I’m coming off an interesting couple weeks where the theme apparently was happiness. And before you start rolling your eyes, give me a moment (because I’m just as skeptical as you when people in legal start spouting off about happiness).

According to Psychology Today, happiness is

more than simply positive mood, happiness is a state of well-being that encompasses living a good life—that is, with a sense of meaning and deep satisfaction.”

Let’s face it. THAT does not sound like the typical law firm, or overwrought executive, or the millennial lawyer, let alone look like anything that is happening within a legal marketing department.

This happiness theme really took hold with something Sanju Kripalani, who recently joined the Wicker Park Group said. It was based off of Sonja Lyubomirsky’s “The How of Happiness” formula,

50% of happiness is determined by your genes

10% of happiness is determined by the circumstances in which you live

40% of happiness is determined by your actions, your attitude or optimism, and the way you handle situations

Continue Reading If you’re happy and you know it … better yet, if you don’t

I need to apologize to the LMA membership. I was being recruited by several senior (all Hall of Fame) members of our beloved association to run for president this year. I even had a member of our PR community working on message points … it was that important to this group to change the leadership course of LMA.

After a long deliberation, and many phone calls, I declined.

I declined because I felt that my voice would be better suited for outside the leadership vacuum of LMA.

And today I was proven so right.

The LMA board, without input from it’s members, has decided to do away with three programs: Your Honor Awards, Hall of Fame, and Rising Stars. I only know this as the information started leaking to me last night. As I type this, I still haven’t received my official notification from LMA.

I am posting everything that is being forwarded to me to the LME Group. If you’re not a member, send me a direct message on Facebook.

Today I am calling for:

TRANSPARENCY from the LMA leadership. Who came up with this? ACI? SmithBucklin? What was the timeline for this? Where is the market research in support of this? Where is this “strategic plan”?

MEMBER SURVEYS to actually find out what the needs of the membership are. Enough already.

AN END TO THE SLATE. We need open elections, or at least the ability to have competition and a diversity of voices. The pathway to leadership is a roadblock. I won’t even share my personal experience.

ACCOUNTABILITY for whomever is making these decisions.

RESTORATION to the MEANING behind our tagline: “The Authority for Legal Marketing.”

Should you have anything you would like to anonymously submit, email me.

I have written several times about my participation in the SmithBucklin Leadership Institute last year. The class of 2014 will have a reunion later this week, and yes, I have homework.

One of our assignments is to reflect on our last year’s final homework assignment — how are we going to pay forward what we had learned — and to provide an update on how we’re doing with that. No generalities are allowed. We need to dig deep, and provide details.

As I flipped open to last year’s homework, I realized that I was in a different place. As in jobs. At the time of our last session, my firm had announced, yet had not closed, a merger with an AmLaw 200 firm, and my answers were all based on that scenario.

The three learning elements that I was committed to pay forward were: Continue Reading Leadership Revisited

Photo credit: Gina Rubel. #LMA15 In my spiritual community we talk about doing things “for fun and for free.” Apparently, doing for others brings back more reward than doing for yourself. The same is true in my professional association, The Legal Marketing Association. My first boss in legal marketing, Frank Moon, saw something in my non-profit, political, and event management experience that he thought would lateral in well to legal. And it has. He also threw me head first into LMA’s local chapter here in Los Angeles. I could plan a better event. I could bring better ideas to the table. And so my LMA “career” began, somewhere in 1997. Fast forward almost two decades, and I have done a couple tours of duty on my local board, served as my local chapter president, joined a national committee to get to know Merry Neitlich better, and became good friends with John Byrne as we worked on a Membership Dues Restructuring task-force together (where our recommendations were adopted … 10 years later, lol). At some point, Diane Hamlin encouraged me to run for the national board, but I didn’t make it (this was back when we had contested elections).  Nathalie Daum told me not to be discouraged and invited me to participate on a national committee and try again the next year. I did and I made it. I also made great friends with Jayne Navarre, and met all these LMA luminaries, who turned out to be legal marketers just like me. Continue Reading Do you have what it takes?

On September 4, 2007, I got off the elevator on the 47th floor of this ivory tower and set about creating a marketing and business development program for Barger & Wolen LLP as their first marketing director. It has been quite a journey. We survived a recession; changes to our clients’ industry; the advent of social media; the passing of the torch from one generation to the next; and a merger with an AmLaw 200 firm.

It’s been seven years, five months, 16 days, and in a couple hours I will leave behind my keycard and a lot of memories as I head to Century City and take the helm of the marketing operations for another firm (details on Monday).

Today is about reflecting on my experiences and what working for this firm has meant to me, and a few of the life and business lessons that I am taking with me.

When I first started out in legal marketing, the average tenure of a legal marketer was about 2.5 years, and my resume affirms that this was true for me as well.

A couple years ago, while serving on the Legal Marketing Association’s board of directors, we ran the numbers: Approximately 3/4 of LMA membership turns over every four years. With a membership of more than 3000, that’s a lot of people. Some stay in the industry, not renewing their memberships, but many more leave.

I have come to learn that it takes a certain type of personality to stay and work in-house as a senior legal marketer year in and year out. Most senior legal marketers jump out to consult at some point. More just jump out to other industries along the way.

Having been at my firm for almost 7.5 years I have a new perspective on the advantages afforded both the law firm and the legal marketer that comes with longevity in the role.

Deeper and personal relationships = honest conversations

I was speaking with a partner last week and he remarked that I spoke to him like his wife does. Smiling I replied we worked together longer than most marriages last.

My longevity at my firm has allowed me to build true and personal relationships with many of the lawyers that extend beyond nine to five and Facebook. I have the ability to walk into a partner’s office and tell him or her the truth, or ask the difficult questions, sometimes in a not too subtle way.

Deeper and personal relationships allow us to speak candidly with one another. While we might not always agree, we are honest with one another.

Culture changes take time

In Leading Change, the author suggests that it takes three to 10 years to shift culture. Without longevity in a position the legal marketer will either never affect a culture change, or will never see the fruits of their labor. For me, seeing those changes has been the most rewarding aspect of my job and tenure at the firm.

I often tell the story of a senior partner who raised his voice at me during my first few weeks at the firm. He had no interest in this “marketing mumbo-jumbo” and didn’t understand why we had to do it. Fast forward seven years and our conversation turned to how I had to “come along” in the merger because of my importance and value to him, his practice, and the firm.

I could have missed it all.

A true team allows you to get things done

In law firms the lawyer default in regards to business development always circles back to “cross-selling.” Truth be told, cross-selling rarely works. Why? Because there is no team. You cannot throw a group of people in a room and expect them to give away something they have in hopes of getting something that really isn’t guaranteed from someone they do not really know, perhaps they do not like, and who they definitely do not trust.

It’s the same with the administrative departments. We compete against one another for resources (time, money, people). But for a well-run firm, you need these departments to work collaboratively to create a functioning business, and time affords you the opportunity to develop these teams, and there is nothing like a challenge to bring everyone together.

I don’t know any firm that over the course of 7.5 years did not have a challenge or 10 to over come. Revenues down. Recession. Boom times in the wrong area. Scandals. Partner departures. Layoffs. Market crashes. Office moves. A merger. All of these provide opportunity for the administrative leaders to band together and solidify themselves as a team working on common goals.

Opportunities abound

Last year my firm supported my participation in the SmithBucklin Leadership Institute. It was a lot of time out of the office: five trips to Chicago over the course of six months. Prior to that the firm supported my leadership role on LMA’s board of directors, with four in-person board meetings per year and lots of office hours devoted to my projects.

My eye has now turned towards George Washington University’s Masters in Law Firm Management program. It’s going to be impossible to convince a group of strangers that they should welcome and support sending me away for what constitutes a couple weeks of additional paid time off to do something that may or may not provide a direct benefit to the firm.

For me to do this I will need the support of my new firm. But I have to earn the that support, and that will take time. I won’t make it there for 2016, but I’ll get there.

It’s a truly bittersweet day today. I have packed up my boxes, cleaned out my paper and digital files, tranfered my documents from the older Barger & Wolen server to the new firm’s system, and transitioned my active projects amongst the team back east.

One thing I do know is that my shoes will be filled, and that’s a good and healthy thing. They might not be filled by someone who appreciates Stuart Weitzman as much as I do, or by someone who sees things the way that I see them, but that person will bring their own personality, traits, ideas, and energy to the team here.

And that is perhaps the last things I have learned through staying in my position as long as I have:

Sometimes it’s the right time to go

Marketing is a creative position. You have to grow as a legal marketer, or you will be of no benefit to your firm or your attorneys. But sometimes you have moved the ball as far as you can and it’s going to take someone else to pick it up and take the lead. Stay too long and you become a liability.

I leave here today having done the best job that I could every day for seven years, five months, and 16 days.

Sorry for no post on Friday. I was fully engaged in the SmithBucklin Leadership Institute where our focus was on what we learned, and how we were going to pass it on.

There were four domains that we explored during the course of the six-month program: Who You Are; What You Do; What You Inspire; What You Enable.

In our last session we had to present a leadership case study; write about someone who inspired us; present two examples of what we were going to take away; prepare our eulogy; and how we planned to pass it on. Yeah, no shortage of homework this time around.

Who inspired me? Steve Barrett. My former boss and mentor. He has always shown me through action and deed that he has the courage to do the right thing, even when it is a risk to him personally.

What did I take away? Really looking at how I can make conversations a safe place for dialog and sharing; and, to become more intentional in cultivating meaningful relationships.

What did my eulogy unveil: I have some goals for my career, and a pathway in front of me.

How do I plan to pass it on? In the short run, it is about integrating my partners and attorneys into the Hinshaw culture. Long term? I haven’t written that out yet.

I need to publicly thank Henry Givray and Dale West for leading such an incredible class and experience. I have made 17 new friends, found a new mentor, and have begun a new journey in my career and life. And, I cannot thank LMA enough for investing in me to attend the Institute.

So, what’s on tap for today:

  • New practice area assignments are done.
  • Preparing for the website redirect.
  • Speaking of the blogs … lots of links to redirect.
  • New logo with tagline is done. Sent over to upload on the blogs for 10/1.
  • Getting all the bios and service areas back. Following up on those who haven’t turned them in yet.

imageThe Sports Dude and I are sitting on a plane right now headed to Chicago. I have had the privilege for the past six months of attending and participating in The SmithBucklin Leadership Institute, which is culminating this weekend, and we get to bring our +1. If it wasn’t for the merger, and all the work that took place behind the scenes prior to the merger being announced, I would have written on my experience in the Institute more. In short, I don’t think I could have provided the assistance to my partners without the lessons and skills I have learned. I have specifically employed new techniques, avoided some pitfalls, and smoothed over some ruffled feathers, all because of my new leadership skills. As I finish up my final homework assignments, and prepare my final presentations, I am struck most by how prior to the Institute I did a lot of these things, and I knew a lot of these things, but it was instinctive, or by intuition. I had never been taught, or learned it. I picked it up along the way through good examples and incredible mentors, specifically Frank Moon and Steve Barrett; incredible friends and colleagues, like Catherine Alman MacDonagh; and, to be completely candid, some really shitty situations and interactions with some really crappy human beings. What I am walking away with most from my experience these past six months is a heightened awareness of who I am as a leader, and what that means and looks like within the legal industry, my professional association, my job, with my team, my HOA, Girl Scouts, my family, and the list can go on and on. If I could sum it all up: I have become more intentional, and less dependent on my intuition and instincts. So what’s on tap for today? Continue Reading M(erger) – Minus 13 Days: Intuitive v. Intentional

I know my blog posts have slowed down as of late. On behalf of LMA, I’m in in the heart of a leadership training program, The SmithBucklin Leadership Institute, which is taking a lot of my blogging time (and it is well worth it).

I just returned from session four and very quickly want to share one of those “ah-ha” moments before I dig back into my work here at the firm:

Brainwriting v. brainstorming.

We all know what brainstorming is. Great fun. Lots of people shouting. A white board or giant pad of paper and different colored Sharpies to capture ideas and concepts.

As an extrovert I process externally. I think out loud and then sit back and reflect to find my answers. I LOVE to brainstorm.

Introverts are the exact opposite and brainstorming is very overwhelming for them. They need to collect their thoughts before they can process them, and they do that internally.

So here’s the tip: Next time you are in a meeting, rather than brainstorm an idea, have everyone write down their thoughts for 10-15 minutes. This will give the introverts time to process the information and form their ideas, and keep the extroverts from controlling the dialogue, which is the point to brainstorming: Get all the ideas into the pot so that the group can benefit from the richness of the diversity of thoughts.

Just make sure that when the writing time is over you call on the extroverts first. You’ll know who they are; they are the ones about to burst.

Keith Wewe and I are participating in the SmithBucklin Leadership Institute lead by Henry Givray. It’s a six month program with five in-person sessions, and a lot of reading. We’ve had three in-person sessions so far, and I am just starting to notice how much I have absorbed, so expect several posts over the next few months on the lessons I have learned, and how I am applying them to my life today. One of our recent homework assignments was on time v. energy, and included reading the Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal (learn more at The Energy Project). The authors had me at their first principle:

Full engagement requires drawing on four separate but related sources of energy: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.”

Continue Reading Leadership’s Lessons: Energy Replenishment