In late January Good2bSocial launched the Good2bSocial Academy. Designed to be an easily accessible way to enhance understanding of digital technologies in a law firm/legal marketing context for marketing, business development and communication professionals in a law firm environment, the course features webinars, articles and videos on an easy to navigate dashboard which can be completed at the attendees own pace. On the course’s design, Guy Alvarez, Founder and CEO of Good2bSocial and the course instructor, says, “We wanted to design a course that would provide legal marketers with a verifiable base line of knowledge of digital marketing concepts in the legal marketing realm—with the idea that this course could serve as a benchmark for legal marketing departments vetting potential hires, and make it easier for CMOs to get approval for team training.”
Good2bSocial’s popular Digital Marketing Certification is available on the Good2bSocial dashboard. The course is divided into eight sections, outlined below, with assignments and feedback from Alvarez along the way. After completing the eight sessions, course participants will create a final digital marketing project to earn the digital marketing certificate and upon completion of the course, students will gain access to a private Linkedin Group to network with other alumni.
The eight sessions are:
Session 1: Introduction to Digital Marketing
Session 2: Content Marketing
Session 3: Social Media Marketing
Session 4: Social Media Advertising
Session 5: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Session 6: Search Advertising
Session 7: Email Marketing
Session 8: Measurement & Analytics
The Introduction to Digital Marketing for Law Firms section includes webinars, articles and videos providing a foundation and shared language for participants. Concepts discussed include Inbound marketing for law firms, the buyer’s journey, and client journey mapping, all with a legal marketing focus.
Inbound Marketing for Law Firms
Inbound Marketing for law firms is introduced through a conversation with Anna Norregaard the Principal Channel Executive for Hubspot, and other articles and resources are also included. Norregaard draws a distinction between inbound marketing and content marketing and how content marketing enhances visibility across channels, while inbound marketing uses the increased visibility to convert that additional visibility into leads and opportunities.
Norregaard breaks inbound marketing down into four phases:
Attract: through strategic content creation, blogging and social media, bring new visitors to your firm’s website so they can get to know you.
Convert. Once the visitors have arrived at your site, you convert them into a lead by enticing them to fill out a form so you can capture their information, encouraging them to do so by providing valuable content like webinars or case studies.
Close. In this stage, you turn the leads into business development opportunities through segmentation–by providing regular and appropriate follow-ups, you can nurture the lead to closing.
Delight. In this phase, consider how you communicate with your clients and how the relationship provides them with value aside from the services purchased–how can you keep clients appraised of what you offer that they might find useful?
The Buyer’s Journey
In order to effectively understand what content will be effective for inbound marketing, analyzing and constructing a buyer’s persona can help contextualize the buyer’s journey for your firm’s clients and develop content that matches the concerns of potential buyers. Broadly speaking, the Buyer’s Journey includes the Awareness Stage, the Consideration Stage and the Decision stage. By identifying common characteristics of your buyer at each stage, you can create content that addresses the concerns and positions your firm as the solution.
Client Journey Mapping for Law Firms
One way to develop the Buyer Persona and conceptualize the Buyer’s journey is to go through a client journey mapping process. Client Journey mapping has been a hot topic in law firms, as traditional buyers of legal services have become more concerned with pricing and consistency. Client Journey Mapping provides an overview of the client experience, and what those interactions look like at each touchpoint. Looking at this process from an external perspective can drive the focus outward, to the client, and encourage the firm to be more receptive to feedback from clients. Additionally, this shift in focus can help identify which touchpoints are critical to clients when making a buying decision and can encourage the firm to be more empathetic. By placing perspective on the client’s experience, the firm can create experiences tailored to the client and extend the relationship, perhaps even broadening the relationship to include more facets of work.
By curating a variety resources in a variety of formats, Alvarez has used his expertise to find assets on the topics under discussion and putting them in a user-friendly, easily accessible dashboard. Alvarez says, “Good2bSocial has been providing training to individual law firms for over 10 years, and through this experience we’ve learned what elements are most useful for marketers in the legal industry. We’ve taken that firsthand knowledge and we’ve packaged it in this course designed to meet the demand—only enhanced by the tight job market and the COVID-19 pandemic– for digital marketing training in an online, on-demand format.”
If you’re like us you’re probably asking yourself: how is it already mid-December? For a year that was filled with unprecedented challenges, it seemed at times like the year moved both incredibly fast and also at a snail’s pace. 2020 has been a strange year indeed, and it seems the passing of time this calendar year was no exception.
So, you procrastinated. November was a blur and now you find yourself with a long to do list to finish before the end of the year. Not to worry, you’re in good company. Even though there are only 8 working days left this year, there is still time to utilize time management best practices and some efficiency hacks. We’ve broken down some of our favorite ideas that can help you feel super productive by December 31st and set you up for unprecedented success in the new year.
Now Is The Time: Get Your Time Entered ASAP
This may sound like common knowledge, but if you have post-its piling up and ambiguous notes you emailed yourself with time entries for December, get those entered into your time and billing system as soon as possible. Even if you’re caught up as of the end of November, there is no time like the present to start tracking your time contemporaneously for the rest of the month.
Want to set up even better habits for next year? Studies show that lawyers that enter their time monthly lose up to 55% to 70% of their time while those that enter their time weekly lose only 25% – 30% of their billable hours. There is no denying that the best practice to make sure you’re capturing your time as efficiently as possible is to track time contemporaneously, or at least enter it into your cloud-based system daily. It may seem like a difficult habit to set in the new year, but anything less is downright wasteful.
Get Clarity On All Outstanding AR & Collect, Now
Even if you’ve got a handle on your outstanding bills for December, what about the rest of 2020? It’s crucial to run a report on all outstanding accounts receivable earned over 2020 thus far so you leave nothing on the table to write-off. Once you’ve got a report on all outstanding AR you should plan to tackle uncollected bills methodically and systematically.
Before you start making collection calls, make sure that you gave your clients adequate payment options when you sent the initial invoice. Try resending all outstanding invoices with an electronic payment option with a “Pay Now” button directly in the email and invoice itself and offer clients a payment plan to pay down their invoice over time.
Make sure to customize the corresponding email to let clients know that you need to collect on the invoice in full before the end of the year to avoid negative tax consequences for your firm. Doing so sends clients a friendly reminder that they have a balance due and also gives them the flexibility of credit card and eCheck options for convenient and fast payment.
You should plan to resend outstanding invoices with an online payment option as soon as possible to attempt to receive payment in full without offering proactive discount. Doing so now ensures you still have an opportunity to send the client a final payment request the last week of the year with a discount for payment in full to avoid end of year write offs.
Utilize EOY Accounting Best Practices & Client Ledger Reconciliation
As an attorney, client trust accounting best practices are paramount. At the end of the year you should reconcile all trust account balances to make sure that your trust funds balance properly compared to your bank statements.
Depending on the rule of your state bar, you may be required to reconcile trust funds monthly, but doing so annually should be considered an absolute must regardless of the rules of your specific state. Take an extremely close look at your trust account balances and your firm’s ledger to ensure there are no discrepancies each and every year.
Maintaining a healthy trust ledger is important for a variety of reasons, but it can also help you make sure you’ve been paid for all outstanding work that can be billed against existing client trust balances. Run a report of all existing trust funds and compare against outstanding accounts receivables. If you’ve completed work for a client that has an existing trust balance you can invoice yourself and transfer the funds from your trust to your operating account to collect before year end.
Year In Review: How Profitable Was Your Firm?
Let’s not forget: law firms are businesses. One of the most important things you can do at the end of the year is measure your firm’s profitability. It sounds simple, but for many law firms it’s an intimidating idea. It actually breaks downs quite simply: measure your hard and soft costs against the amount you earned on average across your client list. In short, you want to measure your total costs versus your total revenue.
First, track and analyze your firm’s hard expenses, such as marketing. The more granular you can get the better. Can you measure what you spent to obtain clients in a specific practice area versus the amount you collected for that specific practice area? Doing so may help you identify valuable patterns like practice areas that may be performing better than others or particular billers that have a higher collection rate than others.
Next you should analyze your soft costs and overhead expenses. Are there areas where you can cut costs? One of the most underlooked areas is what your firm is paying in total software costs. Monthly SaaS fees for multiple pieces of software can add up. Choosing an all-in-one practice management solution could streamline your tools and lower your costs significantly.
Once you’ve got the data you need, you should assess whether your rates are adequate to cover your costs or if you should consider a rate increase. You may feel guilty or anxious at the thought of contacting clients if you decide to raise your rates, but doing so every few years is necessary to keep up with inflation and make sure that your firm continues to grow profitability.
Show Gratitude: Clients, Referral Sources, Vendors
There is no time like the present to let your most valued partners know how much you appreciate them, and doing so can go a long way. In today’s competitive landscape it’s important to remind clients that you’re grateful for their business and look forward to continued success in the new year.
If your firm relies on referrals or specific marketing channels or vendors for new or repeat business, let them know you care. It may be as easy as sending a heartfelt email or picking up the phone to check in. Even without a budget in place, something as simply as a handwritten note is enough. If you have a budget to allocate it’s always a great idea to send clients or partners personalized firm swag. If you didn’t give yourself enough time to get some company swag made and delivered, don’t worry. Show your gratitude by sending a bottle of wine or a basket of treats. Think of the cost as a 2021 marketing expense.
Planning Ahead: New Hire Roadmap & Marketing Planning
Last but not least, it’s time to plan for growth. If you’ve already looked at your firm’s profitability and found practice areas or referral partner patterns, the rest is easy.
Make a marketing plan to double down on channels and referral sources that are working and look for new marketing opportunities. It may be time to upgrade your firm’s digital presence with a new website or join a new referral group or chapter of your local bar.
You should also make a plan to handle the increased scale when your marketing efforts come to fruition: what is your next critical hire? Do you want to optimize for a specific profile of billable attorney or maybe you should bring on a new partner to open up opportunities in a profitable practice area. 2021 has endless possibilities and you should plan accordingly.
Bringing It All Together
As we close the books on another year (literally and figuratively) it’s all about taking stock of where you’re at, making up for any deficits as quickly as possible, looking for quick wins to close out strong, and setting yourself up for the successful year ahead. By following these seven tips, you can close out your year better than ever and help your firm get set up for healthy habits and increased profitability in the new year.
It’s a big decision to partner with a digital marketing agency: You’re delegating some (or all) of an important business function to presumed experts and you’re trusting that they will deliver better results than an internal resource.
When that relationship works – there’s nothing better:
You’ll have increased bandwidth to work on projects that are in your passion areas.
You’ll take comfort in knowing a task you might not enjoy is being expertly completed by someone who does.
You’ll find improved bottom line results – you’re making more money by partnering with a trusted vendor.
Yet if the relationship turns sour, there’s nothing worse: lost money, time, and trust in a potential channel that would otherwise be profitable.
There are four core reasons an agency relationship can go south:
Big promises for chump change.
The chemistry is off.
Expertise isn’t in the channel/task set you need.
You lose control over your assets.
Before partnering with an agency consider whether they’re a high risk for these signals.
Big Promises For Chump Change
We all love a good deal, and just because a vendor is “expensive,” doesn’t inherently mean they’re experts.
However, it’s vital to have a sense of what market rates are for different business/marketing functions so you don’t get suckered into a cheap relationship that does more harm than good.
Sites like fiverr might offer SEO for $50-$250 per month. Most of these ads are focused on link building (which when done poorly, can tank a site and cause your brand to lose out on traffic and business).
Opting for the cheaper vendor can cause you to need more expensive rehabilitation in the long run
The other common mistake is opting into a deal where the agency is responsible for a certain amount of leads at a given price. This sort of partnership relies on the agency driving the leads under the price that they’re selling them for (which inherently means you’re paying a premium for your leads).
Here’re questions you should ask an agency before signing up for a cheap offering:
How many clients are you currently working with?
What timelines should I expect to achieve meaningful results?
What are realistic results I can expect from my investment?
By asking these questions, you’ll be able to not only get insights into benchmarks for your efforts, but also whether the vendor will be a partner. Unfortunately, most cheap vendors are only in it to scam brands out of 3-4 months of retainer before they move onto the next.
Takeaway: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
The Chemistry Is Off
I love my clients and will do everything in my power to see them succeed. I also am VERY selective on who I take on as a client because I need to believe in the client and my ability to make them money before agreeing to take them on.
When you choose an agency partner/vendor, you should be elated to work with them, and they should be just as excited to work with you.
If you’re looking for someone who will be “on-call” and the vendor is slow to respond during the sales process, there’s no reason to expect they’ll be more responsive once you become a client.
On a similar note, if you’re looking for someone who will be a true partner for your org and the vendor is a software, you will likely be disappointed (unless you opt for a premium version that includes a customer success manager within scope of the agreement).
Be honest with yourself about what you need out of your vendor (both hard and soft skills).
Here are the questions to ask to assess the chemistry of the relationship:
What communication cadence can I expect?
Are there any shared “outside work” interests (I always get along better with clients who are fellow Star Wars fans)?
Am I your main partner in this vertical?
Understanding how valued you are by your potential vendor will help set expectations for what will hopefully be a long and profitable relationship. If you don’t feel valued from the beginning, odds are you never will.
Takeaway: Listen to your gut.
Expertise Isn’t In The Needed Channel/Task-Set
I am good at PPC. I’ve worked hard and logged the hours to gain mastery in pay per click (PPC) advertising. What I am not is a coder, financial analyst, or designer.
Agencies/vendors who claim to be experts in everything rarely are. You will either experience sub-par work or pay a premium because the vendor is outsourcing the work to a partner they trust.
If a vendor claims they are a trusted expert in a given area – look them up. A true expert will have at bare minimum a paper trail on LinkedIn outlining their career trajectory. If it’s a software, check review sites like G2Crowd and Trustpilot.
Agencies that focuses on both PPC and SEO can absolutely be legit (I belong to one).Ensuring you land with a trusted vendor instead of a greedy pretender depends on asking the following questions:
What strategy will you use to help my brand succeed, and how will the given channel help me?
Are there different pricing structures for your different services?
Who is doing the work?
By asking these questions you’ll get a sense of how comfortably a given service fits into the vendors mix.
Takeaway: Don’t force all business needs to fit under one vendor.
You Lose Control Over Your Assets
A big red flag for a toxic vendor relationship is that you lose access/rights to your assets (analytics account, ads account, website, Google My Business, etc.).
This is common with softwares like Kenshoo and Marin, but can also come up in certain agency contracts (especially those that are “pay per lead”).
If you’re going to engage a firm/software, make sure you understand exactly what the terms are and how easy it will be to walk away from them if the relationship goes south.
These are the questions to ask:
How much visibility will I have into your work?
Who owns the account?
How much access do you need to complete your work?
Certain channels will require granting admin access to your vendor (especially if they are a web development or SEO vendor). However, under no circumstances should you lose access to your brand’s assets.
Takeaway: Don’t allow yourself to be held hostage by a mediocre vendor.
A common reason the relationship between brand and vendor goes south is because the right questions weren’t asked at the start of the engagement to establish reasonable expectations.
If you’re not asking these questions, you’re part of the problem!
Most agencies are good actors and genuinely want what’s best for their clients. Establishing from the onset a healthy communication cadence, performance goals, and mechanics of the vendor agreement ensures there are no surprises.
Some agencies may choose not to partner with you, and that’s ok! You and your brand deserve a vendor who is excited by the problems you’re tasking them to solve, and enjoys working with you.
Mentoring has increasingly been recognized as a critical ingredient of success in many endeavors in individuals’ lives. In many instances, however, mentoring tends to be depicted as a relationship where a senior leader takes a junior professional under their wing and imparts the “formula” for success. Thus, mentoring programs often focus on pairing each junior employee with one senior person who is designated as their mentor.
Our firm’s mentor surveys and interviews indicate that while such pairings can lead to desired outcomes, investing in building and maintaining a more expansive view of mentoring is likely to be even more effective. Cultivating a shared understanding that each individual can be an effective mentor in their area(s) of comparative strength encourages long-term mentoring relationships that emerge and evolve organically, and enables an organization to make the most of its mentoring resources.
While there is widespread consensus that mentoring is critical to the long-term success of an organization, defining mentoring is more challenging than it seems at first glance. When asked, each of our firm’s leaders defined it slightly differently, as a “process,” “form of leadership,” “opportunity,” “mindset,” “set of actions,” or “ability,” among other things. Realizing all of these responses are valid, we find it helpful to focus not on what mentoring is but rather on the behaviors that are involved in effective mentoring. We organized our approach by segmenting mentoring into four distinct elements—feedback, opportunity creation, connections and counsel, and role modeling. We discuss each of these in turn, including specific recommendations for both mentors and mentees from our mentor surveys and interviews.
Feedback
Mentors play a critical role in recognizing positive contributions, offering specific coaching on work-product or delivery, and providing direct, clear, and actionable feedback to mentees. Assigned evaluator roles for performance review purposes can be the basis for mentoring relationships to take hold. However, our data indicate that the most effective mentor relationships are not based on an assigned evaluator role. Many of our survey participants indicated that working together on projects provided the best opportunity for feedback. To take advantage of that opportunity, a mentor should “give real-time feedback, discussing what is the best way to handle a given situation and why.”
Opportunity Creation
In developing future leaders, it becomes increasingly important for mentors to proactively identify opportunities that not only enable the firm to serve its clients or customers in the best possible way but also align with mentees’ career plans and create “stretch roles” to accelerate their career development. It is valuable to “be explicit when you are providing an opportunity to an individual. For example, when you would like to staff an individual on a project that will help them develop expertise in given area, don’t just ask them to work on the project—explain why this is an opportunity.” Mentees benefit greatly from a targeted approach to opportunity creation: “Think of providing specific opportunities to specific people … for example, staff individuals on repeat projects with the same clients so that they can develop client relationships.”
Mentors should not see their role as limited to personally offering opportunities to mentees but rather take a broader perspective. For example, they should “watch out for opportunities for their mentees, inform them of opportunities they may not be aware of (because mentors have a more firm-wide view than mentees), and make the connections they may need to take advantage of such opportunities.”
Mentees have to share this responsibility, in part by being specific about what opportunities they are interested in, such as opportunities involving a particular topic, a stretch role, or a particular client. This allows the request to have “the benefit of triggering a memory when an opportunity arises, rather than leaving it to chance for a mentor to make the connection.”
Effective opportunity creation can also take the form of the mentor sharing their network with the mentee, making introductions, and/or creating visibility for others who do not have exposure to the mentee. Mentors should “help others around the organization get to know their mentees, their strengths and their contributions.”
Mentees should “ask their mentors for ideas and help in creating connections to other potential mentors.” In this context, the emphasis on the importance of female-to-female mentoring represented the only discernable distinction in comments we received from female and male participants in our mentor surveys and interviews. As one female survey participant commented: “I need female mentors to ask about things such as how to assert myself while being genuine.”
Connections and Counsel
Mentees often seek information about how to navigate the organization and career development in general, or a complicated situation in particular. Acting as a thought partner in providing career counsel that is both specific to the individual and actionable is critical to the development of future leaders: “Rooting for an individual and helping them with specific problems is great, but not sufficient. Your mentees also need partnering to help them think through their career goals and how to achieve those goals.”
In addition, mentors should “remember that just telling mentees the variety of things they can do to advance in their careers is not sufficient. Mentees need help figuring out how to prioritize the various things they can do. Mentors should ask questions that identify areas where their mentees ‘don’t know what they don’t know.’ They should share what they can to demystify how things work, with a client or expert, within the firm, or within our industry.”
This involves “recognizing and sharing patterns mentees may not see. One of the benefits of experience is pattern recognition. Often, the things mentors take for granted due to experience are very illuminating when shared with mentees who have less experience.” As a corollary, mentees “should be specific in asking questions that mentors can react to, as opposed to broad questions like ‘what should I do with my career?’, which is hard to respond to in a meaningful way.”
Role Modeling
Role modeling as a mentor is most effective when it goes beyond leading by example. In its most complete form, role modeling includes actively mentoring future mentors, rather than assuming that mentees will naturally invest time in mentoring others. Senior leaders can explicitly ask those in managerial roles to “talk to their team members who have management responsibilities about expectations and strategies for mentoring on teams.” Leaders can “create a culture of accountability for mentoring on teams by regularly asking about how team members are doing and how the team can be effective together in developing each other.”
In addition, one of the most powerful levers for effective mentoring—and one that can be used without much incremental investment of time—is providing opportunities for mentees to learn through observation or osmosis. A quick follow-through that makes the observation explicit is all that is required. For example, “after a client call or meeting, take a few minutes to explain why you handled things as you did to enable your mentees to learn how to serve the client in the best way possible so that they can benefit from the wisdom you have developed through experience.”
In parallel, mentees should “identify the opportunities to learn through osmosis and recognize that as an opening. When you observe something you want to emulate, ask the mentor how they thought about it, prepared, and learned how to become skilled at the behavior you observed. When you have gained insight from observing a behavior, acknowledge the value and describe why it was helpful. This will encourage mentors to be more explicit in the future.”
It is rare for any one mentor to be equally adept across the four elements discussed above. As one survey participant suggested, “The bottom line is that mentoring is not a one size fits all. We should all ‘mentor’ in a way that is natural and comfortable—and perhaps stretch a little beyond that.” This suggests that a single mentor will rarely be able to fulfill a mentee’s needs across all four elements. The experience of another survey participant highlights the importance of cultivating a network of mentors with different experiences and styles who each excel at different elements of mentoring:
I’ve had multiple excellent mentors. For example, I learned a lot about the nature of our work from Alice. Being in the room and watching her interact with clients has been extremely helpful. Also, she thinks aloud and it was very helpful to learn how she thinks. But Alice is not a good business development mentor. She says “just go have lunches.” She’s not helpful to me about how to navigate the firm, who I should be connected to, and how to most effectively connect with them. Bob is great at that. He tells me the specific things I can do. He thinks a lot in advance, then provides clear direction and targeted advice about next steps.
The recognition that different people excel at different elements of mentoring prevents viewing individuals as either categorically strong or categorically weak mentors. Instead, it allows an organization to make the most of the comparative strengths of each individual, expanding overall mentoring capacity and the pool of potential mentor relationships.
Segmenting mentoring elements into four discrete areas is not the only way to broaden the available set of connections. Our mentor surveys and interviews also highlight the importance of peer and “reverse” mentoring relationships. Connections among peers are critical to integrating new staff and creating a sense of shared affiliation with the firm, which supports retention. We see enormous value accruing to those who “initiate and maintain peer mentoring relationships; building trust-based relationships with colleagues who have similar experiences benefits their careers in the short and long term.”
“Reverse” mentoring refers to instances where someone more senior identifies a mentor who is less senior to them. Senior leaders of our firm often identify reverse mentors as part of their mentor network and suggest that input from junior colleagues enables them to become better leaders.
Cultivating a well-established mentor-mentee relationship requires mutual awareness of the connection as a precursor to commitment by both parties. While our surveys show extensive mentor relationships identified by both mentors and mentees, the connections are not consistently named as such by both parties. We refer to instances where an individual identifies someone as a mentee and the mentee identifies the individual as a mentor as a “matched pair.” However, we also find a substantial incidence of “unmatched pairs,” suggesting that all too often, the connection between a mentor and mentee is left unstated. This may be in part because not every individual views mentoring in the broad terms described above. Especially in those situations, both mentor and mentee would benefit greatly from a shared understanding of available mentoring opportunities.
The solution is simple, but often will not happen without being prompted. Mentors should tell mentees that they see them as a mentee, explain why, and share how they can act as a mentor, which may include things the mentor has already been doing on the mentee’s behalf, but did not naturally think to share. Similarly, mentees should explicitly tell mentors that they see them as a mentor, explain why, and indicate which specific elements of mentoring they would appreciate mentoring from them.
In sum, focusing on cultivating a network of mentors who play different roles based on natural strengths and expanding our view of who can be a mentor is likely to be much more effective in realizing our highest potential, for both developing people and building firms with strong mentoring cultures.
Note: The quotes used in this article have been redacted to preserve anonymity and edited for clarity. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors, who are responsible for the content, and do not necessarily represent the views of Cornerstone Research.
I have been providing marketing advice to professionals for over 25 years (time flies when you are having fun!). I started my career on Wall Street, advising stockbrokers on promoting financial product to clients, then moved to the accounting world, working with CPAs on marketing their services and now I work with lawyers. Besides general marketing on behalf of the firm, I also work directly with the attorneys on their business development efforts and promotion
The first tool for promoting a professional services provider is their online bio. I started marketing professional services when websites were still the new thing. One of the first websites I designed included an audio component to the CPAs bios; the website later won an award for that unique feature. I wanted to have something “cool” and that made the accountants stand out more and overcome the stereotype that accountants were “kinda boring.” I remember the clients’ feedback that they liked to hear their advisor’s voice and not just see their picture in their bio, that it helped hearing what they had to say and connecting in a different way. It helped prospective clients make the decision to want to work with a particular accountant.
My advice to the professionals I worked with has always been to stand out, to have a unique feature that would make a professional be different than his or her competition. Not to look or sound like everyone else because it was the industry norm or what everyone else was doing. But to try to find something that will help connect to the audience, to the people that were eventually buying their services and to understand what they were looking for and what determined their ultimate decision.
Recently, I had to make the decision to choose a doctor for a delicate medical procedure. I had to move fast so I started doing research on the doctor that was recommended to me and that would soon have my life in his hands. Of course, the first place I landed was the hospital’s website. I liked his credentials, his training and experience but his picture was outdated and didn’t match his personality nor his credentials. Something about it put me off, although he was smiling in the picture and looked handsome. When I choose doctors, it is very important for me to have a connection with the person behind the credentials, to feel comfortable and safe. Probably, similar to how people usually choose other advisors as well but even more important.
My first appointment with him was through a telemedicine/video call to discuss my diagnosis and the procedure he would perform and to schedule it. At first the video feature didn’t work and I thought it was his choice; which I found odd and fed into my initial discomfort when seeing his picture. Luckily, we both realized that it was actually a glitch and he offered to call me on Facetime – a nice touch on his part (as usually doctors keep their personal numbers private). I almost didn’t recognize the person from the picture on the hospital’s website! He looked so different and his personality was totally opposite from the reaction I had to the “professional” picture! He was warm, friendly, passionate about his skill, patient to answer questions and also had a very down to earth air and not the unapproachable demeanor some doctors portray. He was someone I would pick as a friend but also, someone I could trust that indeed he was a good doctor.
I also started digging deeper to learn more about him. I was hoping I could find pictures from his personal life or in other professional instances. And I did! Those pictures, similar to the video call, uncovered a different person than what his “professional” picture on the hospital’s website showed. Somebody I was so comfortable with putting my life in his hands that I didn’t need to go for a second opinion.
This doctor performed the procedure and all is well. Before being discharged from the hospital, I gave him my professional advice: to have his picture on the website replaced with a new one, to reflect his personality and what his patients need to see in him. I told him my feedback, which he was surprised to hear but seemed to really appreciate it. I couldn’t help the marketing professional in me.
I believe the same applies to any professional that relies on a bio with a picture to make a first impression on their audience. It is important to recognize what would connect them to their clients and potential clients.
Your bio picture does matter! It is a small tool in the marketing toolbox but it has a huge impact. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words!
Managing your law firm staff in the office or remotely can and should look remarkably similar; however, there are unique challenges to working virtual. Understanding this and adjusting your management approach will be the difference between a productive, seamless transition, and one that potentially costs your business. We’ve rounded up 5 ways you can navigate successfully managing remote staff during a pandemic.
Ensure a proper workspace setup
You want your employees to have a comfortable setup that allows them to be productive in the office and working from home should be no different. While some of the usual office luxuries may not be possible (e.g. two computer monitors), ask your staff about what they need at home to create a similar environment. Do they have a desk and proper chair to work from? What type of lighting is available? If they’re relying on their personal computer, is it functional for work purposes? What about a printer? Is there access to high-speed internet? Some employees may not feel comfortable asking for at-home office supplies, and these are just a few of the questions that need to be addressed to allow your employees to work happily and efficiently.
Minimize loneliness and isolation
One of the downsides to working remotely is a sense of isolation, which can lead to anxiety and depression. Consider that employees may live alone, further exacerbating the possibility of loneliness. Identify ways for your team to interact throughout the day, ideally via video and phone versus email or text messaging. Don’t make conversations all about business; make time for small talk. Maintain office structure with designated times for breaks and lunch and consider holding virtual lunches together. Encourage employees to go for brief walks throughout the day to stay energized. Host team building activities such as workouts in the evening or happy hours via Zoom or similar platforms.
Overcome communication challenges
When working virtually, you automatically lose the opportunity to quickly pop into someone’s office and bounce an idea off them, but communication challenges go beyond that. Despite everyone’s best efforts, there will likely be more emails and texts, which, if not carefully crafted, can result in an unintended tone. Combat this by picking up the phone or getting on FaceTime, Skype or another video-oriented platform. It may take more effort and organization but will avoid employees questioning what you meant and an endless back and forth over email. Schedule time to brainstorm and strategize versus just talking about to-dos. While not as natural as having a quick chat in the office, it ensures continued creativity and interaction.
Don’t forget about encouragement and celebrations
It’s important that your staff stays motivated and focused on personal growth. In addition to team meetings, carve out time for one-on-one conversations, too. This will allow you to address any questions or concerns employees have that they aren’t comfortable bringing up in a group setting. It’s also an opportunity to discuss their goals and how those can be achieved. Don’t let evaluations go by the wayside simply because you’re not meeting in person.
Promote camaraderie by acknowledging milestones as you would in the office – five-year anniversary with the firm, birthdays, etc. This maintains positive employee morale and helps to minimize the isolation factor addressed earlier.
Establish a culture of ownership and accountability
Your team’s organization and productivity is only as good as yours. Implement systems to keep staff accountable. For example, schedule regular check-ins at the same time each day/week and use project management software such as Asana to keep everyone on top of projects and tasks. If you need to cancel a team call, reschedule immediately rather than telling employees you’ll get back to them. This allows them to plan their day and prevents wondering when they’ll be able to talk to you about a particular client or issue. Your team will take clues from you on how to best navigate working remotely so be an example they should emulate.
Remember that not every employee is suited to work from home, and you need to do what you can as a manager to set them up for success. This will benefit everyone in the long run.
With plenty of adjustments and creativity, the legal industry churns into August. The legal industry has shown remarkable ingenuity as law firms adapt to the challenges of COVID-19 and the ancillary impact of the pandemic. Below we highlight some law firm hires, law firm innovations and accolades, and legal technology news.
Law Firm Hires and Lateral Attorney Moves
Labor and employment lawyer Ryan McCoy rejoined Norton Rose Fulbright as a partner. McCoy split the past seven years between Baute Crochetiere Hartley & Velkei and Alston & Bird, previously spending eight years as part of Norton Rose Fulbright’s dispute resolution and litigation practice from 2005 until 2013.
McCoy represents clients from the healthcare, pharmaceutical, retail, insurance, transport and insurance industries, focusing his practice on wage and hour class actions, discrimination suits, wrongful termination and retaliation, commercial litigation, and complex insurance coverage. He has also defended clients before the American Arbitration Association in wage and hour violations, sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, disability discrimination as well as meal and rest period disputes.
“Ryan impressed us as a young lawyer, and we are thrilled to have him return in his prime. The client demand for employment and labor law seems to be at an all-time high during this unusual time for businesses,” said Shauna Clark, Norton Rose Fulbright’s U.S. head of employment and labor.
“I am delighted to return to Norton Rose Fulbright and collaborate once again with these talented lawyers. The firm’s unmatched global reach and wide range of offerings will benefit my clients significantly,” McCoy said.
Mr. Yanney focuses his practice on all aspects of patent law, ranging from patent litigation, opinions and counseling, to Patent Office prosecution, and has experience in handling a wide range of technologies including RFID, cellular systems, medical electronics and devices, signal processing, communication systems, electronic tolling, and elevator control systems. Yanney has prosecuted more than 2,000 patent applications and written more than 100 patent opinions, in addition to arguing several cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Patent Trial & Appeal Board.
“I’m excited to welcome Pierre Yanney to our New York office. Pierre is known for the breadth and depth of his IP experience. It’s rare that you come across someone like Pierre who can write a patent application, get it allowed at the Patent Office, and also litigate patents in district court. His talents and business insights will be a positive addition to our active Corporate and Commercial practice,” said Bressler New York Managing Principal, Mark Knoll.
Labor and employment attorney Scott Nelson joined Hunton Andrews Kurth as a partner in the law firm’s Houston office. Nelson previously was a partner at Seyfarth Shaw LLP, and led Baker McKenzie’s domestic U.S. Employment Counseling and Litigation practice.
Nelson’s practice focuses on complex employment litigation, specifically wage and hour class and collective actions, ERISA litigation, and trade secret and restrictive covenant matters. He also counsels clients on employment law compliance, including international employment law issues, restrictive covenants, wage-and-hour matters, internal investigations, executive terminations, mass layoffs, employee policies, employee training and due diligence.
“Scott’s thorough understanding of the many complex issues our clients face and his impressive track record of experience handling ERISA litigation and advising on international employment law matters complement the strengths of our comprehensive labor and employment practice,” said Emily Burkhardt Vicente, co-chair of Hunton Andrews Kurth’s labor and employment group. “We are pleased to welcome him to the firm.”
Bergeson & Campbell attorney Timothy D. Backstrom passed away on July 24. Backstrom joined Bergeson & Campbell in 2007, and was an expert in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, also contributing to the law and regulation of fuel and fuel additives under the Clean Air Act.
“Tim was an incredibly gifted lawyer, respected by his peers, loved by his fellow colleagues here at Bergeson & Campbell, P.C., and a wonderful man, husband, and father. He is survived by his wife Lydia Cox Backstrom, his (step) son Christopher Blancato, his brother Paul Backstrom (Kathy), and his cousins Dan and Don Backstrom,” Bergeson & Campbell said in a statement following his death.
Backstrom grew up in Illinois and Wisconsin, later moving to the East coast to earn his undergraduate degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned his law degree at Yale Law School, and then went on to work for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of General Counsel on pesticide, toxic substances, and air quality issues for 25 years, developing a deep understanding of FIFRA.
“We will miss Tim’s uncompromising commitment to legal excellence, his passion for the law, his exuberance for any work composed by Gustav Mahler, and his unrelenting belief that the rule of law will ultimately prevail over the societal challenges we are now experiencing,” Bergeson wrote in a statement.
Law Firm Innovation
Winston & Strawn announced the formation of an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Advisory Team, designed to help companies navigate their ESG profiles. The advisory board will be co-chaired by Winston & Strawn partners Mike Blankenship and Eric Johnson, and utilizes the firm’s experience across disciplines to oversee the ESG issues companies are facing during these challenging times. Blankenship identifies the correlation between successful businesses and their attention to ESG values, saying, “successful businesses are placing ESG principles at the forefront of their core values and leveraging those principles to chart a path for financial success and future growth to the benefit of all their stakeholders, including employees, customers, vendors, local communities, and stockholders.”
The team includes Chicago partners Mike Melbinger, Eleni Kouimelis, Cardelle Spangler, and Rex Sessions, of counsel Stephanie Sebor; New York partner Tara Greenberg, London partners Peter Crowther and Anthony Riley. The group will focus on ESG disclosure and messaging, Board oversight of ESG risks, shareholder activism, corporate governance and regulatory compliance. With an eye to these principles, the Winston & Strawn ESG team will “work closely with clients to develop and execute ESG-related initiatives that best fit their specific needs to the benefit of all of their stakeholders,” Eric Johnson says.
To date, Hughes Hubbard & Reed has identified 110 coronavirus and CARES act cases brought by the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission, with 12 state attorneys general bringing cases. Pennsylvania’s attorney general’s office has been the most active with COVID-19 related legal actions. Forty percent of cases involve alleged criminal violations, and 30 percent of coronavirus related cases include a suspension of securities trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission, with the number of cases growing steadily since April.
The tracker can be accessed here with detailed information on each case, including links to court filings and relevant statutes.
DLA Piper law firm received the 2020 Beacon of Justice Award from the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA), recognizing the growth of the firm’s pro bono practice focusing on the needs of immigrant children facing abuse, neglect and abandonment. The NLADA also recognized the firm’s collaboration with the American Bar Association to develop habeas corpus petition template pleadings and practice advisories for unaccompanied children.
“We are honored to play a role in advocating for the rights of vulnerable individuals and families seeking a better life in the US,” said Lisa Dewey, pro bono partner and director of New Perimeter, DLA Piper’s nonprofit affiliate that provides long-term pro bono legal assistance in under-served regions around the world. “I am proud of the dedication to serving immigrants that our lawyers have demonstrated through their pro bono service, and we look forward to continuing this important work.”
Jay Bender, a partner at the Birmingham, Ala. office of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings law firm, received the Alabama Commendation Medal from the Alabama Army National Guard for his work on the “Honoring American Veterans in Extreme Need Act of 2019” (HAVEN Act; H.R. 2938).
The HAVEN Act was signed into law last year, changing bankruptcy laws to protect disabled veterans experiencing financial hardship. Bender worked pro bono alongside other Bradley attorneys on the law, serving as co-chair of the Legislative Committee of the American Bankruptcy Institute Task Force on Veterans and Service Members Affairs – of which Mr. Bender is a founding member.
“We congratulate Jay on this prestigious recognition of his many years of work and unwavering commitment to protecting disabled veterans in financial distress and ushering the HAVEN Act into reality,” said Bradley Birmingham Office Managing Partner Dawn Helms Sharff. “This recognition is reflective of Jay’s outstanding work and the importance of this landmark law in helping disabled veterans and their families achieve financial stability.”
The settlement involved allegations that a testing laboratory owned by Cordant Health Solutions paid kickbacks to two major clients of the laboratory to encourage further testing referrals to the laboratory from those clients. The whistleblower, who was a former employee of Cordant, filed the lawsuit under the qui tam provision of the False Claims Act five years ago. Cordant agreed to pay the government $11,942,913 to settle the claims. The government awarded the whistleblower approximately $2.4 million, or 20 percent of the settlement amount.
“This settlement shows that the False Claims Act works,” Tycko said. “Through the qui tam provisions of that law, our client was able to bring the kickbacks to the attention of the government in a way that led to both criminal and civil remedies. We are proud and humbled to represent brave whistleblowers, such as the individual who brought this case.”
“We are grateful for how seriously the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and all the government lawyers and investigators who have worked on this matter, took our client’s allegations, and for the work they did to reach this settlement,” said Luna.
Bryan Cave Leighton & Paisner recently announced that Denver associate, Ivan London, was recently elected to serve on the Board of Advisors for Western Energy Alliance. Comprised of 300 member companies, the Western Energy Alliance focuses on environmentally responsible exploration and production of oil and gas in the region. The Western Energy Alliance supports policies to encourage investment and job growth in the region. London’s practice with Bryan Cave focuses on regulation in energy, environmental and with other natural resource matters.
Legal Technology Innovations
At the end of July, Clariviate Plc announced an agreement to combine with CPA Global, a global leader in IP software and tech –enabled services. The transaction will be all-stock with an enterprise value of approximately $6.8 billion. The transaction is expected to go through regulatory approvals, is expected to close fourth quarter of 2020. By combining efforts, CPA Global and Clarivate will provide an IP solution that provides market-leading software, data, technology and services throughout the IP lifecycle, from academic research to IP portfolio management.
Jerre Stead, CEO of Clarivate indicates the company’s share similar core values and expects the partnership to lead to more innovation. He says, “This is a transformative combination with a strong strategic fit between the two companies. It will create a full-service IP organization which will provide customers with a wide range of products and services to help them make faster and smarter critical decisions.” Simon Webster, the CEO of CPA Global, echoes the sentiment, calling the move “a natural next step.” He says, “The fit between our respective product offerings across the innovation and IP lifecycle, the commonality of our vision for the future of the industry, and the alignment of both companies’ cultures and values makes for an extremely exciting future for our customers, employees and shareholders alike.”
Leading accounting firm BDO USA, LLP launched Athenagy, a business intelligence platform for legal professionals, designed to provide the legal department with transparency and critical insight throughout the litigation cycle. Athenagy is designed to integrate with Relativity®One and can provide critical insight into where data lives and what it does through the steps of a legal hold, providing information to legal professionals.
Daniel Gold, managing director of BDO Managed Services practice, says “Athenagy solves persistent problems that legal departments face when it comes to managing their data. By providing transparency and detailed analytics throughout the data lifecycle, Athenagy is empowering legal professionals to make better, more informed decisions at every step of the e-discovery process, and beyond.”
Business development, marketing and public relations initiatives can be intimidating to even the most-seasoned legal veteran. The idea of creating a successful plan seems daunting, much less the prospect of executing, maintaining and measuring the plan’s performance metrics. The steps to effective business development are rooted in creating visibility and thought leadership that successfully position both you and your firm within the marketplace and that translate into new clients and business referrals.
Here are five business development myths that make creating and executing a successful business development plan seem impossible. It is important to remember that most attorneys did not go to law school or begin their legal practices with the aspiration of becoming a seasoned marketer. However, it is possible to become successful at business development by reevaluating how you measure success and how you focus your efforts — and debunking these myths.
Myth #1- There Is a “One Size Fits All” Marketing & Business Development Plan
Each individual’s marketing and business development plan should be customized to highlight not only their unique strengths but also to incorporate their priorities, experience, capabilities and commitment level. For example, if you’re more extroverted, your plan could include large networking events or speaking engagements. If the idea of speaking to a group of strangers is intimidating, then perhaps your plan includes writing articles or providing your expertise in small roundtable discussions. Additionally, before creating a business development plan, each individual needs to evaluate factors like where they are in their career, what their short-term and long-term goals are, and what they need to get out of their business development initiatives to be considered effective.
Myth #2- Being Successful at Business Development Means You Are a “Rainmaker”
There is often a stigma that the successful business developer is defined as a rainmaker. Business development success should be measured on an individual level and not compared to the firm as a whole or measured against any other attorney’s business development contribution. There are too many factors for each person and their experiences and circumstances to label only the rainmaker as successful. Just like a law firm requires many layers of expertise to run smoothly, there are different levels of contributors to business development, and each level should be valued and encouraged if individuals are participating to the best of their ability and expanding their business development experience.
Myth #3- New Clients Are the Only Measure of Business Development Success
While the obvious end goal of all business development initiatives is more business which equals more billing and revenue, signing new clients is not the only measure of successful business development. Expanding your network to broaden the exposure of your expertise is a fundamental part of a successful business development plan. Often, attorneys get too focused on cultivating the relationship with a potential client and miss opportunities to connect with valuable referral sources, thus limiting their network.
There are also other business development initiatives that can be measured as successful beyond singing a new client- including getting a bylined article published, being honored with a significant award or ranking, or being quoted in the press. Each of these things help to create an integrated and effective business development plan that sets up the foundation for long-term success.
Myth #4- Executing Your Plan Needs to Be Done Alone
Simply because your business development plan “belongs to you” doesn’t mean you have to execute it on your own. Working with someone to hold you accountable is crucial to the process. This is not to say you need to immediately run out and find a business development coach to be successful, but you do need someone to discuss which initiatives are working in your plan and identify any challenges you’re facing. This should include regular check-in meetings to make sure your plan is progressing the way you’d like and to ensure your goals are being achieved. It also includes evaluating the success, or lack thereof, of initiatives and adjusting or revising goals to be more effective.
Having a mentor or aspirational influence is also a helpful tool for both planning and execution. While you don’t have to model your plan to mirror someone else’s, there is value in knowing where you’d like to be and seeing someone else achieving that level of success. A mentor will serve in a more interactional role, but if that model doesn’t fit with your personality or your business, identifying with a person or people whose success you would like to emulate is helpful when crafting a strategy and long-term goals in your business development plan.
Myth #5- Business Development Is a Fancy Term for Networking
Many people declare they don’t need a business development plan because they are “active” within their industry and regularly attend events. Event attendance is a piece of a larger initiative that creates a successful and measurable business development plan. Often, attorneys put all their marketing eggs in one basket. They become frustrated when those efforts are unsuccessful and give up. An integrated approach is key to being successful in business development. This includes not only networking but also incorporating other things like writing, ranking and honors, digital strategy, and public relations.
It’s easy to focus on client work and push business development initiatives to the side or add them to a to-do list. The idea behind breaking down these common myths is to empower everyone to feel they can create a manageable business development plan, use the tools and resources they need to execute these plans successfully, and to execute these plans with short-term and long-term goals that are easily achieved. Business development does not need to be intimidating, overwhelming or time-consuming if your plan is personalized to highlight your strengths, comfort level and readiness. The goal of business development is not just to meet people and hope they’ll hire you, but to create lasting impressions through initiatives and actions that enhance your visibility and position you as a thought leader.
It’s been said that a bar association or law firm’s reputation is its largest uninsured asset – an asset that can be seriously damaged with an ineffective crisis response.
Traditional media leap on stories like those listed above. And with the presence today of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, not to mention a 24/7 media environment, the reputation you’ve built up with years of good work can be shattered in an instant.
Today, your brand can face a significant reputational challenge in the time it takes to bang out a feverish 140-character tweet. When it comes to social media, in particular, law firm and bar leaders no longer have the luxury of gathering around a table to discuss strategy. There’s simply no time.
Effective Crisis Response Is More Than An Emergency Plan
Often, law firms and bar associations will dutifully create an operational crisis plan, but lack a concomitant crisis communications strategy. So, what should your organization do?
The heart of crisis communications planning focuses on preparing for the most significant, gut-wrenching threats – both operational and reputational – that might affect your firm. To identify those threats, a “Vulnerabilities Audit” with top management (managing partner, CEO, CIO, CFO, CMO, GC, H.R.) will enable your team to assess the risks the firm faces, both in terms of their likelihood and the severity of the consequences they might have on the firm’s reputation or operations. The second part of the plan focuses on how your organization will communicate about those threats.
Having a crisis communication plan is an excellent first step. But a plan is no good gathering dust on a shelf. Many organizations next do crisis/media training to make certain they have trained executives who understand the needs and demands of today’s media, enabling the firm to deliver its messages clearly and with credibility.
The most-prepared organizations also do tabletop drills to test the plan and put their staff through the rigors of real-time crisis simulation, thereby improving the chances of responding effectively when the real thing hits.
Organizations that want to stay ahead of the curve also keep a sharp ear to the rail with a comprehensive monitoring program that closely watches news content delivery platforms — print, broadcast, web, mobile and social. And many progressive organizations have third-party crisis counsel audit their current plan as it evolves, to make certain there are no chinks in their armor.
What’s The Payback?
From a reputational perspective, how your firm or bar association communicates during a crisis will likely be just as important as how the incident is managed operationally. Good planning and training will mean:
A more coordinated, consistent and authentic communications response.
Improved communications with internal and external key stakeholders.
Improved communications with legacy media and social media resulting in more accurate coverage.
Better coordination among crisis team members, less redundancy and reduced stress.
Enhanced ability to maintain normal operations while simultaneously managing the crisis event.
Reduced damage to the organization’s reputation, with the possibility it may even be enhanced.
Your response to a crisis event must be rapid, strategic and authentic. Especially in today’s media landscape, where news breaks first on social media, “managing the message” is a necessary skill set for law firm and bar association executives (and not necessarily one of the skill sets that got you into the C-Suite).
When your organization’s reputation is on the line, so is your bottom line. Strategic crisis management and crisis communications planning is your brand’s most effective insurance policy.
The legal industry continues to respond to larger forces in society, and along with our usual focus on law firm moves, hires, and accolades, we take a look at the specific ways law firms are pledging to combat racism and fight for social justice in their communities and across the country.
Law Firm Moves, Hires and Recognitions
Down in Texas, Erin England joined Katten’s Dallas office as a partner in the firm’s commercial finance practice. England represents alternative lending institutions and banks in negotiating and structuring domestic and international commercial transactions. She also has experience in the real estate finance industry, representing lenders and borrowers in real estate and construction loans involving retail space and industrial properties.
“In the last two years, we’ve added leading attorneys like Erin in key growth areas such as commercial finance,” said Mark S. Solomon, managing partner of Katten’s Dallas office. “As an active member of several organizations committed to the hiring, retention, and promotion of diverse lawyers, Erin also shares in Katten’s deep commitment to diversity and inclusion, which is a fundamental part of the culture in our Dallas office.”
Michael Gaston-Bell of Katten
Also joining the Katten Dallas is Michael Gaston-Bell, who is the first labor and employment attorney in the firm’s Dallas office. His previous experience includes representing clients on Title VII, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) workplace matters in state and federal court, and working with corporate leadership on complex and often crisis level employment issues, including internal investigations, unfair competition and major transactions in health care, entertainment, banking, military contracting and retail industries.
“Michael is a talented attorney who will offer our clients in Dallas and across the country exceptional employment litigation counsel,” said David Crichlow, national chair of Katten’s Commercial Litigation group. “He has the skills to succeed and a track record for being a true advocate of his clients who often face tough, complicated issues.”
Katten opened the firm’s Dallas office with seven partners in 2018 and has grown to over 40 attorneys in the past two years.
George Howard joined the Restructuring & Reorganization practice of Vinson & Elkins (V&E) in their New York City office as a partner. Howard represents distressed debt investors, asset purchasers, companies, banks and secured lenders in out of court restructurings, chapter 11 reorganizations, distressed M&A, cross-border insolvency proceedings, and secured financing transactions.
“We are focused on growing the firm’s restructuring team particularly to meet increasing client demand for company and debtor side representations,” said V&E managing partner Scott Wulfe. “George is a great addition to the team not only because of his significant debtor experience, which perfectly complements our existing strengths but also because he is a natural team player and a great cultural fit for V&E.”
Matt Jones Ropes & Gray
Ropes & Gray’s Chicago office added Matthew (Matt) R. Jones to the firm’s employment, executive compensation, and benefits practice group. Jones advises private equity firms and their portfolio companies on executive compensation in relation to complex commercial transactions. Jones also advises clients on Securities and Exchange Commission executive compensation arrangement reporting obligations.
“We are very excited that Matt has joined the firm,” said global private equity practice co-chair Neill Jakobe. “Chicago is a priority market for our clients and our firm, and it is critical that we continue to attract the top talent in this market. Matt is an exceptional fit from a strategic and cultural perspective and he will further enhance the value we deliver to our clients locally, and globally.”
Christopher Passodelis Jr., James M. Sander, Brandon T. Uram and Megan L. Tymoczko-Korch joined Steptoe & Johnson PLLC, working remotely from the firm’s Southpointe office in Canonsburg, Pa., with plans to move to the downtown Pittsburgh office this fall. All four attorneys practice in the firm’s Business Department, handling business transactions and corporate services and tax. Uram focuses his practice on transactions and business litigation.
“Chris, Jim, and Megan bring an entrepreneurial spirit and many decades of diverse experience representing businesses large and small to our firm. Brandon is a creative and fierce advocate for clients who are faced with litigation,” said CEO Susan S. Brewer. “As Steptoe & Johnson grows its presence in western Pennsylvania, they will play a key role in helping us meet our clients’ needs.”
Immigration attorney Sarah Hawk joined Barnes & Thornburg (B&T) as a partner, along with Of Counsel Terra Martin and Paralegal Elizabeth Wei. She has 20 years of corporate immigration experience representing universities, corporations, and individuals, and leads the firm’s Southeastern immigration practice.
“In this critical time, we couldn’t ask for a better resource for our clients than Sarah,” said B&T’s labor and employment department leader Kenneth Yerkes. “COVID-19 has complicated many employees’ immigration statuses, whether it stems from remote work, reductions in force, border closings or shortened internship programs.”
David F. Johnson of Winstead was named to the Board of Directors for the Texas Board of Legal Specialization (TBLS). Established in 1974, the TBLS is a certifies lawyers and paralegals in their specific area of law, bestowing certification upon demonstration of expertise, after passing a rigorous exam and demonstration of completion of CLE continuing education credits. Out of 110,000 attorneys licensed to practice in Texas, only 7400 are board-certified. Johnson, who writes extensively on Fiduciary law in Texas, is also Board Certified in Civil Appellate Law, Civil Trial Law, and Personal Injury Trial Law. He will serve a three-year term on the TLBS beginning July of 2020.
Law Firm Contributions to Social Justice
Law firms have responded in a variety of ways to the recent protests, civil upheaval, and calls for change surrounding the murder of unarmed minorities at the hands of police. Many law firms announced Juneteenth observances, and encouraged their employees to use the day as a chance to reflect on how to best encourage tolerance and justice in their lives and through their legal work.
Below is a sampling of some initiatives, pro-bono efforts, and other steps towards positive change announced by law firms.
One thousand attorney law firm BakerHostetler announced the firm’s intention to develop firm-wide plans to become a more “inclusive, diverse and successful place to work and thrive.” The firm announced plans to partner with civil and human rights organizations to develop an environment welcoming of honest conversations about race and discrimination, as well as resources to educate firm-wide to effect change. As an initial step, the BakerHostetler Foundation is donating $100,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative, a non-profit dedicated to justice, ending mass incarceration and police reform. Along with the donation, BakerHostetler acknowledges “like many other law firms, we have work to do to increase diversity among our attorneys and leadership, and we will not stop working to address these issues.”
A global law firm focused on technology and innovation, Orrick has also announced plans to advocate for racial equality and diversity in the legal industry. Along with increased resources devoted to the firm-wide pro-bono program, Orrick Cares, Orrick has also announced the Orrick Racial Justice Fellowship Program. This program will allow at least five attorneys within the firm to devote a year each to focus on social justice and civil rights issues.
Additionally, two associates with Orrick, Tatyanna Senel and Yasmina Souri rallied almost 1,000 attorneys to provide pro-bono representation to protesters in Los Angeles. Senel and Souri helped formalize a working relationship between Orrick and the National Lawyers Guild, an established bar association with a mission of using the power of the law for the people, by bringing together lawyers, law students, legal workers and jailhouse lawyers to work together on a wide spectrum of issues, and create change on the local, regional, national and international levels. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is one of the most progressive bar associations in the country, as well as one of the oldest, and the first to be racially integrated. Additionally, Senel and Souri activated their own networks to rally friends and colleagues to the cause. Senel says, “We’re [Senel and Souri] both passionate about the message, and we felt like there was something we could do with our law degrees.”
According to the LA Times, almost 3,000 protesters were arrested in Southern California during the upheaval surrounding George Floyd’s death. Through this partnership, NLG is able to deploy almost 1,000 attorneys with varying levels of expertise to provide legal defense to protesters arrested. Criminal Defense attorneys will handle the more complex matters, while attorneys with limited or no experience in criminal law will handle lower-level issues, like curfew violations. Additionally, the volunteers will provide training on how to act as a legal observer.
Wiggin and Dana LLP, in response to racial inequalities brought to the forefront by recent events, has announced the Wiggin Opportunity Initiative, a pledge to provide $10 million in pro-bono legal services to minority-owned businesses over the next decade. Managing Partner, Paul Hughes, said, “While born of current events and frustrations, the firm wants to do something that will outlast the spotlight of this particular moment and support long-term improvement in opportunity and equality in our communities. By leveraging the particular skillset of our sophisticated lawyers in a sizeable, sustained and focused effort over time, we hope to make real change in a way that we could not achieve by more modest, incremental efforts.”
The next step in the initiative is to identify, through collaboration with community partners businesses that could benefit from the initiative. The legal services will be available across a variety of practice groups in order to meet a variety of needs in the business community. With a ten-year commitment, the firm is hoping to develop long-term relationships with the minority businesses to form partnerships to amplify the success of the businesses, to best impart lasting change on the landscape.
WilmerHale is a full-service, international law firm with 1,000 attorneys is focusing their racial equality efforts on police reform. WilmerHale announced their intention to donate at least a quarter of a million dollars to organizations working on police reform efforts, and select two fellows to work with civil rights groups addressing issues related to systemic racism, criminal justice and holding police accountable.
Focusing on WilmerHale’s proven track record in Police Department Counseling, the firm has established a pro bono client initiative focusing on police reform and social inequities affecting minorities, focusing on police accountability—using WilmerHale’s long-standing expertise in advising police departments in Baltimore and Chicago under Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation to assess practices and bolster public safety by helping departments adopt best practices. WilmerHale indicates these steps are just the beginning, saying: “These are our initial steps in our efforts to ensure meaningful change. We plan to build on and expand this work.”
Many law firms have announced their intention to contribute financially as well as look internally and find ways to make their own workplaces more inclusive, by formalizing initiatives to increase diverse attorney representation across the industry. In fact, to further this goal, over 125 law firms have joined the Law Firm Antitracism Alliance, with the purpose of:
. . . leveraging the resources of the private bar in partnership with legal services organizations to amplify the voices of communities and individuals oppressed by racism, to better use the law as a vehicle for change that benefits communities of color and to promote racial equity in the law.
Through coordination of Pro-bono efforts, law firms will partner with legal services organizations to “identify and dismantle structural or systemic racism in the law.”
Akin Gump, wrote an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the respondents, in conjunction with the American Historical Association, the Organization for American Historians and the Fred T. Korematsu Center for law and Equality, along with over 40 individual historians, supporting the legal challenge to the Trump Administration’s decision to rescind the DACA program. The brief looks at the historical context of decisions such as these, with a focus on the coded language and implicit bias used by the government to support policies. The brief indicates, in part:
. . . [A]mici seek to ensure that this Court understands the ways in which racially coded language has been used by government actors, both past and present, to mask illicit discriminatory motives—particularly in the immigration context, including the rescission of DACA.
Pratik Shah, co-head of Akin Gump’s Supreme Court and appellate practice, pointed out that many DACA recipients have only ever known the United States as their home, and all who earn DACA protection had done so by furthering their education or serving in the military. He says, “The Court’s decision that the administration cannot arbitrarily upend the lives of hundreds of thousands who arrived in our country as children . . . is a victory for both the rule of law and common decency.”
