Tagged with 'LMA'

Download most current list of Tweeters attending the LMA Conference right here (will update document as names are added).

One (of the many) unscheduled activities at this year’s Legal Marketing Association 2009 Annual Conference is a TweetUp to be held Wednesday, April 1 at 5 PM EDT in the courtyard just outside the exhibition hall. As an exhibitor with access to the pre-conference attendee list, I promoted the TweetUp and offered to compile a list which I would distribute.  I wasn’t thinking beyond the paper the list might be printed on. I wasn’t thinking. But I’m glad others were.

The Power of Community

I didn’t propose the TweetUp.  I just had convenient access to the list. This good idea, which has already built great excitement which will carry over into the Conference, emanated from Lance Godard @lancegodard and @22twts and was given momentum by other Twitter users as they passed the word.

Lance then suggested that I make the list available sooner than later by posting it to our company blog. Duh. So here it is.  Thanks, Lance, for reminding me that information wants to be free (of its non-digital constraints).

At the moment I’m very wrapped up in tactical implementation. But if one takes a step back and reflects for a moment, there are a lot of cool things happening here.  Yes, the jury is out on Twitter. But, as we head into a marketing conference, a couple things are already being realized starting with the Twitter interface including:

• Creation of community – strangers become friends; warm intros
• Crowdsourcing good ideas – great ideas come from everyone
• Attendee value generation – interaction insures communication of new ideas
• Exhibitor promotion opportunity – help standing out in a crowded field

I suspect this is just a start. And I’m looking forward to exploring it with others who have already proven they have ideas better than my own.  Add yours below.

Last night, the Chicago Chapter of the Legal Marketing Association held their annual “Your Honor Awards” recognition dinner. Like every event the Chicago LMA Chapter conducts, this event, held at Scoozi in Chicago, was top flight. Megan McKeon of McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP made organizing the well-produced awards presentations and dinner appear effortless. And the Wall Street Journal footed the bill for this private party whose bar never closed. I was there to confirm it.

Chicago LMA Awards Judges' Innovation Award to Valorem Law website

What really made the evening special for us was the recognition of our client, Valorem Law.  Valorem, a one-year-old firm, is comprised of expatriates (yes, I once spelled this ex-patriots) of BigLaw.  These thought leaders long ago recognized the sea change occurring in the legal industry and founded their firm on the premise of, among other innovative factors, the “billable hour is dead.”

Recognizing the firm’s innovative culture and business proposition, the LMA honored Valorem’s website with the Judges’ Innovation Award, unique recognition issued at the discretion of LMA. Innovation. It’s great to hear that term in the legal market. While we are thrilled to share in some of the glow cast by Valorem’s achievement, more importantly, this Innovation Award illuminates how lawyers who have worked hard to understand the Internet leveraged it in pursuit of their business.

The Valorem Law website has also been recognized by the Web Marketing Association with a 2008 Legal Standard of Excellence WebAward.

Should you put a link to LinkedIn on a biography page of a law firm website? That was the question posed recently on the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) listserv by Gail Lamarche Director of Marketing at Henderson, Franklin, Starnes & Holt.

I opined that, for professional services firms such as this law firm, the attorney biography page is the best thing we have as a “money page” on the website. Therefore, driving visitors away from the money page was, strategically, a bad idea. Moreover, it seemed if there were really content on LinkedIn that was valuable to the site visitor, then that information should be on the bio page. And if it wasn’t there, the bio page was somehow deficient.

Smug I was in the righteousness of my response. But I got an earful of dissent from LMA listserv contributors. The arguments are worthy of consideration:

Jayne Navarre, LawGravity, presented these points persuasively:

• Branding – The LinkeIn link is like a hip badge of Web 2.0 awareness
• Connections – LinkedIn provides a transparent view to an attorney’s connections, arguably a value to any prospective client
• Authoritative – Access to the LinkedIn Questions & Answers provides additional proof of the attorney’s authority

Heather Milligan, Director of Marketing at Barger Wolen emphasized that LinkedIn:

• Human – helps make the attorney “dynamic, human, liked”( in case we have any residual concerns about their humanity) and helps the attorney pass the “known, liked & trusted” test of prospective clients.
• Dimensional – And in rebuttal to my “bio is deficient” comment, Heather notes that to maintain a certain appearance consistent with other bios and the overall website, “the firm bio is controlled for content, style, etc….(while) LinkedIn is the perfect place where an attorney can bring together their outside interests and professional careers, making them more human and likeable.
• Connections – Perhaps the most valuable feature, LinkedIn is fundamentally a connecting tool that might serendipitously reveal a third party connection to the site visitor which presents all kinds of opportunity for real introduction.

It’s not a slam dunk either way. The answer to Gail’s original question seems to be, “It depends.” The circumstances dictate the strategy. I’ll give it a nod of possibility and something worth trying.  Yes, I know, “first I was against it, now I’m for it.” Thanks to the enlightenment of my marketing peers.

But I’ll have this last (never!) word.  Think doubly hard about sending your site visitor from the most valuable conversion page of  your site to an information wasteland. Don’t do it unless the LinkedIn profile to which you are sending visitors:

• provides a rich set of business connections
• demonstrates some effort to contribute authoritatively to the online Q&A discourse
• otherwise expands on the website attorney bio page
• (if possible) provides a path back

And whatever you do, measure the results. Professionals keep score.

Now you can link away to my LinkedIn profile.