Building the future
Posted on May 15th, 2013 by Chrissie
This article was first published in the May 2013 edition of Managing for Success, the magazine of the Law Society’s Law Management Section
Tomorrow’s legal leaders face an uncertain future, with changes already underway to everything from training culture to the competitive environment. So how can they – and all solicitors – equip themselves for the road ahead? Chrissie Lightfoot reports…
Since the dawn of mankind, we have evolved to survive many challenges, radical changes, disruptions and ‘ages’. In the legal world and beyond, we are now experiencing a new Digital Age, and those who want to survive it will need to evolve, too. To quote the futurist Dr. Peter Bishop: “There will be significant change within our tenure within any position within our lifetime for sure, that we will have to learn to live in a new world … it will be new enough that we will be uncomfortable, we will be unprepared, and that we will have to learn new skills and new techniques in order to be successful in that future compared to how we are being successful today, or indeed how we were prepared to be successful when we were in school or training.”
We all know about all the change that’s already affecting us within the profession, including changing regulation, legal aid cuts, increased competition and ever more pressure on the bottom line. But the pace of change will only pick up, and in ways we may not expect. We are already in a world where apps keep lawyers up-to-date (reported on The New Lawyer), 50% of web sales will occur via social media by 2015 (on Mashable), 22% of consumers use social media to find a lawyer (LexisNexis research), and social media sites are the new golf course (on Legal Futures).
Marketing is a new beast in this world. According to research by Hubspot on trends in 2013, marketing this year will be more accountable for revenue generation, more focused on mobile applications, and more ‘human’, with companies developing a personality through storytelling. People from across the business will need to become “inbound marketers”, promoting the business’ products and services, and investment will increasingly focus on online marketing.
Longer range predictions paint a picture of far more radical change. In November last year, renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted that, by 2045, technology will enable superhuman machine intelligences to emerge, and people and machines will become deeply integrated. He believes our brains will extend to the cloud, which will allow us to learn new things at any age. This might sound a little like sci-fi, but the pace of change is more rapid than you might expect; companies like Google are already working on self-driving cars and augmented-reality glasses.
More relevant to us as solicitors is his prediction that computers will, by 2029 – well within the working timespan of today’s younger solicitors – be able to match the intelligence of humans. In October 2011, I predicted in Managing Partner magazine that we might soon see the “iCyborg” taking over our jobs! What is certain is that in the decades ahead, our role as lawyers within this new world is going to change dramatically. We have to start tackling that now, both in our current practice and in how we train tomorrow’s lawyers. But what will those lawyers look like in this brave new world?
Keeping up
To have job security and increase our earning power both now and in the future, we will, undoubtedly and unequivocally, need to boost our value and relevance by continually learning new things. As Peter Drucker once said: “We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change … And the most pressing task is learning how to learn new ideas, concepts, methodologies and technologies.”
But how do we know what to learn, what courses to take, what theoretical and practical endeavours to partake in, and what degrees and other training will position us to thrive in the years ahead?
A good place to start is the 12 Certainties™ outlined by global futurist Daniel Burrus (see www.certainties.com). These are the trends he believes will transform all of our careers. No matter what our role is today, these certainties will affect us, so the sooner we align our skills to these 12 certainties, the more relevant and valuable we will be to our firms and clients. The 12 Certainties that will transform every career are:
- Cloud services and virtualisation
- Big data and real-time analytics
- Mobile hardware, software, and services
- Social business enterprise management
- Cyber security and forensics
- Intelligent e-personal assistants
- 3D web
- Connective intelligent objects
- Additive manufacturing (3D printing)
- Advanced robotics and automation
- Remote visual communications
- Gamification of education
All of these are technology-based, because it is technology which is most rapidly transforming how we work. This doesn’t necessarily mean that all of us lawyers must become technologists in order to get a top-paying job as a lawyer in the future (although it might help!). It does mean, however, that we have to adapt our current skills so they include a working understanding of these 12 certainties, because this is how we will remain relevant and of value. Andrew McAfee, the principal research scientist at MIT’s Center for Digital Business, puts it plainly: “when the robots rule, we (will) need a guaranteed paycheck”.
We also need to look at how we can build these certainties into the education of our lawyers of the future, so they will be resilient in the face of the change each of them will bring. For instance, the last of these 12 is about the application of gamification to education. Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in a non-game context in order to engage users and solve problems. It is used in applications and processes to improve user engagement, return on investment, data quality and learning.
To date, gamification has been most widely applied in marketing and as a tool for customer engagement. However, there has also been interest in the application of gamification to education, training and employee productivity. Microsoft has released the game Ribbon Hero 2 as an add-on to their Office suite to help train people to use Office effectively and thereby improve productivity.
In his most recent book, Tomorrow’s Lawyers (2013), Professor Richard Susskind suggests that “lawyers should benefit from existing and emerging techniques of e-learning, which in their most advanced forms can be tremendously powerful. This extends beyond online lectures (which themselves can be useful) to online simulated legal practice and virtual legal learning environments”.
Susskind is alluding to blended learning (the mix of face-to-face and interface e-learning), but there is definite scope for gamification to be introduced into legal education and training in a big way.
The new careers
The traditional way of lawyering is now increasingly being questioned, superseded and / or supported by other ways of operating and delivering legal advice, products and services – I call this the Age of UnLawyering. We are transitioning toward two distinct modus operandi for what, where, why, when and how we serve our clients: face-to-face and interface. In the future, who will be doing the serving may be rather different as well.
Nowadays, legal provision and primary skills fall into four areas:
- IT-based – commoditised;
- artificial intelligence (AI);
- advocacy; and
- judgement.
AI can be defined as the intelligence of machines, where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximise its chances of success. In legal practice, the most common applications already in circulation are e-discovery, digital forensic procedures and big data search, particularly in relation to civil litigation matters and legal research.
Arguably, the first two areas above have superseded the ‘grunt work’ traditionally carried out by trainees and junior lawyers; paralegals and / or junior lawyers now oversee and utilise the ‘machine system’ in order to maximise productivity. The last two areas, however, are associated more with associate level and upwards. This means we are transiting toward three kinds of lawyer:
- the unemployed lawyer;
- the support worker to the first two areas – there is no need to be a qualified lawyer; and
- the ‘super lawyer’, with a high-end intelligence quotient (IQ) and emotional quotient or emotional intelligence (EO/EI) to work on the last two areas above.
AI is here, now. But, it could evolve in an extraordinary way in the next two decades to the extent that advocacy and judgement will also become the realm of the machine in relation to IQ.
Meanwhile, in Tomorrow’s Lawyers, Susskind predicts that legal markets will be further liberalised, leading to an entirely new range of legal roles, which he calls:
- the legal knowledge engineer;
- the legal technologist;
- the legal hybrid;
- the legal process analyst;
- the legal project manager;
- the online dispute resolution practitioner;
- the legal management consultant; and
- the legal risk manager.
Many of these will mean broadening our domain of expertise, not just in the areas of legal advice we provide, but also in our business development ability, business advisory ability, market expertise, project management ability, strategic consultancy, and even organisational psychology, using high-end intellectual capital and emotional intelligence.
Competing with the machines
So if the machines are already hot on our heels, and may soon be cleverer, as well as more efficient, than us, how can we possibly compete? I believe that a key differentiator in our successful evolution and in the alignment of machines with man will be the ‘humanisation’ of lawyers.
As AI evolves further within legal provision and service, our ability to simply be human (a social creature) and naked (our authentic self with lawyerly intellectual capital, empathy, passion, emotion and high EQ/EI), will become even more important and valuable.
In a deeply fragmented and technological legal world, it will be our EQ which differentiates us where top-level results are concerned. EQ is externalised in soft skills – communication, empathy, body language – which are frequently used in business development and client relationships.
In light of all this, I believe that the biggest challenge for lawyers and legal education is to embrace what I call “psycho-lawyernetics”.
Back in 1960, Maxwell Maltz wrote Psycho-Cybernetics. He went beyond the “closed system” of the “science of psychology” and sought answers concerning human behaviour in the fields of physics, anatomy and the (then) new science of cybernetics. He proposed that: “any good plastic surgeon is and must be a psychologist, whether he would have it so or not. When you change a man’s face you invariably change his future. Change his physical image and nearly always you change the man – his personality, his behaviour – and sometimes even his basic talents and abilities.”
With a plastic surgeon, the sphere of influence is the man’s face; with a lawyer, it may be his divorce, his business interests, his intellectual property. But what brings the lawyer’s approach into the same realm as the surgeon’s has been summarised by futurologist Dr Patrick Dixon: “the future of law will be driven by emotion”. He believes “what clients want in the future is advice based on emotion”.
Legal education and training has already begun the transition in accommodating business development skills and other ‘soft-skilling’; including marketing, sales, branding, public relations, social media, social networking and entrepreneurial schooling. It’s happening now at the College of Law (UK), other universities and law schools in the UK and internationally. There’s also an abundance of external trainers, coaches, educators and consultants supporting and supplying all of the above to the legal industry.
However, psycho-lawyernetics is fundamentally missing (and of necessity) as a core lawyerly skill in the continual legal education and training (in both theory and practice) in the present and certainly for the lawyer of the future.
This is partly because lawyers tend to favour a more analytical approach at work than an emotional one. Part of the Myers Briggs approach to psychometric testing looks at their decision-making approach – either thinking (organising and structuring information to decide in a logical, objective way) or feeling (organising and structuring information to decide in a personal and values-oriented way). In the general population, men slightly favour the thinking approach (57%, versus 43% for feeling), while women strongly favour feeling (75%, versus 25% for thinking). However, the majority of solicitors of both sexes – 81% of male legal advisers and 66% of female ones – favour the thinking approach.
The problem is that emotion / feeling drives customer behaviour (and always has, even if we didn’t recognise it); customers buy due to their emotions and justify with logic. And there is no business of law, and no need for a lawyer, without the customer.
Logic should tell us lawyers that if we genuinely wish to understand our clients and thereby persuade them to buy from us, we need to change our behaviour and train ourselves to take a more feeling approach. After all, it’s highly unlikely that the client will.
I therefore urge any ambitious lawyer who wishes to make and / or maintain a life-long career in the law to embrace a deep(er) understanding of psychology. More importantly, legal education and training providers must build this into the fabric of their educational programmes; otherwise, the teaching of business development, entrepreneurial and soft skills will be in vain.
Inevitably, for us lawyers to survive in this Digital Age, this Age of UnLawyering and potentially iCyborg lawyering, we must begin by changing (or simply improving) ourselves – our behaviour, our approach, and our knowledge. It’s going to be a real challenge, but if we get it right, at least we will be a little better prepared for the journey ahead.
The Entrepreneur Lawyer
Author of The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How To Market, Brand & Sell YOU!
Please do feel free to comment on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts…
The Age of UnLawyering: it started with a creme egg
Posted on March 27th, 2013 by Chrissie
A version of this article was first published in The Global Legal Post 26 March 2013 and is reproduced with kind permission.
Yes, the last couple of weeks have been yet another hum-dinger kick in the teeth for the legal profession.
I’ve been bombarded with RSS feeds full of reports from copious legal journals about personal injury practices facing financial meltdown as a result of the LASPO reforms. It looks like the demise of Blakemores (Lawyers2You) is only the tip of the iceberg as the SRA painted a miserable picture of financial instability among law firms in general and the Law Society revealed that the number of private practice solicitors has fallen for the first time.
Reshaping the high street
The society warning of the threat of ABSs reshaping the high street coincided with an article in The Times recently entitled ‘Farewell tweedy high street, hello online’ suggesting that “the mix of internet, reforming legislation and the demise of legal aid is creating an evolutionary jolt in the legal high street, consigning traditional practice to a museum of professional history.”
Let’s face it, the predictions for many years and depressing potential outcomes related to the changes and challenges for ‘traditional practice’ in a crowded marketplace from many respected legal strategists and consultants now appear to be the reality.
Radical change
In his recent crystal ball gazing captured in his latest book, Tomorrow’s Lawyers (2013), Professor Richard Susskind talks again about the future of legal services, wherein he predicts that legal markets will be further liberalized and the legal landscape is set to change more radically over the next twenty years than over the last two hundred.
Since the dawn of Man, humankind has experienced, embraced (not without kicking and screaming) and survived the many challenges, radical changes, disruptions and ‘Ages’ during its quest to evolve: The Ice Age, The Industrial Age, The Digital Age and The Data Age. In relation to these latter two Ages, and due to the evolution of the world wide web, we are witnessing the revolution of UnSales (relationship sales), UnMarketing (relationship marketing), UnBranding (relationship and social branding) and UnBundling of legal services throughout the legal marketplace.
Opportunity in adversity
Arguably, for us lawyers, consumers and businesses alike, we are now experiencing the Age of UnLawyering, where the traditional way of lawyering is being questioned, superseded and/or supported by other ways of operating and delivering legal services. I am confident that due to mankind surviving in the past, it will survive this transition (and transformation) too; but not without some serious casualties. However, when in adversity, there is opportunity…
We’re now experiencing the new face of law where the Americans, Aussies, Kiwis, Chinese and entrepreneurs have arrived in the UK legal market space. We cannot ignore the recent new entrants: Legal Vision, Brilliant Law, Legal Zoom and RocketLawyer. When Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic launches into space in 2014 who knows, the Martians may even arrive too with a new Virgin Law world order furthering the legal space frontier. Little green men aside, the rest are here to stay, agitate, disrupt and quite possibly, help…
The latest enabler
In the past fortnight, amongst the fall-out in ‘law law land’, I noted that Law Plain And Simple, a home-grown website and legal service, was launched as a response to legislative reforms, the demise of legal aid and the imported challenge to help consumers, businesses and law firms.
This latest kiddie on the block in ‘law law land’ is an online legal information and advice service linked to 400 law firms in England and Wales. The website was master-minded by Dave Lister, director at X-Press Legal Services Ltd., which has developed and funded the service, and has been providing property searches to law firms and licensed conveyancers for many years.
It’s a win-win
The website explains the fundamentals of the law and its standard processes, as well as translating its terminology. It has step-by-step guides covering 39 of the most common legal categories, ranging from property law, bankruptcy, wills and trusts and business law to guidance about social media and social networking and even image rights.
Dave commented: “We wanted to take the mystique and fear out of the law for ordinary people. The website avoids legal jargon and has been written in very basic English to help people understand the law and how it might affect them in particular circumstances.” Law Plain and Simple has been written by qualified solicitors – no, this is not a misnomer or a joke. Co-director Lynne Lister says: “We intend that our website should give people the facts in words they understand, so they can move forward in resolving whatever difficulty they are in. We believe that “A little knowledge is a wonderful thing.”
The idea for the website grew out of enquiries from members of the public directly to X-Press Legal Services Ltd. about legal terminology, particularly in the housing market. Dave and Lynne commented: “We recognise the importance and value of professional solicitors with their extensive experience and knowledge so we are keen to enhance the service they can provide – not detract from it.”
The website is free to use for consumers, businesses and the law firm clients of X-Press. The website receives no referral fees and doesn’t do data grabs. The law firms in the local search directory are clients of X-Press and these law firm clients set their own fee rates when advising the visitor who has come through the website, as well as providing a continuous stream of legal articles for visitors to read on the site.
With the numbers of users (consumers and businesses) visiting the website set to increase significantly due to publicity and awareness raising through offline and online activity by X-Press HQ, its 40 franchisees and 400 law firms in the network, and deals being struck with high traffic websites, this radical new business model and service is set to be a win-win for all concerned – consumers, businesses, law firm clients of X-Press who are in the directory and providing legal articles on the website, and X-Press itself. Clearly, as more visitors use the website and are pointed in the direction of the client law firms in the directory (whereby those firms may experience an increase in enquiries and instructions), X-Press may no doubt receive more conveyancing searches from those client firms succeeding in serving existing clients further as well as new law firm clients.
Egged on
I believe the real story behind the success of Law Plain and Simple is its history, business model, culture and ability to see around corners. For what the Law Plain and Simple website service is really about is X-Press helping their clients clients. They help their law firm clients to be more successful by marketing to, providing for, and helping the law firms clients by delivering a free helpful legal resource as a first point of call. This ‘client client’ strategy and model is common place for smart marketeers and savvy business people, and proves successful.
And to think, all of this started with a Cadbury’s creme egg …
I dare say X-Press (and Law Plain and Simple) wouldn’t be what it is today if Dave didn’t manage to woo his childhood sweetheart, Lynne, with an enticing choccy egg during one fine Easter break. For X-Press Legal began many years ago as a husband and wife team, and is now a family run business with a nationwide network of franchisees with a totally entrepreneurial and customer-centric culture.
Perhaps what it will really take for lawyers and law firms to succeed in the Age of UnLawyering (at the very least) are these three things:
1) the ability to see around corners – to anticipate the radically unexpected; and
2) create a service or product in readiness for the unexpected; and
3) embrace a truly customer-centric business model which includes marketing to and providing for (and helping) your clients clients.
Back in August 2011 Stephen Mayson wrote an entertaining and thought provoking piece entitled ‘Breaking News: Humpty Dumpty falls off wall’ wherein he stated “it will come as a shock to many to hear that Humpty Dumpty (also known as the traditional law firm business model) has taken a tumble. Worse still, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again. Yes, it’s true: however you look at it, Humpty is well and truly scrambled.”
Actually, it’s clear that in many instances, the traditional law firm business model is well and truly fried.
Lawyering but not as we know it
But all is not lost. We can pray along with our new Pope. A couple of weeks ago The Lawyer website bulletin stated: “The Catholic church and the legal profession have more than a few things in common. Both are ancient, slow to change and sometimes require senior members to wear ridiculous costumes. Oh, and both have a fondness for latin, though that probably harks back to the fact that both are a bit ancient.”
Dave Lister et.al will have no need for prayer. Law Plain and Simple doesn’t entertain any of these things, as is apparent in its homepage mantra: “No legal jargon. Certainly no latin.”
In this Age of UnLawyering if Dave and his X-Press crew happen to blag a seat onto the pioneering good ship Virgin Galactic, and bump into Captain Kirk on his Starship Enterprise at the final frontier, no doubt the conversation by those who boldly go where none of us have gone before would be:
“It’s lawyering Jim, but not as we know it.”
The Entrepreneur Lawyer
Author of The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How To Market, Brand & Sell YOU!
Please do feel free to comment on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts…
Radical! Law Plain and Simple
Posted on March 10th, 2013 by Chrissie
I’ve just come across a new on-line and impartial legal information and guidance website for consumers and businesses. And it’s free.
Called Law Plain and Simple and written by qualified solicitors – no, this is not a misnomer or a joke 
– the website explains in plain and easy to understand English the fundamentals of the law and its standard processes, as well as translating its terminology. It has step-by-step guides covering 39 of the most common legal categories, ranging from bankruptcy, wills and trusts and business law to Intellectual Property Rights, guidance about social media and social networking and even image rights!
Clearly, the website avoids legal jargon and has been written in very basic English to help us understand the law and how it might affect us in particular circumstances; it also helps us know and understand our rights but without any obligation or commitment. If you go to the website you can access information anonymously since we’re not required to register nor provide any personal information that could be followed up.
Thankfully it’s clearly not a “comparison” website (the world can do without another one of those) but purely an information rich source, with legal professionals contributing regular articles and law updates. I reckon you’ll find the website extremely useful, particularly as it grows with even more informative legal and business content and articles. It certainly fills a gap in the market which hasn’t been served by any other player, until now.
Truly, Law Plain and Simple does exactly what it says on the tin. In simple terms it’s ideal as a first point of call for anyone who is looking to gain a basic understanding of the law in lots of areas which touch our day to day lives, whether personal or professional. The ‘legal guides’ are a perfect starter for ten and a springboard upon which to learn more from the legal experts in the law firm directory embedded within the website.
I reckon this new website service will be welcomed by those of us who are too frightened or embarrassed to seek advice directly from a lawyer or a consumer advice agency, as well as those of us who simply don’t want to divulge our personal details. Let’s face it, at some point in our lives, we all need legal help and advice. It’s inevitable. What should not be inevitable is feeling daunted by the law, the legal profession or lawyers; for most of us, the mere prospect of visiting a solicitor, legal executive or barrister can be unnerving.
I guess this is what Law Plain and Simple is really all about though; a little bit of knowledge, just so we’ve got enough information to then be confident, ask questions and get the most out of our visit to a legal professional.
It certainly looks like the website is on a mission to make law as plain and simple as possible by adopting a radical new approach to legal information and guidance where “a little knowledge is a wonderful thing.”
The Entrepreneur Lawyer
Author of The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How To Market, Brand & Sell YOU!
Please do feel free to comment on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts…
From Maidens To Crones
Posted on March 9th, 2013 by Chrissie
The Naked Lawyer Newsletter March 8th 2013
International Women’s Day
Hi ladies and gentlemen …
So, it’s International Women’s Day. What can I say? The Naked Lawyer is positively bouncing today. It’s her second favourite day of the year you see, after Valentine’s Day. She pestered me this morning to get my AIG and to write to you. My apologies for it being so soon after my previous newsletter… but she can be persuasive.
Anyhow, she’d like us all to “CELEBRATE WOMAN” and for me to share with you some interesting facts about us. In true Naked Lawyer mischievous form, you will find that some are true, and some are true true :-) And then there are those which are naughty or nice. What do you think?:
- International Women’s Day is held each year on March 8. The annual event was first observed worldwide in 1909
- According to an ancient Sumerian legend, the universe was created by a female, the goddess Tiamat. This role of a female creator is not unique, as the Australian Aboriginal creation myth also credits the creation of life to a woman
- The biological sign for the female sex, a circle placed on top of a small cross, is also the symbol for the planet Venus. The symbol is believed to be a stylized representation of the Roman goddess Venus’ hand mirror
- While many stars and moons are christened with female names, Venus is the only planet in our solar system given the name of a female goddess
- The probability of a woman giving birth to a baby girl instead of a baby boy increases significantly the nearer the mother lives to the equator. While the cause of this gender selection is unknown, scientists believe the constant sunlight hours and abundant food supply in tropical regions may favour female births
- In almost every country worldwide, the life expectancy for women is higher than for men
- The word “woman” is believed to have derived from the Middle English term wyfman, meaning the wife (wyf) of man. In Old English, women were described simply as wyf, while the term man was used to describe a human person, regardless of gender
- The English language originally delineated between women in different stages of life with the terms “maiden,” “mother,” and “crone.” A maiden referred to a young girl who was unmarried, a mother referred to a woman in her child-bearing years, and a crone described a post-menopausal woman
- The English word “girl” was initially used to describe a young person of either sex. It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that the term was used specifically to describe a female child
- The first woman to run for U.S. president was Victoria Woodhull, who campaigned for the office in 1872 under the National Woman’s Suffrage Association. While women would not be granted the right to vote by a constitutional amendment for nearly 50 years, there were no laws prohibiting a woman from running for the chief executive position
- The first country to grant women the right to vote in the modern era was New Zealand in 1893
- The first woman to rule a country as an elected leader in the modern era was Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka (previously named Ceylon), who was elected as prime minister of the island nation in 1960 and later re-elected in 1970
- The two highest IQ’s ever recorded (on a standard test) both belong to women.
- The world’s first novel, The Tale of Genji, was published in Japan around A.D. 1000 by female author Murasaki Shikibu.
What does all this mean? …
- Women really are from Venus and men are from Mars
- The first naked man women see is ‘Ken’
- Sex is more physical for men and more emotional for women
- The average number of items in a typical woman’s bathroom is 437. A man would not be able to identify most of these items
- Women can have partners that are years younger without being called dirty old perverts
- Women do NOT want an honest answer to the question,‘How do I look?’
- Women are never wrong. Apologizing is the man’s responsibility
- A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn’t give her coffee
The gravestone of W.C. Fields reads:
“All things considered, I’d rather be in Philadelphia”.
Reflecting on all the good things women have done, and will continue to do for mankind, I reckon mine will read:
“All things considered, this old crone was glad to be woman.”
And this is why…
A Class Act
Column in Australia’s BRW today to celebrate International Women’s Day by George Beaton (@grbeaton_law), director of Beaton Research + Consulting and Beaton Capital
Beyond partnership: Learning from Chrissie Lightfoot, a class act (brw.com.au)
You can’t miss Chrissie Lightfoot in a crowd or mistake her in the written word. She is a walking, talking, writing testimony to the success that her own advice brings…
It’s Celebration Time!
Happy happy happy Women’s Day !!!
Go celebrate girls, maidens, ladies, women, mothers and crones … and all you boys – yes, just boys, for I’m not sure there are stages for men.
PS: the above was written by The Naked Lawyer, not me! 
Come dance with me NOW, The Naked Lawyer and Kool & The Gang
The Entrepreneur Lawyer
Author of The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How To Market, Brand & Sell YOU!
Please do feel free to comment on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts…
The Ambidextrous Valentine
Posted on February 14th, 2013 by Chrissie
February 14th 2013 Newsletter from The Naked Lawyer
So, 2012 is well and truly put to bed and we’re already ROARing in 2013
Although it’s been a wee while since I’ve sent you a newsletter, what better day to do it than today? Happy Valentine’s Day! This is The Naked Lawyer’s favourite day of the year. She’s even more full of mischief than usual today and she wishes to say ‘thank-you’ for being part of her life and HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!! xxx
Let’s kick-off 2013 with a lesson in business, leisure, love and life from the ambidextrous golfer. As we’re all adults here, I’m sure you’ll receive this in the good humour it is intended …
A group of guys lived and died for their Saturday morning round of golf. (Sound familiar?)
One transferred to another city. It wasn’t the same without him.
A new woman joined their Club. She overheard the guys talking about their golf round.
She said, “You know, I used to play on my golf team in college and I was pretty good.
Would you mind if I joined you next week?”
The three guys looked at each other. Not one of them wanted to say ‘yes’,
but she had them on the spot.
Finally, one man said it would be okay, but they would be starting early – at 6:30 a.m.
He figured the early tee-time would discourage her. (As if)
The woman said this may be a problem, and asked if she could be up to 15 minutes late.
They rolled their eyes, but said okay.
She smiled and said, “Good, I’ll be there at 6:30 or 6:45.”
She showed up at 6:30 sharp, and beat all three of them with an Eye opening 2-under par round.
She was fun and a pleasant person, and the guys were impressed.
Back at the clubhouse, they congratulated her and invited her back the next week.
She smiled, and said, “I’ll be there at 6:30 or 6:45.”
The next week she again showed up at 6:30 sharp. Only this time, she played left-handed.
The three guys were incredulous as she still beat them with an even par round, despite playing with her off-hand.
They were totally amazed.
They couldn’t figure her out.
She was again very pleasant and didn’t seem to be purposely showing them up.
They invited her back again, but each man harboured a burning desire to beat her. (Really?)
The third week, the guys had their game faces on.
But this time, she was 15 minutes late, which made the guys irritable.
This week the lady played right-handed, and narrowly beat all three of them.
The men mused that her late arrival was due to petty gamesmanship on her part.
However, she was so gracious and so complimentary of their strong play, they couldn’t hold a grudge.
Back in the clubhouse, all three guys were shaking their heads.
This woman was a riddle no one could figure out.
They had a couple of beers, and finally, one of the men asked her point blank,
“How do you decide if you’re going to golf right-handed or left-handed?”
The lady blushed, and grinned. “That’s easy,” she said. “When my Dad taught me to play golf,
I learned I was ambidextrous. I like to switch back and forth.
When I got married after college, I discovered my husband always sleeps in the nude.
From then on, I developed a silly habit.
Right before I left in the morning for golf practice, I would pull the covers off him.
If his you-know-what was pointing to the right, I golfed right-handed;
if it was pointed to the left, I golfed left-handed.”
The guys on the team thought this was hysterical.
Astonished at this bizarre information, one of the guys shot back,
“But what if it’s pointing straight up?”
>
She said,
*> *
*> *
“Then, I’m fifteen minutes late.”
The lesson? NEVER miss an OPPORTUNITY. Be creative in your approach to business, leisure, love and life and more often than not, you’ll come out a winner
Which poses the next question …
To Jump or Not to Jump? …
Social Branding
In the following newsletters (and next few weeks) I’m going to share with you my secret to ‘A Leap of Brand’. I intend to look into company brand, product brand and personal brand – sharing my own story, successes and examples, along with those of other companies and people; some of whom I’ve worked with – posing and discussing a series of stuff throughout the ‘Leap of Brand’ series:
A Leap of Brand …
Part 1: To Jump or Not to Jump?
Part 2: To “Brand,You” or Not to “Brand,You”?
Part 3: To Re-brand or Not to Re-brand?
In support of these wee articles, you will find The Naked Lawyer (published 2010; best-seller 2011 and 2012) has dedicated practical volumes on branding and using social media & social networking to increase the profile and reputation of your brand and firm; whether you’re talking “Brand,Firm”, “Brand,Product” or “Brand,You”.
Special offer: The Naked Lawyer eBook, now ONLY £20+VAT (if applicable).
Tomorrow’s Lawyers and The Naked Lawyer
Tomorrow’s Lawyers (2013) is Professor Richard Susskind’s latest book about the future of legal services, wherein he predicts that legal markets will be further liberalized, with new jobs, and new employers, for lawyers. This book is very much about WHAT we can expect the role of lawyers to be like in a very different legal landscape where Professor Richard Susskind envisages it is set to change more radically over the next twenty years than over the last two hundred.
Check it out here along with cracking reviews. My review entitled “The Age of Unlawyering” is out soon!
The Naked Lawyer (2010) is the first in a series of books by yours truly. The Naked Lawyer is very much about HOW lawyers of all types will succeed in this radically different legal world, in particular, The Hybrid Lawyer, which Richard Susskind identifies in Tomorrow’s Lawyers (2013). The Naked Lawyer is recommended and mentioned in Tomorrow’s Lawyers along with only a handful of select books as the go to literature on the future of legal services.
The Naked Lawyer has gone global. She’s pranced on every land mass. The EBook has been bought on every continent by entrepreneurs, lawyers, professionals, marketing, business development, sales, social media specialists and more…
She’s been checked out by Magic Circle law firms through to solopreneur lawyers and students in the UK and Top 20 USA law firms and Aussie firms.
She’s even been quoted in The Times newspaper (London) a couple of times during 2012, included by Dr Silvia Hodges (lecturer at Harvard Law School and Fordham Law School, NY, USA) in her Law Firm Marketing course, AND passed around Oxford University!
So, if your ambition is to be one of The Hot 100 (or even one of the warm 1,000,000) then start dancing with The Naked Lawyer. I’m confident she will show you a handful of hot new steps whilst making your toes curl.
The Naked Lawyer – A 2011 & 2012 best-seller and still in demand! If you haven’t got your copy yet – now is the time!
Social media and social networking
While we’re on this theme of ‘To Jump or Not to Jump?’ it’s fair to say that social media and social networking is still viewed with suspicion by many and/or it’s not used effectively by the vast majority in achieving sales. But here’s the thing:
- More online exposure means more customers (source: BloggingPro – Use of Social Media by law firms)
- 22% of consumers use social media to find a lawyer (source: Lexis Nexis research)
- Twitter and Facebook are the new golf course (source: Legal Futures – including research by MLT)
- 2013 on line marketing trends:
- Campaigns fade out, real-time marketing is in
- Inbound marketing grows enterprise wide
- Know Thy Customer – beyond CRM systems
- Marketing becomes more accountable for revenue generation
- Social media gets integrated
- Be mobile or fall behind
- Social and content impact SEO even more
- Marketing speaks like a human
- Inbound, not automation, becomes priority
- Outbound marketing loses traction
(source: HubSpot) Forrestor research print-out re social brand – 20 Marketing Trends 2013)
- 50% of web sales to occur via social media by 2015 (source: Mashable)
- The Future is Digital (source: Business Insider)
- Ban internal emails – the move to social media instead to help with increased productivity (source: Yahoo News)
- Social networking is in wide use around the world (source: Entrepreneur Country)
- Saucy apps can keep lawyers up-to-date via @TheNewLawyer (source: The New Lawyer)
- Social media and social networking is causing lots of juicy legal work. For example, the latest news to break includes Facebook sued by a Dutch patent-holding company over ‘like’ feature. Interesting piece by @GlobalLegalPost
- Social Media & Social Networking helps you compete against existing players and newcomers, even against the non-lawyers who are aiming to rule the world. For example, the latest legal start-up kiddie in lawlaw land is LegalVision. Sounds like more of the same as @LegalZoom @RiverviewLaw @RocketLawyer and @BrilliantLaw to me…
- Question: How would you go about finding a legal service provider?
Answer: 24% of consumers & businesses would search the web first.
(source: “What Clients Really want from A Legal Service Provider” (hardcopy report) – by Microsoft, NatWest, Peppermint Technology, Legal Technology Insider, Legal Futures – 2012).
- Question: Businesses, if you were purchasing legal advice, how important would you consider the following 6 factors?
Answer: 53% Know & Trust a lawyer; 19% recommended by someone; 17% quality & promptness of service; 6% price; 3% office location; 2% trusted brand name (firm brand last).
(source: “What Clients Really want from A Legal Service Provider” (hardcopy report) – by Microsoft, NatWest, Peppermint
Technology, Legal Technology Insider, Legal Futures – 2012).
- In the UK the courts have deemed that an employee’s LinkedIn contacts belong to the company. Accordingly, why wouldn’t you encourage your employees to use this social network?
- Eversheds and Clyde & Co have been training associates & partners since November 2012 in the use of social media (source: The Lawyer 2013). Notably they haven’t got any results from it, yet. It may well be because of this…
- More than 50% of clients consider law firms to be ineffective in their use of social media and over a third of clients say firms’ use of intranets, extranets and digital media is ineffective. A recent article by FT.com has highlighted social media as a blind spot for law firms.
- A series of articles on the subject by yours truly published in legal, business and mainstream press.
The lesson and the reality? Social media and social networking are simply tools. It’s what you do with them that will get you the results you’re looking for. Underpinning social media and social networking with effective marketing, business development, branding (positioning), sales, communication, behavioural and client/customer relations techniques will help you succeed where others have failed.
As it’s intimacy and service which matters most to clients (George Beaton research, amongst others) that’s where your focus ought to be, AND, making the right choice in relation to who is best to support you in your efforts at the right time.
Frankly, if you have a consultant working with you and you haven’t seen ROI within 3 months from your social media and social networking activity, in true Alan Sugar style I’d be saying “You’re fired!” You ought to be seeing results to your bottom line within this time-frame… if you’re doing it right.
Some firms and people I’ve worked with have flogged as much as they can from existing clients, databases and contacts ‘in the old way’ using traditional methods whilst ignoring dynamic social media and social networking (or paying lip service to it) in their desire for growth. They’ve been sophisticated and moderately successful in their approach as the Business Development and/or Marketing teams have done a fantastic support role to their lawyers and firm. But, now they’re looking to achieve growth through building NEW relationships, new clients and new work in existing markets and niches; and even in NEW markets and new niches using ‘new’ strategies and tools.
Renowned science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke said that “any significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arguably social media and social networking is the externality of advanced technology. And it can produce magical results. Six figure+, magical instructions even.
So, let the magic begin! Don’t hesitate any longer. Jump!
Chances are you’re already behind the trend, curve, competition and times. Quoting The Lawyer magazine / website : “There will be plenty of time to pick over what went wrong for Cobbetts exactly, but what is already clear is that this is another clear sign that you can’t stay still in this market without falling behind.” Furthermore, a commentator on The Lawyer web site stated: “my experience is that whilst the firm had some good people, it also had more than its fair share of dull, uninspiring plodders — and in this market that is not going to be enough to see you prosper.”
Nuff said.
Err… just a thought … before you jump … Contact me. Here’s WHY !
If you’re interested in understanding how I can help you build up the profile and reputation of your company through making your people more visible with the goal of winning more work for your company in your niche areas using branding, social media and social networking then simply ROAR!
Drop me a quick email or buzz me on 07793 510104.
However, duly note, you may need to leave me a message as I may well be 15 minutes late
Here’s how I can assist you:
The Naked Lawyer “Practically Uncovered” – a generic half day or full day on Branding, Social Media & Social Network workshop including The Naked Lawyer eBook for ALL delegates – beginner to advanced level – all about strategy, theory and practice. Your competitors are getting bottom line £/$ results, you ought to be too!
The ROAR Experience Social Media Programme – a bespoke programme (from half a day to 10 days) tailored to each individual within your firm, focusing on increasing the profile, reputation, personal brand, firm brand and use of Social Media and Social Networking to attract clients and keep them. This entails a variety of workshops bespoke to your company and individual requirements – from basic to advanced level – whether delivered remotely or face to face as half days, full days or more over a period of time fitting to your needs.
The ROAR Experience Sales Programme – a 3 to 12 month in depth all encompassing marketing, business development, branding and sales programme, including personal branding and social media and social networking.
Speaking gigs – check out events I’m speaking and engaging in throughout 2013.
Consulting gigs – bespoke 121 and group work; simply contact me to discuss.
Reading – check out The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How to market, Brand and Sell YOU!
My second book will be out later this year. I haven’t decided on the title yet. It may well be The Naked Lawyer 2: Fit For Digital Service, or perhaps something cheekier if The Naked Lawyer has her naughty way. We’ll see I’m also honoured to be a contributor / case study in a book about entrepreneurship and human behaviour which is also due out later this year. I will, of course, share this with you at the time.
Also, check out the experts who work alongside me in joined-up projects at EntrepreneurLawyer.
Dirty weekend
Oh, I almost forgot. For all of you sporting and fitness mad nutters – I include myself in this, I hasten to add – The Naked Lawyer wishes to share with you a fabulous exhilarating event. Check out this “DirtyWeekend”. She challenges you to see just how durable your construction is
2013 musings for business, leisure, love and life,
particularly pertinent on Valentine’s Day …
If you’ve lost someone special in business or love:
“Before blaming me for being away, ask yourself what did you do to make me stay?”…
If you get a knock back in business or love:
“Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’”…
And in true Naked Lawyer style, whatever your circumstance, simply enjoy this Valentine’s Day:
“Dance like nobody’s watching, Love like you’ll never be hurt, Sing like nobody’s listening. Live like it’s heaven on earth.”
Sing along with me now as The Naked Lawyer dances…
The Entrepreneur Lawyer
Author of The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How To Market, Brand & Sell YOU!
Please do feel free to comment on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts…
It happens often…
Posted on October 30th, 2012 by Chrissie
Guest blog post by Christian Lister, The SME Ambassador
seeking private equity arrangements, turnaround investments or venture capital.
It happens ofte
n.
People and companies send me business plans ultimately seeking private equity arrangements, turnaround investments or venture capital.
I don’t *do* any of the above, but I *do* know a vast amount of people and companies that make a living from small business investments.
I’ve never turned down a request to look at a business plan but I have responded with observations which may save them time later on if they have a successful introduction.
My observations are generally based on experience and a good dose of common sense.
For example, if you’re seeking:
Turnaround investment: the equity partner will look for assets (buildings, plant/machinery etc) that the company owns, if the company has no assets the deal is (its already risky) riskier. They will expect a significant share stake. Be honest about the companies position, be honest about head-winds the company (or indeed the industry) is facing – the investors are about to become your business partners. Remember that above all else.
Growth Capital: your order book is brimming with potential income and you need to raise capital. Be honest about the companies position, be honest about head-winds the company (or indeed the industry) is facing, know everything about your competitors – the investors are about to become your business partners. Remember that above all else.
Venture Capital: you have the *next* big thing, it’s a zillion £/$ money spinner, the world won’t be able to function without it. Ok, this does happen (rarely) – the 1st question you will be asked is about the competition – never say you don’t have any – everybody does. Be honest and be realistic. Know the market, know the competitors – spend more time researching these elements (not just a quick google, bing search).
Level of investment required: apply common sense and take words offered in the last 3 examples and then apply another layer of common sense. If your business needs turnaround investment, think small and short term are beautiful. Don’t ask for £1 million over 5 years, when £500,000 over 3 years with a clear exit for you and the investor will suffice.
Investors don’t usually look beyond 5 years and a potential profitable exit. Investors are not your best friends – this is how *they* make a living and any emotional ties you have with your business, trust me, they won’t have them. Passion for your business is key, investors are investing in you as well as your business – but don’t blur the lines. It’s all about financial results and financial returns.
My final snippet of advice: if non-disclosure agreements and non-compete agreements are not offered by *anyone* during the initial outset (even if the promise of money is on the table) walk away. Protect your business.
Christian Lister
The SME Ambassador
International Director at The Genesis Initiative. Director X-Press Legal Services. Chairman IPSA. UK affiliate, Steering Committee and Vice President of Europe at International Small Business Congress.
The Lawyer as Entrepreneur: Advice on Starting Your Own Law Firm
Posted on September 29th, 2012 by Chrissie
In this guest blog post I was delighted and honoured to be interviewed by Preston Clark. Preston is a New York based attorney, business consultant and creator of TheLawInsider.com law blog. Business Insider ranks TheLawInsider.com amongst the Top 15 Most Influential Law Blogs.
A version of this article / interview was first published in TheLawInsider.com 29th September 2012.
By Preston Clark
For an attorney, the decision to go solo is never an easy one. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran of the legal profession or a brand new JD, you will face many of the same challenges when starting a law firm. Traditional legal education does not teach attorneys to be entrepreneurs—and let’s face it, that’s exactly what it means to go solo. Marketing, branding, client acquisition, client management, customer service, hiring, billing, accounting, corporate structure—the to-do list of a solo practitioner is vast and complex. With so many of our readers representing this new and bold group of attorney-entrepreneurs, we wanted to get some advice from an expert.
Chrissie Lightfoot is a UK based attorney turned entrepreneur. She is CEO of legal consultancy EntrepreneurLawyer Limited, author of the pioneering, groundbreaking book ‘The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How to Market, Brand and Sell YOU!’ and creator of the ROAR Experience sales programme.
TheLawInsider.com invited Chrissie Lightfoot to address a few of the most common questions we hear from our readers.
What’s more important: a nice office or a nice website?
“There was a piece of in depth research entitled ‘What clients really want from a legal service provider’ carried out by Peppermint Technology, Legal Futures and Legal Technology Insider (supported by Microsoft, Epoq, Oyez and NatWest) and published in Autumn 2011; arguably it was the first fully comprehensive research into the role of the customer experience in legal services post the Legal Services Act in the UK.
Those participating in the research were asked ‘if you were purchasing legal advice, how important would you consider the following factors?, and included ‘where their office is located’ as one of the six factors. Only 3% of respondents considered office location, and arguably ‘nice office’ as an important factor. Granted, office location is not the same as ‘nice office’, however, 53% of respondents replied ‘I know and trust a partner that works for the firm’ as being of prime importance.
Furthermore, when participants were asked: ‘how would you go about finding a legal service provider?, 24% replied ‘I would search the web’. In my professional opinion, if a ‘nice website’ which is efficiently optimised through quality SEO (search engine optimisation) and SMO (social media optimisation) can effectively convey the knowledge, trust and experience of the firm’s individual lawyers to match what the client is looking for in relation to the potential expertise provided by the firm through its individual lawyers, whilst at the same time assist in a quality customer experience even before the first ‘human’ contact, then I believe that a ‘nice website’ would trump ‘nice office’.
However, what I truly believes trumps both ‘nice office’ and ‘nice website’, is a bit of ‘nice real estate’ of crucial importance. That is, that which is the most valuable (and of value) for both client and lawyer / law firm; the intellectual property, intellectual capital and emotional intelligence which lies in between the individual lawyer’s ears; human capital.
Arguably, first and foremost, a client (prospective and existing) is attracted to the ‘trusted advisor’ personal brand of the human being. In my humble professional opinion the ‘niceness’ of bricks and mortar and ‘prettiness’ of a firm’s website is irrelevant in a digital age when knowledge, trust, experience and expertise can be conveyed face to face (in any physical or virtual environment) or at the interface through mobile devices. “
What’s the first hire a solo practitioner should make?
“That’s a tough question. I believe it will depend very much on the individual strengths, talent, skills, experience and expertise of the solo practitioner. As a solo practitioner you have to wear a multitude of hats and carry out many roles.
As I’m a great believer and advocate of playing to one’s strengths I would say that we must always focus on our strengths and natural talent and therefore perform those particular activities and skills. Accordingly, the first hire must bring to the party those strengths and natural talents which we lack, meaning the duo team dynamic is strength on strength. There’s no place for Jo Average and mediocrity in this unforgiving legal world, topsy-turvy global economy and challenging business environment. However, I would suggest that no company, whether a one man band or multi-national global law firm can exist without clients / customers. Accordingly, I’d have to say that the first hire ought to have client attraction and client retention skills aka the making of a rainmaker with a passion, energy and enthusiasm for this industry and the type of client, sector and service area the solo lawyer practices in.”
How do you become a rainmaker in a 2.0 environment?
“It is, and will continue to be, a volatile, highly competitive, price sensitive, technological, digitised, dynamic and challenging legal market. Accordingly, it is imperative that we lawyers learn (quickly) how to market, brand and sell ourselves and see this as an integral part of our professional development rather than pay lip service to it. This requires (initially) a paradigm shift in addressing what one’s every day role is, and appreciating that rainmaking (and business development) is a key role for each and every one of us at whatever stage of our career.
I would suggest that the best way to become a rainmaker in a 2.0 environment is to develop key entrepreneurial, intrapreneurial (being entrepreneurial within the workplace), technological / digital, commercial and rainmaking skills as quickly as possible. Top this off with extraordinary customer service, relationship marketing (Unmarketing), relationship sales (Unsales), communication, social media and social networking skills – aka rainmaker skills – and combine with ‘empathy’, the ability to put oneself in the client’s / customer’s shoes, and we – tomorrow’s lawyers – will be prepared for the challenges of today.
For example, a successful rainmaker in a 2.0 environment will use a mix of all of the above, plus traditional marketing, sales, PR and communication skills, and then take full advantage in using sophisticated ‘business development technology’ within innovative law firms in the form of Customer Relationship Management (and Client Analytics) systems alongside pricing and billing systems to monitor, analyse, identify and continually ‘touch’ clients of value (existing and potential).
If we take the ROAR programme – a (human) professional development sales programme which unlocks rainmaker and commercial potential (in essence it is a face to face personal brand, marketing and sales course which includes social media and social networking strategies and activity – 2.0 environment) – it is possible to record activity and data, track, monitor, analyse, re-focus and prompt activity (during the course and up to 6 months after – and beyond) using software. Such a rainmaker programme which focuses on developing the human behaviour aspect of becoming a rainmaker lawyer when combined with highly sophisticated technological systems can be highly beneficial to aid informed decision-making in relation to tendering, pitching, target marketing (targeting companies and individuals within them), sectorisation and niche focus, the best use of marketing budgets and evaluation of growth plans. Providers of such systems include Sky Analytics, Peppermint Technology, Winscribe, Salesforce and Redwood Analytics / Lexis Nexis (the granddaddy which integrates the whole lot).
If, as lawyers, we are to continually (and effectively) engage with prospective and existing clients and therein build extraordinary client relationships to achieve repeat instructions of value for ourselves, our colleagues and businesses of law, then I believe it is crucial to have these kind of rainmaker skills. Furthermore, to be a highly successful rainmaker lawyer in a 2.0 environment of paramount importance is the ability to be able to deliver extraordinary client service by exploiting technology and using digital communication methods, processes and tools.“ Chrissie Lightfoot – The Entrepreneur Lawyer.
Interview by Preston Clark
A New York based attorney, business consultant and creator of TheLawInsider.com law blog.
Chrissie Lightfoot
The Entrepreneur Lawyer, CEO EntrepreneurLawyer Limited.
Author of The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How To Market, Brand & Sell YOU!
Please do feel free to comment on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts…
LawTech Europe, Richard Susskind, Grisham & Rumpole…
Posted on September 5th, 2012 by Chrissie
Guest blog post by Charles Christian of The Orange Rag & Legal Technology Insider. This blog post originally appeared on cialis online pharmacy uk
.legaltechnology.com/the-orange-rag-blog/lawtech-europe-preview-susskind-to-warn-of-radically-changed-legal-world/”>The Orange Rag blog September 4th 2012 entitled “LawTech Europe Preview: Susskind to warn of radically changed legal world”
With just over two months to go before the inaugural LawTech Europe Congress opens its doors to delegates in Prague on Monday 12th November, the event’s keynote speaker – the legal futurist Professor Richard Susskind – has been outlining some of the ideas he will be discussing.
Taking a lead from his new book Tomorrow’s Lawyers (to be published in January 2013) Susskind predicts fundamental and irreversible changes in the world of law. For Susskind, best-selling author of The End of Lawyers? the future of legal service will be neither Grisham nor Rumpole. Instead, it will be a world of virtual courts, internet-based global legal businesses, online document production, commoditized service, legal process outsourcing, and web-based simulated practice. Legal markets will be liberalized, with new jobs for lawyers and new employers too. Susskind describes his new book as a definitive guide to this future – for young and aspiring lawyers, and for all who want to modernize our legal and justice systems. It introduces the new legal landscape and offers practical guidance for those who intend to build careers and businesses in law.
In his keynote, Susskind will identify the key drivers of change, such as the economic downturn, and considers how these will impact on the legal marketplace. He will also sketch out the new legal landscape as he predicts it, including the changing role of law firms, and inhouse lawyers, and the coming of virtual hearings and online dispute resolution. And he will also focus on the prospects for aspiring lawyers, predicting what new jobs and new employers there will be, and equipping prospective lawyers with penetrating questions to put to their current and future employers. This keynote will be the essential introduction to the future of law for those who want to succeed in the rapidly changing legal landscape.
The event’s organiser – Frederick Gyebi-Ababio, managing director of eDiscovery Europe – adds “With two months still to go, we are already ahead of target on delegate numbers, with registrations coming in from lawyers, inhouse legal counsel, government law and justice departments, firms of auditors and technology companies from Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK, as well as the Czech Republic. We even have some delegates travelling in from as far afield as the United States and the United Arab Emirates. This event really will put Prague at the heart of Europe’s legal technology community.”
Please visit http://www.lawtecheuropecongress.com for more information and event registration.
About LawTech Europe Congress: Its mission is to create a cutting edge legal technology educational forum that addresses three core areas which are E-Discovery, Forensics and Legal Technology. These disciplines are at the forefront of organizational operations globally and LTEC’s guiding philosophy is to embrace solutions to empower law firms and corporations to reduce risk, limit the potential for expensive litigation exposure and to increase overall competence within the legal industry. This philosophy is vital in generating significant awareness for legal professionals and the organizations they support. Delegates will be engaged throughout our events with advanced presentations, panel sessions, hands on workshops, roundtable discussions and private demonstrations of the latest e-discovery solutions. Our company strategically focuses on best practices and how they fit into upholding a high level educational structure. LawTech Europe Congress has set out to provide relevant solutions and advice to legal professionals and corporations today.
The Orange Rag & Legal Technology Insider
PS: A message from yours truly, Chrissie Lightfoot. I’m honoured to be a speaker / panelist and designated tweeter for #LTEC2012 #LawTechEurope. I’d love to see you here!
Fifty shades of rainmaker
Posted on July 24th, 2012 by Chrissie
Lawyers who can’t bring in clients had better think about another career as the evolving, cut-throat world of 21st century business law won’t carry any passengers, I reckon…
The usually suave, confidant, handsome lawyer cadled his pounding head with shaking hands as he sat nervously, elbows jarring agonisingly into his knees. Rocking gently on the sofa in the spacious corner office he eventually looked up. Fixing his gaze on the heaving buxom breasts of the senior partner he found comfort, solace and courage for a fleeting moment. Gradually he raised his chin and began slowly to lower his hands, stroking his prominent cheek bones and chiselled jaw before soothing his aching legs with feverish palms in a circular deep massage motion.
But then he caught a glimpse of the pulsating vein in her forehead throbbing aggressively. The blood drained from his tanned face turning it ashen as he stared into the senior partner’s cold, steel blue, motionless eyes and with a twisted and pained expression spluttered: ‘I’m fifty shades of ****ed up.’
This is not a scene from Madame Bovary, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, or the ubiquitous erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey, which every desperate housewife and her pampered pouting pooch is currently yapping on about. However, this scene could be a scenario played out in the crumbling towers of the next Dewey & LeBoeuf.
Such is the media frenzy buzzing around the fall-out of Fifty Shades that Angela Gorton, an employment lawyer at Lupton Fawcett LLP, Leeds (UK), was moved to write a briefing on the legal queries in relation to ‘the acceptable face of porn in the office.’
Rainmaking and sex
Those having succumbed to dipping a quivering finger into Fifty Shades will recall that the story revolves around the sexual life of a naive 20-something virgin (yeah, right). She becomes entwined in an unusual arrangement with an erotically experienced billionaire who has devilishly dominant/submissive tendencies; that’s putting it politely.
I confess, with regret, I’ve read Fifty Shades of Grey. It was utterly dull — romantically, sexually and erotically. I’ve text-messaged saucier seductive sensual prose to my lover. Frankly, I’d rather paw over an annual subscription of Viz before being subjected to more of the Fifty Shades trilogy. And yet, the author did manage – albeit apparently inadvertently — to spark the synapses of my professional rainmaker lawyer grey matter. I was stimulated into thinking about the legal profession and began to draw analogies between rainmaking and sex. Sad, but true.
Why and how we approach the two activities are pretty much the same. It’s all about confidence, seduction, performance, delivery and follow-on. Whether you’re a poor rainmaker, an extraordinary rainmaker, or any of the fifty shades in between, will depend on your thoughts, feelings and actions.
Poor rainmaking is like unfulfilling sex – at least for one of the parties involved. Don’t really care what the other person thinks or feels; haven’t got a clue what you’re doing; no real effort or interest. The whole experience is over in a jiffy. And it’s all about pure self-interest.
Good rainmaking is pretty much like good sex. It’s not the tools that matter, it’s what you do with them that counts – a bit like identifying a good bottle of champagne not by the size of the bottle, but by the size of the cork. That is: focus, quality and application.
Relationship broker prowess
Great rainmaking – like great sex – involves spending lots of time exploring, researching and thinking about what you could do next to delight. And by being attentive whilst adventuring and pleasuring and doing lots of giving, giving and giving some more. Extraordinary rainmaking involves continual mind focus, continual nurturing, continual stimulation, continual discovery, continual delivery, continual follow on, continual improvement, continual innovation, continual research and development. The outcome inevitably is that both parties, client and lawyer, are more than satisfied.
In the highly competitive, digital, technological, data driven and client-centric global legal world, where it is quickly becoming apparent there will only be three kinds of lawyer – 1) unemployed 2) support worker to machine systems (low paid) and 3) super lawyer (highly paid ‘relationship broker’ with business savvy and rainmaking prowess) – it’s a no-brainer that the businesses of law searching for entry, growth and exit will wish to capture, harness, restrain, unlock and unleash (yes, pun intended) the talent of fifty shades of rainmaker and implement that lawyer’s sexy business model.
The Dewey saga illustrates that the days when law firms could rely on hiring a select handful of rainmakers, usually at partner and/or senior associate level, are over. Today, law firms want all their lawyer recruits to be rainmakers. Accordingly, gone too are the days of winning over clients in a three phase process at different stages of your legal career as grinder, binder or finder (The National Law Journal, 11 July, 2012), whether in the guise of loser, cruiser or dynamo within ‘the firm’.
Big bad partner meets dragon
Prima donnas occupying the big corner office the likes of the Big Bad Partner, who are, by their own admission, continually perpetuating their ‘never ending circle of self-loathing and megalomania’ by being the ‘scourge of every admin, secretary, paralegal, trainee, assistant and associate,’ regularly growling ‘get back to work for god’s sake. My PEP’s sagging’ (twitter @bigbadpartner), have had their day too.
These are potentially the halcyon days wherein law as a people business promulgating work that ‘can only (truly) be done by lawyers’ (The Times, 5 July, 2012), particular in non-commoditised market sectors, cries out for every lawyer involved in the execution and delivery of legal advice to become Fifty Shades of Rainmaker Lawyer servicing the plethora of existing and latent domineering clients.
Being a shade of rainmaker lawyer will be the only option for the expectant highly paid lawyer and ambitious business of law where innovative new entrants and investors the likes of Ajaz Ahmed (founder of Legal365) and James Caan (Dragons’ Den celebrity entrepreneur, investor in Knights) with their sexy entrepreneurial approaches respectively profess ‘this (legal) market is too big and too valuable to ignore’ (#LawTechCampLondon, 29 June, 2012) and ‘let’s get closer, rather than having one night stands’ (The Times, 5 July, 2012) in reference to client relationships.
Such is the increasing desire for law firms to recruit rainmaker lawyers that Sarah Kaye, chief executive of London-based recruitment agency SK Partners, has cut a niche in successfully placing fifty shades of rainmaker lawyer. Ms Kaye maintains that despite the continuing harsh economic climate, ‘there’s a lot of activity in the market at the moment for lawyers with rainmaking skills. But ensuring the right match of firm to rainmaker-lawyer and vice versa requires careful consideration and due diligence by all those involved’.
She continues: ‘Generally what rainmaker-lawyers will be seeking – and what excites them — is a real opportunity to work within a well-managed and supportive firm willing to invest in them, where there is an inherent culture of cross selling between the partners, and not just a firm that only wants them for what they can bring to the table in terms of clients and numbers. A genuine rainmaker-lawyer is a very worthwhile investment because these lawyers are well connected, they have excellent people skills, are switched on and know exactly what to do to develop business.’
Survival and growth
What do legal sector businesses need to do to attract the fifty shades of rainmaker lawyer? Ms Kaye comments: ‘It’s not enough to sell the firm and offer the lawyers a remuneration package based on what they can bring and introduce. Law firms need to demonstrate their commitment to the investment by specifically identifying how they will support the lawyer once that person is on board. Then everyone wins.’
Survival and growth in the 21st century for the businesses of law will depend on the right mix, positioning, handling and nurturing of rainmaker-lawyers. Similarly, how rainmaker-lawyers apply their rainmaking escapades will determine their individual, team and firm’s success in growing and potentially raising capital.
Maya Angelou, a celebrated poet and novelist hailed as a global renaissance woman, believes ‘there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.’ I can empathise. Can you? Perhaps your rainmaker story is yet to unfold. Perhaps it’s already over. During the journey the pain is real. The joy is real too.
In their chosen career paths and professional relationships with colleagues and clients, extraordinary rainmaker-lawyers have a knack for achieving the delicate blended role of leader and follower, master and servant, being disruptive while also sustaining, being both dominant and submissive.
Successful law firms and businesses of law will embrace the fifty shades of rainmaker-lawyer and tomorrow’s lawyer will be at the very least, one shade of rainmaker. It is time to take steps to pre-empt the possibility of the day arriving when you may genuinely gasp ‘I’m fifty shades of ****ed up’; begin by asking yourself: ‘What shade of rainmaker lawyer am I?’
The Entrepreneur Lawyer, CEO EntrepreneurLawyer Limited.
Author of The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How To Market, Brand & Sell YOU!
(AKA Fifty Shades of Rainmaker)
A version of this article originally appeared in The Global Legal Post 24 July 2012.
Please do feel free to comment on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts…
A little dominant cross-selling
Posted on June 29th, 2012 by Chrissie
Guest blog post by Christian Lister, The SME Ambassador
*gather round all you legal types, take your positions – divorce lawyers to the back, personal injury and
family lawyers in the middle, conveyancers come to the front, business lawyers down the sides please*
*taps baton*
*raises baton*
And sing…………… (to the tune of Edwin Starr’s WAR)
LAW! – huh-yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
LAW! huh-yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it again y’all
LAW! huh good God
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me?
And rest………. *lowers baton*
How did that feel? Bashing the profession…………..
As Sir Winston Churchill once said “If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.”
From a citizen point of view he was absolutely bang on the money, but from a person schooled in the legal arts – regulations are your life. You are all political junkies, like it or not. New laws, redrafted laws, insane laws, mundane laws – you are a purveyor of them all.
You are also a superhero.
Now just before you don the spidey suit and rush out in to the town upholding justice, let me tell you this: your marks and spencers sartorial suit (for the men) or your chic styled suit with handbag and jimmy choo’s (for the ladies) will do just fine.
When you woke this morning and applied your corporate armour did you stop and think about your role in society?
I bet you didn’t, but you should have because today and tomorrow and the days ahead you are someone’s saviour. You will help and assist with all the aspects of a person’s legal life…..it might be – a divorce, buying a house, assisting with a merger, winning compensation or jailing a criminal.
So how are we feeling now? Special.
In 303 words we have had a sing-song and established that you are a superhero, as Chrissie says “let’s get naked” – woohoo! I want to go one further – lets role play.
Let’s play, master and servant. Let’s play dominant and submissive. Let’s play legal guru and client.
Scene 1:
Client enters legal guru’s office to complete a conveyancing matter.
LG: Well Mr Lister, the searches are clear, the funds are on deposit and the transaction will complete this Friday, all I need you to do is sign a few forms, ok?
Client: Excellent news, where do I sign?
LG: On pages 3, 5 and 9, I’ve put a little cross by each section. Here use my pen.
Client: All done, thank you ever so much.
LG: My pleasure. Good bye.
Client: Good bye.
Sound familiar? Another happy client……….but was the client ‘satisfied’? Did you dominate?
The answer to was the client ‘satisfied’ is we don’t know and the answer to ‘did you dominate’ is NO. If you did dominate, then we would know if the client was ‘satisfied’.
*raises baton*
Okay, people, gather round I’m going to talk dirty to you.
You’re a business.
You may be a micro business (5 employees or less) you may be a small or medium sized business but you need to think ‘business’ and ‘superhero’ at the same time.
Now I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking that I’m going to say “Scene 1 should have ended with you saying, is there anything else I can do for you Mr. Client?”
And you would be right-ish – add in your domination, be direct and we have cracked it.
Scene 2:
Client enters legal guru’s office to complete a conveyancing matter.
LG: Well Mr. Lister, the searches are clear, the funds are on deposit and the transaction will complete this Friday, all I need you to do is sign a few forms, ok?
Client: Excellent news, where do I sign?
LG: On pages 3, 5 and 9, I’ve put a little cross by each section. Here use my pen.
Client: All done, thank you ever so much.
LG: My pleasure, there is just one other matter, do you have a will?
Client: No.
LG: Let me talk you through it…
The client isn’t going anywhere; they trust you and your ‘superhero’ services.
So that’s a conveyance fee and a will fee now added to the bottom line. A cross sale.
Yes it’s simplistic, yet seldom done.
Which is why micro or SME law firms are not enjoying the realization of Alternative Business Structures – or as I see ABS – law firms brining in people who can sell additional products?
Accountants do it all the time compiling year end statements for your business and then offering to look after your personal tax affairs. How often have you said no when the accountant offered the extra service?
Was there an element of domination when the extra service was offered, YES.
The legal landscape is changing, but it’s not changing rapidly….you still have time.
ABS and new entrants like RocketLawyer or LegalZoom are long term plays in the market. They are cultural changes.
The generations behind us are internet based buyers (£77 billion last year was spent online in the UK) and downloading legal documents to self complete will eventually become the norm but those forms still need checking, some will risk it and not bother – you can see the media headlines now.
Your superhero status will remain but what about your business?
ABS, DIY-law, cultural changes and regulations are a few of the major hurdles all SME legal firms face and then there’s the BIG one.
This year we celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the European Single Market.
Every Government has ‘certain’ opt-outs but law and legal services are very much in the sights of the EU. The British Legal System is renowned thought the world, however The EU single market is designed to create economies of scale, allow the establishment of Europe-wide commerce and enable faster growth by setting the same rules across the EU and they have been chipping away for 20 years, ok it’s not arriving tomorrow morning but its coming.
So that’s more competition, more innovation and more commoditised prices on top of everything else.
A little dominant cross-selling really shouldn’t seem that daunting, should it?
Christian Lister
The SME Ambassador
International Director at The Genesis Initiative. Director X-Press Legal Services. UK affiliate for International Small Business Council. Chairman IPSA.
