Category «Leadership»

When Should Presenters Apologize?

Referencing decades of experience as a presenter and an attendee at presentations, Jerry Lawson cautions us not to begin a presentation with an apology, which can be compelled by a tech glitch or some other reason not within our control. Lawson states that the habit of beginning with an apology is so old that it has a name in Medieval rhetoric, the captatio benevolentiae, meaning an attempt to capture the audience’s goodwill. Most importantly, It doesn’t work. Lawson highlights a range of scenarios for which an apology or no apology, are appropriate. His lesson applies to far more than presentations, as these reactions are common in a work environment where they may indeed not serve your objectives.

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Subjects: Communication Skills, Continuing Legal Education, Education, Presentation Skills

Slide Show Formatting Basics

Legal tech expert and frequent speaker Jerry Lawson affirms that the best substantive presentation material looks even better if packaged well. Formatting slide shows is an art. Compliance with some basic slide show formatting principles won’t make you Monet, but will put you on the road to being a passable PowerPoint artist. Lawson shares his presentation tips and techniques.

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Subjects: Communication Skills, Legal Marketing, Legal Profession, Presentation Skills

The race against time to reinvent lawyers

Jordan Furlong is a leading analyst of the global legal market and forecaster of its future development. In this insightful article he contends that our legal education and licensing systems produce one kind of lawyer. The legal market of the near future will need another kind. If we can’t close this gap fast, we’ll have a very serious problem.

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Subjects: Law Firm Marketing, Leadership, Management, Team Building

Are You a Renaissance Leader?

Kevin Novak continues his discussion on critical strategies and managing people in workplaces which have increasingly shifted to indirect, digitized operations and communications. The basic toolkit for successful leaders has changed and will continue to evolve as the work environment shifts. Leaders still need the basics to run the business, but the role has changed from a top-down decision-maker to an empathetic and facilitative colleague. We know it’s a lot to ask leaders to be group dynamics pros, but person-to-person skills as a wise mentor is invaluable with younger workers. It is and always will be important to “read the room” or in today’s terms “read the screen.”

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Subjects: KM, Leadership, Legal Profession, Management

Independent voters are few in number, influential in close elections – and hard for campaigns to reach

As the 2024 campaign cycle unfolds, campaign strategists, pollsters and political scientists have been closely watching independent voters. Professor of Political Science Julio Borquez addresses why it appears that independents are important – including to political science scholars like himself.

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Subjects: Communications, Economy, Education, Leadership

Dissecting The Processes of Law Firm Strategic Planning

We have been informed that 49% of law firm leaders indicate “strategic planning is more important than ever.” Another 20% say it is tremendously important. Law firms have more money at risk than ever before. They have more attorneys in their firms to communicate with. And – they are looking at bigger markets along with a multitude of new ones. Meanwhile, the world is awash in geopolitical risk. Strategic planning brings all this together by evaluating risk and opportunity – the plan itself defines what a law firm will and won’t do. The strategic path brings about the most informed and thoughtful decisions – and with the amount of money at stake – no firm deserves less. Such is the world of law firms and their strategic planning efforts as identified in a survey we just distributed to over 200 large North American law firms. This survey defines where these law firms are in their strategic planning process and where they are headed. Patrick J. McKenna and Michael B. Rynowecer canvassed and received detailed feedback from firm leaders, all from firms of over 100 lawyers in size, on their specific approach to strategic planning and their responses to 16 sequential questions covering everything from who was involved in developing their current strategic plan and how long it took, to how satisfied they were and the one thing they would change with respect to their efforts going into the future.

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Subjects: Leadership, Legal Marketing

Toward a durable, dictator-proof Washington Post

David H. Rothman’s timely, outside the box commentary addresses the growing wave of news outlets abruptly closing down their websites, laying off staff, and in some cases, eliminating access to their respective archives. Rothman proposes an alternative to “how do I charge them enough” to stem the tide of closures, an avenue he prompts billionaire Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, to consider. A good-sized trust or corporate equivalent would enable the Washington Post to be run as a sustainable enterprise in the public interest, rather than as a mere profit generator.

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Subjects: Civil Liberties, Economy, Ethics, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, KM, Leadership, Management, Social Media, Technology Trends

The 2024 ‘Burning Issues’ Confronting Firm Leaders

At the end of December 2023, Patrick J, Mckeena and Michael B. Rynowecer presented 200 Firm Leaders with a selection of over 40 timely and potential ‘Burning Issues’ – and asked of them “what do you anticipate as the highest priorities occupying your leadership agenda going into the new year?” The team received responses representing firms from 200 to over 2000 lawyers in size. This paper distinguishes the challenging issues for firms in 2024.

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Subjects: AI, Communication Skills, Leadership, Legal Marketing, Legal Profession, Management
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