Wired GC

law from the inside out

Lawyer Visibility: See and Being Seen

This week has featured a look at the reality that most lawyers never retain an attorney. Yesterday featured a look at 7 factors that lawyers could use as a virtual check-up for their retain-ability. If that’s a word.

The last factor was one of the main challenges for lawyers today: visibility. There are more lawyers chasing fewer clients.

The visibility condundrum is can be acute at larger law firms. The good news is more people may have heard of your firm; the bad news: you are one of hundreds (thousands?) of lawyers clamoring for attention.

Let’s look at it graphically:

Even after getting noticed in some media, there are additional factors at play that impact whether your efforts are read, retained, and (hopefully) acted upon.

When we talk of media, these days it goes beyond the traditional legal publishing outlets. Visibility can also include social media.

Because of sustained interest in this topic, the next Wired GC Seminar is entitled “Legal Social Media: Salvation or Snake Oil?” More information is available by clicking on the “Seminars” tab on the navigation bar at the top of this page. Subscribers to our Wired GC – Select monthly newsletter automatically get a link to view these seminars.

The Future Lawyer: Vigor, Velocity and Visibility

Lawyers face many day-to-day challenges. A big one for all: just getting work out the door. For some time, in-house counsel have had the added challenge of getting better over time at getting work out the door. For lawyers in private practice, that one is becoming more important. For them, we add another: just getting work.

Getting work out the door requires vigor, both in the physical and intellectual senses of the term. Improving how you work, I think, requires velocity; it’s not just speed, it’s “rate of motion in a particular direction in relation to time.” (See, two years in engineering school was not wasted). And when you think you are done, many lawyers in private practice now realize that having good work from clients that pay and pay well is not to be taken for granted. So some level of visibility is needed now, and will become even more important in the coming years.

Vigor is something you either have or need to work to get. No Wired GC branded nutritional supplements. Yet…

Velocity is becoming increasingly important. To help with some of the tools available for in-house counsel to get things done better (quicker, with quality and lower cost), I have been writing about the Legal Pyramid, and gave an online seminar on April 7, 2011 about it.

Visibility is an interesting one; more about it down the road here. This was the subject of a mildly provocative and entertaining essay this week by former outside lawyer and current in-house counsel Mark Hermann. I shared a platform with Mark a few years back; I agree with some of the things that outside counsel “collect” with the best of intentions in the hope of better visibility. I depart at the point where there is an assumption that in-house counsel don’t need to concern themselves with this last “V.” Again, more later.

Vigor, Velocity and Visibility. Maybe not “Veni, Vidi, Vici” for the corporate legal set. But it’s not a bad place to start. And, hey, if you can best the competition in four hours you had better been billing for results, not time. I think the word is pretium.

(This is from Philip Morris; it doesn’t mean project management).

Vigor, Velocity, Visibility

The Legal Pyramid: A Wired GC Seminar

We depart from our usual April Fool’s prank to offer a timely seminar for Wired GC readers.

Our recent discussion about the corporate Legal Pyramid has generated a lot of feedback. There were also a number of issues that didn’t fit into the format. (A two-page PDF of the Legal Pyramid is available here).

So we are using the Legal Pyramid as a first building block in a new seminar series at the Wired GC. It starts on April 7, 2011 at 12 Noon EDT.

Entitled “The Legal Pyramid: Which End is Up?” this hour-long webinar will explain the Wired GC’s Legal Pyramid and how it can help corporate lawyers understand the change confronting law firms and legal departments. This seminar will describe a 7 step process to look honestly at where you are and plan for the next wave of change in the corporate legal market.

The seminar is complementary for Wired GC readers, but space is limited. It is very simple to register; just click here to claim your virtual seat.

Or you can go right to the registration page by clicking on the pyramid:

If you can’t make the seminar, just subscribe to Wired GC – Select (top right of page, “Subscribe“), we will send you a summary of the seminar later this month.

Craig Johnson, Virtual Law Partners – Seminar

The Wired GC continues its seminar series, Wired GC-Off The Meter.

Our fifth seminar is entitled “Virtual Lawyers, Tangible Value”, and features Craig Johnson, CEO and Co-Founder of Virtual Law Partners, and will be held on Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 1:30 PM EDT/10:30 AM PDT (30 minutes). VLP is a fast-growing virtually-structured law firm with 38 partners in five states. We talked to Craig around the time of VLP’s founding last year in a podcast that’s available here.

Full details are on the dedicated series page; registration is quick, and allows you to attend the seminars live, or view them on-demand after. Also, when you confirm your subscription, you will get a copy of the series white paper: “Changing the Law: Metrics and Milestones.”

The series available to the legal community without charge thanks to our exclusive sponsor, The Vallex Fund.

Current subscribers to Wired GC -Select are already registered and have access to the series archives.

Wired GC - Off the Meter