Agenda
Welcome Reception (Atrium)
Let’s reconnect with our LMASE colleagues! You are encouraged to wear jeans and your favorite sports team.
Welcome + Opening Remarks
Erin Ryan | Senior Manager, McGuireWoods LLP
Powers Tanis | Director of Strategic Marketing & Communications, McAngus Goudelock & Courie
Sponsored by: Introhive, LMASE Presenting Conference Partner
Culture Makers Panel
This highly anticipated discussion will feature a variety of “voices” that help shape the culture of a law firm. It will help set the table for the rest of the conference by exploring three specific frameworks: 1) Defining and Exploring an Organization’s Culture; 2) Maintaining and Enhancing an Organization’s Culture; and 3) Reimagining an Organization’s Culture.
Liz Price | Chief Legal Talent Partner, Alston & Bird (Atlanta)
Erin Corbin Meszaros | Chief Business Development and Client Service Officer, Eversheds Sutherland (Atlanta)
Sona Spencer | Chief Legal Talent Officer, Troutman Pepper (Charlotte)
Marcie Borgal Shunk | President & Founder of The Tilt Institute, Moderator
Networking Break
BD Training Today Just Hits Differently: How to Build and Grow your BD Culture in a Hybrid World
The pandemic taught us that we can build connections virtually and forced legal marketers to think differently about the ways in which they coached and trained attorneys to develop new business and nurture client relationships. Many firms (BD teams) used the opportunity to engage with their attorneys and share best practices for successfully building business, learning together and/or tackling common concerns.
Join this dynamic session designed for professionals who are eager to build and foster a business development culture within their firms. During this session, participants will work together on ways to identify the key steps to follow to build a virtual business development training program to reach and engage attorneys at every level, emphasizing the key components to a successful program and highlighting how to evaluate progress and nurture a firm culture that values business development training at every level.
Heather McCullough | Partner, Society 54
Julie Wall Khoury | Chief Marketing Officer, Balch & Bingham
Cooking with Culture: Key Ingredients to Become a Top Culture Chef
Are you looking for the perfect recipe to build a strong team and firm culture?
Join Chef Severson as he shares the key ingredients to prepare high-performing teams! Through interactive discussions, this program will dive into the best practices to building a dynamic culture, as well as address and overcome culture obstacles firms often find in their way.
Adam Severson | Chief Marketing & Business Development Officer, Baker Donelson
Tech Combo: Video Content, Podcasts and Social Media
There are so many tools out there to craft and share our firm’s message – but how do we determine what is right for our firm? And more importantly, how do we put strategy behind it? Robert Ingalls and Joseph Hammond will walk you through the ins-and-outs of video production and podcasts, sharing tips, techniques and case studies, and how they can impact your firm’s culture.
An internal podcast can provide connection and engagement to an organization; Robert will share the best practices for creating – and maintaining – valuable content and the technical how-to details so you can easily bring a podcast initiative to life at your firm.
Video production can seem overwhelming when it comes to developing a campaign for an organization. Joseph will share that process through a video campaign example where he showcases a 12-month DEI video strategy that firms of all sizes can implement immediately. He will guide participants through the video content creation process, including the types of videos you can develop for your firm – using your internal and external resources, or by using your smartphone.
Joseph Hammond | Co-Founder, Producify
Robert Ingalls | Chief Podcast Strategist, Lawpods
Lunch Program: Mental Health Matters
11:15 – 11:45 a.m. | Networking
11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. | Program
Leveraging the Power of FaceForward Technology to Define, Maintain and Advance Law Firm Culture from the Inside Out
Fostering positive social connections – no matter how many or where they’re physically located – is essential to any positive culture. During this interactive and practical session we will offer case studies and concrete takeaways for legal marketers who want to enhance and even transform their firm’s culture by harnessing the power of technology. Attendees will learn how to harness non-traditional technology to positively (and simply) impact their firm’s brand, attorneys’ reputations, and foster deeper personal relationships between attorneys and their key clients.
West Hubbard | Vice President of Business Development, Adwerx
Supporting Women in Today’s Legal World
Law firms are focusing more than ever on supporting women in the workforce, ensuring that their lawyers have equitable and inclusive experiences. Join Danielle as she shares ways law firms can build and design programs and initiatives that support women at all stages of their career. From equity training and mentorship programs to creating policies and benefits, supporting women spans across all departments of a law firm.
And because every law firm is different, we will look into what this looks like on a smaller scale and what it looks like on a larger scale. Attendees will walk away from this session with real ideas and best practices that are realistically applicable at their firms.
Danielle Smith | Women’s Initiative Manager, Baker Donelson
Bringing a Data-Driven Culture to your Marketing Department
Is your team a data-driven marketing operation? In this discussion, hear best practices for data management and usage within the legal marketing context, as well as compare those best practices to how legal marketing teams are working with data today – and how to close any gaps. Attendees will go back to their teams with ideas on how they can effectively drive culture change by leveraging marketing data. Attendees should be prepared for a discussion that mixes data management best practice with organizational change management.
Jason Kennedy | Consultant, Calibrate Legal
Pamela Tobias | Client Advisor, InterAction, LexisNexis
Networking Break
It’s a Mad Mad World: Hiring, Developing and Retaining a Legal Marketing Team
Marketing departments are leaders and purveyors of firm culture. They help people feel connected to a purpose through messaging (marketing), connections (business development) and information sharing (internal communications). But how do you build, develop and retain a team of true culture keepers? Join these seasoned marketing leaders for a panel discussion focused on thinking outside the box and key traits to look for when hiring outside the legal industry, managing a highly productive team and how to strategically focus on retention and growth.
- Thinking beyond “traditional” candidates
- When industry experience matters and when it doesn’t
- Addressing generational divides in your team
- Training for current needs with an eye toward what’s next
- Best practices for restructuring your department
- The role of culture and purpose in your team’s retention and growth
- Offering flexible and creative benefits
- Professional growth opportunities beyond the traditional promotion
Elizabeth Huffman | Director of Marketing, Nelson Mullins
Kerry Price | Chief Strategy Officer, Bass, Berry & Sims
Kathryn Whitaker | Chief Marketing Officer, Burr & Forman
How Marketing and Business Development Can Use Culture to Combat “The Great Resignation”
We’ve been hearing about “The Great Resignation” and its impact across sectors, especially the legal industry. As marketing and business development professionals, we have an opportunity to assess, shape, or reshape the brand and culture of our law firms. We can play a meaningful role in recruitment and retention efforts while positioning ourselves to “train up” our lawyers to do the same.
Join this discussion to learn new perspectives and tips on what has worked – and what hasn’t. Hear from your LMASE colleagues on what they would like to implement at their firms.
Jill Huse | Partner, Society 54
Andrew Laver | Business Development Manager, Buchanan Ingersoll
All Together Now: Fostering a Collaborative Business Development Culture
Despite efforts to create a team-oriented approach to business development, most firms struggle with varying degrees of willingness and diverse perspectives on BD. Meanwhile lawyer/non-lawyer caste systems impede marketers’ ability to influence change and hold lawyers accountable to their contributions. In this dynamic workshop, David Ackert introduces a framework that can help marketers understand how to communicate more effectively with their lawyers, and in turn, get them collaborating more effectively with each other. We will conclude with an interactive lightning round where marketers will identify the BD objections they hear most frequently from their lawyers, and practical retorts that put internal conversations back on track.
David Ackert | President, Ackert Inc.
Networking Break
Responding to a Tragedy – Fueling Needed Change and Hands-On Crisis Response Workshop
This session has two parts centered around the topic of crisis communication and how to ultimately shift the narrative of a crisis and create positive change. The first part will be a case study about how one law firm responded to a tragic event and drove significant change to ensure similar tragedies don’t occur again. The second part will be a high-level crisis management workshop, focusing on another real-life crisis, reviewing critical crisis principles and lessons learned.
Surfside Collapse: How an Industry Banded Together to Prevent Similar Tragedies and Promote Change (Part 1)
As our nation mourned the 98 victims of the Surfside tragedy, Floridians across different industries began working to prevent a similar tragedy. State lawmakers, attorneys, and construction industry experts acted quickly to isolate and analyze the problem. Their hard work and diligence resulted in new Florida legislation to keep buildings safe.
The legal community and construction industry banded together in an unprecedented way to do their part and protect owners and residents. This Case Study will examine how Ball Janik LLP worked diligently to implement positive systemic change to the systems that went wrong in Surfside. The firm worked with Promova to secure local and national headlines that helped raise awareness around the need for Florida to act. The case study exemplifies how law firms can respond to a crisis, using the media to help drive positive change.
Crisis Workshop Exercise – A Crisis Management Workshop, Ripped from the Headlines (Part 2)
This highly interactive session will allow LMASE attendees—with or without crisis management experience—to study and practice crisis management skills. This need, which every law firm will experience, is a highly valuable capability, and virtually any legal marketer can learn and practice the basics and become an asset to their law firm in a new way.
Joshua Peck, Director of Media Relations at Akerman LLP; Elle Walch, Director of Business Development and Marketing at Ball Janik, LLP; and Ioana Good, Founder and PR Strategist at Promova, will lead attendees through a hands-on workshop. A real case ripped from the headlines will be presented to attendees, who will review the scenario in groups of 6-10 at tables around the room.
Peck, Walch, and Good will circulate, helping individual tables with their quandaries in sorting out the presented crisis. Periodically during the session, the conferring will cease, and tables will present their findings and recommendations.
Peck, Walch, and Good will wrap up with observations, recommendations, and conclusions. Attendees will walk away with a crisis cheat sheet they can keep handy for when a crisis hits.
Ioana Good | Founder and PR Strategist, Promova, LLC
Joshua Peck | Director of Media Relations, Akerman
Elle Walch | Director of Business Development and Marketing, Ball Janik LLP
Through the Looking Glass: Reframing Firms Through Key Lenses
This hands-on workshop will first outline a model for reframing organizations that was developed by Lee G. Bolman and Terence E. Deal and presented in “Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership.” The model is a practical and pragmatic mechanism for leaders to use in reimagining their organizations, covering structural frames, human resource frames, political frames and symbolic frames.
Following the overview, breakout groups will apply one of the four frames to a fictional law firm facing many of the same post-pandemic economic and social challenges we are all experiencing. Groups will have the opportunity to reimagine and reframe a firm’s culture and present on the recommended resulting strategy.
The panelists will conclude with concrete, concise takeaways and a guide on how attendees can take the four-frame model back to their firms for real-world application, action and execution.
Trish Lilley | Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP
Patrick Fuller | Vice President, Legal, ALM Media
Jenna Schiappacasse | Director of Client Development and Strategic Growth, Jenner & Block LLP
PR Planning for Client and Talent Acquisition and Retention
In this digital world, public relations has become more important than ever as clients, prospects, employees and talent evaluate your law firm and attorneys. Public relations can substantially accelerate the business development process, support client retention, increase audience awareness, and attract talent. Harnessing the true power of public relations requires planning – defining clear objectives that remain true to business goals.
Attendees will work through a step-by-step public relations planning process using a “culture story” of their choosing. This could include a DEI initiative, a shift to hybrid work, an innovation campaign or another initiative. Workshop facilitators will lead the attendees through the process of goal setting, conducting competitive analysis, uncovering opportunities, defining target audiences (internal and external), establishing key messages, gaining internal buy-in and using data to establish benchmarks and measure success.
Gina Rubel | President and CEO, Furia Rubel Communications
Choose Your Own Experience Gathering (Atrium)
Sponsored by: Ackert Inc., LMASE Platinum Sponsor
Gather in the Atrium before heading out to Choose Your Own Experience, Savannah edition! Heavy appetizers will be served.
Choose Your Own Experience
Breakfast
Welcome
Erin Ryan | Senior Manager, McGuireWoods LLP
Powers Tanis | Director of Strategic Marketing & Communications, McAngus Goudelock & Courie
Dynamic Growth of a Law Firm: How to Maintain and Enhance a Positive, Energetic Culture Using Business Development Offerings as a Tool
Benesch, a midsize law firm, has experience significant growth over the last 6 six years (96%), but has been able to maintain is intimate environment while offering the resources of a large firm. The culture of treating every attorney as an individual and not a machine has been not only maintained, but enhanced by our Managing Partner and his support of the business development efforts offered at the firm.
In this session, we will share our approach to recruiting, onboarding and integrating attorneys to a culture that supports their professional development and personal goals. We will discuss how our culture is shared with, and celebrated by, our clients through assessments and other relationship building programs.
Attendees will learn practical tips and tools for creating their own “secret sauce.”
Jeanne Hammerstrom | Chief Marketing Officer, Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP
Peter Johnson | Founder, Law Practice Consultants LLC
Kristen Leis | Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer, Parker Poe LLP
Mature and Advance Your Project Management Skills to Lead Your Firm to Greater Operational Success
Project management is key to a smooth and efficient legal marketing department. Dave and Shannon will introduce proven and new methods to project management and process mapping, sharing how other leaders are incorporating checklists and forms in their daily work and best practices for inspiring attorneys and team members to create and use them. Attendees will have the hands-on experience of process mapping the classic “special project request” which may be vital to a firm’s advancement, but taxing for overworked legal marketers. The session will wrap up by identifying common challenges faced during implementation, including underutilization, cultural bias and responding to new or unforeseen situations.
Shannon Lanier | Account & Marketing Director, Poston Communications
Dave Poston | CEO, General Counsel and Co-Managing Partner, Poston Communications
Unlocking Your Hidden BD Talent
In this session, attendees will explore a case study highlighting a 10-week associate business development training course through the eyes of an associate who attended and the partner who sponsored the investment by the firm. Presenters will share why the training was so valuable and what they learned along the way. Topics will include best practices on how associates like to learn, what they find valuable, and how a program like this invests in their future.
Rory Channer | Founding Partner, DCM Insights
Erin Meszaros | Chief Business Development & Client Service Officer, Eversheds Sutherland
Building Sustainable Success: Best Practices for Building a Fully-Integrated Marketing, PR and Business Development Strategy
Building a fully-integrated marketing, PR and business development plan take time and strategic thought. Jim will walk attendees through the core elements of building such a plan, including setting realistic business objectives and measurable goals, building a strategy that intersects traditional marketing, PR and business development, and overcoming common obstacles and challenges during the execution process.
Jim Jarrell | CEO & Founder, Lawgix Advisory Group LLC
Conflict is Inevitable, Disruption is Optional: Elevating Culture Through Productive Conflict
Conflict is an uncomfortable but unavoidable part of every workplace. Yet conflict – if done right – is integral to developing a successful organizational culture and can help individuals and teams become more innovative and take workplace relationships to a new level of openness, honesty and understanding. The secret is to approach differences and disagreement productively by empowering every person to harness the power of conflict.
In this dynamic workshop, participants will explore the Everything DiSC Productive Conflict framework. Based on proven science of cognitive behavioral theory, Productive Conflict framework will help participants understand what actually drives their innate reactions to conflict, explore how to recognize potential triggers that may lead to destructive behaviors and learn to proactively transform destructive behaviors into more productive responses, ultimately improving workplace relationships and results.
Yuliya LaRoe | President, Leadwise Group
The Cultural Embrace of the Voice of the Client: A Workshop to Build and Lead
This interactive workshop will identify and frame the various ways in which law firms can programmatically capture the voices of clients that, in the aggregate, create the foundation on which living, breathing – and winning – cultures of client-ready excellence are built and reenergized. With this, the program participants will also explore and practice empathetic listening skills for lawyers and professional team members: what, how, when, where, and, importantly, why. Session participants will return to their firms with a voice-of-the-client roadmap, the practical tools to gain programmatic consensus and management buy-in and the skills to be better listeners and more effective listening advocates.
Mark Young | Counsel, Vox Actio