SAN DIEGO
Volume 223, 2022 $6.95
The Managing Partner’s Role in Establishing a Firm’s Culture
Joel A. Rose
Helping Your Clients Choose Their Own Fees
Alexis Neely
When the Client Says, “I Want to Think About It”
David Ward
Competitive Intelligence and Better Law Firm Decision-Making
5 Tips for the Best Law Firm Logo
Andrew Cabasso Increase Your Law Firm Profits Over 30 Percent
Cole Silver
Janet Ellen Raasch
Executive Presence: I Know I Need It—How Do I Get It?
Jessika M. Ferm
Attorney of the Month
Jason Kirby, Kirby & Kirby San Diego The Go-To Guy
SPECIALIZING IN COMPLEX BUSINESS LITIGATION
BET-THE-COMPANY CASES OVER 65 YEARS OF COMBINED EXPERIENCE REFERRALS/SUBSTITUTIONS ACCEPTED AT ALL STAGES OF LITIGATION, INCLUDING TRIAL • Complete defense jury verdict in real estate dispute and more than $400,000 collected for attorneys’ fees and costs in Batter v. McElhinney, et al. (2019)(Jason Kirby). • $2.1 million jury verdict for firm client in Doe v. San Diego Unified School District, et al. (2018)(Jason Kirby & Michael Kirby). • $1.1 million arbitration award for firm clients on cross-complaint after zeroing plaintiff on $6 million damage claim in Step Strategy Advisors v. Solid Gold Health Products for Pets, Inc., et al. (2018)(Jason Kirby lead counsel). • Michael Kirby received the 2021 Best Lawyers in America® distinction for (1) Bet-the-Company Litigation, (2) Commercial Litigation, (3) Litigation – Real Estate, and (4) Litigation – Securities.
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2022 EDITION—NO.223
TABLE OF CONTENTS 6 The Managing Partner’s Role in Establishing a Firm’s Culture by Joel A. Rose
8 Helping Your Clients Choose Their Own Fees by Alexis Neely
10 How to Increase Your Law Firm Profits Over 30 Percent by Cole Silver
12 Executive Presence: I Know I Need It—How Do I Get It?
EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER Brian Topor EDITOR Wendy Price
by Jessika M. Ferm ATTORNEY OF THE MONTH
CREATIVE SERVICES Penn Creative
16 Jason Kirby, Kirby & Kirby, San Diego The Go-To Guy
CIRCULATION Angela Watson
by Dan Baldwin
PHOTOGRAPHY Chris Griffiths STAFF WRITERS Dan Baldwin Jennifer Hadley CONTRIBUTING EDITORIALISTS Andrew Cabasso Jessika M. Ferm Alexis Neely Janet Ellen Raasch Joel A. Rose Cole Silver David Ward ADVERTISING INQUIRIES Info@AttorneyJournals.com SUBMIT AN ARTICLE Editorial@AttorneyJournals.com OFFICE 30213 Avenida De Las Banderas Suite 200 Rancho Santa Margarita, CA 92688 www.AttorneyJournals.com ADDRESS CHANGES Address corrections can be made via email or postal mail.
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22 What to Say When the Client Says, “I Want to Think About It” by David Ward
26 Competitive Intelligence Is an Essential Component of Better Law Firm Decision-Making by Janet Ellen Raasch
28 Five Tips for the Best Law Firm Logo by Andrew Cabasso
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The Managing Partner’s Role in Establishing a Firm’s Culture by Joel A. Rose
It’s a Difficult Job and More Important Than Many People Think The demographics of law firms are changing as baby boomers reduce, or intend to reduce, active involvement in their firms. This change of status of senior partners has highlighted the need for managing partners to assess their firms’ current culture to ensure it conforms to the professional and personal objectives of a significant majority of the mid-level and younger partners, who are the future of their firms. A law firm’s culture can be one of its major strengths, when it is consistent with the current and longer-term objectives and values of a majority of the partners. But a culture that prevents individual attorneys from satisfying their professional, personal and financial objectives, and that inhibits a firm from meeting its competitive threats, or adapting to changing economic environments, can lead to the firm’s stagnation and decline, unless its partners make a conscious effort to change. Firm culture implies values, such as: aggressive, collegial, sensitive to quality of life, competitive, democratic, etc., that set a pattern for a firm’s activities and the roles of its partners. This pattern is instilled in newer attorneys by the example set by the partners through their actions and transparent communications. A principal role of a managing partner is to assess the needs and priorities of the firm and the partners, and to cultivate the type of culture that encourages partners to use their skills and abilities toward achieving their firm’s desired objectives. Absent the willingness of managing partners to be sensitive to the changing needs of a firm, and the desires and expectations of its partners, a firm will have problems functioning in its practice environment, and may have difficulty surviving. The managing partner must be sensitive to the firm’s core values, including its methods for determining and implementing policies, compensating its lawyers and engaging in strategic and marketing planning, and competing effectively with other law firms in its geographic area.
• Partner complaints or suggestions that they are not being kept informed of firm matters that involve staffing, termination of attorneys, issues that may affect particular partners or their areas of practice, etc.;
Warning Signs
• Schedule partner meetings on a regular basis, and announce dates and times of these meetings far enough in advance to clear schedules;
Based upon my experience, below is a list of warning signs that will serve as the bellwether for managing partners to reassess their firms’ culture and core values: 6
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• Feelings that some partners are being “manipulated” by a group of dominating partners; • Senior (or more influential) partners consider the firm as their private domain, and take others for granted; • The sense that decisions are being made by a select few, and partner meetings are eyewash, as major decisions are made prior to the meeting, and partners are being “played with”; and • Lack of open communications between the more influential partners and the rest of the attorneys.
Dealing with the Warning Signs Below are suggested action plans that should be implemented if any of the above warning signs appear. The managing partner should: • Position himself or herself as a leader who is eager to listen to the opinions of other partners; • Create a constructive dialogue to assess the needs and expectations of all of the other partners; • Reach a consensus of a significant majority of the partners about the desired culture and develop a plan on how to implement it; • Encourage partners to participate in governance issues and be kept informed about those activities that will influence the firm’s future;
• Prepare agendas for these meetings, encourage partners
to contribute agenda items prior to the meeting, provide information to partners about issues to be discussed in advance of the meeting, whenever possible; • Distribute summaries of these meetings to partners within 48 hours of the meeting so there will be a written record of the decisions reached, etc.; • Encourage mid-level and junior partners to participate in the succession of firm management and client retention; • Follow up on the progress of the firm and its components to insure that the desired culture is being implemented, maintained and reinforced by all lawyers, as required; and • “Tweak” elements of the firm’s culture, in accordance with the priorities and needs of the partners, as required, to avoid problems down the road. How effective a firm’s managing partner will be in creating the type of environment needed to encourage partners to develop and implement strategies to foster the desired culture will depend, to a great extent, upon his or her willingness and ability to develop and articulate shared values. Unless the managing partner has a vision for the firm, there may be as many visions as there are partners. A firm in which there is no agreed-upon vision frequently experiences irresolvable tensions, and can become less than collegial. I have attended partners’ meetings in firms having cultures that have atrophied and were in need of revitalization. Recently, I was invited to attend a partners’ meeting of a mid-size law firm. After listening to the managing partner’s presentation, I was less than impressed by the lack of partner participation and the paucity of partners’ enthusiasm with respect to the managing partner’s initiatives. As an observer, I did not feel that the partners had “bought in” to the managing partner’s initiatives, nor did I think their communications to the managing partner were “real” in terms of their commitment to implement his initiatives. Following this meeting, the managing partner told me how pleased he was that the partners had reached a consensus about important issues. However, after leaving the managing partner’s office, I found it curious that a small group of partners was standing in the hallway, having an informal discussion about certain issues discussed during the meeting. It seemed to me as though a few of these partners had “put the parking brake” on some of the decisions affecting the initiatives recommended by the managing partner, and the managing partner did not know that the partners were doing this.
Changing a Firm’s Culture Because a firm’s culture is so pervasive, changing it becomes one of the most difficult tasks that any law firm can undertake. What stands in the way is not only the “comfort that many partners may have with the prevailing culture,” but also the fact that few partners consciously recognize how their firm’s
culture manifests itself. Most often, the issue surrounding the development and implementation of strategies affecting the firm’s culture is what the managing partner has done to assess the partners’ attitudes about the current culture, and the extent to which it represents the values and the professional and personal objectives that a significant majority of the partners would like the firm’s guiding principles to be. I am a proponent of the school of law-firm management that encourages the managing partner to “walk the hall” and take the time to encourage the partners and associates to speak, i.e., “from the bottom up, as well as from the top down,” to foster strong relationships and to begin to mold the most appropriate firm culture. I have recommended to managing partners in numerous law firms that to reinforce their firm’s culture, they start a free weekly lunch to bring all of the attorneys together to share a meal, i.e., sandwiches, pizza, salads, etc., and encourage conversations. It is curious that several managing partners told me that immediately after implementing the weekly lunches in their firms, virtually all of the junior partners and associates attended. However, some of the senior and mid-level partners got their food and went back to their offices. In these firms, a few managing partners decided to “break the ice” and initiate communications by talking for a few minutes about the firm’s initiatives, new client assignments, successful business development activities, and the extent to which the firm had surpassed its revenue budget for the month or quarter, etc., then responded to questions. These managing partners told me that as the result of his brief presentations more partners attended these free lunches and communicated with other partners and associates about recent developments in case law, client files they were working on, the standing of professional and college sports teams, upcoming vacations, their children’s soccer games, etc. Those managing partners who succeeded in reinforcing or changing their firms’ cultures have been willing to invest partner time to assess its needs and requirements to define the kind of firm the partners want the firm to be (or become) and to make that entity as palatable as possible to a significant majority of its members. To achieve this objective, much work needs to be done from within by the managing partner and the partners to create, promote and reinforce the desired culture. Recently, one managing partner asked me how long he had to continue to promote the firm’s culture at meetings and in informal settings. I answered: forever. n Joel A. Rose was a certified management consultant and president of Joel A. Rose & Associates Inc., management consultants to law firms based in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He had extensive experience consulting with private law firms, and performs and directs consulting assignments in law firm management and organization, strategic and financial planning, lawyer compensation, the feasibility of mergers and acquisitions, and the marketing of legal services.
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How to Increase Your Law Practice Cash Flow by Helping Your Clients Choose Their Own Fees by Alexis Neely
One of the biggest reasons most lawyers struggle with the business end of law practice is because of the old, outdated practice of billing time on an hourly basis, often in six-minute increments. Clients hate it and so do lawyers. When I was working for a large law firm, there was really no choice but to bill time. The managing partners had no way to track effectiveness of associates without it. And, frankly, it’s one of the reasons I left to start my own law practice. As a corporate tax and estate planning associate, billing time just didn’t seem to work well. Clients weren’t communicating with us as often as they should because they knew they’d get a bill in the mail weeks later for the $67.50 email they sent and I would more often than not choose not to bill time for work performed because, honestly, I felt bad doing it when I was answering a quick question for a nonprofit or personal client. When I hung my own shingle and started my law practice, I knew that I’d have to make the switch from hourly billing to something else, but I wasn’t sure how to do it or what the something else would be. I found myself losing money because I wasn’t billing for the quick calls, the requests for referrals to other lawyers and the myriad of other little things that would come up that felt like billing would take more time and cost more than just writing off the time. I was losing money, fast. And I could see it wasn’t sustainable. So I made the shift to billing for my estate and business planning services on a flat fee basis. I looked at what other lawyers were doing based on their listserve posts and discussions and created my own flat fees. But there was a problem...clients weren’t signing up as
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often as I felt they should and I knew it all had to do with the fees. I wasn’t explaining them properly. I almost considered switching back to the hourly model, which all clients could understand and, it seemed, almost expected. Then, I engaged a client for a $5,500 trust package. Success! Except then it wasn’t... Within two weeks they had called me back to cancel the planning. They had found another lawyer who would provide EXACTLY what I was providing for just $2,500. And while they said they would be happy to pay me $1,000 more for the additional service and relationship I provided, they couldn’t justify more than double. I was devastated. I knew I was offering more than the lawyer who was charging just $2,500 for EXACTLY the same thing, but I didn’t know how to articulate that more. So I let them out of our agreement. As I did so, I made a request. I said to the client, “Okay, I understand what you are saying and I have a request. Would you please get back in touch with me after the planning with this other lawyer and share your experience with me?” He said yes and, frankly, I never expected to hear from him again. But hear from him I did. And it was better than I could have ever hoped for. In fact, what he shared with me became the basis for a complete redesign of the way I charged for my legal services, explained them to clients and was most likely the #1 single thing most responsible for my being able to go on to build a million-dollar-a-year-plus law practice. This client came back to me with a point-by-point
analysis of my process and the other lawyer’s process and what I was able to see is that the plan the lawyer was delivering for $2,500 was not EXACTLY like the one I had quoted a $5,500 fee for. In fact, for the plan that lawyer was delivering to his clients, I would have charged only $3,500, which was the exact amount the clients said they would have paid for my enhanced service and relationship offering. In fact, I was including two additional items in my $5,500 plan that I could now let my clients choose whether to include or not and they could, in effect, choose their own fee! Today, those $1,000 questions are the foundation of the fee quoting system I developed and have now taught to hundreds of lawyers who are using these questions to engage more clients and receive higher fees by clients who are happy to pay them. While I cannot explain the $1,000 questions in full here, I can describe the starting place for making the shift from hourly services to packages your clients are happy to pay for.
First, identify three levels of outcomes or value you provide to your clients. For example, in the estate planning practice, our Personal Family Lawyer members have a basic plan for families who don’t have assets that would go through probate, a mid-level plan for families with assets that would go through probate and a high-level plan for families who want their lawyer to handle not only all the planning and documentation, but the transfer of their assets as well. In the business planning practice, our Family Business Lawyers may have three packages focused on clients just starting up their business and need all the deliverables associated with a new startup, a package that is for the business owner who has been at it for some time and needs ongoing strategic support and finally a high-end package for the business owner who is ready to consider selling the business and wants to prep it for sale. In a divorce practice, you may use stages, such as predivorce consultation and planning, filing of the complaint and all pre-litigation matters, mediation or collaboration of marital settlement agreement and then a whole separate set of packages if litigation is necessary.
Second, assign a value to these outcomes. The value is not about the hours you will put into the outcome, but instead about the value of the outcome to the client. For example, a startup client in the business side of a law practice may require far more hours than the strategic support for the ongoing business owner needs, but the startup client has less available assets and your package would be priced less with the intention that the startup work is just the beginning of a life-long relationship with the client that will net your law practice quite a lot of income over time— if you can support the business to get off the ground. A client family with less assets at stake in the event of a death or disability would naturally want to pay less than a family who has assets that would go through probate or even be subject to estate tax.
Price your packages accordingly. Third, create a fee schedule that lays these packages out clearly. I invested $10,000 to work with a consultant to design my packages and fee quoting system. Then I invested another $2,500 to visually represent the packages in a fee schedule. That $12,500 was the best investment I ever made in my law practice because it took me from struggling to engage clients and command fees I knew I deserved to engaging just about every single client who came into my office and at higher fees than I ever had before. The best part is my clients were happy to pay the fees because they were choosing the fee themselves. And, thanks to the $1,000 questions, in many cases, they were choosing to pay me $1,000-$2,000 more than they would have if I had just quoted a fee without the questions. Are you ready to make this kind of shift in your practice? If so, why? If not, why not? What’s stopping you? n Alexis Neely graduated first in her law school class from Georgetown in 1999, and after clerking on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, began her career at Munger, Tolles & Olson and left to start her own firm in 2003. Within just three years, she had built her solo practice into a million-dollar-a-year revenue-generating business by implementing a new law business model she created. She now teaches that model to lawyers throughout the U.S. and Canada as a Law Business Mentor.
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How to Increase Your Law Firm Profits over 30 Percent by Cole Silver
In the competitive and commoditized world of legal services, we’re told we must have an effective marketing campaign to get new clients. And when most of us think about marketing, we envision glossy brochures glorifying the firm’s pedigree, power lunches, or shaking hands at useless and annoying networking events, mixing sweaty palms with pigs in a blanket, all in one massive business card swap. We often forget about the acres of diamonds already at our feet. What about you? Are you properly differentiating your practice in the marketplace? Are you tying in a targeted value proposition coupled with an irresistible offer? Are you leveraging all of your existing assets by maximizing the value of your networks, utilizing strategic partners and relationships? Most importantly, are you properly serving your existing clients?
Did You Know? • The costs of attracting a new client are 5 to 12 times greater than the cost of keeping an existing client. • The ROI is up to 10 times higher for investments in client retention than for the acquisition of a new client. • Converting new clients takes more time, effort and expense than is required for current clients. Existing clients have greater usage levels and can be easily cross sold. • Existing clients are less price sensitive. • Existing clients exponentially increases profits. • With more than 80% of new business coming from existing clients, they are the best referral source for new clients. • Having a single individual accountable for firm-wide client service boosts per-attorney profits by up to 41.2%! Equally as important, were you aware that dissatisfied clients tell an average of 1,020 people and up to 93% of dissatisfied clients will not return to you and won’t tell you why! The statistics also indicate that many corporate clients are dissatisfied with their law firms; only 24% would recommend their primary law firms. This client dissatisfaction is not due to a lack of legal expertise; it’s primarily due to poor client service or perceived indifference. Failing to treat your existing clients like the treasure they are will not only prevent you from utilizing your best resource, but ignoring them will start a spiraling effect of lost revenues and severe damage to your reputation. By the time you figure out what happened, the damage may be irreversible. 10
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If you don’t take care of the client...someone else will! With the number of lawyers exponentially increasing, and many clients making their selection of firms based on price, the only true differentiator is client service. Your experience, firm, capabilities, and responsiveness are minimum requirements today and no longer make you stand out in the market. Today, you need to “engage” the client in a deeper and more personal way. You have to know their “needs and wants” and be able to address them in an individual and memorable manner. It’s only through this “total client experience” that you beat the competition and win their business before they look elsewhere. Clients desperately want to work with someone they know and trust, who knows their industry, their market, their company, their situation, their people, their concerns and their desires. They want you to listen to them, know more about them, understand them, and work with them as a trusted partner. By engaging the client through emotional differentiators like trust, confidence, commitment and likability, you’ll demonstrate that you truly care about them. If you can discover and align to these issues, the client will view you as a trusted partner and not just another lawyer, never thinking of leaving you because deep down inside they know they’re not going to get this “experience” anywhere else. As lawyers, we’re trained to give advice. But the fact is that nobody ever became wealthy or highly successful by telling people what they need. However, a whole lot of people have been richly rewarded giving people exactly what they want. It doesn’t matter what you think...only what your client thinks. And it doesn’t matter what you want...only what they want! And what is it they want? They want what we all want...empathy, compassion, comfort, understanding, respect, their problem solved and, mostly, to feel appreciated and important. As someone once commented, “People don’t care about how much you know until they know how much you care.” So, how do you go about giving people what they want? You start out by listening, serving, educating and providing a memorable experience. Find their pain and what they truly desire by anticipating their needs and surpassing their expectations. The result is that when they need a lawyer...you’re at the top of their list because you were there for them. You solved their problems without making any demands. You cared and acted in a way that made them feel appreciated. They will then seek you out because people have an innate desire to reciprocate when they are given something or treated in a certain way. Your one-time client becomes a client for life, a constant source of referrals and new business opportunities.
Appoint a Client Ambassador A client-centric organization eludes most firms because lawyers are extremely busy and are for the most part highly focused on the legal work product. They inherently believe that if you win the case or close the transaction successfully, you have succeeded and the client will stay with the firm. But this is no longer the case. If you fail to continuously engage the client, you’re out of sight and out of mind, allowing your competitors an opening to beat you out for the client’s future business and referrals. The only way to consistently provide a high level of client experience, and drive it deep into the fabric of the firm, is to have one person totally devoted to ensuring the client is heard and attended to in a memorable way. Someone who understands the client, who is an empathic listener, and who comprehends the unique dynamics of the attorney-client relationship. That’s why you should have a Client Ambassador. Several firms like Reed Smith, Orrick Herrington and Stanislaw Ashbaugh have already jumped on this idea, knowing full well that marketing officers or managing partners cannot fill this role.
What Does a Client Ambassador Do? • Ensure the client experience is memorable and exceeds their expectations. This includes everything from the office appearance, how calls are handled, billing issues, employee interaction, etc. • Meet or speak with clients for regular feedback. • Train employees on how to deal with difficult client situations ensuring that everyone in the firm is on the same page. • Work with the marketing department and firm leaders to increase cross selling, referrals, and new business opportunities. • Help prioritize marketing initiatives by soliciting client reactions and opinions. • Meet with firm leaders, providing ideas to drive practice group and firm profitability. Ensure attorneys and clients “match up” advancing attorney-client chemistry. • Stimulate change and improvements before the client leaves the firm. • Benchmark competitors regarding service delivery improvements. • Reactivate old clients. • Ensure proper follow-up on client concerns. • Help clients succeed in non-legal areas through education and referrals. • Champion firm successes and its value proposition to clients and the marketplace. • Provide metrics to ensure increased profits, usage and realization rates.
• Help market the firm with client seminars and promotions. • Transaction or litigation analysis and commentary. • Address billing disputes. • Help implement an employee reward system for outstanding client service. • Tracking and monitoring client satisfaction and service.
The Evidence Is Compelling Research conducted by world-renowned BTI Consulting Group revealed that having a single individual accountable for firmwide client service boosts per-attorney profits by up to 41.2%. BTI performed a comprehensive analysis of how over 160 distinct, yet interrelated, marketing activities impact firm revenue, profitability and growth. This research, based on more than 140 interviews with Chief Marketing Officers, Managing Partners, Directors of Business Development and other marketing executives, definitively identified the marketing practices that deliver the best returns. The practice of having one individual accountable for firmwide client service stands out as the single most powerful driver behind higher profits per attorney. If you want to discover new business opportunities; uncover problems and concerns before clients leave or damage your reputation; convey that your firm truly values the client relationship; discover client reactions to new marketing and business ideas; discover why clients choose your firm in the first place; increase service and usage levels; reduce your marketing costs; and increase per-attorney profits over 40%, then you absolutely must appoint your own Client Ambassador. Are you convinced yet about where you should spend most of your time and marketing dollars and why a Client Ambassador will pay off handsomely for your firm? Maintaining loyal clients will do more to increase your bottom line than any marketing, PR or advertising campaign. Client-focused retention and loyalty strategies should be the overriding goal and objective of all your business development efforts because it’s a lot less costly than traditional marketing tactics, is ethical, simple, and represents a highly effective economical and leverage strategy. The “client-only marketing strategy” is a powerful one and represents the lynchpin of most successful law firms. And having a dedicated Client Ambassador is an easy way to implement this dynamic strategy. n Cole Silver is a lawyer and certified career and marketing consultant. His Expert Audio Series and book, “How to Create Wealth and Freedom in your Law Practice, 101 Powerful Client Development & Retention Strategies” for Attorneys can be ordered by going to findcareersuccess.com. Cole is available for speaking engagements and consulting and can be reached by calling 609-306-8098 or by e-mail at cbsilver@yahoo.com. Article Source: EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cole_Silver
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Attorney Journals San Diego | Volume 223, 2022
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The Go-To Guy
for Business Litigation Referrals by Dan Baldwin
Our referrals come from other lawyers in town when the dispute is serious enough that a lawyer tells his or her client or friend, ‘You need a good litigator.’ Other times, larger firms find themselves in a conflict situation and want to refer an existing client to a litigator who is not going to try to take their client from them. When referring attorneys send us a matter, that client will get a successful outcome,” says Jason Kirby, Partner in Kirby & Kirby, LLP, a business litigation firm based in San Diego. The reason Kirby and his firm attract so much referral business is a commitment to finding a way to win. “Our track record of success is rather unbelievable. We obsess about how to win a case. I have a talent for seeing how all the evidence can be shaped together and how best to present it. Whether we’re working directly with a client or with a referral, we are in it to win.” “We are very hands on about our cases. We make our clients’ problems our problems. Our representation always becomes very personal. We treat our clients like family and develop great relationships. A client that knows his or her lawyer is fully engaged in living their dispute creates a bond and a level of trust that makes
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the attorney-client relationship seamless,” he says. The firm “fights above its weight,” meaning that they find that a smaller team can handle large litigation cases as well, and often more efficiently, than a larger and less flexible firm. As an example, the firm represented approximately fifty defrauded investors in the litigation against Chicago Title arising out of the local Ponzi scheme run by now-disgraced Gina Champion-Cain. There were big firms hesitant to take on fifty individual clients with competing interests. But in 2021, Kirby and his team recovered more than $22 million for their fifty clients. “Handling that many clients was a total team effort wherein everyone in our firm was fully engaged. And that case was just one of many and not necessarily the largest that we were handling at the time,” he says. Kirby compares trial work to putting on a play. There is an art to putting on a case, the order of witnesses, the witnesses through which the facts will present best. There must not only be a beginning, a middle and an end, but a simple narrative that runs throughout the trial and holds it all together. Kirby says, “Doing defense work, I have always believed there is a way out.” He cites a high school experience in which a police
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officer talked to the students about driving and accidents. He said something along the lines of, ‘Just prior to an accident, there is always a way out if you look for it’ and that statement had a direct impact on his life and the way he approaches cases. “Plaintiff’s work just means not letting there be a way out.”
A Family Affair Kirby & Kirby is primarily engaged in business litigation and real estate litigation cases, but they have always handled a wide range of cases in many different practice areas, such as investment fraud, personal injury/wrongful death, probate litigation, employment litigation, intellectual property litigation, and in other business-related areas. Their practice is 100 percent litigation. They have no transactional practice or any other competing interests with other firms. Their singular focus is handling a particular dispute from start to end. With the exception of a few individual persons and companies that keep finding themselves involved in litigation, their client mix and case mix are vastly different year to year. The other partner in the firm is Kirby’s father, Michael L. Kirby. They have two senior paralegals, Susan Head and Kay Dillon, each having more than 30 years’ experience. They also employ a contract attorney who was a former associate attorney at Kirby Noonan, Heather Schallhorn, “Our internal staff is just incredible and everything we do is a team effort. We are lean and mean and if we lost any person at our firm, he or she would be extremely difficult to replace. We have an amazing group of people who work really well together. Everybody cares deeply about clients and cases, and it really comes through in the work product. I have the title of managing partner, but I do very little to manage our employees. They are too good at what they do to try and suggest how they should do it.” Kirby finds that in almost every case our attorneys and staff connect with our clients to develop a strong relationship that is very familiar, which often leads to going to extraordinary lengths to earn a win for their clients. For example, Kirby represented a retired couple who sold their home in Rancho Santa Fe after more than 30 years living in it. The buyers were from Manhattan Beach and were accustomed to newer construction. When the buyers set out to remodel and update the home, they discovered mold conditions in the wall cavities and accused the owners of wrongdoing with respect to their statutory disclosures. The husband passed before the trial. Kirby represented the widow. The case lasted for years, but the jury trial only took a couple of weeks. Kirby’s clients were cleared of all wrongdoing and eventually recovered the vast majority of the clients’ attorneys-fees from the buyers.
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“The client relationship was truly one of family, with hugs and tears and all that comes with it. The widow, the paralegal, and I would meet every day outside the courthouse and talk about the day. There simply wasn’t a day that did not go well for us. To this day, the three of us still get together,” Kirby says.
Failure to Intimidate Sometimes opposing firms will try intimidation tactics when facing a smaller firm—a tactic that fails when against the “leaner and meaner” team headed by Kirby. He was involved in a dispute in which a mother left control of her trust to her husband, oldest son, and an independent trustee. However, she left her son with some superior powers over her husband and that fact eventually created some resentment by the father. The chosen son’s three siblings harbored resentment that they were not given any role whatsoever. The father and the other three siblings met with lawyers to try and oust the chosen son and the independent trustee, so that the father could take over. With a trust holding close to $50 million, the father and three kids hired two big law firms and two top lawyers within those firms. They filed a probate case making a number of extremely hostile fiduciary allegations against Kirby’s clients. The independent trustee passed away during the litigation. Kirby suggested, in no uncertain terms, that the litigation tactics were partly responsible. The case was so aggressively litigated and intense that he practically had to make it his singular focus for years. During the case, his client came into possession of an email between opposing counsel and his estranged family. It was a good email that pretty much explained what was actually happening, but Kirby had to turn it over and not use it because it was potentially privileged, and the privilege was then asserted. When another big law firm got involved, his turning over the email was second guessed, and the same email was in the possession of yet another person. In the end, the big firm was disqualified for trying to use the email. Kirby was praised by the majority and dissenting opinion for his ethical decision making. (McDermott Will & Emery LLP v. Superior Court (2017) 10 Cal.App.5th 1083)
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“More than anything, the case taught me that no matter how large my opponents and no matter how hard they try, I cannot be crushed or outworked. As we were approaching trial, the father and family brought in an experienced trial lawyer to add to their arsenal. There were days where all three lead attorneys would team up and email me or call me separately to try and dominate by age and authority, but I was rather immovable. The case was ultimately resolved through a confidential settlement agreement,” Kirby says.
Learning the Mechanics Early “It is hard in this profession to ever get as much trial experience as you want. I feel like I was fortunate to get some real good trial experience early in my career. I know for my father’s generation of attorneys as soon as you passed the bar,
they handed you a bunch of cases to go try. All the original founders of Post Kirby had come from Luce Forward and they all started their own firm based on their reputations as excellent trial lawyers. That is hardly the typical experience of my generation of attorneys. And still, because that is what we were known for, I felt like I got to get involved in trial work earlier in my career than most. It took some volunteering and pushing myself into certain cases, but I learned the mechanics of how to put a trial together and do well with it,” Kirby says. He credits especially two mentors: his dad and now partner in business and Judge Richard Haden. “Working with my dad has always been a huge blessing. I can honestly say, and it’s going to sound biased, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a better lawyer than my father. I’ve never seen anybody who works so hard and seemingly
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Contact Kirby & Kirby, LLC 501 W. Broadway, Ste. 1720 San Diego, 92101 619-200-8793 www.kirbyandkirbylaw.com
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EXP ER I ENCE
never loses; he just wins everything he does. It’s been a 20-year master course to watch him and learn from him. And it wasn’t just him, all the lawyers in his firm taught me something along the way. When you are a young lawyer there is nothing better for your development than to be surrounded by great, great lawyers,” he says. Before taking the bar exam, Kirby worked as a fulltime law clerk for Judge Richard Haden who had an independent calendar in the Hall of Justice—handling more than seven hundred or so civil cases in his department. Kirby got to sit and watch “how the sausage was made.” He was exposed to the entire gamut of civil cases and lawyers—good ones and bad ones. That broad exposure of seeing how things are done made him realize that he wanted to be a business litigator. He says Judge Haden was a great mentor, a hands-on and ethical man who really seemed to enjoy what he was doing. He would drag Kirby into meetings and settlement conference, into whatever he was doing, to get an insider’s view of how the whole court system operated. The direct exposure to those actions proved to be a wonderful experience being on the inside of what he would view from the outside for the rest of his career. “I enjoy that it takes so many skills to be a litigator. You must write well. You must have the confidence to stand your ground. Strategic thinking about a case is always essential. I obsess over it. You have to process a lot of complicated and complex information and simplify it down to the level where you present it to a jury or a judge. It is my job to take a complicated matter and make it simple so it’s easy for a court or jury to understand and decide. Even when I find I’m in over my head and an issue seems overly complicated, I take comfort in the fact that there has to be a way to view it in a far simpler form, so everyone can understand it. It all seems to work out in the end. I feel lucky to do what I do and to have enjoyed as much success doing it as I have. It has all been rather unbelievable.” n
» EDUCATION • California Western School of Law (2001) • University of Arizona (1995)
» HONORS AND AWARDS • Super Lawyers • AV Preeminent Martindale Hubbell • San Diego Magazine – “Top Lawyers”
» ASSOCIATIONS AND MEMBERSHIPS • Association of Business Trial Lawyers – Board of Governors • Enright Inn of Court • Consumer Attorneys (San Diego & California) • San Diego County Bar Association • American Bar Association
» INTERESTS AND HOBBIES • • • • • •
Enjoys time with his nine-year-old daughter Plays bass and electric guitar and drums Avid surfer, skier, and snowboarder Fan of Formula 1 Auto racing Loves classic comedies Enjoys Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Led Zepplin era rock music • Reads Greek philosophy, Homer, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus
What to Say When the Client Says, “I Want to Think About It” by David Ward
When prospective clients tell you, “I have to think about it” or “I have to talk to my spouse,” do you know what to say? Here’s how to overcome those common objections and “close” more clients. First, when the appointment is made, ask if they are married or have a significant other and if so, tell them they both need to be present at the appointment. If they balk, ask if they can make a decision to go ahead without their spouse, and if they say yes, ask again! Asking, “Are you sure?” will often cause them to admit they probably need to have their spouse with them. Second, before you present your “solution” to their problem, take some time to discover what it is that they want to accomplish. Ask questions about why they contacted you and about their most pressing concerns or objectives. Only then should you show them how your services can help them get what they want. When they tell you they want X and later say, “I have to think about it,” you can remind them that they told you they wanted X and ask them, “Has that changed?” or “Did I misinterpret?” By involving them in the process right from the beginning, they will tell you what you need to do or say in order to get “the sale.” Third, when they say, “I have to think about it,” ask them WHAT they have to think about. Make them tell you. Remind them of the benefits they get when they go forward, and what they lose or risk losing if they do not. When someone says they have to think about it, money is often the real issue. Don’t hesitate to ask if this is what is causing them to hesitate. When they admit that it is, make sure there are no other objections by asking, “So, if it wasn’t for the money, you’d go ahead?” Or, “If we can work out the money part, would you go ahead today?” If they have previously admitted that they want the benefits you offer and have no other objections, a payment plan may be all you need to offer to get them to go forward. Finally, you can increase your closing percentage by prequalifying prospects before they come to see you. In addition 22
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to asking about their ability to make a decision (with or without their spouse, partner, superior, or committee), you can give them an idea of what your services may cost and see if that’s going to be a problem. A few hours spent with books on sales can provide more ideas for closing more prospects. A good one to start with is Tom Hopkins’s classic, “How to Master the Art of Selling.” Okay, so the client is sitting in your office and it’s time to sign your retainer agreement. Does she? Are you “closing” as many clients as you would like? If not, here are seven things you can do to improve your percentages: 1. Have your retainer agreement out, in advance. If you hide it and whip it out when it’s time to sign, people get nervous. Put them at ease by letting them get used to seeing the paperwork sitting on your desk during the consultation. You should also point to the documents with the pen you will ask them to sign with. Let them get used to seeing it out and open. 2. Assume they will sign. Everything you do and say should be consistent with them becoming your client. Say, “When we get your case started…” not, “If you decide to hire me….” Here are examples of an assumptive close: • “Go ahead and put your name here and I’ll get started on this immediately.” • “Where do you want me to send your copies of the documents we file in your case?” • “I have everything I need; how soon would you like us to get started working on this?” 3. Have them fill out the “easy” stuff first. When it’s time to sign, give them something to fill out or something non-threatening to sign (i.e., authorizations), first. Let them get into the habit of signing; it will be easier to go with the flow when you present your retainer agreement.
4. Ask a question, break eye contact, start filling out the agreement. When it’s time to sign, ask them, “Where would you like us to send your copies?” or “What is your social security number?” Then break eye contact, look at the agreement, pen poised to fill it out, and wait for them to speak. Don’t utter another word–wait for them to respond. When they do, fill out the agreement for your new client.
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5. Don’t ask them to “sign.” Words are important, and the wrong words can intimidate. Instead of asking them to “sign the contract,” say, “I need you here” or “put your name on this line.” 6. Let them choose. Instead of choosing between (a) hiring you, and (b) not hiring you, give them two (not more than three) choices that are all good for you: “So do you want to get started with the trust AND the lease right now or just the trust?” “Would you prefer to take care of all of this now or half now and half in 60 days?” “Would you like to start on Tuesday or is Thursday better for you?” 7. If they hesitate, remind them of their pain. If you start filling out the agreement and they say they’re not sure or not ready, remind them about why they came to see you in the first place. “You did say you wanted to protect your children, didn’t you?” Most people don’t shop and compare lawyers. If someone hesitates to sign, the odds are they either can’t afford you or they don’t want to spend the money. If they can’t afford you: a. Show them how they CAN afford you (payments, credit cards), or b. Offer them a lower-cost partial solution (another service) c. Refer them to a young colleague. If they don’t want to spend the money, it’s their fault, not yours.
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As a professional advisor, your job is to persuade people to take action that you believe is in their best interests. In fact, you have a duty to do so. This means you must use all of your energy and creativity to show them the benefits of going forward, as well as the detriments if they don’t. Prove to them that the cost of NOT hiring you is far greater than what you charge. The burden of proof is yours. n David Ward learned how to market his legal services the hard way. He was sworn in at 23 and started his practice shortly thereafter. He had no experience as a lawyer, no business contacts, no secretary, and no clients. After five years of mistakes and frustration, he learned a few marketing ideas and put them to work. Eventually he became really good at marketing and his practice took off. He practiced for more than 20 years and now runs two businesses from home. David can be reached at: The Attorney Marketing Center, o: 949-888-2800, e: info@attorneymarketing.com
530 B Street, Suite 350 San Diego, CA 92101
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Competitive Intelligence Is an Essential Component of Better Law Firm Decision-Making by Janet Ellen Raasch
Important law firm decisions should never be made in a vacuum. Instead, they should be made with an abundance of the right information in hand. For many law firm decisions, “the right information” means competitive intelligence. Competitive intelligence is defined as a systematic and ethical program for gathering, analyzing and managing information about the external business environment— information that can affect all of a law firm’s plans, decisions and operations. Competitive intelligence can be information about organizations—like your clients, potential clients and adversaries. It can be information about other law firms— like collaborators, opposing counsel or even potential merger partners. It can be information about the legal needs in particular industries or markets. Competitive intelligence can also be information about people—like the people you will meet in a pitch, in the boardroom, in the courtroom (like opposing counsel or an expert witness) or in a hiring interview. In any of these settings, knowledge of companies and people is power. When gathering competitive intelligence, there is a wrong way and a right way to go about it. The wrong way is typified by computer hackers like Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. As much as we enjoy the book and the movie, and want Lisbeth to succeed, we cannot condone her tactics. This kind of corporate espionage makes for good entertainment, but bad—and unethical—business. The ethical gathering of competitive intelligence complies with all applicable laws—domestic as well as international. It is obtained from legitimate online and print sources, in both public and subscription databases. When obtained by interviews (either with targeted competitor staff and customers or as general field research), the ethical interviewer discloses upfront both her identity and the purpose of the interview. Before starting any competitive research project, it is essential that you have a plan. Thanks to the Internet, there are an almost unlimited number of resources out there. You can waste a lot of time and money searching them all. If we know your goals for a particular research project, we can help you concentrate your resources on the most likely, valid and reliable sources for your purpose. 26
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Competitive Intelligence on Companies, Competitors and Adversaries Some sources of competitive intelligence about companies, competitors and adversaries are paid and some are free to the public. Because of the nature of their work, many law firms and law librarians already have access to many of the paid resources. These include products offered by industry giants LexisNexis and Thomson West. For industry research, competitive intelligence professionals also like to use a product called Profound, offered by MarketResearch.com. They offer a wide range of reports for purchase. An entire report can be costly but, if you know exactly what you are looking for, you can order just part of a report for a lesser fee. And don’t forget. Many of these paid resources are available for you to use free of charge at your local public library. Free resources for company research include llrx.com and Zimmerman’s Research Guide. In its database, Zimmerman’s offers links to both company information and company personnel. Both of these sites are great places to start if you are trying to get an overview of the kind of research that is out there. The Virtual Chase product by Justia.com offers business research as well as county and municipal law resources. Information on companies can be found at Hoovers, Yahoo! Finance, Google Finance, Nexis company information and ValuationResources.com. A lot of good research is available from Google. We all know how to do a Google search, but much more refined searches and results are available via the Google Advanced General Search Page. Google Scholar and Google Advanced Scholar Search offer useful results that have been ‘purged’ of casual hits. Court and government sites—especially the Secretary of State’s office—include public records and a wealth of useful information. If you want to know where a company is headed, check the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Database.
Competitive Intelligence Profiles When preparing to meet with a potential client, lawyers often ask marketers or librarians to prepare a profile of the client. All too often, this is done just a few hours before the scheduled meeting—and we need to scramble. Even with very little lead time, you would be surprised at how much information you can turn up by simply visiting and mining the potential client’s website. You should also search company or firm pages on social media sites. When you have a little more lead time to prepare—like for a proposal or the resulting beauty contest—then you can delve more deeply into client background. Good sources for public companies include SEC filings. Good sources for private companies include Dun and Bradstreet reports. A good profile addresses some or all (depending on your time and research skills) of these categories:
· Quick facts · Company overview · Business segments · Products/services · Business partners · Board of Directors · Key executives · Key developments · Representative clients
· Legal issues and litigation · Locations · Case studies · Patent information · Marketing strategy · Competitors · Sources · News articles
Armed with this type of information, your lawyers and law firm are well-prepared to make good decisions about how to approach a potential client (or anyone else), and how to make a good impression once the contact takes place.
Competitive Intelligence on People Sometimes you need information about an individual rather than a company. This person could be a client, a prospective client, a competitor, opposing counsel, a potential hire or a potential merger partner. When you know something about the person you are meeting with, you can plan appropriately. Sometimes, you need other kinds of information about people. For example, you might need to track down a former employee or a potential witness. When such a person has gone ‘off the grid’ electronically, you might not have much to go on. This is where creativity comes into play. In one such case, a former executive had been gone from a company for five years. He had a common name, which made the search even more difficult. Someone recalled him saying that he wanted to take over his family’s farm. By using the farm subsidy database and narrowing the search by general geographic area and the man’s age, we were able to locate him for our client.
Another reason to search for people is to acquire their contact information for use in a marketing database. Good sources of contact information include telephone directories, professional directories and professional licensing agencies (if you know a person’s profession). Online sources include a search on Yahoo! People. Many of the commercial and general resources mentioned in the “companies” research section in this article work just as well for people. Competitive intelligence experts often use a site called Jigsaw, owned by Salesforce. It is a business-to-business contact database populated by marketers and salespeople around the country. By contributing their contacts, users gain access to the database. It includes 30 million contacts. It is an especially good source for the contact information of individuals below the usual c-level executives that show up in most directories. If you know a person’s location, you can search local and regional media for mentions of their names and activities. Social media—like Martindale Hubbell, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube—are also good resources. So are blog searches. Social media include contact information, but they also broaden your research with less formal “chat” about people, their activities and the companies they work for. In gathering information about people, you want to use a wide variety of sources—and you want to be very careful to validate any information you find before you act on it. There is a lot of faulty information out there. There are also privacy concerns. Today, information about companies and individuals is widely available. In fact, you could easily drown in all the data. The trick is to focus your search in light of your business goals. With this information in hand, you are well-positioned to make good decisions about the future of your law firm— and its work. n Janet Ellen Raasch is a writer, ghostwriter and blogger (constantcontentblog.com) who works closely with professional services providers—especially lawyers, law firms, legal consultants and legal professionals—to help them achieve name recognition and new business through publication of keyword-rich content for the Internet as well as articles and books for print. She can be reached at (303) 3995041 or jeraasch@msn.com. This article is based on a presentation to the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Legal Marketing Association by Wanda McDavid and Judy Goater of Access Information, a Denverbased firm that provides competitive intelligence for law firms around the country. Article Source: EzineArticles.com/6838291
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Before approaching a logo designer or creating the logo yourself, there are some very important steps you can take to get a clear picture of what the logo should entail and how it should represent your law firm.
Look at Your Competitors
5 TIPS for the BEST LAW FIRM LOGO by Andrew Cabasso
What does your law firm logo suggest to your potential clients? You only have one chance to make a first impression. Upon meeting a new or prospective client and exchanging business cards, the client will get an impression of your firm based on the law firm logo alone. So, what does your logo say about your firm? Your law firm logo represents your law firm to the outside world. Every seemingly insignificant aspect of it makes an impression on the client. Font. Color scheme. Name arrangement. Text size. Spacing. Inclusion of a scale or gavel image. Looking at your business card and firm logo, your client gets an impression. Your client forms an idea in his or her head of what your firm stands for. Is your logo modern or traditional? Does it make you look frugal and indifferent, like you made the logo yourself in Microsoft Word, or does it look like you value your reputation and appearance, and had a professional designer create the logo? 28
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You don’t want your law firm to look like the other law firms in your practice area and location, lest your firm be unmemorable to the client. The last thing you want to do is confuse the client with what sets your firm apart from everyone else. See what you like about their logos. Make notes. Try and gauge how their logos make you perceive their law firms. Do their logos make the firms appear professional or do they seem like the firms are unremarkable? Think about what you like and don’t like about these firm logos when deciding on how your own logo is going to look.
Modern or Traditional? Decide on a Theme Do you want your logo to be modern or traditional? These are the two main theme options for law firm logos. This usually means the difference between serif and sans-serif font. What does that mean? Open Microsoft Word or Google Docs. Type your law firm name in Times New Roman, Georgia, or Garamond font. Then, type your firm name again in either Arial or Helvetica. The first three fonts are considered serif fonts because you can see they have little lines on the bottom and sides of letters like A, B, and C. The sansserif fonts do not have these lines. Serif fonts are associated with newspapers, considered more traditional fonts. Sans-serif fonts are associated with Internet content and are considered modern. Do you want your law firm to have the appearance of a traditional, storied practice or do you want it to appear sleek, adaptive, and modern? The choice is yours.
Choose a Font Now that we’ve decided whether to go serif or sans-serif, we need to choose which font is going to represent the firm. First thing’s first, it should be noted that you should NOT use a commonly used font. Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman. People see these fonts every day. Whether they recognize them immediately as Arial, Helvetica, or Times New Roman, people know these fonts. They see Times New Roman while reading the newspaper. They see Helvetica when getting on the subway. They see Arial while reading websites. These fonts do not make an impression anymore. There are many sites where you can download fonts for free. Google has a directory of free fonts, most of which you’re guaranteed to not have come across. Take a look around. Use the Google Font tool to test out your law firm name in different fonts and compare them side by side. One last tip on choosing a font: Don’t be indecisive. While two or three fonts may look similar to you, your clients will never know the difference when you choose a font for your law firm logo. They will never know that it was down to three similar fonts. The client will likely not be influenced any differently by similar looking fonts. You may want to ask someone else for their opinion on two or three fonts, but make a choice and stick with it.
Choose Your Colors Online you can find many color wheel tools useful to help web designers choose color schemes. Click on a primary color and they will suggest complementary colors. Just make sure that you use a color selection helping tool. Otherwise, you may end up picking two colors that just don’t work together. When picking colors, try avoiding those of a law firm in your practice area and region. You want to make sure you stand apart in the mind of the client. If you think every color combination has been taken by the firms in your region, just ensure that your logo looks different to distinguish you from your competitors.
Images or No Images? Often a law firm logo entails an arrangement of the names of the partners. Sometimes it’s an abbreviation of those names. Other times, the logo includes a tried
and true symbol of the legal profession—the scales of justice—or a gavel—alongside the partner names. Generally, I hate the scales of justice and gavel. They’ve been played out. They’re overdone. They’re sickening. They’re unimaginative. If you are going to include an image alongside your partner names, why not include a memorable image that represents your law firm, conveys professionalism, and also originality? You can do this by including an image, if you so choose, of the initials of the firm partners’ names. If the firm is Crane, Poole, and Schmidt, you could have a small CPS initialed logo. This is a more modern element to law firm logos, differentiates the firm, and also looks professional. So, if you are going to include an image, consider shelving the gavel and scales for something a bit more contemporary and unique.
Conclusion With all of these tips in mind, you’re ahead of the game. Whether you decide to make a logo yourself or approach logo designers, you know what you want your logo to convey. You know the message you want your clients to receive. You know how your competitors look and how you’re going to look different. Now, you can clearly envision what your logo is going to look like without having to get wildly different designs from a designer that won’t be useful for your firm. If you are proficient at Photoshop, I would suggest taking a shot at creating a logo yourself. If not, maybe you should consider hiring a logo designer. In this crowdsourcing era of Internet technology, logo designs can be incredibly inexpensive. There are many sites now like 99designs.com where you can crowdsource your logo design, having up to several hundred design mockups sent to you by freelance designers, with you choosing and paying for your favorite. Good luck. n Andrew Cabasso is a practicing attorney and cofounder of JurisPage, an Internet Marketing firm specializing in online presence solutions for law firms including website design, SEO, and search marketing. He has given many lectures and CLEs on website design and Internet marketing to legal professionals. He is on the Committee for Information Technology in the New York City Bar. Article Source: EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Cabasso
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Executive Presence: I Know I Need It— How Do I Get It? by Jessika M. Ferm
E
xecutive presence—we all know when we’re around someone who has it. Executive presence is hard to define, but it encompasses a combination of physical, mental and emotional qualities that cause an individual to project a certain level of sophistication, charisma and energy. While a business presence is a highly personal matter and there is no “one size fits all” formula to developing one, there are some tips that can help you get started at differentiating yourself professionally. IMPROVE YOUR POSTURE: Research indicates that people with good posture who carry themselves erectly are perceived as having confidence. An important aspect of projecting executive presence is the ability to communicate positively through body language. The good news is that it doesn’t matter if you are tall or short, you can easily maximize your executive presence by standing up straight, positioning your head with ears aligned with the shoulders, and relaxing the arms. It is a deceivingly simple exercise and for many it takes years to correct the hunched-over position we have become accustomed to after years of working in front of computers. Posture is so important that actors and celebrities are now hiring posture coaches to help them exude confidence and increased presence in order to get noticed. COMMUNICATE STRATEGICALLY: Some clients who come to us for coaching realize that they aren’t being noticed by key decisionmakers and are often passed over for promotional opportunities or challenging assignments. It isn’t that they aren’t good performers or great team players, they just seem to get lost in the crowd. One strategy to get noticed without being abrasive is to start asking meaningful questions in meetings or sharing information that others may find valuable. Leaders with a high executive presence quotient are inquisitive and curious. They come across as caring and engaged without self-importance or bravado. This strategy works for introverts and extroverts alike. If you tend to dominate meetings with your comments and feedback, practicing asking questions instead of making statements shows a heightened sense of self-awareness and it invites others to join the conversation. MANAGE YOUR BODY LANGUAGE: We all send non-verbal signals about how we feel, think or perceive a situation. If we are impatient, we may tap our feet or hands or we may be prone to interrupting others. One of my clients said, “I’m tapping my fingers to send a message that the person needs to speed up what they are saying.” My response to this type of statement is always, 30
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“Does it make that person speed up?” and the answer is always “No.” Instead, we are sending an ineffective signal that we are impatient and that the other person’s information or presentation isn’t valuable. Instead of sending non-verbal signals, which are often confusing, consider tactfully asking the person to hit some key points or communicate with him or her after the presentation how they could have been more effective. Once you can master your non-verbal communication signals, you will come across as a person who is caring, considerate, and a great listener. These are all aspects of executive presence. ACCEPT YOUR FLAWS: The first three tips offer you some tactical solutions for developing your executive presence right away. Accepting your flaws and developing increased self-awareness may take a lifetime. It is an ongoing process with no end in sight. The good news is that you can begin by coming across as more self-aware immediately. Get comfortable accepting your flaws or mistakes by admitting to them or acknowledging critical feedback. I know this isn’t easy, but it will work wonders for your executive presence. For example, if you are told you made a mistake, practice responding with, “Thank you for pointing that out. What one action step can I take to avoid this mistake in the future?” or “I wasn’t aware that I was doing that. Thank you for sharing your feedback. It allows me to improve.” Most of us are defensive about our flaws and weaknesses and our natural response is to fight back or defend. People with high degrees of executive presence are non-judgmental of themselves and others and they are open to accepting information in a neutral manner because they understand that’s how they learn and improve. These four tips will help you get started in developing your executive presence. One good exercise is to evaluate yourself on a scale form 1-10 (1 being lowest and 10 being highest), and rate yourself on where you feel your executive presence is right now. Implement a few of these strategies and re-rate yourself in about six months. You may even want to ask a trusted friend or colleague to rate you pre- and post- to see if you are making significant steps forward. n Jessika M. Ferm is a writer, coach, speaker, and consultant on leadership, management, and business topics and is known for her “no frills no fluff” approach to sharing information. She is the President of J.Ferm, LLC, an international leadership consulting firm and is the trusted adviser to leaders and managers ranging from Fortune 100 companies to start-ups. Article Source: EzineArticles.com/6546196.
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