Posted on April 27th, 2012 by Chrissie

This article was first published in The Global Legal Post 27 April 2012 entitled “Connect and survive” and is reproduced with kind permission.

Social media is not just a place for people to share their holiday snaps or keep up with celebrity gossip. Business lawyers need to get chatting and tweeting or risk extinction.

I’m guilty. Guilty beyond reasonable doubt of having an addiction – of being a social media, social networking, social savvy junkie.

And I’m here to defend my case against the cynics who continually persecute and ridicule me and my fellow junkies in the misguided belief that social media is a fad, a trend – a charade even.

How many times have I and fellow travellers had to listen politely to the smug bluster of middle-aged know-alls pompously promulgating the argument that the beneficiaries of social media are limited to dysfunctional teenagers who have lost the ability to communicate by traditional human means, or fading ‘celebrities’ who are trying to generate some temporary public interest in their near-forgotten careers?

Countless times, is the answer. But I submit that we lawyers – and all those working in our law firms – mustn’t be prejudiced by the blinkered views of the frightened or lazy. Instead we should embrace the extraordinary benefits of social media. Why? Because of the simple and practical business phenomenon of the ‘survival of the savviest’.

Joining the dots

Let’s join these dots: global economic crisis, emerging economies, increased competition, population and employment time bombs, stretched resources (economic, physical, environmental), artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, genetics, social networking, the evolution of web 2.0 to 4.0, runaway technological acceleration, working patterns and lifestyle change, consumer sovereignty, spoilt-for-choice clients, too many ‘fat’ law firms, too many lawyers and increasing moves to dispense with lawyers at every level.

In the contemporary business environment, there are only three kinds of lawyer: unemployed, relatively low-paid assembly line workers and top-end super-lawyers. The third category is populated by those with the ability continually to generate income through attracting, relating to and serving clients in the space they occupy for play and work. In other words, cyber-space – social media and social networks.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the American inventor, scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted that by 2010 computers would ‘become essentially invisible – woven into our clothing, embedded in our furniture and environment’. He said they would tap into the ‘world-wide mesh’ and that we’d have wireless internet communication at all times. He was right, as the widespread adoption of smart ‘phones and tablets for both work and leisure demonstrates. And in 2010, Facebook wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg said ‘over the next five years or so, social networking will make it possible to pick any industry and rethink it’.

Playground and office

So let’s consider the legal profession. Because of the ubiquity of the worldwide web and the internet in business, not even the traditionally conservative legal sector has been able to ignore it. Social media has become an integral part of that environment – it is evolving into our 21st-century playground and office space; there are some 1.2 billion active users on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ – totalling a sixth of the world’s population.

Law firm clients, prospective clients, competitors, friends and family use social media. If lawyers do not engage they are going to be excluded from the globally networked society and collaborative community. They will feel ostracised because they will be ignorant of the context in which the seven vices – wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony – are now played out on line. As lawyers, if we hope to represent clients – whether in contentious or non-contentious matters – we’re going to have to understand and empathise with them in the space they frequent.

Social media is a medium through which we can interact on a more personal level with contacts, show-case our professional accomplishments, expand our knowledge, amplify our core messages, start and monitor conversations, find potential customers, carry out public relations, manage our (brand) reputations and provide extraordinary client service by satisfying the expectations of our customers in ‘real-time’.

With social media, a little effort can produce a return of a four, five, or even six-figure instruction, reaching a potential annual seven-figure revenue from social networking activity alone. With potential numbers like those, why wouldn’t we use social media?

The bottom line is that being a successful lawyer in the 21st century requires being sociable in 21st-century media. Lawyers who use the free social media streams will have a higher survival rate. And that’s why, all things considered, I’m happy confessing my guilt as a social savvy junkie. The defence rests.

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…

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Posted on April 9th, 2012 by Chrissie

This article was first published in The Global Legal Post 9 April 2012 entitled “Women Lawyers: A pain in the head” and is reproduced by kind permission.

There’s a perception that the glass ceiling has been shattered by successful female lawyers. It’s wrong, I say — women are still smashing their heads and much vital progress needs to be made.

‘Don’t mind me, I just like legs,’ crooned the male partner to the female trainee lawyer perched nervously on his office sofa. Placing a sweaty hand just above her silky knee, he provocatively slid his fingers down to her ankle and slowly back again. Stroking and caressing continually — he then proceeded to take her through the finer details of boiler clauses and bespoke terms.

This is not an overwrought passage from a romance novel designed to get the heartbeats of middle-aged housewives racing. Or indeed a pastiche of America’s latest television craze, Madmen. It is instead the kind of scene that is still regularly played out in the offices of business law firms — along with a host of other ‘hushed up’ behaviour.

Cracks in the ceiling

Several years ago I conducted some research that resulted in a thesis entitled ‘Relative work, relative leisure; women entrepreneurs in the 1990s’. In it, I firmly concluded that there was no such thing as the glass ceiling. If women were prepared to work thrice as hard, make the right bold choices, bring about the necessary changes in behaviour and ultimately take control of their career journeys, then they could, quite simply, shatter the glass ceiling.

I was wrong.

My research was flawed. I’d failed to interview women in the legal profession. Also, at that time, I’d never worked in it myself, witnessed what actually goes on or met the hoards of highly talented ladies who suffer from sexual harassment, bullying, ‘professional prejudice’ and ‘baby prejudice’. Those who dare to complain endure the daily patronising, megalomaniac, egotistical old boys’ club mantra of ‘if you want to get on in this firm you’d better shut up and wise up’.

In a legal world where clients and prospective clients are being entertained in lap dancing bars and schmoozed by high class escorts to ‘seal the deal’, it’s not uncommon for women lawyers attempting to scale the corporate ladder in London, New York, Sydney and elsewhere to be stone-walled and ostracised in conversations and meetings with male colleagues while they guffaw in their deliberations over which strip (or sex) club their clients would prefer.

Problems and solutions

But should this be the attitude and behaviour we’re proud of as a profession and business? Do all male lawyers behave in this way? Unlikely. Do all female lawyers endure and/or tolerate this kind of behaviour by their male (or female) colleagues? Again, unlikely.

Yet, when I recently posed the question ‘does the glass ceiling exist in our beloved business of law?’ to many female lawyers, the overwhelming response was typified by one reaction. It came from a female city lawyer who has managed to claw her way to partnership in a global law firm, and who also witnesses the daily prejudice against her female assistants and associates. She admitted with a pained expression: ‘I didn’t think it existed…but it does.’

So is there a problem? Yes, definitely. Is there a solution? Yes, there’s always a solution if we — men and women — are prepared to put our egos, ignorance, arrogance and prejudice aside.
In an earlier article I shared the thoughts and predictions from leading futurologists that the world is moving towards a networked global society, typified by hyper-collaboration, return on involvement, an appreciation by clients of emotional intelligence, the importance of human brand, interaction before transaction and a desire for legal advice based on emotion. Arguably, these are just the type of skills in which women lawyers, women partners and women in boardrooms naturally excel; for example, communication, conversation, engagement, involvement, emotion, empathy and relationship marketing (networking).

Girl power

Female entrepreneurs — buyers of legal services – currently account for approximately a third of all entrepreneurs worldwide, and the US Census Bureau predicts that by the year 2025, the share of women entrepreneurship in that country will increase to more than 55 per cent. And the UK-based futurist, Rohit Talwar, predicted in a recent report that by the year 2020, 20 per cent of the US working-age population will be self-employed entrepreneurs.

Where America leads in business, the rest of the world eventually catches up. Therefore, taking account of trends regarding the number of female entrepreneurs worldwide, we’d be wise to temper our attitudes, behaviour and prejudice towards women lawyers. We’d be foolish to ignore the fact that we need talented women in the business of law.

Why? In a networked society and collaborative world where trust, relationships, emotion and humanness are currency, where the number of present and future women clients is set to increase, where clients do business with those they know, like, trust, understand and share common interests; where clients buy legal advice on the basis of emotion, and justify that purchase with logic, it’s a no-brainer.

Fortunately, in adversity there is always opportunity.

Be sure to check out my next article because “well behaved women rarely make history” (Lauren Thatcher Ulrich).

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…

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Posted on April 1st, 2012 by Chrissie

This article was first published in The Global Legal Post 31 March 2012 and is reproduced by kind permission.

Law firms can no longer hope to survive on providing legal advice alone. If they are to thrive in an increasingly technology-driven era, they must add value in the data field – as well as being generally more human.

Gerd Leonhard – described as one of the world’s ‘leading media futurists’ by the Wall Street Journal – confidently suggests that ‘data is now the new oil’. He proclaims passionately that the legal profession is in the content business, the marketing business and, ultimately, the data business. Why? Because the world is headed towards systems of peer-to-peer collaboration, unbundling and fragmentation. Mr Leonhard says: ‘We’re living in a digital society where there is a different world view on control, ownership and authority’.

Hyper-collaboration

The abbreviation RoI once stood for ‘return on investment’; it is now superseded by return on involvement. We are moving from hypercompetition to hyper-collaboration. We’re living and working in the networked society and law firms themselves must be networked. And to be successful in a networked world, the human factor of adding value is essential to how we use information and data. Other sectors – such as finance, insurance, banking and music – are examples of the shift.

Mr Leonhard suggests adding value means focusing on elements such as ‘time and attention, influence and reputation’, in other words, intangibles such as high-end intellectual capital and emotional intelligence.

Ultimately, he suggests, the key is being a human brand, where trust is the new currency, and where the focus is on humanity and being social. Interestingly, he predicts lawyers will be paid by virtual currencies in the future – for example, Facebook credits, as the public rating of lawyers becomes increasingly important in a world where we value interaction before transaction.

UK-based fellow futurist Dr Patrick Dixon agrees. He maintains that while there are current frustrations – for example, the modern world is already digital with digital clients, yet lawyers operate with ‘dinosaur interfaces’ – the future of law will be driven by emotion. He says, ‘what clients want in the future is advice based on emotion’. Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that lawyers themselves have already ‘become rated. If you post a tweet about law, Google will take it seriously’.

Barriers to entry

Nonetheless, concern remains in the legal profession that big branding is still prevalent and causing problems. The managing partner of a midtier UK law firm recently told me: ‘We must not forget that corporate brands provide barriers to entry’. For example, the ‘nobody got fired for buying IBM’ mantra is as applicable to the legal market as it is to any other, and can be seen in operation daily at every level of the legal services market.

But personal – or human – and corporate brands are not mutually exclusive. It is important to view corporate brands simply as the umbrella for multiple human brands in a networked, collaborative world.

Data-focused companies are building, exploiting and nurturing personal brands now in a smart way. This relates to how they use their personal brands and the customer experience within social networks (and social media streams) to leverage and build awareness of the firm’s brand.

It is a networked world and will continue to be. Trust and being human are – and will remain – the reasons clients are attracted to law firm brands. And all firms are going to have to look at new ways of adding value on the periphery of their core propositions if they are to remain competitive. Law firms may not realise it yet, but, to re-iterate Mr Leonhard’s belief, they are in the content business. In addition, they are in the marketing business and their value will be in becoming data businesses.

Shifting positions

We are shifting – and arguably have already shifted – from the oil age to the data age. The early 20thcentury world, in which the American industrialist John Rockefeller dominated, has been superseded by the 21st-century digital data age where the shots are called by the likes of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Law firms and their lawyers need to shift their positions too.

Just as man cannot live on bread alone, no longer can law firms live on providing legal advice alone. If they attempt to do so, the oilwell riches of the past and present will surely run dry. Could the end of oil be the end of the traditional law firm as we know it? Conversely, could the rise of data value and focus be the beginning of the true business of law?

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…

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Posted on March 28th, 2012 by Chrissie

This article was first published in the Law Society Gazette 27th March 2012 and is reproduced by kind permission.

In a legal world flush with lies, damned lies and frightening statistics in relation to ‘lawyer shelling’ (my crude terminology for expulsion and even possible extinction of our treasured profession and the comfortable roles we once enjoyed) I reckon we can find great wisdom in a variety of books beyond the standard ‘technical law’ tomes to help us become better lawyers, managers or ‘whatevers’ in this wonderful industry.

Certain books can even help us make the right choices, embrace the inevitable changes, equip us with lifelong tools and skills and thereby enable us to take control in our career, business and life.

And so I pose this question to you: If we’re going to be successful in being the lawyers of tomorrow, today, what should we lawyers be reading to become better managers in our careers, businesses and life? I propose the following as I share with you now an excerpt from The Naked Lawyer eBook.

‘My professional and life journey started many years ago… as a wee girl when I began reading books and wisdom written and shared by gurus. I was hungry to “know”. At a very early age I realised that throughout my professional life, I was going to be working for and with business people, so I figured I’d better get to grips with understanding trends, understanding organisations, understanding the people in them and the people I will be serving. But first and foremost I realised that I’d better understand myself most of all if I had any chance of ever making anyone happy (let alone me).

‘Naturally, I gravitated towards reading stuff which would teach me how to “find” myself, understand “me”, make the right choices to create an optimal lifestyle and to identify my life’s true priorities. I was helped by the wisdom of Lao Tzu and Pearl Bailey respectively: “Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment”, and “you never find yourself until you face the truth”.

‘During my junior and teenage years of the 1980s, I began to read about understanding organisations (businesses) and trends from the works of Tom Peters, Thriving On Chaos; Charles Handy, Understanding Organisations, The Empty Raincoat; Moss Kanter, The Change Masters; James Collins & Jerry Porras, Built To Last, Good To Great; John Harvey Jones, Making It Happen, Troubleshooter and Thomas Peters & Robert Waterman, In Search Of Excellence.

‘In my twenties, which spanned the 1990s-2000, I focused on understanding more about people, including myself, and read more hardcore stuff, in particular psychology, spiritual, business and trends texts, by authors such as: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Happiness; Maslow, Hierarchy Of Needs; Carl Jung, Nostradamus; Deepak Chopra, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind; Maltz, Psycho Cybernetics; Jack Black, MindStore and Bill Gates, Business @ The Speed Of Thought.

‘I was particularly enamoured by the technological revolution unfolding and the founding father entrepreneurs of the very same who helped create what we are doing right now in the legal space, that is, web based communication and interaction. The likes of Tim Berners-Lee – inventor of the world wide web, Vint Cerf – father of the internet and Jakob Nielson – authority on how people use the internet.

‘In my thirties, from 2001-10, I began reading the new kids on the block, in particular subjects covering marketing, sales, social media, innovation, change, customer service, communication, talent, futurology, law and ethics.

‘For example: Seth Godin, Permission Marketing; Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point; Robert Scoble & Shel Israel, Naked Conversations; Gary Hamel, Leading The Revolution; Chip Conley, The Rebel Rules; Jack Welch, Straight From The Gut; Bruce Abramson, Digital Phoenix; Marcus Buckingham & Donald Clifton, Now, Discover Your Strengths; Tom Rath, Strengthsfinder; Gary Russell, Big Rocks: Balancing Life & Work; Philip Kotler, Marketing Moves; Locke, Gonzo Marketing; Ken Blanchard, Gung Ho!; Spencer Johnson, Who Moved My Cheese; Chris Anderson, The Long Tail; Regis McKenna, Total Access: Giving Customers What They Want; Ming Zeng & Peter Williamson, Dragons At Your Door; Clayton Christensen, The Innovators Solution; Richard Susskind, The End of Lawyers?; Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near; Roger Steare, Ethicability; Chris Brogan, Social Media 101 and Bob Burg, Go-Givers Sell More.

‘You see I figured knowledge wasn’t / isn’t just power. Having knowledge in the 21st century was / is going to be about survival as we move toward singularity. More about this concept in my next article. I therefore view continual learning as a life-long quest… not only out of pleasure, but necessity. Maybe that’s something you should think about too. Why?

‘Because your present and future may well depend on it.’

In a knowledge currency networked world, if you don’t want to be the kind of lawyer who is shelled or shelved, maybe pick up a book today. Not a book about law, I hasten to add, a book about what encompasses the business of law and what will help us become better managers; even better human beings, along the way, perhaps.

When all is said, written or done, even in a world full of lies, damned lies and collective wisdom, ‘with all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world’ (Desiderata poem).

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, share the books which have touched you, and add to the collective wisdom. I’d love to hear your thoughts…

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Posted on October 6th, 2011 by Chrissie

iCyborg lawyers - full feature article available here now. This article was first published in Managing Partner magazine on 21st September 2011 and is reproduced by kind permission (www.mpmagazine.com).

My tribute to Steve Jobs (1955-2011)…

Albeit the world is full of great visionaries and innovators, only a special handful of human beings through time truly touch the people of the world and become extraordinary change masters. Steve Jobs is a legend and one of such masters. His legacy, genius and brilliance will live on as we move toward singularity…

Steve Jobs: the greatest innovator of my generation, an extraordinary change master and a human being with exceptional IQ and unrivalled EQ. You will be sorely missed not only by the techy world but by the business world and the legal world too…

The iCyborg Lawyer is Near?

iCyborg lawyers: the future of artificial intelligence (for law firms, lawyers and entrepreneurs) - first published 21st September 2011, Managing Partner magazine, October 2011, Volume 14 Issue 2. Full feature article here.

Artificial intelligence (AI); nanotechnology; genetics; social networking; web 2.0 > 10.0; global economic effects; emerging economies; population time-bomb; employment time-bomb; working patterns and lifestyles; consumer sovereignty. Just a few things to consider for those of you who may wish to join me in playing ‘join the dots’.  When you do, my prediction that the iCyborg lawyer is near may not seem so ridiculous…

Universal truth?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a lawyer worth his salt must be worthy of employment for his lifetime. Do you reckon? I put it to you that no matter how fabulous a lawyer you are intellectually, you will meet your match and be superseded by iCyborg lawyer within the next two to three decades. Huh? Guffaw. Groan. Harumph.  No doubt just a few reactions to my statement.

Well, I’ve recently returned to England after delivering a couple of keynote sessions at the Australian Legal Practice Management Association in Melbourne, Australia.  As the theme of the conference was ‘Adapt, Innovate, Inspire’, I duly spent the final 30 minutes of the closing session looking at the present and future of the legal profession, industry and role of the lawyer. My intention was to encourage the delegates to think, feel and act on what I shared, hoping they would leave the event feeling inspired, eager to adapt, embrace more technology and to innovate by re-inventing themselves, their teams and their businesses in preparation for the bold new legal world.

Legal beagle booties…

However, in sharing my vision and prediction from present day up to the year 2045 I fear a number of the delegates may have departed the conference quaking in their legal beagle booties…

Why? Well, err-hum. I posed the question “is the iCyborg lawyer near?” and then proceeded to suggest that due to the ingenuity of man – supported with evidence – the answer is indeed a resounding ‘yes’.

I’ve written a full feature on this subject in Managing Partner magazine; available here now as featured on the cover of the October issue, first published 21st September 2011. Highlights of what I share in the article include my belief that we’re already transitioning toward ‘two faces of the law’.  Two dominant umbrella business models have come to the fore in relation to what, where, why, when and how we serve our clients:  Face to Face and Interface. Nonetheless, ‘WHO’, will be doing the serving in the future may well be rather different due to ‘machine systems’ coming into ‘their’ own. In the feature I talk about the humanization of lawyers, the impact of nanobots and brain computer interfaces and suggest that come 2045 iLawyers will transcend biology.

Utopia or road to hell?

Actually, by this time, in a utopian world (if we so choose it to be and manage not to destroy the planet in the meantime) I predict there will no longer be a need for us ‘purely human’ lawyers.  Also, from now until 2045 it will be interesting to see how powerful pulsed magnetic fields which inhibit the ability to lie will impact our legal world. Time will tell whether this will be a godsend or the road to hell. Perhaps Susskind’s suggestion in his provocative book entitled ‘The End of Lawyers?’ may actually come to pass.

Undoubtedly, with Steve Jobs passing we have lost one of the world’s greatest technological innovators of our time. When we look back over the past 35 years and marvel at the impact Steve Jobs has had on advancing technology and introducing artificial intelligence positively into our world perhaps as we look ahead to the next 35 years the iCyborg lawyer may be closer than we dare imagine?

Fact or fiction, virtual reality or reality, one thing is for sure, as we continue to join the dots our world (and its technology and artificial intelligence) will inevitably evolve at an accelerating speed for “ours is the species that inherently seeks to extend its physical and mental reach beyond current limitations” (Ray Kurzweil).

Thank-you Steve Jobs, for dedicating your life to technology, innovation and entrepreneurship, for being brave enough to think differently, bold enough to feel and believe you could change the world, and extraordinary talented and spiritually gifted to actually do it.

Chrissie Lightfoot
The Entrepreneur Lawyer, CEO EntrepreneurLawyer Limited.
Author of The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How To Market, Brand & Sell YOU!

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Posted on January 24th, 2011 by Chrissie

Hi there!

Do you realise it’s Australia Day on 26th January?

What’s the significance of this, you may well be wondering? Well, I was just contemplating the topsy-turvy time most of us have been enduring over the past 24 months whilst at the same time sympathising with my friends from ‘the land down-under’ losing the Ashes; enough on that subject, too many unsympathetic jokes still doing the rounds. Have a heart Poms

The fact that it’s Australia Day got me thinking about a theme… and about you… 

Do you feel as though your world has been turned upside down during the past couple of years? Perhaps you feel as though you can do your job standing on your head and need something ‘more’, but you’re not sure what? Or, maybe, in fact, you’re looking for a ‘better way’ in business and/or life because things just aint the way they used to be, or you thought they were going to be? If you’re anything like me, then thoughts along these lines may have popped into your head at some point.

So, if the answer is ‘yes’ to any of the above then permit me to share something with you which just may interest you and help you…

96  69  96  69  96  69  96  69  96  69  96…  69

In celebration of Australia Day (26^th January) The Naked Lawyer (the prancing, dancing, naked lawyer in law law land in the eBook) has decided that the usual dancing price for The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How to Market, Brand and Sell YOU! eBook (ALL 12 VOLUMES) needs to take a running flip….

For a limited time-frame the eBook will NOT be £96…

Yup.  You guessed it. She’s treating you to the special price of £69 (inc VAT) for The Naked Lawyer eBook from 13.00 (GMT) on 25^th January 2011 until midnight (GMT) 31^st January 2011. 

Btw – it means the eBook is actually ONLY £57.50 if you’re buying from outside the EU or if you purchase the eBook through your business (EU buyer) as you can reclaim the VAT; subject to your company being VAT registered of course. Neat, eh?

Why not make the positive choice? Take control. And change your life and career (present and future) for the better. Be bold. Be courageous.  Make your first step toward turning your world the right way up and fox trotting off in the direction you always wanted to take it…

The Naked Lawyer can help you. I have every confidence. She helped me… and many others. (The Naked Lawyer Interview)

Go on now, give her a whirl whilst she’s prepared to treat you. I guarantee she will positively make your toes curl!

Warmest as ever

Chrissie Lightfoot
The Entrepreneur Lawyer
(of the naked kind)

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Posted on December 31st, 2010 by Chrissie

Hiya…

Just thought I’d share a quickie post with you to tie up 2010.

I’ve been in Spain over the festive season catching up with R&R; that’s Rest & Recuperation btw, just in case you thought it was something or someone else

Inevitably some of my time has been spent slobbing in front of the television; unusual for me but heck, variety is the spice of life eh?

I don’t know about you but have you noticed how many darn adverts there are on the TV shouting about ‘BEAT THE VAT INCREASE’? Hence, it’s kind of the sellers’ way of saying ”buy our stuff now before we pass on the VAT increase to you post 4th January by raising the final cost of our goods and/or services”!

It occurred to me that for most of us we need to make every penny count when we’re considering what we spend our hard earned spondulicks on, particularly as we’ve just had a really tough couple of ‘finance stretching’ years and it’s likely to continue going forward in 2011. It got me thinking about you…

So, here’s my 3^rd and final gift from The Naked Lawyer this festive season and for 2010…

Heads up all ye readers who have kindly been in touch and expressed your interest and desire to buy The Naked Lawyer eBook over the festive season. Here’s my honest and open-hearted tip…

HOLD OFF BUYING The Naked Lawyer eBook UNTIL AT LEAST 4^th January. Use your 2011 budget!

Why? 

Because the rise in VAT means The Naked Lawyer eBook may well be cheaper for you. You’re maybe thinking, ‘huh’?

Permit me to briefly explain. As you know there is VAT on eBooks; albeit print books are zero rated. At present The Naked Lawyer RIP to XXX is £96.00 for the paperback and £96.00 including VAT for the RIP to XXX eBook version; ergo the eBook is cheaper than the paperback if you can reclaim the VAT (because you’ve bought it through your business / firm / company perhaps) or if you are a buyer from outside the EU.

In essence, the net price for The Naked Lawyer RIP to XXX eBook at present is only £81.70. You only pay the VAT (present rate@ 17.5% = £14.30) if you are a buyer from the EU (whether as an individual consumer or corporate client); hence the gross price is £96.00 for EU buyers.

As you know, as of 4^th January 2011 in England the VAT rate increases to 20%. Meaning, the net price for The Naked Lawyer RIP to XXX will reduce to £80.00 for ALL buyers. Remember, you only pay the VAT (which will be @20% = £16.00 on 4^th January) if you are a buyer from the EU; gross price will therefore remain £96.00 for EU buyers.

Now, if you purchase The Naked Lawyer RIP to XXX eBook through your company then you do of course reclaim the VAT you’ve paid. Albeit your firm will have paid out £96.00 for each eBook it will reclaim £16.00 every time meaning the cost of the RIP to XXX eBook is actually only £80.00. The saving is £1.70 by buying on 4^th January rather than pre 4^th January. It will soon tot up where multiple purchases are involved.  Some of you, I know, have expressed an interest to purchase in excess of 20 copies for your ambitious lawyers and leaders of tomorrow within your firm / practice / company, (to benefit from the CPD hours also) therefore I respectfully leave you to work out the total sum saving, the benefit to your cash-flow and your overall CPD budget.

Albeit the gross price of The Naked Lawyer RIP to XXX eBook will not change, all in all, it will be cheaper for you to wait to buy the eBook if:

• you are not subject to VAT because you’re buying from outside the EU – it will be £80.00 as of 4^th January (presently £81.70); or
• you are subject to VAT because you are a buyer from within the EU and you can therefore reclaim the VAT (which will be £16.00 on 4^th January 2011 rising from £14.30 pre 4^th January 2011) if your company / firm is prepared to buy it on your behalf.

In true Meerkat advert style… Simples.

It goes without saying that 2011 is going to be yet another tough year on the purse-strings and corporate coffers for most of us; whether we’re buying for business or pleasure! Accordingly, I reckon when every penny counts, let’s make it count…

For most things in life, timing (and time) is everything…

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” (Carl Sandburg).

I’m urging you NOT to spend on The Naked Lawyer eBook as an individual or as a decision-maker within your firm until January 4^th 2011 onwards, at which point ‘time’ (and the VAT man!) will be on your side.

Hear hear! Ring in 2011 by keeping more jingle in your purse.

It’s my pleasure that I can gift you this saving; genuinely, I don’t mind standing the VAT for you (as obviously the actual monies that I receive from each sale of The Naked Lawyer eBook will reduce as of 4th January) for I know that YOU will benefit greatly from the content within The Naked Lawyer when you buy it, read it and action it – it’s a message and blueprint that will both touch and benefit  you, those whom you care about and your firm, a great deal - AND you will actually receive the benefit from a TAX increase…

It’s not often we can say that now, can we?

Enjoy!

Warmest as ever

Chrissie Lightfoot
The Entrepreneur Lawyer
(of the naked kind)

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Posted on December 28th, 2010 by Chrissie

Is your hard work going to benefit you professionally and privately?

Guest blog post by Andrew Neligan, Informed Choice Ltd.

What will make you happy and fulfilled? Getting your training contract or pupillage? Making partner? Being head of Chambers? Sitting as a judge? Perhaps, leaving the profession either by retiring (early?) or seeking a new path? Or, is your career simply a route to the attainment of personal goals and ambitions that will offer true fulfilment?

In Chrissie Lightfoot’s must read autobiographical rainmaking/client relationship manual for anyone in the legal profession she candidly explains how through her career, initially outside the law and then within it, she has made conscious choices that ensure that she would be, in Jack Welch’s words, “master of her own destiny”.

It was this philosophy that led her to establish EntrepreneurLawyer and decide to use her experiences to help those within the legal profession achieve their personal goals and ambitions by making themselves more valuable to their clients and firms. (“The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become.” Jim Rohn). And, by being more valuable you acquire the earnings to enable you to achieve in life whatever matters most to you.

Understanding what it is that you want, what it is that will make you more fulfilled; being self actualised in terms of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, will put you in the right direction to achieving your goals. It may be that your real motivation is to progress through the legal profession but for the majority of us success in our careers is the conduit to achieving our personal goals. Such goals are many and wide ranging; from the financial security for our family to having the financial freedom to allow us to work when and where we want. Or, it may be either from the acquisition of material possessions to giving (time and money) to the world’s poor and vulnerable.

Chrissie’s book will provide you with the blue print and the skills to make yourself more valuable to your clients but how do you ensure that, when you are harvesting the fruits of your labour, you will have the financial freedom to achieve your personal financial goals? This is where a comprehensive Financial Plan fits in.

Financial Planning is simply having a strategy that will allow you to achieve your financial goals and ambitions. It:

• Ensures financial security for you and your family.
• Allows you to live the life you wish (realistically; we’re not alchemists).
• Ensures you never run out of money.
• Helps you make more astute financial decisions.

Financial Planning achieves this by:

• Helping you to define your goals and when they must be achieved by (SMART objectives).
• Comparing your income to your expenditure and your assets to your liabilities to determine whether your goals are achievable if you continue what you are doing.
• Providing steps that can be taken to make your goals achievable if they are not going to be, based on your current financial position. This may be a target income to achieve each year, better use of your savings and investments or adjustments that need to be made to your annual expenditure.
• Answering the ‘what if?’ questions you may have: ‘What if I lose my job?’ ‘What if I can’t work due to sickness or disability?’, ‘What if I die? Will my family be OK?’, ‘What if I retire early? Will I run out of money?’, ‘What if my children go to private school? Will I be able to afford it each year?’

Financial Planning therefore should be the first step everyone should take when making financial decisions.

Too many people have no plan for their money and make ad-hoc financial decisions without understanding the impact of their decisions on their future lifestyle. For example, if you have established a pension plan or set up an ISA do you know whether the amount you are contributing is enough? Is the risk you are taking in your portfolios too much or too little? Are you paying more in charges than is necessary? Is inflation the biggest threat to you living the life you wish?

If you have savings and investments you should regularly review them to make sure they are consistent with your personal goals so that you can achieve your hopes and avoid your fears. If you have no plan for your money or haven’t reviewed it regularly you should speak to a Financial Planning expert before you make costly mistakes.

Andrew Neligan is a Chartered & Certified Financial Planner who helps legal professionals achieve their financial goals by establishing bespoke Financial Planning strategies.  Contact him today to understand how Financial Planning can help you by clicking here.

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Posted on December 23rd, 2010 by Chrissie

Hi there !

In Volume 7 of The Naked Lawyer I talk about nurturing fuzz to get more buzz. Simply put, it’s all about relationships… and friendship. I don’t know about you but I feel truly blessed due to all of the wonderful people who have come into my life, particularly this year – YOU.

As I reflect back on 2010 I can only smile when I think about all of you… the new people in my life who have brought me much happiness… as well as challenges. But you know I love it!

My 2^nd gift to you this festive season is an excerpt from The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX which just may touch you in a special way. It goes something like this…

“I’d like to leave you with something to think about until we dance again…

Every person with whom I come into contact with, in either a professional or personal capacity, I ask of myself the following.

‘Have you come into my life for a reason, a season or a lifetime’?

Why?

I’m curious. I’m hungry to know. I desire to continually learn…

And I enjoy building relationships, for however short or long they may last.

I engage in relationships, not knowing the answer to the above question, but I go about developing the relationship trying to figure out whether it is for a reason, a season or a lifetime. When I do figure out which one it is, I know what to do for each person, and realise what they have done for me… and for that, I am grateful.

‘Are you a reason, a season, or a lifetime’ is a poem of unknown origin. Here it is:

When someone comes into your life for a REASON… it is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend, and they are! They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrongdoing on your part, or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand. What we must realise is that our need has been met, our desires fulfilled, their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered. And now it is time to move on.

Then people come into your life for a SEASON. Because your turn has come to share, grow and learn. They bring you an experience of peace, or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real! But, only for a season.

Lifetime relationships teach you lifetime lessons: things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person, and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.

For those of you who are in my life (past and present), THANK-YOU. You can probably hear my cogs turning!”

And so, I shall now leave you to figure out your own reason, season, lifetime conundrum; or is it enigma?

One final thing. In true Naked Lawyer style, I wish you the most fun, outrageous and sexily serendipitous Christmas ever… with a dash of karma, of course. Enjoy!

Warmest festive wishes… with whistles and jingle bells…
 

Chrissie Lightfoot
The Entrepreneur Lawyer
(of the naked kind)

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