle, who made the interview possible.

Chelsey and I talk about new year's resolutions for lawyers in three areas: growing their business, communicating their message, and managing their practice. We cover a lot of ground, especially with respect to business development, communications and practice management trends in 2010 and how those trends will translate into 2011. You can listen to the interview below, but if you don't have time right now, here's the summary of my new year's resolutions for lawyers and law firms:

Growing your business

1. Make a plan, a road map, that contemplates what you want to achieve in your practice, the people that will help you get there, and they ways in which you are going to connect with those people.
2. Set priorities. Time is not unlimited. Decide what's most important, and focus your efforts on that. And don’t make grandiose projects that will never come to fruition. Baby steps are fine.
3. Talk to your clients more. Go through the list of your clients, not just the ones easy to talk to, and start connecting with them. Talk about service, about value, about their problems, about solutions.

Communicating your message

1. Revamp your marketing materials. Practice descriptions, biographies, boilerplates, etc. They get stale quickly. Try to tell more -- and more meaningful -- stories.
2. Write where your clients read. If they read blogs, write a blog. If they read trade publications, do what you can to publish in the trades. How do you find out what they read? Ask them.
3. Draft a communications plan but don't get hung up on the process. Write down what you want to say, who you want to say it to, what you want to achieve from saying it, and where you should say it.

Managing your practice

1. Set objectives for your practice beyond just practicing law. If you don’t plan your route you may end up somewhere you don’t want to be.
2. Embrace alternative billing. Develop some meaningful alternatives to the billable hour that you can offer clients without hesitation.
3. Explore new technology. Cloud computing, client extranets, mobile technologies, etc. Figure out how you can use technology to provide better service, and start doing it. 

Listen to internet radio with Total Attorneys on Blog Talk Radio

Happy New Year!

Best wishes to all for a healthy and happy 2011!

2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100

The nominees for the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100 have been released, and for the second year in a row, my lawyer interview blog 22 Tweets was included on the list of the best legal blogs as selected by the editors of the ABA Journal. It's a great honor for me to have 22 Tweets listed alongside so many law blogs that inspire, educate, inform and amuse me every day, but the real credit goes to each and every one of the nearly 90 lawyers who have allowed me to interview them over the past year and a half.

22 Tweets was nominated in the category of "Legal Biz," up against such powerhouses as Adam Smith, Esq, What About Clients?, The Client Revolution, Law21.ca and several other blogs that I read just about every day. I never imagined competing against them in a popularity contest, and don't imagine I'll end up at the top of the heap come December 30, but that won't stop me from seeking your vote for 22 Tweets. You can do it here (you'll need to go through a relatively painless registration process to register before voting). You get 12 votes, one for each category--though you don't have to use them that way--but I'll warn you in advance: you will have a hard time narrowing your list down to 12 blawgs. Really.

So get out there and rock the vote. We're all counting on you.

Is it time for a marketing tune-up?

The market appears to be picking up. Clients are getting back to work. New opportunities can’t be far behind. What are you doing to find them? To make sure they show up on your radar? To put yourself in a position to see those opportunities that do present themselves, and to land the work when you pitch for it? Maybe it’s time for a marketing tune-up.

Just like you regularly perform maintenance on your car, you need to perform regular maintenance on your marketing efforts, objectives and plans. You need to modify them to reflect the constant evolution of your practice, your client base, your experience and your network. And as you do that, you should keep in mind some basic notions:

• Planning is everything. Know where you want to go? How to get there? What it looks like when you’ve arrived? You need a plan. Not a complicated one that accounts for every contingency and takes two or three or six weeks of reflection and drafting and editing. It does have to set goals, realistic, achievable, measurable goals. It does have to understand the clients you want, the work they need, and your ability to perform that work. Plan your route so you don’t end up someplace you don’t want to be.
  
  
• You’re not out to change the world. Yes, you need a plan of action, but you don’t need to change the world, to solve every problem, to cure cancer on your first try. You just need a road map to start. You can build the atlas as you go along. And you can always change your mind when an idea doesn’t work or a potential client doesn’t pan out or a deal falls through. Just don’t get hung up on making it perfect, because that will get in the way of making it in the first place.
  
  
• Focus on opportunities. It’s easy to spend time picking apart ideas, looking at what won’t work, what you can’t do, what you’ll never be able to achieve. But that won’t get you anywhere. Spend your time looking at what you CAN do, not what you can’t. Isolate the opportunities—true opportunities, ones measured in terms of probability not possibility—and the steps needed to realize them. You’ll solve the real problems when you get to them.
  
  
• Be realistic. It’s only an opportunity if you could realistically get the work and do the job better than your competition. If you can convince your client that it makes sense—for them, not just for you—to give you a new assignment. If your experience allows you to tell a credible story, a story that convinces someone who doesn’t know you that they should trust you with the future of their company. If you can’t do that, then you’re probably not going to get the work, and you shouldn’t waste your time chasing it.
  
  
• Don’t neglect your existing clients. Relationships are relationships, and those with clients require the same amount of work as those with potential clients. Providing good legal advice, answering questions, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s isn’t enough. Anticipating client needs, addressing their concerns, understanding their objectives, communicating early and often are essential to maintaining the types of relationships that will not only keep clients coming back, but lead to increased referrals.
  
  
• Don’t forget your homework. Think you know what your clients need? The services they’re looking for? The business problems they’re struggling to solve? Do your research. Read what your clients are saying. What the press is saying about them. What their competitors are doing, what’s going on in their industry, where the growth is in their markets. If you can, talk to your clients about their business, their industry, their competition, their challenges, and most of all how they define success and how well they are achieving it.
  
  
• Execution is everything. You’ve set your objectives. You’ve identified realistic opportunities. You know where you want to go and what you need to do. But a plan is only the beginning. To generate results, you need to execute with discipline, follow-through and flexibility. Sound easy? It really isn’t. If it were, everybody would be doing it already. The part that drives success is execution, and it takes time, commitment and hard work.

As the economy improves and opportunities increase, there’s no time like the present to review your marketing efforts, rethink your marketing objectives and tune-up your marketing plans. You’ll be glad you did.

__________

This post was first published on Construction Law Musings, July 9, 2010

Blawg Review #257

Welcome to Blawg Review. To celebrate the first anniversary of 22 Tweets, our Twitter interviews of practicing lawyers, we’ve put together a special version of Blawg Review. What does that mean? First and foremost, it means that we’ve selected 22 posts from this week’s legal blogs: 22 authors, 22 blawgs, 22 posts.

More importantly, it means that this week there’s no free ride on Blawg Review. We like interviewing lawyers. On Twitter. So Blawg Review #257 does just that: each blawg we’ve included is accompanied by a question in the form of a tweet to its author. We’ll tweet the questions later this week, and compile the responses we get into a 22-lawyer Twitter interview that will be posted to 22Tweets.com. Blawgers, we hope very much that you’ll play along, and look forward to getting your responses tweeted back to us via @22Twts.

22 Blawgs from 22 Tweets

1. Charon QC, who writes about, well, just about anything and everything under the sun in his weekly “Rive Gauche” post for Charon QC The Blawg, bringing together, among other things, Tesco law in Scotland, forging payslips in Singapore, and the London Sperm Bank: “Rive Gauche: Antique ASBOS, a BNP barrister, Meow Meow drug barons, and a pharamacist who won’t give out contraception because of ‘religious beliefs’..et al”
   
   @charonqc What would you say is the most significant issue facing the legal profession today? Can it be resolved? How?
   
   
2. Stan Abrams, who calls it like it like he sees it in his china/divide post on the Google pull-out of China: “Google’s Hong Kong Gambit Is Public Relations Victory”
   
   @chinahearsay What’s the legal story behind the Google pullout of China? Will there be a public dispute? Who has the upper hand?
   
   
3. Dan Harris, who gives us another insightful post on his China Law Blog. This time it’s a ‘moderate’ post on the state of FDI in China: “Google, Rio Tinto And The Truth About China FDI. BTW, They Are Not Even Really Related.”
   
   @danharris Can foreign companies doing business in China expect short-term repercussions from Google and Rio Tinto?
   
   
4. Sam Bayard, writing in the Citizen Media Law Project blog, on a legal setback for Google that demonstrates the challenges that ISPs and other online intermediaries in a second BRIC economy: “Brazil Fines Google Over Dirty Jokes on Orkut; Brazilian Lawyers Weigh In”
   
   @smbayard How important are safe harbors for ISPs to the development of emerging economies in general and the BRIC economies in particular?
   
   
5. Jay Shepherd in The Client Revolution, who draws an important distinction between the lawyer-as-laborer and the lawyer-as-artist in his ongoing efforts to kill the billable hour: “Art and Labor”
   
   @jayshep Do you ever turn down work because a potential client just doesn’t get value billing? How do you convince the ones on the edge?
   
   
6. Jim Walker, who writes about crime on the high seas in Cruise Law News. Not the swashbuckling kind or the “off the coast of Somalia” kind, but the more common kind encountered on land. Except without a police force: “Your Dream Cruise - The Perfect Place For The Perfect Crime?”
   
   @cruiselaw You represent a diverse group of people in your practice. What is the single most important legal issue for your clients?
   
   
7. Paul Kennedy, who writes in The Defense Rests about the difference between “just” and “fair” and why it’s important: “It’s possible to be just, but not fair”
   
   @PaulBKennedy You blog about a diverse range subjects. What are your objectives for your blog? Are you meeting them? How have they evolved?
   
   
8. Jonathan Turley, who sparks in his eponymous blog a very lively debate on complying with the police, the use of force, and obeying the law in his post “Ninth Circuit Rules Police Officers Were Justified in Tasering Pregnant Woman Three Times Over Traffic Ticket”
   
   @jonathanturley How do you decide which client representations to take on? Are you attracted to them by the legal issues or the people?
   
   
9. Johnny Gardner, who writes an engaging critique of the death penalty in Law and Baseball, not on moral grounds but rather because the stakes are so high and the variables so great in capital punishment cases: “The Death Penalty – I’m all about it”
   
   @lawandbaseball Why did you become a lawyer? Have your views changed since you’ve been practicing?
   
   
10. Ron Coleman, who writes about intellectual property and the two Chinas, and how IP disputes are leading to cooperation across the Taiwan Straits in Likelihood of Confusion: “Two Chinas Policy”
    
    @RonColeman What’s the next big battlefield of intellectual property law? How will it help define IP law in the next decade?
    
    
11. Kevin Underhill, who writes in Lowering the Bar about a rather lengthy Ninth Circuit decision finding that “assault with a dangerous weapon” does not apply in the instance of attacking someone with one’s with bare hands: “Ninth Circuit Grapples With Whether Bare Hands Are ‘Weapons’”
    
    @loweringthebar Was it hard to convince your firm’s leadership to let you blog? Are there ever editorial conflicts? How are they resolved?
    
    
12. Bill Marler writing in Marler Blog, who updates us on the latest chapter in Stephanie Smith’s E. coli poisoning from a tainted hamburger produced by Cargill: “Smith vs Cargill E. coli Trial 2010”
    
    @bmarler Will the Health Care reform legislation have any impact on victims of food-borne illnesses? On the regulation of food producers?
    
    
13. Brian Tannebaum, who calls out lawyers seeking the #1 spot on Google results in “The Ethics Of Lawyer Marketing, And Other Lost Ideals.” You love him, you hate him, but in the end you’re glad he’s there, injecting common sense, clarity and credibility into lawyer marketing in the social media age at My Law License.
    
    @btannebaum What will the legal ethics landscape look like in 10 years? Will the profession be struggling with the same issues it is today?
    
    
14. Eric Turkewitz in New York Personal Injury Attorney Blog, writing on the health care reform bill and what it means for his clients, personal injury victims: “Health Care Bill: Benefits For Personal Injury Victims”
    
    @turkewitz You’re an active Web 2.0 participant. What specific impact on business, if any, have you see from your online activities?
    
    
15. Adrian Baron, The Nutmeg Lawyer, who indeed articulates the “trials and tribulations of law practice” as he weaves St. Patrick’s Day, the Ides of March, and a lawyer-shopping potential client into his post: “Shamrocks & Shenanigans”
    
    @lawbaron You review law schools on your site. What advice do you have for people going to law school today?
    
    
16. Ken from Popehat, whose post exploring the themes of the film “10 Rules For Dealing With Police” is an unintended but excellent companion piece to Jonathan Turley’s post: “10 Rules For Dealing With Police: Prudence and Subservience”
    
    @popehat You’ve been blogging for a long time, on a very wide range of topics. What drives your blogging? Does it make you a better lawyer?
    
    
17. Rick Horowitz in Probable Cause, who tells the story of a young client desperately in need of help, stuck in a system that cannot give her the treatment she needs: “I’m in a funk”
    
    @RickHorowitz What can society do to help kids like your client whose mental health issues land them in jail? More funding? Better training?
    
    
18. Gideon, whose latest a public defender post reminds us of the fragility of the Constitutional right to counsel that most of us take for granted every day: “Bad ad-Weis: spitting on Barker”
    
    @gideonstrumpet What would you say is the most difficult aspect of being a public defender?
    
    
19. Scott Greenfield in Simple Justice, who defends Harold Comer and his decision to not seek additional DNA testing for his client Hank Skinner in Skinner’s 1994 trial for murder: “Strategic Shunning”
    
    @ScottGreenfield What’s the most significant challenge facing lawyers today? How is it changing the profession? Is there a fix?
    
    
20. Edward Prutschi, writing on Slaw, who gives us a thought-provoking post on making the roads safer by adopting a very innovative approach to reducing the number of people who drive drunk: “Tackling Impaired Driving… By Decriminalizing It”
    
    @prutschi Tell us about one of the more significant client representations you've had. What was it about? Why was it important?
    
    
21. Mark W. Bennett, in a guest post on The Trial Warrior, reports on the U.S. Supreme Court’ in extremis halting of Hank Skinner’s execution: “Guest Post by Mark W. Bennett: A Triumph of Civil Litigation”
    
    @MarkWBennett The SCOTUS stay is clearly a win for Skinner, but what does mean for the rest of us? Why is it a “triumph of civil litigation”
    
    
22. Stephanie Kimbro in Virtual Law Practice, who provides a useful overview of the virtual law practice, what it is and isn’t, how it works, and what clients need to look for when they consider hiring an attorney who delivers legal services online: “Clearing Up the Terminology Before TECHSHOW”
    
    @stephkimbro You must meet many potential clients who worry about VLO security. What’s the one thing that convinces them to hire you?

Blawg Review has information about next week’s host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.

What I’ve learned from a year of 22 Tweets

This week marks the one-year anniversary of 22 Tweets. It’s been a great first year. I’ve learned a lot from the interviews, about the lawyers I’ve interviewed, about the practice of law, about how what I hope is a representative slice of the Web 2.0 legal crowd markets themselves and their practices. And I’ve also learned a great deal about communication and communicating, about messages and crafting them, about stories and articulating them. While it would be hard to sum up everything I've learned in a single blog post, a few lessons stand out:

• Everybody has a great story to tell. Most of the lawyers I’ve met over the past 20 years have interesting and engaging stories to tell, the kind that convey their passion, intelligence and conviction, the kind that draw you in and keep you on the edge of your seat and make you glad you heard them, the kind that make clients want to hire them. They tell great stories (when they’re not so busy trying to pitch their services that they forget how powerful their own stories are), just like each and every lawyer I interviewed for 22 Tweets.
  
  
• The medium is not the message. Whether you’re tweeting or blogging or meeting with a client or giving a presentation to an auditorium full of your peers, the medium is not the message. The message is the message. And lawyers need to understand and use the full range of communications channels their audiences are using – with a common message, one that conveys their strengths, their differences, their story – if they want to be heard.
  
  
• The message received is the message. Not the message sent. There are few “do-overs” in real life, and even fewer in communication: what you mean is irrelevant if your audience doesn't understand what you are trying to say. Not because you can’t recover from miscommunication, but because when neither of you are aware that you aren't talking about the same thing, you’re not going to know it.
  
  
• Effective communication is hard work. Part of the challenge (and I hope the fun) of being interviewed on 22 Tweets is responding in 140 characters. Finding a way to say who you are, or what you do, or why you do it, in a single tweet takes time and effort and work. And although life doesn't place the same constraints on communication as Twitter does (though many days I wish it would), the people who communicate most effectively apply the same rigor to all their words across all channels.
  
  
• Value is king. Whatever your message, whatever the channels you use to communicate it, whatever the content you provide, unless it adds value to your audience, unless it helps them do their jobs better, make more money, get smarter or sleep better at night, then it probably doesn't hold a lot of value for them. Lawyers are in the business of providing value. Shouldn't your tweets, your blog, your website, your brochures and your speeches provide the same value as your legal work?

It’s been a great first year. Thank you all, readers and interviewees alike, for making it possible.