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Marketing The Law Firm
Voice of the Client: Hearing the Client Through the Noise
Jennifer Simpson Carr and Amy Knapp
At the end of the day, a lot of noise is created in the effort to hear the voice of the client. We propose that while these efficiencies and innovations in law are valuable, the clients keep asking for something different: a lawyer who deeply understands their business and their specific issue — at the time they need it.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Competitive Intelligence: How Client Intelligent Is Your Firm?
Stacy Rowe
Ready, Set, Benchmark!
Underlying great client service is a strong understanding of the client’s business and goals. There are many barriers to success when it comes to helping lawyers develop a strategic client mindset. So, how do you break down these barriers to create a Client Intelligent Law Firm?
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Best Ways To Expand Key Client Relationships from the Lawyer and Firm Perspectives
Julie Savarino
Part Two of a Two-Part Article
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Marketing The Law Firm
In a VUCA Environment, Empower Your CMO to Collaborate and Lead
Tammy Mangan
VUCA is an acronym we don’t often hear in the legal industry. It stands for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, and was coined by the U.S. Army to describe the post-Cold War world. Buyers of legal services are more sophisticated than ever and are redefining the meaning of value, some are involving procurement professionals in the buying process.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Best Ways to Expand Key Client Relationships
Julie Savarino
Part Two of a Two-Part Article
This two-part article defines the specific and best actions lawyers and law firms can take to expand client relationships. This second part covers what law firms as institutions can do to help the firm’s departments, practice groups, teams and lawyers expand client relationships.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Best Ways to Expand Key Client Relationships from the Lawyers’ and Firms’ Perspectives
Julie Savarino
Part One of a Two-Part Article
For a variety of reasons, many law firms and lawyers struggle to effectively cross-sell or cross-service. This article defines the specific and best actions lawyers and law firms can take to expand client relationships.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Lawyers: Being Paid Shouldn’t Be Like Pulling Teeth!
Peter A. Johnson
What Lawyers Can Learn From Dentists
Nobody enjoys visiting the dentist, but everybody knows you still must pay him or her on the day of service. Attorneys, however, have historically let the client lead the payment dance. Lawyers do the work and hope/expect to be paid without waiting too long or discounting the invoice too steeply. What can we do differently?
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Marketing The Law Firm
Best Ways to Expand Key Client Relationships from the Lawyers’ and Firms’ Perspectives
Julie Savarino
Part One of a Two-Part Article
This article defines the specific and best actions lawyers and law firms can take to expand client relationships. This first part includes specific actions individual lawyers can take to expand client relationships.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Clients Drive Information Governance: Business Benefits Flow to Firm
Stephen Cole
Information governance and the protection of corporate data are top concerns for law firms. To ensure standards are met, some clients are now tying payment to compliance with Outside Counsel Guidelines (OCG). OCG have moved from guidelines to actual contracts that provide for indemnification of the client for cyber breach and violation of privacy laws.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Voice of the Client: So Important, It Comes First
Catherine Alman MacDonagh
It is vital to have effective marketing and communications, but if legal and business professionals don’t listen for — and hear — the Voice of the Client, we risk missing the mark in our strategy, messaging and positioning.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Professional Development: 10 Performance Tips for Your Presentation
Sharon Abrahams
Finally, it has happened. You have reached the stage in your career that others want to hear from you and learn what you know in your area of expertise. You have been invited to speak at a conference. What now?
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Marketing The Law Firm
Competitive Intelligence: The Wolf of Law Firms — Sell Me This [Insert Legal Service Here]
Stacy Rowe
While we can’t always create the need; we can work to identfy a need. Clients buy because they have a need or want, and successful salespeople do their homework to uncover this intelligence.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Media & Communications: Advising a Client on Crisis Communications — The Three Rs and Three Fs
Janet Falk
If you have not already encouraged your partners to advise their clients of the need to develop a crisis communication plan in advance, and provided some guidance on best practices, do so immediately. As a complement to a well-developed plan, here are two mnemonic approaches to managing communications in a crisis: the three Rs and the three Fs.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Big Law’s Trojan Horse: Are the Big Four Preparing an Invasion?
Dan Packel
Law Firms Partner With the Big Four to Serve Their Clients, But the Accountants Pose an Existential Threat. What Will Happen If — or When — They Turn Competitive?
For law firm leaders, rank-and-file partners and everyone else in the law firm ecosystem, the Big Four shouldn’t be a laughing matter. They are serious about selling legal services, and clients are listening.
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Marketing The Law Firm
A Chief Client Service Officer in Action
Kimberly Rice
Marketing the Law Firm recently interviewed Jennifer Papantonio, Chief Client Service Officer of Peckar & Abramson about her significant role, which includes the successes she and the firm have achieved in recent years, how she works collaboratively with firm leadership to create innovative solutions, and her recommendations to law firms which may be considering engaging a Chief Client Officer.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Voice of the Client: Put Your Best Foot Forward in the New Year — Revaluating Content Strategy
Jen Betterncourt
While reputation goes a long way in attracting new clients, having a solid content strategy is a critical component of the legal sales cycle at all turns, including retaining the clients you have.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Competitive Intelligence: Become More Relevant – Meet Your Clients’ Needs Every Time
Patricia Ellard
Becoming and staying relevant is a process. It is not static but always evolving. Your clients change, their needs and requests change, you change, and, throughout these experiences, you learn steps to implement and how to implement them in given situations.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Active Listening Wins Clients
Kimberly Rice
All too often, we read studies, which report clients’ pet peeve with their services providers whom do not listening to them. Or, cited another way, clients…
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Cybersecurity Law & Strategy
Meritas’ New Cybersecurity Standard Requirement Assures Legal Clients
Victoria Hudgins
Meritas, a nonprofit association of law firms, now requires its law firm members to follow a new cybersecurity standard. The reason for this new standard? Law firms’ clients.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Sales Speak: Grow Your Clients: MLF’s Challenge
Beth Cuzzone
As you approach your clients during the upcoming holidays and new year, think creatively. This Q&A with Aon COO Audrey Rubin provides more than a dozen examples of ways to add value and build stronger relationships with our clients. The MLF team challenges you to undertake one or two of these in your next go-to-market strategies.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Voice of the Client: Chief Client Service, Experience and Value Officers in Law Firms
Julie Savarino
Roles, Results & Roadblocks
An increasing number of the world’s largest law firms are conducting business at such a scale that having a dedicated, full-time client service or experience officer adds significant value to the firms and their clients.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Marketing Tech: How CMOs Can Use Retargeting to Attract New Business
Larry Bodine
Retargeting combines two of the most important aspects of digital marketing: automation and personalization. Marketers use retargeting to stay in front of the consumer across devices and to ultimately try to reach them at the right time — the moment of purchase intent.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Do Your Lawyers Think as Business Owners or Employees?
Kimberly Rice
There are two types of lawyers — those who have their own business and those who work for those who do. How do your lawyers size up?
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Business Crimes Bulletin
Protecting Privilege Before and After a Cyber Breach
Robert W. Anderson and Eric B. Levine
Critical to any counsel working to prevent a cyber attack or respond to a successful cyber intrusion is an understanding of why and how to properly utilize both attorney-client and work-product privilege.
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The Bankruptcy Strategist
State Attorney-Client Privilege Rule Incorporated into Federal Law
Robert J. Stearn, Jr., Cory D. Kandestin and Christopher M. De Lillo
Delaware Bankruptcy Court Protects Communications with Financial Professionals Originating In Delaware
Because state law applies at the time the transaction is negotiated, the parties might assume — reasonably so — that state privilege law will govern communications with their attorneys and financial professionals. But what happens if, years later, a fraudulent transfer plaintiff files suit in federal court and brings claims under federal law? Does state privilege law still apply?
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Business Crimes Bulletin
The Seizure of Attorney-Client Communications: Fighting Back
Ronald H. Levine
The government’s seizure of attorney-client communications, a headline event when it involves the President’s lawyer Michael Cohen, actually is a recurrent problem in white collar criminal investigations due to the convergence of several trends.
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Marketing The Law Firm
'Professional Development:' Those Were the Days: Lessons from Silicon Valley’s Marketing Culture
David McCann
There were elements of the corporate culture in the early Dot-com years that helped shape my perspective on the critical role marketing could (and should) play in driving tangible and bottom-line business results. Those shaping influences, when applied to law firms, can help us legal marketers realize even greater returns for our internal and external clients.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Cash Flow Drought: How to Identify and Deal with It
Bill Sansone
Cash flow management can be particularly challenging. You need to account for the time lag between cash going out and cash coming in. This requires financial and management discipline, strong internal policies and procedures for billing and collection policies, planning and attention to detail.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Listening to the Client: Where Do We Stand?
Jim Durham
If you listen to the marketplace, you will know what to do in connection with client growth and client retention. Are firms listening to this advice?
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Marketing The Law Firm
Breakthrough Thinking: How to Discover and Drive Motivation in Business Development and Lead Attorneys to Greater Prosperity
Kimberly Rice
Despite all the strategic planning CMOs may devote to individual attorney coaching and training, it is often not enough to support the lawyer client in connecting the dots of relationship building, reputation enhancing and contact management over the course of a career to make a remarkable difference.
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Marketing The Law Firm
'Professional Development:' Owning Your Business: Using Financial Metrics to Drive Business Development
Joe Maguire and Anne Marcotty
Growing the top line requires a systematic approach that maximizes your available time and focuses you on the best opportunities.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Focusing on Client Retention May Mean Restructuring the Firm
Kathryn B. Whitaker
Law Firms Should Double Down on Their Existing Clients By Focusing on Client Satisfaction and Retention Rates Rather Than Billable Hours and Origination Credits
New client acquisition can cost 15 times more than retaining an existing client, and yet most lawyers spend their limited and valuable time chasing new clients.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
11 Factors to Collecting Attorney Fees on a Timely Basis
Peter Oliva
Most of the time, delayed payments are a result of actions by the law firms themselves. Let’s take a look at 11 factors impacting the collection of attorney fees on a timely basis and how to avoid these mistakes.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Adding Value with a Client Visit Initiative
Brook W. Redmond and Ali C. Ferro
The increasing competition in the legal industry highlights the importance of differentiation and adding value beyond the work product. Face-to-face interactions with clients are a critical component in differentiation because they provide the opportunity to understand better the nuances of clients’ businesses, develop deeper relationships, and drive productive collaboration.
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Marketing The Law Firm
'Sales Speak:' Savvy Salesmanship is a Hallmark of Successful Business Development
Ari Kaplan
At its core, business development is about making authentic connections that grow into meaningful relationships. Rainmakers recognize that principle and apply an array of techniques to fuel their careers.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
Finally Finishing Unfinished Business?
Arthur J. Ciampi
How the Recent Heller Ehrman Case Impacts Lawyer Mobility and Clients Choice of Counsel
The law of unfinished business, as applied to cases billed on an hourly basis, has been the subject of much commentary and case law. In Heller Ehrman, the high California court, like the New York Court of Appeals, found that a dissolved law firm did not have a property interest in hourly matters for work performed after dissolution. The case is worth exploring as it impacts, among other things, lawyer mobility and clients choice of counsel.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Showcasing Attorney Expertise: Guidance for Law Firms
Cindy Sharp
Many attorneys already share intellectual capital by writing articles or delivering presentations with the hope of attracting additional business. However, most individuals, and even firms, have not developed a cohesive plan to ensure maximum exposure.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Professional Development: Adding Value with a Client Visit Initiative
Brook W. Redmond and Ali C. Ferro
The increasing competition in the legal industry highlights the importance of differentiation and adding value beyond the work product. Face-to-face interactions with clients are a critical component in differentiation because they provide the opportunity to understand better the nuances of clients’ businesses, develop deeper relationships, and drive productive collaboration.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Marketing Tech: Finding a Few More Minutes for Marketing and Business Development
Ari Kaplan
Years ago, when trying to improve some of my snacking habits, I stopped buying cookies, candy and savory chips. Magically (and perhaps obviously), I quickly found that I ate less junk food. In effort to find a few more minutes a day for marketing, I recently applied this same basic, but effective, technique to my time management and the results have been just as immediate.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Media & Communication: How to ‘Get Your Name Out There’
Nicholas Gaffney
Anyone who has so much as dabbled in marketing or consulted a PR firm has been told they “need to get their name out there.” But it’s not that simple. It’s not just getting your name out there that will reap results — it’s getting your name out there in the right places.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Voice of the Client: What Does 'Different' Mean?
Bruce Alltop
As firms turn their focus to revenue generation, some of the more progressive firms look to their clients to help them create their strategic priorities. In some cases, they even ask their clients to be involved in the planning process.
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Accounting And Financial Planning For Law Firms
The Administrative Services Hat Trick
J. Mark Santiago
At the ALA annual conference in Denver, I was speaking on how law firms could provide better administrative support for their attorneys and how alternative strategies were being deployed by some law firms to achieve those goals. After my session, the discussion continued with a group of participants and the hat trick metaphor was born.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Voice of the Client: Ask, Listen, Act, Learn, Repeat
David McCann
The idea that law firms should seek client feedback is hardly an innovative concept. So why does anecdotal evidence, as well as industry research, continue to show that many firms are not actively and routinely engaged in capturing this meaningful information?
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Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report
Client Feedback and Recent GC Panel Insight
Bruce Alltop
Discussion of a survey that highlights what the client is really thinking, and how law firms can effectively respond.
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Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report
Diversity As a Differentiator in the Legal Profession
John J. Buchanan
One aspect of law firms that is becoming increasingly of interest to clients — and an area that might offer opportunities for differentiation — is law firm commitment to increasing and sustaining diversity.
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Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report
Communication and Why It Matters
Bianca Moreiras
The art of speaking, understanding, asking and developing dialogue has been eliminated in this fast-paced, quick-reply, "do it now" universe we now live in. Sure, we can communicate around the world in seconds, and conduct business at extraordinary speed; however we have lost the "human" elements of conversation. And it matters!
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Marketing The Law Firm
Marketing Tech: Qualities That Clients Want
Ari Kaplan
How to Leverage Technology to Showcase Them
From following up more effectively to communicating with greater frequency, the elements of distinction are well known, but often poorly executed. Those who embrace them, even imperfectly, are likely to rise above their peers.
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Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report
Standing at the Crossroads of Legal Innovation
Teresa J. Walker
The law firm business model of the past is under attack. Slowly, private legal is responding with things like developing knowledge management systems, establishing jobs for data analysts who can establish pricing of services and beginning to look at ways to outline workflows and processes. Unfortunately, corporate clients are impatient and are beginning to push harder for improved efficiency and increased speed of service delivery.
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Marketing The Law Firm
Voice of the Client: Client Feedback and Recent GC Panel Insight
Bruce Alltop
Given the level of focus placed on client teams, industry teams, and client feedback by our law firm clients over the past 18 months, it would appear that firms are not only seeking out the voice of the client, but they are listening and taking action.
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Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report
Law Firm Strategy Execs Wield Uneven Clout
Lizzy McLellan
The role of chief strategy officer (CSO) — increasingly common in corporate America — has been adopted by relatively few law firms. Consultants say perceptions of what the position entails and whether it's necessary vary widely throughout the legal industry.
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