The National Law Forum

One week until the final session! Register today for the Women in the Law Rainmaker Forum

The National Law Review is pleased to bring you information about the upcoming Women in the Law Rainmaker Forum hosted by KLA Marketing Associates.

When

For your convenience, 3 dates and times:

February 17 – Late Afternoon

Feburary 19 – Morning

Februrary 27 – Late afternoon

Where

Philadelphia / New Jersey / Virtual

Join us – a safe, intimate forum where Women in the Law “lean in” and access much-needed resources to develop a prosperous and rewarding practice. Make 2014 the year to take control of your career.

Join for our popular Forum to:

Learn critical rainmaking techniques
Brainstorm opportunities
Dig deep into your business challenges
Tap skills/experience of others

Four 2-hour sessions to change the

way you do business – and win business!

Special Pricing: $499* for all 4 sessions – – and more. Register now to claim your seat that will change the way you do business!

About the Trainer/Coach
Kimberly Alford Rice, Principal and Chief Strategist of KLA Marketing Associates, has successfully trained hundreds of lawyers to build and grow a prosperous book of business over the course of her 20+ year legal services advisory practice. She deeply understands how to engage the organizational and human factors that drive successful implementation and change through her work. To learn more, check out KLA Marketing Associates website.

The NLRB Revives Controversial Expedited Election Rules – National Labor Relations Board

On February 6, 2014, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reissued its controversial rules aimed at expediting union elections in the workplace. This rule, referred to as the “Ambush Election Rule,” could limit an employer’s right to express its views to employees and respond to union statements. The proposed rules mirror the NLRB’s June 2011 proposal, which ultimately was struck down by a district court in May 2012.

Analogous to the June 2011 proposal, the NLRB’s most recent proposal seeks to significantly impact the current union election process. The proposed reforms are aimed at shortening the election cycle from the current median of 38 days from petition to election to as little as 10 to 21 days. The proposed reforms also would move resolution of voter eligibility determination to after the election; reduce the NLRB’s review of representation cases; expand employer disclosure of employee contact information (including e-mail addresses); and allow more electronic filing with the NLRB.

Despite reducing the amount of time an employer has to communicate its message or rebut the union’s statements, NLRB Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce has stated the proposed rules are intended to “improve the process for all parties.” The NLRB is likely to issue a final rule governing union elections later this year.

Action Steps?

The NLRB has issued a proposed rule, and by law, will allow for public comments through April 7, 2014. Employers may direct comments regarding the proposed reforms to the NLRB here. Additionally, the NLRB will hold a public hearing on the proposed rules in Washington D.C. during the week of April 7, 2014, and employers may voice their concerns at the forum.

Finally, employers should consider conducting a vulnerability audit to identify any concerns that can be addressed now (rather than after a final rule is put in place) and should provide supervisors and management with training so they are prepared to address any potential NLRB election situation.

Article by:

Brian P. Paul

Katherine L. Goyert

Of:

Michael Best & Friedrich LLP

How Can You (Safely) Shorten a Law Firm’s Name?

Below are two logos – before and after the redesign, obviously. Note, they’re exactly the same width.

Which one stands out? Which one are you more likely to notice and remember?

It’s obviously the right decision, there is no scenario where the top version is a “better” or more effective logo than the new one below it. There are too many equal-sized names, and your brain can’t process all that visually similar information. There’s no focal point, so your eyes don’t know where to go. If you put it on tschotchkes like a hat or mug (see mock-ups below), or used it on business cards (also below) or a website, there’s a clear contrast. If you looked away, you wouldn’t remember the firm’s name.

The bottom version with the larger name obviously helps the reader remember the firm’s name.

And that’s what a good logo is supposed to do. It tells you what to remember, how to find them. You know what to call them. Which of course is the whole point – it’s a strong, interesting, unusual, and memorable name. It’s what The Street has always chosen to call them – either “Lugenbuhl” or “The Lugenbuhl Firm.” But changing a logo to reflect that reality is still extremely difficult.

Executing it requires teamwork. Commitment to the firm. Trust. Strong leadership.

Here, Messrs. Wheaton, Peck, Rankin, and Hubbard are all still practicing. They’re dynamic lawyers with great practices, leaders in their various industries (marine, bankruptcy, environmental, and energy). The latter Name Partners must have the professional security, integrity, and confidence to allow their names to be reduced in size compared to the first lawyer’s. They all have to sublimate their egos for the sake of The Firm. They must understand and accept that enlarging the first name over the others isn’t a comparative value judgment.

It doesn’t suggest that Mr. Lugenbuhl is “better” than they are.

It’s not saying he’s more important, smarter, more valuable, or better looking. It’s just that his name was first on the door and that having too many names of equal visual weight simply makes no strategic sense. It makes it harder to grasp visually and remember later, which hurts everyone’s business development. The only possible explanation for keeping a design like this is the ego and insecurity of the latter-named lawyers.

And that’s not an insignificant thing, especially not in a professional-services firm.

In a law firm, having your name on the door is the brass ring. No one screws with a lawyer whose name is prominent on the letterhead. Candidly, in their position, I wouldn’t want my name shrunk or eliminated from the logo either. Regardless, it IS, of course, the right thing to do.

And that’s how we always pitch it – it’s not about Mr. Lugenbuhl. ”Lugenbuhl” simply becomes a word, a noun, the corporate name. It’s no longer about the person, it’s the word that represents the firm. People don’t wonder who “Mr. McDonald” is when they buy a hamburger.

That’s certainly a challenge in first-generation law firms when one or more of the names on the door are still practicing. This is particularly true when the firm has gradually added the firm’s top billers or rising stars to the end of the name. The people in the front may no longer be as powerful or relevant. But it’s still the right thing to do.

Good for S. Rodger Wheaton, Stewart F. Peck, S. Frazer Rankin, and Ralph S. Hubbard, III. They did the right thing for the firm. I sincerely respect their sacrifice.

Here are two business card options with similar layouts. The point is pretty obvious, don’t you think?

lawyer attorney business cards

Article by:

Ross Fishman

Of:

Fishman Marketing, Inc.

3 Ways for Law Firms to Advance Their Brands In a Post-Recession Environment

The post-recession state of professional services branding is like living in a bland, empty room. Wherever we look, we see reduced brand activity and sameness. Once creative and compelling, professional service brands (via websites, advertising and other channels) now seem less visible. Sadly, it appears to us that both the quality and quantity of firm branding efforts are regressing.

Are past failed efforts to blame? Is the stumbling economy a disincentive to act? Or is it the pendulum swing to business development, the tremendous pressure on CMOs to drive revenue? Has anyone else noticed the fall off in brand awareness and memorability? Do we still believe brand is critical to creating preference?

Good questions, we thought. So we polled CMOs and CEOs at law, accounting and consulting firms around the world for their opinions. Respondents included leaders of local, regional, national and international firms with an average size of 382 professionals (full survey results at http://www.greenfieldbelser.com/research-page/brand-regression#).

Questions, answers and insights

Here, we’ve summarized four of the most important findings, including the questions asked, the answers received and the top line takeaways.

1. Brand Health. We asked how important is brand to the success of your firm, how helpful is your brand in achieving that success, and is your brand understood by key audiences?

95% of CMOs and 92% of CEOs/managing partners believe their brand is moderately or extremely important to success
But only 26% find their brand “very helpful”
On understanding, only 21% replied that their brands were well or perfectly understood by prospects.

The takeaway? Yikes! How can something perceived to be so important yield such poor scores in helpfulness and understanding? In live presentations of these findings, some of our CMO friends suggest that the answer lies in the degree of difficulty of executing branding efforts properly in any professional services firm.

One respondent shared this comment, “These days if you wish to undertake any sort of brand exercise, it must be titled ‘Strategic Positioning Initiative’ to avoid the factious response that sometimes arrives as talk turns to brand.”

Whatever you call it, our view is that pioneering brand efforts among professional service firms have given way to safer, less expensive efforts that suffer from unoriginality and are easy to ignore. Conventional wisdom suggests that in times of recession it’s better to tighten the belt and cut marketing and branding expenditures to focus on sales. However, when firms stop investing in the brand and marketing, they have fewer opportunities to sell. Healthy firms require strong commitment to both brand/marketing and business development—they go hand in hand.

2. Brand Distinction. Is your brand promise—the value proposition—unique? Is your brand expression (look, feel and voice) unique? Do you consider your brand to be innovative?

Only 20%say their brands are “very” or “extremely innovative.”
66% respond that their promise of value is “marginally” or “moderately unique.”
54% say their brand identity or expression is “marginally” or “moderately unique.”

The takeaway? Unicorns and innovative brands are as rare as hens’ teeth. Again, responding CMOs and CEOs believe brands are important to success but say uniqueness is hard to come by in the professional services space. Perhaps this relates to the fact that lawyers and law firms typically follow precedent (and one another). Meanwhile, marketers toil in the business of awareness building and differentiation.

That’s the rub. The most innovative firms and best marketers have the courage to take risks, break with convention, and inspire interest in the brand among their audience.

3. Brand Quality. How do you rate the quality of your firm’s brand communication tools (things like websites, advertising, content marketing, etc.)?

On a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) CEOs and CMOs graded their own efforts:

they gave websites a mean rating of 3.6 on the five point scale
core identity (logo and such) scored 3.5
proposal and pitch materials were 3.5
videos, 3.1
thought leadership and content marketing, 2.8
advertising, 2.8
social media, 2.5

The takeaway? On average, brand communications quality is, well, average. Given the Type-A personalities in leading professional services firms—those accustomed to performing at the head of their class and fields—the low scores might be hard to figure. But the effect of the economy sheds light on the tough grading. During the great recession, we saw marketing attention focused heavily on business development. And why wouldn’t we? During that time, sales were hard to come by as firms hunkered down among bleak predictions. We saw marketing communication investment devalued and more do-it-yourself branding within firms. Yes, that led to savings, but at what cost to quality, awareness, memorability and preference for firms?

Previous research shows that professional services firm clients and prospects have preconceived and immediate feelings about the quality of a firm solely based on the quality of brand communications. This, in turn, can have a noticeable impact on opportunities and on revenue.

4. Brand channels and investments. Which communication channels are most important and where do the greatest investments go?

85% believe firm websites are the most important channel; 92% say it is the greatest area of investment.
67% rate proposals and pitch material as the second most important channel; but only 30% say it is an area of greatest investment.
59% say substantive alerts, speaking and thought leadership are very important; 32% indicate investments here are highest.
35% viewed firm and practice advertising as most important; 45% reported it as an area of greatest investment.

The takeaway? Tuning the channels for the clearest return is a challenge. Website investment matches its perceived importance (shocker) but other communications are either overfunded or underfunded relative to perceived importance. Major events are viewed as much less important but still command a disproportionate financial commitment (boondoggle, anyone?). Pitch materials are not getting the love CMOs and CEOs feel they deserve and blue sky thought leadership is short-changed, as well.

What to do about brand progression?

While our study and data does not prove that branding in the business-to-business services sector has regressed following the recession, it does confirm that there is significant room for improvement for professional services firms.

Firms can advance their branding by considering these three tips:

1. Increase investments in marketing and business development simultaneously:We should start by mentioning that, increasing investments does not always demand higher dollar figure. It could (and often should) be a reallocation of funds from unimportant or ineffective programs to the ones that have the most impact. Think of it as finding couch money; the dollars and cents may be rattling around your firm, but you need to collect them from underneath the cushions and spend them wisely. This often requires doing less and doing it better.

2. Have the courage to do memorable, engaging and high quality brand communications. The great ad man, David Ogilvy, said, “You can’t bore people into buying your product or service.” Firms need to take greater creative risks in order to achieve differentiation. For those of you who see branding as lipstick or worse, take the words of another “counsel.” Andy Warhol commented, “I may be superficial, but I’m deeply superficial.”

3. Demand that the investments made in marketing and business development yield measurable results: When better branding initiatives are carried out, leads increase and create an improved conversion ratio. Our study looked at brand tracking and found that the bottom line is that few in the professional services have the patience or budgets to do tracking research well(link to the study is below).

For brand skeptics, keep this in mind—following the U.S. Stock Market crash of 1987, Nike tripled its marketing spend and emerged from the recession with profits nine times higher than before the recession started. Yes, we know Nike is not a legal, accounting or consulting firm, but they are great at executing groundbreaking marketing plans—.And you have to admit a 9x increase in profits is a compelling argument to “just do it.”

Article by:

Joe Walsh

Steve White

Of:

Greenfield/Belser Ltd.

NAWL 2014 Mid-Year Meeting – March 19-20 Washington DC

The National Law Review is pleased to bring you information about the upcoming 2014 Mid-Year Meeting of the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL).

When

Wednesday March 19 – Thursday March 20, 2014

Where

Washington, D.C.

Join us at the 2014 Mid-Year Meeting in Washington, D.C. on March 19-20, 2014 at the Renaissance Washington, DC Downtown Hotel.

This year’s program is Leadership through Change: Lessons from D.C. and Beyond. The hard work and collaboration of the entire Mid-Year Meeting Planning Committee have produced a comprehensive and rich program relevant to Women in all fields of legal practice. Topics we will cover include a mix of professional development and substantive sessions: Navigating in a Majority Environment: Clearing the Hurdles to Success; Cyber & Data Security; Developing Lawyers as Leaders; 50th Anniversary of the Equal Pay Act: Where We Stand; and Power: How To Get It and How To Wield It. We will be announcing our keynote and other speakers soon, so please stay posted on the website. Finally, as always, there will be networking time built in throughout the event.

While we hope that you learn a lot from the meeting, we also want you to enjoy yourselves in our nation’s capital—and, with luck, enjoy the height of the cherry blossom season after a very long winter. We believe that you will leave the 2014 NAWL Mid-Year Meeting inspired and look forward to seeing you in D.C.

Same Sex Marriages: Are You Filing Your Taxes Properly?

In late 2013, I met with my first same sex couple clients since the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) last year. If you recall, DOMA was the federal law barring the federal government from recognizing same sex marriages legalized by states. It was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court as violative of the Fifth Amendment. The IRS issued a statement on August 29, 2013 that provided that same sex couples legally married in a jurisdiction that recognizes their marriage would be treated as married for federal tax purposes regardless of the laws of their domiciliary state. As a result, same sex couples married in a state that legally recognizes their marriage will be entitled to the estate and gift tax marital deduction, and they must also file their federal income tax returns with the status of married or married filing separately. (The Department of Labor issued a similar statement in Technical Release No. 2013-4, meaning that for purposes of ERISA, legally married couples are treated as married, regardless of the laws of their domiciliary state.)

North Carolina does not recognize same sex marriage as valid, so for purposes of North Carolina taxes, where does that leave our North Carolina-residing same sex couple clients that were legally married in another state? NCDOR directive PD-13-1 provides that “Because North Carolina does not recognize same-sex marriage as valid… individuals who enter into a same-sex marriage in another state cannot file a North Carolina income tax return using the filing status of married. Such individuals who file a federal income tax return as married must each complete a separate pro forma federal return for North Carolina purposes with the filing status of single to determine each individual’s proper adjusted gross income, deductions and tax credits allowed under the Code for the filing status used for North Carolina purposes.”

My clients are considering getting married in a state that recognizes same sex marriage, but they want to understand the legal implications for them if they do. They are concerned about the “marriage penalty” for federal income tax purposes and the complexity of having different laws and rules for federal and state purposes. They do not have an estate tax problem, so the availability of the unlimited estate tax marital deduction is of no consequence to them. However, they are considering retitling the house currently owned by one of them into their joint names. I cautioned them that such transfer would constitute a taxable gift to the extent the value of the interest transferred exceeded the donor owner’s $14,000 annual exclusion. In fact, one partner’s use of funds for the benefit of the other in excess of the donor-partner’s annual exclusion in any year will require the donor-partner to file a gift tax return. If they are legally married, there would be no taxable gifts in those circumstances due to the unlimited marital gift tax deduction. My clients each have a 401(k) plan, so if they were to marry, under ERISA, they must be designated beneficiary of each other’s accounts unless the spouse waives that right.

As an advisor, if you have same sex couple clients who have been married in a state that recognizes same sex marriage and they have paid taxes or used exemptions (income, gift or estate tax) based on separate status, you may consider whether they can and should file amended returns based on married filing status to recoup taxes or exemptions. And they should be advised to revisit their beneficiary designations and their estate planning documents if they have not done so already.

Article by:

Westray B. Veasey

Of:

Poyner Spruill LLP

JPMorgan Chase Pays $614 Million for Submitting False Claims in Mortgage Loans Case

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced last week that JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank and financial institution in the country, will pay a $614 million settlement to the US government to resolve allegations that it approved thousands of unqualified home mortgage loans for government insurance and refinancing. According to the DOJ, JPMorgan knowingly created and guaranteed non-compliant mortgage loans submitted for insurance coverage by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’sFederal Housing Administration (FHA), and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which cost the government millions of dollars when the loans defaulted.

According to the lawsuit, beginning in 2002, JPMorgan falsely claimed that loans it had created and guaranteed were qualified for FHA and VA insurance and coverage. As a consequence of JPMorgan’s falsifications, both the FHA and the VA incurred huge monetary losses when the unqualified loans failed, due to the fact that the FHA and VA had to cover the associated losses of the loans.

The FHA’s program allows lower income borrowers to purchase homes by insuring qualified loans made by participating lenders, such as JPMorgan, against losses if the loans later default. However, a participating lender may only submit creditworthy loans to the FHA if they meet certain requirements and they must maintain a quality control program that can prevent and correct any deficiencies in the lender’s financing practices. The VA’s program is similar in this regard—it provides similar assistance to veterans, service members and spouses.

JPMorgan allegedly approved thousands of loans for government insurance or refinancing that did not meet the requirements of the FHA and VA, and also failed to report hundreds of loans it identified as having been affected by fraud or other defects. The government also alleged that the bank regularly submitted loan data that lacked reliability, due to the fact that they were not based on actual documents or other information the bank should have possessed when its employees submitted the data to the government.

As part of the settlement, JPMorgan admitted that it approved thousands of FHA loans and hundreds of VA loans that were not supposed to be eligible for FHA or VA insurance because they did not meet the applicable agency financing requirements, and that it had been doing so for over a decade. The bank further admitted that it failed to inform the FHA and the VA when its own internal reviews discovered more than 500 unreliable loans that never should have been submitted for FHA and VA insurance.

This settlement resolves allegations in a complaint filed by a private whistleblower.

If you have information concerning a potential case involving banking fraud, do not hesitate to take action. It is possible that you might be able to bring your own lawsuit under the False Claims Act, acting as a whistleblower on behalf of the US government.

Article by:

Whistleblower Practice Group

Of:

Tycko & Zavareei LLP

Office Romances: 3-Part Series on How to Shield Your Company from Liability Part 3

According to a recent CareerBuilder survey, four in ten people admitted to dating a co-worker, and one-third eventually married that person. Whether a relationship between peers, relationships between supervisors/subordinates, flings, long-term relationships, or extramarital affairs, office romances can lead to unwelcome complaints and expensive lawsuits.

Part 1 of this three-part series addressed the potential risks that office romances pose to companies, and Part 2 covered the importance of adopting and enforcing a company policy addressing fraternization. This final installment offers recommended steps you should take now to defend potential claims of discrimination and harassment.

Tips for Employers

Employers should prepare and implement a clear policy regarding office relationships or update an existing one, and be sure to disseminate it and obtain employees’ acknowledgements. The policy should address to extent to which office relationships are permissible, and, if appropriate, require employees to promptly disclose the existence (or termination) of a romantic or sexual relationship to a designated member of Human Resources or management. When the employees involved are in a supervisor/subordinate relationship, disclosure is especially critical so that the employer may effectively address the impact of the relationship (e.g., evaluating if it is necessary to change job duties or reassign the employee(s)).

If harassment occurs despite an employer’s best efforts to prevent and stop it, you will have a strong defense if you can demonstrate that you have done the following:

Implement and enforce a sexual harassment and office romance policy that provides a clear reporting channel and prohibits retaliation for good faith complaints.
Respect employees’ reasonable expectations of privacy regarding their relationship in line with the company policies.
Train new and existing employees on the sexual harassment policy and document the training.
Train managers on what constitutes sexual harassment and how to handle complaints.
Train employees to report inappropriate behavior.
If a relationship develops between a manager and his/her subordinate, transfer one of them if possible to eliminate a direct reporting relationship.
Promptly and thoroughly investigate complaints.
Take appropriate corrective action to address prior incidents of sexual harassment.

Regardless of the type of policy your company adopts, be sure to customize it to the needs and actual practices of your business. Train employees and managers on expectations governing office romances. A well-drafted and uniformly enforced fraternization (or non-fraternization) policy will not prevent workplace relationships altogether, but it can protect you if you encounter office romances.

See Part 1 Here

See Part 2 Here

Article by:

Mona M. Stone

Of:

Greenberg Traurig, LLP

Insurance by Number – Metrics in Litigation

Jurist and law professor Richard Posner recently commented on a common problem among lawyers, namely, that they believe they have a “math block.” Jackson v. Pollion, 733 F.3d 786, 788 (7th Cir. 2013). More recently, Judge and Mediator Wayne D. Brazil noted that even sophisticated risk analysts “cannot reliably determine the ‘discounted settlement value’ of a case” because of their misunderstanding of how to apply mathematical principles to real-world decision making.^[1] In fact, if you are a lawyer, you have likely heard other lawyers make jokes about how if they could do math, they would not have gone to law school, but rather business or medical school. You may have even made these jokes yourself.

Posner, however, believes that lawyers’ basic discomfort around math is a serious matter, and one that disadvantages clients. He points to the need for lawyers in litigation related to emerging science or technology to understand the evidence and underlying facts. We posit that the need for comfort with math applies much more broadly. In fact, if a lawyer is uncomfortable with “math,” “numbers,” or “metrics,” there are an ever-vanishing number of circumstances where the lawyer can do his or her job effectively. Our expertise is insurance recovery. The underlying fact patterns in our field more frequently deal with decades-old contracts than cutting-edge technology. Nevertheless, we quantify, organize data, make calculations, and wrestle with financial concepts in virtually every matter we encounter.

Here are just a few of the particular circumstances where a comfort with numbers and math come into play in insurance coverage, and many other types of litigation:

When we communicate with the CFO or other finance experts within our client organizations, or assist our client contacts in doing so, we must be able to communicate in the language of numbers, balance sheets and quantifiable results. Speaking this language is similarly necessary to understand fully our clients’ business goals and constraints and the part our legal strategies may play within those goals.
Budgeting complicated long-term matters with various contingencies and uncertainties requires that you approach numbers without fear.
Evaluating the settlement value of a case with multiple potential issues requires, in the simplest terms, a probability analysis; but as Judge Brazil’s article points out, that may be more complex than many practitioners appreciate.
In large, multiparty matters where resolutions may require structures other than a single payment for dismissal, creating and evaluating settlement proposals (often in real time during a negotiation) requires a detailed understanding of how those proposals will translate to a client’s bottom line.
The various creative settlement solutions that are proposed may have tax or accounting impacts that must be considered.
Simple calculation of damages may become a complex mathematical exercise when lost profits or other complicated losses are involved. Answering the question of “what did my client lose,” may require examination of balance sheets, income statements, cash flow statements, sales histories, cost histories, and other mathematic and economic evidence.

As insurance recovery lawyers, we deal with these and many more issues that require us to dig deep into data analysis, spreadsheets, numbers and accounting. Understanding the complicated interaction between multiple dependent and variable outcomes on various insurers and policies necessitates a comfort with math and numbers. Some lawyers may point out that where the “math part” becomes particularly complicated, experts are typically employed to handle those issues. But the involvement of an expert does not excuse a lawyer from understanding the expert’s work. It is ultimately the responsibility of the lawyer to understand and convey the meaning of those calculations to his or her client, opposing counsel, or trier of fact. Indeed, an understanding of mathematical concepts helps a lawyer know what to ask his or her expert for in the first place. Knowing how to direct consultants effectively reduces costs, and ultimately creates a greater value to the client.

_{[1] Judge Wayne D. Brazil, Don’t Apply Risk Analysis To Discounted Settlement Value(February 03, 2014, 9:49 AM), http://www.law360.com/insurance/articles/500858?nl_pk=e5cceee0-d0cb-4d28-aa35-79dab830e7f8&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=insurance.}

Article by:

Kami E. Quinn

João Santa-Rita

Of:

Gilbert LLP

How a Lawyer can Start a Successful LinkedIn Group for Business Development (Part 2 of 3)

In my previous post, we looked at some preliminary steps attorneys can take to plan a LinkedIn Group. Once you’ve laid this foundation, it’s time ask yourself three questions:

Has the niche you seek to fill with your group been addressed by existing, active groups?
Is the focus of your group going to be broad enough to attract a reasonable amount of participants, while being narrow enough to attract your target audience?
Are you able to commit to starting meaningful discussions on a daily or weekly basis, encouraging group members to participate in the conversation and removing posts that are spammy or overtly sales-oriented? (This is your last chance to back out!)

Now that you are ready to take the plunge, you’ve got some housekeeping items to attend to:

1. Develop a Strategy

Draft a brief outline of your group’s focus, target audience and goals (both for the group and for yourself). State some objectives for the group, such as, “Inform members of timely news and events” or “Enhance the interaction among professionals in this industry.” Your outline should include a content plan that identifies, for example, the types of timely issues and events your group will track. Identify how you will track this information. Put as much detail into your group plan as you can prior to launching it, to ensure that you have a clear roadmap to guide your efforts.

2. Name Your Group

LinkedIn Groups are used to attract and coalesce like-minded people, so the group name should reflect the interest area. The name is also important as a search term – what words will your target audience type to find your group? Spend some time searching LinkedIn Groups to see what is already being used and what would work best for your group. Also, keep it under 54 characters – if it’s any longer, the title will get cut-off in a search.

3. Get a Logo

A logo is a key element in presenting your group as a professional entity. If you have an in-house designer, talk with him about your group and share your strategy so he can design something appropriate. If you don’t have an in-house designer, ask around for a freelancer. This process shouldn’t take long, but it will go a long way toward giving your group an identity.

4. Create Your Group

When you create your group on LinkedIn, you’ll not only want to have your logo ready to upload, but you’ll also want to post a group summary and a list of group rules for members to refer to.

5. Finally – Invite Contacts to Join!

Use your existing network to build an initial membership base. Invite coworkers, past colleagues, and clients (who fit the group’s profile) to join the group. LinkedIn will allow you to send out up to 50 announcements per day to your connections.
As manager of the group, regularly support group members who start, and contribute to, discussions. Do this by commenting, liking and sharing their posts.
It is permissible to visit similar groups of which you’re a member and mention your group. Politely compliment the group and then mention that you’ve got another group that members in your group’s niche may want to consider joining.

This is the second post in a three-part series detailing how lawyers can start successful LinkedIn Groups to foster their business development efforts. For Part one, click here.

Article by:

Aileen M. Hinsch

Of:

Knapp Marketing

The National Law Forum

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