Lawyers can be harsh
Let’s face it. To succeed in legal marketing, or anything to do with working with lawyers, you have to have a tough shell.
I spoke on a webinar this week with Darryl Cross and John Byrne where we discussed social media.
We’ve all spoken on the topic in the past. Darryl and I have participated together on a panel. John and Darryl have participated together. But this was the first time the three of us joined forces.
The conversation, from my perspective, was fluid. We followed the outline as best we could. There’s a certain chemistry between us that allowed for banter. We didn’t all agree with one another, which leads to a more interesting debate. We did what we were asked to do.
And we got slammed in some of the reviews.
I was completely shocked. I don’t think everyone is going to like anything that I do or say, but, jeez, a couple of the comments (okay, one specific, but he wrote on and on) were just downright harsh.
The worst …. Unfocused …. Poor quality.
Ouch.
I’ve spoken on the subject, in a similar roundtable format, before lawyer groups and have received glowing reviews, as have we all, so what went wrong here??
It hit me quickly. I wasn’t just speaking before a group of lawyers. I was speaking before a group of litigators. And, litigators are a different breed within the law firm dynamic.
Litigators are trained to look for loopholes and to then drive a Mack Truck through them. Litigators are more skeptical than your average attorney. Litigators live by the rules, written and codified if possible. Litigators want proof. Litigators are not comfortable with fluid.
So what am I taking away from this?
- We should have better identified our audience. Knowing they were lawyers was not enough. We needed to know what kind and type of lawyer comprised our audience.
- We should have had a bullet-pointed program, and stuck to it. An outline was not enough.
- We should have downplayed our camaraderie/chemistry and provided a more fact-based presentation.
I don’t think we would have met everyone’s expectations in the audience. That’s pretty impossible to do.
I did, however, hear back from other people on the call who found our presentation informative and interesting.
If you follow my blog or have seen me present, you know I am a colloquial writer and speaker. I don’t present from the vantage point of the legal ethicist, nor do I hold myself out to be an expert of any kind on legal ethics.
I present from the vantage point of the business developer and marketer. I operate within the confines of the legal ethics. I look to the lawyers in our midst, the ABA and the state bar associations, for their interpretation of the rules as they apply to my states of operation. However, the legal ethics of social media are presently developing, so right now we’re operating off the current rules of professional conduct.
As for me, personally? I’ll take solace that while I got slammed harder than John or Darryl, my overall ratings were also the highest. I guess somebody out there liked me 
.
For me there is always room for improvement when speaking in public. I learned a lot from reading “Confessions of a Public Speaker” by Scott Berkun. He has a whole chapter on audience feedback. Basically we all get less positive (or neutral) feedback and more negative, so don’t feel alone.
I speak in front of lawyers a lot, sometimes twice in a week, either live or via virtual channels. I’ve been speaking in front of groups for over 20 years — including time as a classroom teacher. However, in the past 3 years I’ve been speaking almost exclusively on social media and I find it extremely challenging for several reasons.
First, simply getting your arms around the universe of social media for an hour-long presentation is difficult—there are so many moving parts. (But, I am getting closer!) Next, panels are always more difficult without a really strong moderator who knows the topic too. Third, truly knowing your audience, no matter what topic you’re speaking on, is darn near impossible every time—sometimes you do get lucky. But it’s particularly difficult when speaking on social media—I find different mind-sets, expectations and levels of experience with the tools or even with “marketing” skill sets for that matter. To top it off, things just get worse when you don’t have the advantage of audience reaction, i.e. webinar. It’s hard to adjust. And, sometimes it’s too late even if you do have the in-person advantage. Public speaking is art! It takes practice.
Agreed: knowing who’s in your audience and tailoring the presentation is important. Though I agree with your assessment of communicating to litigators; I find that lawyers, generally, like outlines and structure, period. For a couple of reasons, (1) they are easily distracted by their mobile devices or by what’s going on at the office, (2) they often don’t have the benefit of “context” so they don’t know what to think, and (3) they may sit through the presentation but are really thinking “I’ll look at the slide deck later.”
I recently spoke to a wonderful law firm association group (mixed practice areas, law firm leaders) who were very receptive, inquisitive and appreciative. Overall, their energy fueled mine and resulted in great reviews. Conversely, earlier in the week I spoke to a practice specific (sub-group) of a different law firm association and the audience appeared less than satisfied—was it the content or my style? Not quite sure. But I can say that environment worked against me: low energy, distracted by their mobile devices, and generally looked unhappy to be there. (I feed off the audience—for better or worse!) The upside was that I did get some valuable critical feedback that inspired me to restructure some of my points and perhaps that even helped the second presentation later that week. As I said at the top…for me, there’s always room for improvement when speaking to the public. No matter how many times I give the same presentation—it’s just different!!!
This is interesting, Heather. And maybe it is, as you say, because you had an audience of litigators, though I find lawyers, generally, are on the lookout for loopholes, etc.
In my CLE work, I’ve seen my share of evaluations of our speakers and a couple of thoughts come to mind. I generally find the best and worst evaluations to be less helpful than all of those in-between. They are the outliers.
I’ve also come to wonder whether it’s easier to slam speakers in online presentations because there’s more anonymity and distance between the students and the speaker. You don’t make eye contact. You don’t connect in the same ways.
Thanks for the comments!
What I was hoping to convey in this post is that we, as speakers, cannot get defensive over constructive and non-constructive criticism. I soooooo want to prove WHY the outlier comment were wrong and prove why I could dismiss what he said.
But, in reality, between the non-constructive critical points, were some things that I could take home.
Once I divorced myself from what I found to be an overly personal attack, I was able to see it and find what was useful.
This is spot on and a valuable lesson for legal marketers not just in terms of formal presentations, but in the way that they interact with their attorneys on a day to day basis. If you work in a practice-specific role, it’s important to understand the nuances involved in engaging with different types of lawyers. Just as we are different as communications professionals, lawyers with varied specialties differ as well. The approach you take with an advertising law attorney won’t work with a litigator and vice versa. When you’re working with an inherently challenging type of professional, honing in on and responding to these differences is critical.
Hi Heather,
First, when the reviews are down right nasty, don’t take them seriously. And I have found at some of our CLE programs that attorneys can be incredibly cruel and nasty, instead of constructive, in their criticism.
Second, when you’re doing an online presentation, it’s even more critical to be organized and follow a three point format. The lack of eye contact, connection, feedback hampers your abilities, and theirs, throughout the presentation. It’s also critical in person, of course, but online is even more of a challenge.
Third, too much joking around, or camaraderie in an online presentation is going to upset lots of folks. It will make them feel like outsiders, because again they can’t connect in the way they can at an in-person event. A little is just fine – I’m not saying be boring or stiff. \
You hit it on the nail when you said it needs to be focused; and joking around with your co-panelists isn’t focus.
Cheers!
Heather,
Thanks for this post. I applaud your courage to speak on a tough subject. The first time I led a branding session for a law firm back in the 90′s it felt like I was at the Spanish Inquisition. It seemed as if the entire marketing team was there to disagree with every single point I made. It was brutal, but I survived. It also made me love working with the profession. If you can get 12 lawyers to agree on something then you can do anything! I actually had one lawyer with a HUGE firm tell me that we had a poor strategy on an initiative we were working on. 7 months later he leaves the firm and calls me to ask for help marketing his new firm. Go figure. You have already got some great feedback. I especially agree with the bullet pointed program. Great advice.
I look forward to meeting you in Orlando and trading war stories.