Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog

#LMA26 – Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference Content Curation

Nancy Myrland — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 21:22:59 +0000

There has never been a better time to use “Tradition Meets Transformation” as a conference theme.

If you are a return visitor looking for curated content from the LMA conference, just scroll down and look for the large green heading. I’ll keep adding content as you and I find it.

1300+ Will Gather For The 2026 LMA Annual Conference

The Legal Marketing Association (LMA) annual conference will take place Monday, April 20, through Wednesday, April 22, in New Orleans, LA.

Our industry and the profession we serve are going through enormous change. Technology, AI, the evolution of perspectives and positions, and the need to discuss and keep pace with all of that are palpable in our daily lives, both personal and professional. The boundaries are nearly indistinguishable when we are accessible and resourceful from every corner of the earth at all hours of the day.

The LMA community is known for coming together to discuss topics that aren’t always easy, but they aren’t always hard either. Sometimes, we just need to be reminded where we started, what is essential, and what needs to be held onto to remain successful. We draw from the brilliant minds of those leading the way, as well as those who have served us from the start of our association. Those are often the same people because they have made it their mission to never stop learning, experiencing, and teaching. They are our constant reminders that tradition is not to be tossed aside but blended with the transformation we are going through.

Through this and every conference and event LMA hosts, we have the opportunity to become smarter and more connected each time we choose to participate. This conference will surely fill those buckets.

A Heartfelt Thank You To The Annual Conference Advisory Committee (ACAC)

Huge thanks to the 2026 Annual Conference Advisory Committee (ACAC), led by Board liaison and 2026 LMA President, Rachel Shields Williams (Director, Client Intelligence, Sidley Austin LLP). The ACAC is co-chaired by Michael Coston (CEO, Coston Consulting), Tom Helm (Chief Marketing Officer, Smith Gambrell & Russell, LLP), and Jenna Schiappacasse (Director of Client Development and Strategic Growth, Winston & Strawn).

They are joined by a committee of selfless volunteers:

Zena Applebaum, SVP, Market Development, Harbor Global

Sarah Blanchard, Client Development Manager, Jones Walker

John E. Dewey, Senior Business Development & Marketing Manager, Sheppard Mullin

Heather McCullough, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer, Society 54, LLC

Katie Munroe, Chief Marketing Officer, Zuckerman Spaeder

Carrie Remhof, Director of Firm Intelligence, Troutman Pepper Locke

Erin Ryan, Director of Partner Integration and Business Development Coaching,
McGuireWoods LLP

EJ Stern, Co-Founder, Fractional Law Firm CMO

Amy Verhulst, Senior Business Development Manager, Jackson Lewis, PC

Gaëlle Pacheco Buys, Senior Business Development Manager – Europe, Charles Russell
Speechlys

Also, a HUGE shoutout to Ashley Stenger and the entire LMA HQ staff for making all of this happen behind the scenes. You are appreciated and noticed more than you know!

Keynote Presenters

Monday’s keynote speaker will be Carla Johnson. Carla’s topic is “Applied Curiosity: The Hidden Power Behind Breakthrough Ideas.” She will discuss: “While efficiency, productivity, and artificial intelligence dominate today’s conversations, teams are struggling to keep pace with change. What if, instead of being a time-consuming distraction, curiosity is the ultimate competitive advantage that’s right under our noses?” Watch her conference intro video here.

Tuesday’s keynote speaker will be Cassi Chandler. Cassi’s topic is “Transformative Leadership: Succeeding in Difficult Environments,” where she will challenge how we think about innovation, leadership, and change. Watch her conference intro video here.

General Counsel Fireside Chat

GC panels are always a big draw at our conferences. This one is sure to be the same as it features A Case Study of Agility in a Complex Geopolitical Landscape with:

Michael Coston, Moderator, and CEO, Coston Consultancy (ACAC Co-Chair)

Kerry Price, Chief Strategy and Operations Officer, Bass, Berry & Sims

Richard Wolfson, Senior Vice President – General Counsel and Corp Secretary, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc.

Pre-Conference Programs

We have thoughtful and smart pre-conference programs that allow attendees to take a deep dive into topics and disciplines they care deeply about.

Special shoutout to the tireless pre-conference co-chairs:

Ashley Elliott, Competitive Intelligence Manager, FBT Gibbons

Rafeedah Keys, Head of Privacy & Tech Practice Marketing, Perkins Coie LLP

Michelle Woodyear, Co-Founder, Mount Insights

Jennifer Bonesteel, Director, Business Development, Littler Mendelson P.C.

Deb Ruffins, Managing Partner, Deb Ruffins Consulting Group

Debra Baker, Managing Director, GrowthPlay

Megan Senese, Co-Founder + Principal, Stage LLC

William Sleight, Senior Manager, Business Development & Communications, Jones Day

Brie Leung, Founder and Principal, Red Bird Strategy

Juliana Son, Director of Business Development, Glenn Agre Bergman & Fuentes

All of this year’s Pre-Conference Programs include:

I am excited to present during one of the AI sessions at the AI, BI, CI – The ABCs of Data and Law firm Intelligence pre-con program this year, titled The AI Marketing Stack: Tools & Prompts for Every Role with fellow early AI adopters, Rosa Colon and Greg Gendren.

I am also looking forward to presenting during the main conference on the topic of video as a differentiator in this busy world of AI content, titled Make it Click: Empowering Attorneys to Create Video Content That Converts with the amazing Jennifer Scotton and Matt Scheetz.

My Message To You This Year (Yes, you know there are buttons and stickers!)

	As I began to prepare for the sessions I am lucky enough to present, one on AI and how it is evolving and can be used to help our lawyers generate revenue, and one on using video to cut through the maze of AI-generated content, I was reminded of a fact that has always been true, and that is that “Legal Marketers Matter.”
	For those who remain concerned about the rule of law in our profession, I will also make available a button or sticker that is built around a mini-non-partisan movement I created and sat on for the past year. It is called DEFEND. Don’t feel pressured to ask for one, but a number of them will be available if you are interested.

Again, please don’t ever feel any pressure to ask for or wear any of the buttons or stickers I create for conferences. They are something I like to create and share based on what is on my mind, in my sessions, or in the world at that moment.

Just walk up and ask! I have a few AI buttons and stickers, too, but I’ll wait to share until I’ve handed those out at our AI session first.

My Welcome Message To You

I, and so many others, are here for you!

Stay Tuned For Curated Content From The 2026 LMA Annual Conference Below

Just as I have done in 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014,2014, 2013, and 2013, this blog post will, once again, serve as a curation tool for those who would like a quick, easy place to find all of the information and recaps you might like to consume. I not only share my summaries and content, but I also link to conference-related content from others.

This post will be updated frequently, so I invite you to bookmark it as I will add content as I find it or as you let me know you’ve found it.

This section will be updated throughout this and the coming weeks with:

Audio reflections
Videos that capture important moments
LinkedIn posts
Blog posts
Photos
Takeaways from other attendees

Whether you are here in person or unable to join us this year, I will do my best to make this your ongoing window into #LMA26.

If you aren’t here this year, please know you are missed.

P.S. Should you forget, the link to this blog post is easy to remember:

https://www.myrlandmarketing.com/LMA26

Presenting Your #LMA26 Annual Conference Content

I will add content from the top down so you don’t have to scroll too much each time you return.

This placeholder is waiting for the content you and I create!

AI Is No Longer Just About Saving Time. It Is About Growth, Capacity, and Readiness: My session recap by Nancy Myrland

AI, BI, CI Pre-Conference Program: Beyond Company Reports: AI-Powered and BI-Enriched CI For Strategic Impact by Mount Insights

How To Stand Out In This Onslaught Of AI-Generated Content by Nancy Myrland

How Legal Marketers Can Drive Internal Transformation by Passle

Change Management + Lawyers: Why Trying to Persuade a Persuader Doesn’t Work by Passle

Succession Planning: What is Actually at Stake and Why Firms are Struggling by Passle

Curiosity as Strategy: Day One Keynote: Carla Johnson’s Keynote at the 2026 LMA Annual Conference by Passle

Day Two Keynote: Cassi Chandler’s Powerful Message About Transformative Leadership by Nancy Myrland

Make It Click: Empowering Attorneys To Create Video Content That Converts by Nancy Myrland

LMA Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony: Dave Poston and Trish Lilly Video by Nancy Myrland

My Video Message To All Attendees Prior To The Conference by Nancy Myrland

Building a Law Firm Alumni Program from the Ground Up: How to Shift Mindsets, Harness Resources, and Create Value by Harbor

AI, BI, CI Complimentary ebook: The AI-Enabled Legal Marketer, A Strategic Playbook for an Intelligence Advantage by Co-Chairs, Ashley Elliott, Refeedah Keys, and Michell Woodyear

AI, BI, CI Pre-Conference Program: The AI Shift Law Firms Aren’t Ready For (Yet) by Mount Insights

AI, BI, CI Pre-Conference Program: CI for the Non-CI Professional: Maximizing Cross-Functional Partnership by Mount Insights

AI, BI, CI Pre-Conference Program: Takeaways From “Legal Industry Intelligence: Data Futurists Reveal What’s Next” by Mount Insights

Small Firm/Solo Marketer Pre-Conference Program Recap by Co-Chair Brie Leung

Beyond The Playbook: 7 Strategic Frameworks from the 2026 LMA Annual Conference recap by By Aries

If I’ve missed anything or made any mistakes, you can always feel comfortable letting me know.

If you see or hear non-promotional content out in the wild, please share that link with me via private messages on LinkedIn, or via email at nancy@myrlandmarketing.com.

Also, don’t forget to ask me for buttons and stickers. I don’t want to take hundreds of these home with me…seriously!

Thanks!

About Nancy Myrland

Nancy Myrland is an Integrated Marketing and Business Development Advisor specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media, and AI Discernment for legal ande business professionals. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing strategies and skills to build their reputations and relationships, which in turn drives practice growth.

Highly regarded internationally as a top independent* LinkedIn consultant, Nancy is a highly respected LinkedIn trainer and content marketing specialist. She helps lawyers, law firms, and legal marketers learn and implement content, social, and digital media strategies that cut through the clutter, making them more relevant to their current and potential clients.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brands.

Nancy is also the founder of the LinkedIn online course called The Linked Course*, where she personally guides lawyers through the sequential creation of their LinkedIn profile and presence.*

As an early and consistent adopter of social and digital media and technology, she also assists firms with blogging, podcasting, video marketing, voice marketing, and AI discernment. Nancy also works with numerous firms and lawyers on Zoom and virtual presentation training and coaching to help them excel when presenting online.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social and digital media strategy when handling high-stakes, high-profile cases and executive orders.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing Strategy
Marketing and Business Development Plans
AI Discernment
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

*Nancy is not an employee or consultant hired by LinkedIn, although she was named a LinkedIn Top Voice on the platform in 2024! Top Voices is an invitation-only program on LinkedIn featuring a global group of experts who cover a range of topics across the professional world, helping members uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. Top Voices was previously known as the Influencer program before October 2022. Top Voices are vetted to ensure they meet high trust standards, are consistently active on the platform, and share valuable expertise through content that demonstrates their unique, original contributions to a topic.

The post #LMA26 – Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference Content Curation appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

Will AI Learn The Tough Lessons Of Social Media’s Past and Present?

Nancy Myrland — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 19:55:00 +0000

On August 4, 2025, OpenAI published a blog post titled “What we’re optimizing ChatGPT for,” revealing something interesting. They appear to be applying lessons learned from two decades of social media evolution.

After nearly 3 years observing how people use ChatGPT, OpenAI noticed troubling patterns:

Some users are developing unhealthy attachments to AI
Others spend excessive time in conversations
Some are seeking answers to personal problems, relying on ChatGPT for relationship advice

Rather than celebrating active engagement as early social platforms did, OpenAI is implementing changes prioritizing user well-being over usage metrics.

If successful, this represents a significant shift in how a major tech platform approaches success.

Your Choice: Podcast or Blog Post

If you’d like to listen to this via my podcast, Legal Marketing Minutes, please click the player below. If you’d rather read the blog version, I invite you to keep scrolling.

The Early Days of Social Media: Promise and Potential

I remember when social media transformed how we connected. I joined LinkedIn in September 2004, excited by networking without boundaries. Facebook came next because I wanted to stay connected with my nephew, Sean. But my defining moment came in 2008 during the election cycle. While watching CNN’s Rick Sanchez report with a live Twitter wall behind him displaying real-time global conversations, I was excited about the conversation and joined Twitter within five minutes.

These platforms arrived with minimal guardrails and grandiose promises: reconnect with colleagues, stay in touch with family and friends, and share your thoughts with the world. I’m in!

Social media has delivered on many promises: connecting billions, launching careers, building businesses, and creating communities. However, as these platforms grew, we learned important lessons about human psychology and technology. The constant notifications, endless scroll, and dopamine hits created behavioral patterns we hadn’t anticipated.

The lesson wasn’t that social media was bad. The lesson was that powerful technologies need thoughtful design from the start.

The Education Dilemma: Can Study Mode Change Everything?

Perhaps nowhere is OpenAI’s approach more evident than in their launch of Study Mode on July 29, 2025.

With one in three college-aged Americans using ChatGPT for learning, a potential and complicated crisis has emerged. Students have been using it as an “answer machine” rather than a learning tool, which may potentially harm their critical thinking skills.

Study Mode employs the Socratic method, teaching through questions rather than answers and guiding students to discover knowledge independently. When students try to get ChatGPT to write essays with typos to make them look authentic, Study Mode responds, “I’m not going to write it for you, but we can do it together.”

Developed in partnership with teachers, scientists, and pedagogy experts, Study Mode offers:

Interactive prompts combining Socratic questioning and self-reflection
Scaffolded responses starting simple and building complexity
Personalized support tailored to skill level
Knowledge checks through quizzes with feedback
Flexibility to toggle Learning Mode on/off during conversations

The Reality Check: Challenges and Limitations

This Study Mode approach isn’t perfect. Students can easily switch back to regular ChatGPT for quick answers. As one Reddit user noted: “The challenge, of course, will be getting people to use it. I suspect that the allure of a quick answer will still prove irresistible to many.”

As MIT Technology Review pointed out, Study Mode is “more like the same old ChatGPT, tuned with a new conversation filter.” It has read not just textbooks but also “every flawed explanation of the subject ever posted to Reddit, Tumblr, and the farthest reaches of the web.”

The Deeper Concern: When AI Becomes Too Human

My friend James Barclay, CEO of Passle, recently shared a sobering statistic from Dr. Andrea Elkon at the Fisher Phillips AI Advantage conference: “Upwards of two-thirds of Gen Z males are open to having a romantic relationship with an AI partner.”

James points out that this isn’t accidental. AI is designed to make us feel intelligent and insightful. When ChatGPT says “great question,” we feel validated. James asked ChatGPT why it’s always so nice, and the response was revealing:

“Consistent politeness helps build trust and lowers emotional resistance to using the tool. When users feel safe from judgment or hostility, they are more likely to engage openly and explore use cases more fully.”

Why This Matters for Legal Professionals

Dr. Andrea Elkon acknowledged that while AI offers “wonderful functions” and “efficiencies,” we must be mindful about treating AI as a “partner.”

James made a crucial point for professionals: “If you are an attorney, what you know is your value. Thought leadership is you demonstrating that value. Your authority on your subject has been hard-earned. You cannot cheat it. It can’t be faked.”

This constant affirmation encourages a natural human instinct to get attached to AI, blurring the lines between human and AI interaction.

Looking Forward: The Critical Questions

Can OpenAI maintain these principles as competitive pressures mount? When rivals offer instant answers without educational study mode guardrails, will users choose the harder path?
How do we strike a balance between accessibility and responsibility? AI tutoring can expand educational opportunities, but who gets to decide if it genuinely promotes understanding?
What happens when AI becomes more sophisticated at simulating human connection? As James Barclay warns, “we need to remember what they are – AI.”
How can we ensure that lessons from social media’s mistakes are applied across the entire AI industry?

The Bottom Line

OpenAI is making these adjustments after almost 3 years, not the 10+ years it took social media platforms to even acknowledge issues. While social media platforms have added band-aid features and promises, such as screen time dashboards and assurances to congressional bodies, their core engagement-based business models remain unchanged. That is what social media is all about: engagement. It is the methods and the dependency that we continue to discuss.

Whether OpenAI can maintain these principles as technology evolves, pressure from investors increases, and competition intensifies remains to be seen. For those of us who are AI and social media forward, but who have witnessed the emotional dependence that social media has created for some, their approach offers hope with measured caution, drawing on lessons learned from our digital past.

The question isn’t whether AI will become central to our lives; it’s whether we will become central to AI.

The question is whether we’ll build these tools to serve us, or whether we will, once again, find ourselves serving them by using our content to train their models and succumbing to the allure of interaction.

Final Thoughts

The real test comes in the real world with millions of users. The difference between the development of social media and generative AI is that, this time, we’re having conversations about healthy usage patterns closer to launch, not years later.

As someone who has spent my career in strategy, planning, social, and digital media, I’ve seen firsthand how these technologies can transform businesses, build communities, and create amazing and meaningful connections. I’ve been the beneficiary of many and look forward to saying the same going forward.

I remain optimistic. I remain cautious. I remain discerning…for you and for me.

About Nancy Myrland

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and relationships, which in turn leads to the growth of their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brands.

Nancy is also the founder of the hybrid self-study and online course about LinkedIn, The Linked Course*, where she personally guides lawyers through the sequential creation of their LinkedIn profile and presence.*

As an early and consistent adopter of social and digital media and technology, she also assists firms with blogging, podcasting, video marketing, voice marketing, livestreaming, and AI discernment. Nancy also works with numerous firms and lawyers on Zoom and virtual presentation training and coaching to help them excel when presenting online.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social and digital media strategy when handling high-stakes, high-profile cases and executive orders.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing Strategy
Marketing and Business Development Plans
AI Discernment
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

*Nancy is not an employee or consultant hired by LinkedIn, although she was named a LinkedIn Top Voice on the platform in 2024! Top Voices is an invitation-only program featuring a global group of experts on LinkedIn covering a range of topics across the professional world, helping members uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. Top Voices was previously known as the Influencer program before October 2022. Top Voices are vetted to ensure that they meet high trust standards, are consistently active on the platform, and share valuable expertise through content that demonstrates their unique, original contributions to a topic.

The post Will AI Learn The Tough Lessons Of Social Media’s Past and Present? appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

Lawyers Beware: There Could Be Serious Ethics Issues With The New AI Browsers That Are Launching

Nancy Myrland — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 02:57:03 +0000

Artificial intelligence just took a major step forward. Before you let it take a step into your firm, let’s discuss.

Two of the most well-known AI platforms, ChatGPT and Perplexity, have launched something called AI, or agentic, browsers. Similar to AI agents that I have discussed here:

These browsers are built to act on your behalf, not just generate information for you like you might be familiar with when studying or using ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, CoPilot, Gemini, Grok, Llama, and others. That may sound interesting and efficient, but for law firms, lawyers, and business professionals who handle or have access to sensitive information, this raises a serious concern about confidentiality.

Let’s walk through what’s happening, what these tools actually do, and why it matters for legal and business professionals right now.

Your Choice: Podcast or Blog Post

If you’d like to listen to this via my podcast, Legal Marketing Minutes, just click the player below. If you’d rather read the blog version, keep scrolling.

What Are “Agentic” AI Browsers?

The word “agent” means something that acts for you. I’ve covered agentic AI before because it is not just on the horizon; it is already here. Unlike generative AI, which you request additional information from, or “prompt,” agents act autonomously to accomplish research and tasks on your behalf.

These new AI browsers do exactly that.

Unlike typical web search tools like Google Chrome, Edge, Safari, and others, these AI browsers can:

View what’s on your screen
Gather information from your emails, documents, or browser tabs
Automatically fill out forms, click buttons, and follow links
Use that information to make decisions, purchases, communicate with others, create content without waiting for you to ask, and much more.

They are promoted as a convenience. In reality, they are more like digital assistants that run in the background while you work.

Without being fully aware of their capabilities, they may access far more than you intend to share.

What ChatGPT and Perplexity Just Launched

ChatGPT’s (AI) Browser, “GPT Agent”

OpenAI introduced a new browser that allows ChatGPT to run what they describe as a virtual computer. With your permission, this allows it to act autonomously on your behalf.

It can:

Open a browser
Log in to websites
Read files
Communicate with others via email
Take actions online without you having to walk it through all of the steps
and more

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, explained:

“Today we launched a new product called Chat GPT Agent.

Agent represents a new level of capability for AI systems and can accomplish some remarkable, complex tasks for you using its own computer. It combines the spirit of (ChatGPT features) Deep Research and Operator, but it is more powerful than that may sound — it can think for a long time, use some tools, think some more, take some actions, think some more, etc. For example, we showed a demo in our launch of preparing for a friend’s wedding: buying an outfit, booking travel, choosing a gift, etc. We also showed an example of analyzing data and creating a presentation for work.”

Sam went on to identify some of the risks involved with using the current versions of agentic browsers.

This Is Where I Want You To Pay Serious Attention

Sam continued:

“Although the utility is significant, so are the potential risks.

We have built a lot of safeguards and warnings into it, and broader mitigations than we’ve ever developed before from robust training to system safeguards to user controls, but we can’t anticipate everything. In the spirit of iterative deployment, we are going to warn users heavily and give users freedom to take actions carefully if they want to.

I would explain this to my own family as cutting edge and experimental; a chance to try the future, but not something I’d yet use for high-stakes uses or with a lot of personal information until we have a chance to study and improve it in the wild.

We don’t know exactly what the impacts are going to be, but bad actors may try to “trick” users’ AI agents into giving private information they shouldn’t and take actions they shouldn’t, in ways we can’t predict. We recommend giving agents the minimum access required to complete a task to reduce privacy and security risks.

For example, I can give Agent access to my calendar to find a time that works for a group dinner. But I don’t need to give it any access if I’m just asking it to buy me some clothes.

There is more risk in tasks like “Look at my emails that came in overnight and do whatever you need to do to address them, don’t ask any follow up questions”. This could lead to untrusted content from a malicious email tricking the model into leaking your data.

We think it’s important to begin learning from contact with reality, and that people adopt these tools carefully and slowly as we better quantify and mitigate the potential risks involved. As with other new levels of capability, society, the technology, and the risk mitigation strategy will need to co-evolve.”

Perplexity’s AI Browser, “Comet”

Perplexity also launched Comet to its Enterprise and other beta testers, calling it “a browser built for the AI era.” It includes a sidebar assistant that can:

Monitor your browsing activity
Suggest actions
Summarize information from the web or your open files
Learn and adapt based on how you work

Perplexity says it is the browser that thinks with you, and touts that it can

“…boost your focus, streamline your workflow, and turn curiosity into momentum.”

The Perplexity app tells us that

“Comet is powerful” because it offers “Unified AI search, instant context, and automation across every site. Summarize, shop, schedule, and research—directly in the browser.”

Also, Comet is designed to

“…remove friction with every thought.”

My Caution When Considering AI Browsers Anywhere Near Your Firm

If the friction that Perplexity would like to remove is intended to protect client confidentiality, it is worth asking whether the tradeoff is worthwhile.

Here’s the Bottom Line

These tools don’t just help you write faster or search smarter. They gather, analyze, and act on your data.

That may include:

Draft documents with client names or details
Read and act on internal notes about client strategy or case preparation
Read file names that contain matter-specific or personally identifiable information
Access email and calendars that show privileged meetings or deadlines

If an AI browser sees that data, it may use it to improve its output.

That might mean sending it to external servers.
It might mean storing it for future context.
It might mean sharing it with model trainers, meaning the way that these LLMs (large language models) like OpenAI and Perplexity train their models with the intelligence they need to serve their customers.

Client Confidentiality

If any of that happens, you could face a breach of confidentiality. Your client may never know how or why it happened.

What Law Firms, Lawyers, and Legal and Business Professionals Should Consider Doing Now

As someone who leans into “AI Discernment,” it is my job not only to teach about the effective use of all of this, but also to advise and alert you when I think there is potential for misuse or harm.

In that spirit, I advise you to consider the following:

Disable these features unless you fully understand how they work and are aware of where your data is being sent.
Ask questions about data flow. Specifically:
- Does this tool access your desktop files or local folders?
- Does it send data back to the cloud or store it?
- Is anything retained or used to train the AI model?
Update your firm’s AI and tech use policy to reflect new AI (agentic) browsers and assistant tools. Make sure everyone understands these tools are not just smart search engines like those we have been using for many years.
Train your teams so they understand that these tools act on what they learn from your actions and are not just passive tools that observe what you do on your computer.

Why Is This An Ethics Issue?

This is not just a matter of productivity. It is part of your and our professional responsibility.

Under ABA Model Rule 1.6, lawyers must protect the confidentiality of all client information, including data that is unintentionally revealed through technology.

Specifically:

ABA Model Rule 1.6: Confidentiality of Information

(a) A lawyer shall not reveal information relating to the representation of a client unless the client gives informed consent, the disclosure is impliedly authorized in order to carry out the representation, or the disclosure is permitted by paragraph (b).

(b) A lawyer may reveal information relating to the representation of a client to the extent the lawyer reasonably believes necessary:

(1) to prevent reasonably certain death or substantial bodily harm;
(2) to prevent the client from committing a crime or fraud that is reasonably certain to result in substantial injury to the financial interests or property of another and in furtherance of which the client has used or is using the lawyer’s services;
(3) to prevent, mitigate or rectify substantial injury to the financial interests or property of another that is reasonably certain to result or has resulted from the client’s commission of a crime or fraud in furtherance of which the client has used the lawyer’s services;
(4) to secure legal advice about the lawyer’s compliance with these Rules;
(5) to establish a claim or defense on behalf of the lawyer in a controversy between the lawyer and the client, to establish a defense to a criminal charge or civil claim against the lawyer based upon conduct in which the client was involved, or to respond to allegations in any proceeding concerning the lawyer’s representation of the client;
(6) to comply with other law or a court order; or
(7) to detect and resolve conflicts of interest arising from the lawyer’s change of employment or from changes in the composition or ownership of a firm, but only if the revealed information would not compromise the attorney-client privilege or otherwise prejudice the client.

(c) A lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client.

What Does This Mean For Lawyers and Law Firms?

If you allow an AI assistant or agent to access files or communications that include client information, even without naming the client, you could be in violation of your ethical obligations.
If business professionals in the firm are using AI tools that surface or store sensitive client data, this also poses a risk.
Protecting client confidentiality doesn’t just mean keeping your files locked up. It now also means understanding how your technology handles information behind the scenes.

Final Thoughts

This is not about being afraid of AI, generative AI, agents, or other new technology. It is about understanding what is at stake and making smart, informed decisions.

These new agentic browsers will become more common. Many of your clients will also be testing them. That is a certainty. I am already seeing beta testers post about their use and test results. What is not certain is whether your firm will have the right policies, training, and awareness in place to use them safely.

Let’s make sure we stay ahead of that curve.

Remember, I am here to help.

About Nancy Myrland

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brands.

Nancy is also the founder of The Linked Course*, a hybrid self-study and online course about LinkedIn, where she personally guides lawyers through the sequential creation of their LinkedIn profile and presence.*

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social and digital media strategy when handling high-stakes, high-profile cases and executive orders.

Long story short, Nancy is an integrated marketing specialist, spending her time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing Strategy
Marketing and Business Development Plans
AI Discernment
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

*Nancy is not an employee or consultant hired by LinkedIn, although she was awarded the designation of being a LinkedIn Top Voice starting in 2024! Top Voices is an invitation-only program featuring a global group of experts on LinkedIn covering a range of topics across the professional world, helping members uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. Top Voices was previously known as the Influencer program before October 2022. Top Voices are vetted to ensure that they meet high trust standards, are consistently active on the platform, and share valuable expertise through content that demonstrates their unique, original contributions to a topic.

The post Lawyers Beware: There Could Be Serious Ethics Issues With The New AI Browsers That Are Launching appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

What Is Ambient AI and Why Does It Matter to Lawyers and Legal Professionals?

Nancy Myrland — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 22:45:10 +0000

Let’s take a few minutes to step back and look at the broader picture to see where AI is headed. Artificial intelligence isn’t just logging into ChatGPT or other LLMs to prompt them so they can provide intelligent output that helps us do what we do more efficiently, creatively, or strategically.

AI is physically becoming a part of the environment we work in. From smart glasses to AI-powered earbuds, ambient AI represents a significant shift in how we interact with technology, and it’s one that every legal professional should understand.

Your Choice: Podcast or Blog Post

If you would like to listen to this via my podcast, Legal Marketing Minutes, just click the player below. If you would rather read via an abbreviated blog post, keep scrolling and you will find it below the player.

Defining Ambient AI

Ambient AI is artificial intelligence that is always on. It’s quietly listening and even observing. It is supporting you in the background. It is proactive. It examines the context of your situation, including where you are, what you are doing, who you are talking to, the details of the discussion, its implications, and how your client is feeling. It takes in the world around you. It’s becoming more common by the day and smarter by the minute.

How Can Ambient AI Help You?

Imagine walking out of a client meeting and your ambient AI device has already drafted a follow-up plan, including next steps and key deadlines. Or maybe you come out of a deposition and your ambient AI has already analyzed the transcript of the deposition to find inconsistencies or risky language. That’s the power of ambient AI, and it’s already here.

Real-World Examples: Healthcare and Legal Parallels

Let’s take healthcare. When you go to the doctor and notice they are typing notes on a keyboard instead of focusing on you, ambient AI can change that. Some are already using devices that listen during the visit, transcribe the conversation, summarize the diagnosis, flag symptoms and issues that might have been missed, and update your chart. That allows doctors to truly listen and be present with you as the patient.

Now, picture that same technology inside a law firm. Some firms are already experimenting with practice management systems that include ambient features. These tools capture and organize client conversations automatically, drafting follow-ups, summarizing next steps and deadlines, finding relevant case law on the spot, drafting a course of action, and even creating team debriefs. All of this is only with your permission, of course.

A Glimpse Into the Future: Smart Devices and Wearables

When I attended the Women + AI Conference at Vanderbilt Law School several months ago, after her session, one speaker shared that she could see her presentation slides right in her smart glasses. No glancing down, no side screens, just seamless delivery. She was smart to tell us after she finished her presentation because the entire room was nothing short of amazed and curious, and they wanted to know more. We had many questions! This type of technology is already in use and serves as a precursor to ambient AI, which is always with you.

Think about something similar in a legal setting: Smart glasses feeding you case law while you and/or your clients speak, or earbuds offering talking points you might have missed in your presentation to a potential client. These ambient tools may live in devices you wear or carry. They could be something that sits on your desk, or even pinned discreetly to your clothing. It won’t necessarily need a screen or keyboard to assist you.

OpenAI and Jony Ive: Designing the Next Ambient Device

OpenAI recently acquired the design firm co-founded by Jony (“Johnny”) Ive for over $6 billion. Jony is the man behind Apple’s most iconic products. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has tapped him to develop a new type of always-on ambient AI device, something you could carry or wear that blends seamlessly into daily life. It won’t be a phone or a laptop. It’ll be something altogether different.

The project is highly secretive, but Altman and Ive are investing heavily to get it right. While it may take a year or more, the goal is to create a tool that accompanies you, organizes your business and personal life (if you choose to), and interacts discreetly, not intrusively.

Legal Implications and Ethical Considerations

This shift from you and your team “searching and responding” to your AI being able to “oversee and assist” is transformative, but it comes with risk. When AI is always listening, confidentiality and ethics are very important.

Lawyers must ask:

Where is this data going?
Who has access to it?
Are these tools compliant with our ethical obligations?

Several state bar associations are developing guidance for transcription technologies and ambient AI. As legal professionals, we all need to stay current and cautious.

Getting Started with Ambient AI in Your Practice

Ambient AI isn’t something on the horizon. It’s already here. The question is whether your firm is prepared to use it wisely. Start by identifying the most routine, manual aspects of your day, such as note-taking, follow-ups, interview processes, and repetitive communication. These are perfect starting points for introducing ambient AI, as well as generative AI without ambient features.

Make Sure There Is A Human In The Loop

My constant reminder during AI discussions and consulting is to always, for now, keep a human in the loop. AI is powerful, but human oversight remains essential for ensuring accuracy and ethical compliance.

Let’s Continue This Conversation

I plan to define more AI-related terms and advances in future episodes and posts, as well as to discuss and demonstrate current and future AI platforms and models. Would a private community focused on helping legal professionals learn about AI in a trusted and practical way interest you? If so, I’d love your feedback. Feel free to email me.

Let’s keep learning together.

About Nancy Myrland

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brands.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social and digital media strategy when handling high-stakes, high-profile cases and executive orders.

Long story short, Nancy is an integrated marketing specialist, spending her time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing Strategy
Marketing and Business Development Plans
AI Discernment
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

*Nancy is not an employee or consultant hired by LinkedIn, although she was named a LinkedIn Top Voice on the platform beginning in 2024! Top Voices is an invitation-only program featuring a global group of experts on LinkedIn covering a range of topics across the professional world, helping members uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. Top Voices was previously known as the Influencer program before October 2022. Top Voices are vetted to ensure that they meet high trust standards, are consistently active on the platform, and share valuable expertise through content that demonstrates their unique, original contributions to a topic.

The post What Is Ambient AI and Why Does It Matter to Lawyers and Legal Professionals? appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

#LMA25: Harnessing AI For Cross-Selling: Don’t Miss An Opportunity For Growth

Nancy Myrland — Thu, 01 May 2025 16:13:35 +0000

Because cross-selling, or cross-serving as some prefer to call it, can be a challenging endeavor in many law firms, and given James Barclay’s friendship, I didn’t want to miss his session at our recent Legal Marketing Association annual conference in Washington, DC.

James, who is the CEO of Passle, delivered a compelling session titled “Harnessing AI for Cross-Selling: Don’t Miss an Opportunity for Growth!” With his trademark humor, intelligence, approachability, and clarity, James guided us through a practical, numbers-backed exploration of how AI can help solve one of law firms’ oldest and most persistent challenges: getting lawyers to cross-sell.

Why Cross-Selling Is the Growth Engine Hiding in Plain Sight

James kicked off with an undeniable truth: cross-selling remains the most significant opportunity for revenue growth in law firms. He cited statistics from law firm leaders and marketers showing that more than 84% of firms admit to leaving money on the table due to missed cross-selling opportunities. That is a very large and startling number.

“If you’re an Am Law 100 firm, even a 10% increase in cross-selling could mean $135 million in new revenue.”

Despite its potential, few firms consistently do it well.

James challenged the audience to treat cross-selling not as a mystery, but as an internal communication and systems problem.

A Brief History of Why Law Firms Struggle with Cross-Selling

James traced the structural roots of the issue back to the Cravath system, developed in 1902. That model helped law firms grow in response to increasingly complex client needs, but it also created a hierarchy and specialization structure that often impedes internal collaboration today.

“Cravath transformed lawyers from individual actors into a cohesive force, but that cohesion is fraying.”

Fast forward to today, where hybrid work, global teams, and compensation models built around origination often isolate lawyers from one another, causing them to work in siloes. The result? Many attorneys are unaware of what their colleagues do, fear being perceived as salesy, or feel the “ick” factor, as James puts it, causing them to hesitate in trusting someone else with their clients.

This Isn’t New

I have seen this challenge in varying degrees ever since I was in-house as the senior marketer at Baker & Daniels. We must continue to chip away at this issue because it is costing our firms deals, dollars, and cohesion both within and outside the firm.

What Clients Actually Want: Connection and Relevant Content, Not Silence

James shared data from 200+ general counsel, revealing a major gap in perception:

GCs spend at least 8 hours a week staying informed…an ENTIRE DAY!
They consume content in short bursts, often outside work hours.
Half said they only work with firms that demonstrate subject-matter expertise.

And the unfortunate quote that James shared with us:

“The number one complaint from clients is: ‘You only talk to us when there’s a bill.'”

This mismatch between clients who want proactive, helpful insights and lawyers who fear being pushy creates a massive opportunity for marketers to bridge the gap.

What Marketers Can Do Right Now

James and volunteers from the audience highlighted solutions already working at law firms:

Key client programs
Fast Pitch Fridays, where attorneys explain their practice to peers
Cross-practice group collaboration on content
Internal success storytelling to show what good cross-selling looks like
Partner retreats that encourage meaningful connection

One attendee shared that their firm had recently put a member of the management committee in charge of cross-selling to increase accountability and momentum.

Speak Their Language: Make the Case With “Evidence”

Legal marketers are often told to “show the value of marketing,” but James, and speakers like my other dear friend and colleague, Gina Rubel, suggested a reframe:

“Don’t call it data. Call it evidence. Speak to your lawyers the way they hear best.”

Gina is a lawyer and the head of a very successful PR and Crisis Comms agency, Furia Rubel Communications, so the reframing comes authentically. Gina shared that this mindset shift can help you gain buy-in when presenting cross-selling success stories, especially when you frame them around shared client wins.

How AI Can Turbocharge Cross-Selling

Here’s where the session became especially actionable. James walked through how legally trained AI can:

Analyze attorney bios and blog content.
Identify themes and client-relevant topics, both in bios and in content being created inside the fir.m
Match those topics and thought leadership with other internal attorneys who should or could share it with specific clients who need to know about these topics and issues.
Automate the notification to those lawyers so they understand why they might want to share that specific piece of content with specific clients.
Provide easy, editable email templates that eliminate the “ick factor” so they can share something with their clients that they now know would be relevant to them.

As James said:

“AI doesn’t just write content. It can quietly orchestrate the distribution of relevant insight to the right people at the right time.”

James took a few quick moments to show us Passle’s approach to automating the bullet points I mentioned above. The Passle AI feature triggers new smart notifications, where lawyers receive an alert when their colleagues publish content that would resonate with their clients, along with a summary, a suggested email message, and an explanation of why it matters to their practice, company, or business.

Final Takeaways: The Future Is Now

Cross-selling is the lowest-hanging fruit for firm growth.
Law firms already have the necessary inputs (bios and thought leadership).
AI helps streamline the messy middle, matching, summarizing, and sending

The time to act is now: As so many of us who spend time in the AI space have been sharing for a few years, “AI is the worst it will ever be today. It’s only going to get better.” As James shared, whether you complete this process manually or automate it with a tool such as the one he and his colleagues at Passle provide, it is essential to do so.

Conference Content Can Be Found Here

For a running collection of content created about the conference, please visit and bookmark this blog post and check back frequently as I will be adding to it over the next several weeks.

About Nancy Myrland

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brands.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social and digital media strategy when handling high-stakes, high-profile cases and executive orders.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing Strategy
Marketing and Business Development Plans
AI Discernment
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

The post #LMA25: Harnessing AI For Cross-Selling: Don’t Miss An Opportunity For Growth appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

#LMA25 GC Panel Reveals What Clients Really Want From Law Firms

Nancy Myrland — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 20:00:54 +0000

The In-House Counsel Panel at the 2025 Legal Marketing Association (LMA) Annual Conference offered something that our conference attendees always find valuable: unfiltered client insights.

Moderated by Tasneem Khokha, Co-Chair of the Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference and Managing Director of GrowthPlay, the panel featured three senior in-house leaders who shared exactly what law firms get right, and what they get painfully wrong, when trying to win or keep their business. Tasneem guided the in-house counsel through critical topics, from law firm branding to RFPs, billing, and client loyalty.

Meet the In-House Counsel Panelists

Belinda E. Nixon, Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary at Internet2
Eric Dodson Greenberg, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary at Cox Media Group
Lillian Howard Potter, Head of Enforcement, Compliance and Investigations Office at Ericsson

Each panelist brought experience from both in-house and law firm settings, offering a 360-degree view on firm-client relationships. From RFPs and relationship management to branding and billing, nothing was off-limits.

Interactive Format

Tasneem and the committee chose for this session to be interactive, meaning attendees were invited to vote on the same answers she would pose to the panelists so we could see how our answers stacked up to those on the panel.

I will do my best to state the questions correctly, along with the corresponding answers for the right panelists, below.

What Shapes Their Impressions of Law Firms?

In the first poll, attendees were asked to rank what most shapes their impression of a law firm:

Thought leadership
Website and social media
Media mentions
Rankings (Best Lawyers, Chambers, etc.)

The panel generally agreed that thought leadership ranked highest, especially when tailored to their needs and interests.

“The firms that send us relevant updates based on our industry and their familiarity with us — that’s invaluable,” said Belinda.

Eric stressed how a firm’s reputation can matter more internally than some lawyers might assume.

“It’s not just my decision. Sometimes I want the reassurance that the firm’s brand will validate my choice, especially if something goes wrong,” he said.

What Law Firm Communications Add the Most Value?

The next question asked which law firm communications are most valued:

Alerts about legal developments
Alerts about cases filed against the company
Invitations to firm events
General firm updates

Legal developments topped the list.

“It’s not marketing. It’s a relationship,” Eric added. “The best outreach is personal, thoughtful, and relevant.”

Commenting about the communications process when she left Perkins Coie to move to Internet2, Belinda shared that she was surprised by how little outreach she received when she moved from Perkins Coie to Internet2.

What Gets Them to Consider a New Firm?

Attendees then ranked triggers that prompt switching law firms:

Poor service from current counsel
Billing or pricing issues
Relationship investment by a new lawyer
Input from stakeholders outside legal

Poor service ranked highest.

Belinda shared that she kept most of Internet2’s law firms when she joined, but replaced its government relations firm after discovering it lacked the right industry focus. She respected the existing relationships her colleagues had with outside counsel.

Eric warned that firms underestimate the value of internal champions:

“Your GC might love you, but if someone in HR or finance is frustrated, that could cost you the relationship.”

The Most Important Part of a Pitch

Regarding pitch meetings, the panel was asked to rank what matters most:

Time spent listening
Pre/post-meeting follow-up
Lawyer-to-lawyer interaction
Pitch materials

Listening ranked #1.

“The firms that actually dig in and ask questions? That shows me they’re paying attention,” said Lillian.

Eric emphasized that team dynamics during a pitch are telling:

“We passed on a firm because one person dominated the pitch while the rest stayed silent. It felt off.”

He also advised against sending senior lawyers who won’t do the work:

“Don’t parade people into the room who won’t be on the matter. We notice.”

Belinda agreed, sharing how a firm lost a CEO search engagement because the lead dominated the presentation without true team interaction.

What Closes the Deal?

Attendees then weighed what closes the deal:

Team composition
Pricing
Value adds
Law firm values

Team composition was the clear winner.

Lillian stressed the importance of associates:

“They’re doing the work. I want to know them. I want my junior in-house lawyers to be comfortable with them, too.”

Eric added:

“The billing department is your worst enemy. A $400 bill for work done six months ago tells me no one is paying attention.”

The small details matter, from who is actually on the team to how firms communicate around billing.

What Role Do Values Play?

The final poll question asked how much firm values matter in hiring decisions.

While it ranked lowest among the options, Belinda pushed back:

“For a mission-driven organization like ours, if I bring in a firm whose values clash with our team, I’ll be second-guessed.”

Eric noted the complexity that law firms need to be aware of:

“We have dual duties as officers of the court and fiduciaries to our companies. That tension is real and growing.”

In some cases, values alignment can make or break the relationship, particularly in today’s highly charged environment.

Who Should Lead Expansion of the Relationship?

All panelists agreed: firms should take the lead.

Eric shared a powerful anecdote:

“One lawyer took on a tiny, miserable matter and did it well. Now he works with our private equity sponsor. He built that relationship one small win at a time.”

But Belinda warned:

“We’ve had to ping a firm multiple times just to get an answer. That becomes untenable.”

Clients expect responsiveness, initiative, and consistency — especially when they have already entrusted a firm with their work.

Final Thought: A Two-Way Street

The session closed with consensus: building and maintaining law firm relationships is a two-way street. Clients have a role to play, but firms must be proactive, personal, and prepared to listen.

Again, firms must be:

Proactive
Personal
Prepared to listen

Belinda summed it up best:

“Law firms don’t need to wait for an RFP or an incident to build trust. Just show up, know our business, and be responsive. That’s what wins.”

Conference Content Can Be Found Here

For a running collection of content created about the conference, please bookmark this blog post and check back frequently as I will be adding to it over the next several weeks.

About Nancy Myrland

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brands.

As an early and constant adopter of social and digital media and technology, she also helps firms with blogging, podcasting, video marketing, voice marketing, livestreaming, and AI discernment. Nancy also works with many firms and lawyers on Zoom and virtual presentation training and coaching to be the best they can be when presenting online.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social and digital media strategy when handling high-stakes, high-profile cases and executive orders.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing Strategy
Marketing and Business Development Plans
AI Discernment
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

The post #LMA25 GC Panel Reveals What Clients Really Want From Law Firms appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

#LMA25 Keynote Recap: Obama Speechwriters Deliver Lessons On Leadership, Authenticity, and Values

Nancy Myrland — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 20:17:12 +0000

Former Obama speechwriters Cody Keenan and Terry Szuplat opened the 2025 Legal Marketing Association (LMA) Annual Conference (#LMA25) with a keynote that brought this attendee to her feet once or twice. Moderated masterfully by Katie Munroe, Chief Marketing Officer at Zuckerman Spaeder and Co-Chair of this year’s Annual Conference Advisory Committee (ACAC), the session delivered powerful lessons on storytelling, leadership, crisis communications, and standing firm in your values, especially when the pressure is on.

I posted a shorter overview on LinkedIn, but what follows is a more in-depth look at Cody and Terry’s full keynote.

Setting the Stage: Background and Books

Cody Keenan served as Director of Speechwriting for President Barack Obama, helping shape some of the most memorable moments of his presidency. Today, Cody is a professor at Northwestern University and the author of Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America, a narrative built around 10 extraordinary days in June 2015, spanning the Charleston church shooting, landmark Supreme Court rulings, and President Obama’s moving eulogy in Charleston where he sang “Amazing Grace.”

Terry Szuplat served as a Senior Speechwriter and Special Assistant to the President, focusing on foreign policy and national security. He is now a speechwriting professor at American University and the author of Say It Well: Find Your Voice, Speak Your Mind, Inspire Any Audience, a guide to public speaking based on lessons learned firsthand while working with President Obama.

Together, they shared valuable lessons about leadership communication, authenticity, and the importance of staying true to your values; lessons that resonate deeply in today’s uncertain landscape.

Finding the Voice of Leadership

When asked how to write authentically for someone else, Cody advised that authentic speechwriting starts with building trust.

“Spend time with the person. Bring them into meetings. Learn how they see the world, not just what they want to say but why they want to say it.”

Terry reinforced the point, warning that if leaders do not invest time with their communications teams, they should not expect their voices to be accurately reflected.

“If the most powerful person in the world could sit down with his speechwriters every day, so can the head of a law firm.”

Terry echoed the need for leaders to invest time with their communications teams:

“That ten minutes of guidance up front can save hours of work on the back end.”

Both warned against the “filter effect,” meaning that too many intermediaries can exist between a leader and the person writing their message, resulting in generic and lifeless communication.

Talk Like a Human: Battling Legalese

A major theme was the importance of sounding human, especially in professional environments.

Some of the biggest laughs came when Cody and Terry described their battles with lawyers over legalistic language.

One example: The lawyers wanted to replace the word “Americans” with “U.S. persons” in a presidential speech.

Another: A simple and powerful phrase like “We won” was changed to “We achieved a favorable result.”

Terry reminded everyone:

“A press release is not a legal brief. A speech is not a legal brief. People want to hear language that sounds real and human.”

Cody added that even artificial intelligence platforms like ChatGPT can mimic boring press releases because they all sound the same.

He shared:

“Press releases are so boring because they sound like every other press release.”

Their bottom line:

Speak plainly.
Use stories.
Inject humanity into everything you write.

Storytelling That Resonates

When asked how they approached unfamiliar topics, both emphasized the lasting power of stories. Szuplat reminded the audience:

“People remember the story, not the statistics.”

Even in technical, “serious” settings, they encouraged finding human narratives that connect audiences to complex issues.

Terry shared that when President Obama devoted the end of a State of the Union address to the story of Army Ranger Cory Remsburg, the entire nation remembered that story more vividly than any policy announcement.

When the time came to cut speeches down, it was never the stories that were deleted. It was always the data.

Handling Criticism and Feedback

They both discussed the emotional challenge of receiving edits to their work, especially late in the process.

Terry Szuplat stressed the importance of humility:

“Sometimes the most interesting edits come from the most unlikely people.”

Over time, they learned to stay open to feedback, even from unexpected sources. Junior team members sometimes spotted important issues that saved a speech from disaster.

They urged leaders to value feedback from unexpected sources, especially junior team members who often identify issues that others miss.

Cody shared a memorable lesson when President Obama encouraged him to leave room for silence in speeches. One day, prior to The State of the Union Address, Cody was called in to meet with President Obama, who told him that the speech was a 10; in fact, full of lines that were all 10s, which left no room for the audience to pause, breathe, and reflect. It was wonderful, all true, but potentially exhausting (my word, not his).

Cody said President Obama taught him the [Jazz musician] “Miles Davis Rule”:

“What made Miles Davis so great was the notes you don’t play.”

In other words, the moments of silence, or even statements that weren’t so powerful to be rated a 10.

In speechwriting and leadership, it’s not about cramming in everything. It is about the pacing, the silences, and the space you create for ideas to land with your audience.

Crisis Communication: Remember Who You Are

In a moving portion of the keynote, Terry offered this advice for firms facing today’s turbulent environment:

“In moments of crisis, keep coming back to who you are, what your values are, what you stand for.”

Both speakers gave straightforward advice about communicating in these moments of crisis:

Do not lose sight of who you are.
Return to your first principles.
Speak clearly about your values, even if it feels risky.

Terry urged firms to make decisions they can be proud of a year from now; an important reminder in a time when law firms are grappling with existential questions about their roles and responsibilities.

Cody added:

“Do not lose the forest for the trees. This is about something bigger. It is about the rule of law.”

Tell the Truth, Even When It Is Hard

Terry discussed the importance of addressing the “elephants in the room” directly. Trying to ignore them or using vague euphemisms only erodes trust.

He encouraged leaders to be honest about challenges and not to fall into the trap of “happy talk.”

President Obama, he noted, was always willing to speak about tensions and contradictions directly, using them as a foundation for deeper conversations.

How Firms and Lawyers Can Differentiate: Say What Only You Can Say

Both speakers challenged the audience to:

Differentiate themselves with authenticity.
Speak plainly, avoiding jargon and, as above, “happy talk.”
Always prioritize truth, even when it is uncomfortable.

Terry challenged the audience with a pointed question:

What can you say that nobody else can? Say what only you can say.

He advised firms to use the word “only” as a test. If your website or messaging sounds like everyone else’s, it is not just a marketing problem; it is a mission problem. Your true differentiation must come through clearly and consistently.

Terry Szuplat summed it up perfectly:

“Every organization has something unique to say. Say it well.”

Favorite Speeches and Personal Moments?

Terry’s favorite was the speech after the Boston Marathon bombing. He wrote it thinking specifically about connecting with people like his Uncle Dan, a Bostonian who did not always share President Obama’s politics but later told him he approved of his message, which Terry considered a high compliment.

Cody’s favorites included the Selma anniversary speech and, on a lighter note, the celebration of the 2016 Chicago Cubs’ World Series win at the White House. Cody asked President Obama if he could Tweet from his account after the Cubs won The World Series. The President said “sure,” so he Tweeted an invitation to The White House because he wanted to make sure they visited during President Obama’s time in The White House, not President Trump’s.

Cody joked that he also wrote a 20-minute congratulatory speech for their visit to The White House, one of the longest celebratory speeches in White House history, and considered it some of his finest work. It even brought tears to many eyes.

Final Advice from the Keynote

The keynote closed with two powerful takeaways:

Say only what you can say.
Build your messaging around authentic values, empathy, and human connection.

Terry encouraged everyone to resist the temptation to think their stories were too ordinary to matter. Every individual, every firm, has a unique story worth telling, and that is what sets you apart.

This keynote session was a profound reminder of what truly matters in communications today: clarity, authenticity, and courage.

As Terry said:

“You may not know what happens tomorrow or next week, but if you constantly come back to who you are, what your values are, and what you stand for, you will be able to look back a year from now and be proud of what you said and did.”

This moment demands that we stay grounded in what is right, and that we use our voices to build trust, connection, and lasting impact.

Conference Content Can Be Found Here

For a running collection of content created about the conference, please bookmark this blog post and check back frequently as I will be adding to it over the next several weeks.

About Nancy Myrland

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

Nancy is also the founder of the hybrid self-study and online course about LinkedIn, The LinkedIn Course*, which is a course where she personally guides lawyers through the sequential creation of their LinkedIn profile and presence.*

As an early and constant adopter of social and digital media and technology, she also helps firms with blogging, podcasting, video marketing, voice marketing, and livestreaming. Nancy also works with many firms and lawyers on Zoom and virtual presentation training and coaching to be the best they can be when presenting online.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social and digital media strategy when handling high-stakes, high-profile cases and executive orders.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing
Marketing and Business Development Plans
AI Discernment
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

The post #LMA25 Keynote Recap: Obama Speechwriters Deliver Lessons On Leadership, Authenticity, and Values appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

#LMA25 Day 2 Keynote Recap: Forward Together – The Human Edge In An Era Of Rapid Change

Nancy Myrland — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 04:05:37 +0000

Heather E. McGowan, a globally recognized future-of-work strategist and best-selling author, delivered a keynote that brought equal parts clarity, urgency, and inspiration to attendees of the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference in Washington, DC.

I posted a shorter overview on LinkedIn, but what follows below is a more in-depth look at Heather’s full keynote.

One Unknown Person Changed the World

Heather opened by asking us to reflect on the last 100 years and name the individual who had the most impact on the world. While many might suggest our mothers, or innovators like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, Heather pointed to someone less obvious; someone who, to this day, remains unnamed.

Patient Zero of COVID-19. A 55-year-old individual in China unknowingly set off a chain of events that altered every aspect of life around the globe.

Heather walked through the enormous impacts of Patient Zero:

A global GDP decline of over 3 percent, much steeper than during the financial crisis
Temporary job losses of over 114 million people
90 percent of students experienced some level of learning loss
A sharp increase in depression and mental health challenges
Massive government spending of over $17 trillion globally

Yet she also highlighted the positive accelerations that emerged:

Five years of digital transformation compressed into thirty days
Widespread adoption of remote work and hybrid learning
An explosion of entrepreneurship and innovation
A renewed focus on mental health and well-being
Greater awareness of systemic inequalities

One person. Global impact.

Heather’s point: Never underestimate the power of a single human being to change the trajectory of history.

Sailing in Fog: Why Prediction Is No Longer Possible

Heather used a vivid metaphor for today’s economic and social environment that I found disconcerting but easy to relate to:

We are sailing in fog.

We cannot clearly see the horizon.

Winds are shifting rapidly. Conditions are unpredictable. Global economic uncertainty has reached its highest levels in twenty-five years. In the United States, economic uncertainty has nearly doubled since January.

The implications are real:

Hiring freezes
Investment slowdowns
Delays in purchasing decisions
Reluctance to launch new products

Rather than relying on prediction, Heather encouraged leaders to embrace navigation. Adaptability, resilience, and comfort with ambiguity are the new critical skills.

The Power of Better Questions

Too often, organizations focus on finding the right answer instead of asking better questions.

Heather illustrated this through a powerful product innovation story from her early consulting work.

In the 1990s, a cleaning company asked for help developing a “new product for the shop.” They did not specify whether it should be a liquid cleaner, a device, or anything else. Rather than relying on surveys, the consulting team conducted “white space exploration,” observing how thousands of people cleaned their homes.

They discovered that people spent more time cleaning mops than floors and often used wet paper towels to pick up messes like spilled coffee grounds.

These observations, not customer requests, led to the invention of the Swiffer, a multi-billion-dollar product no one had specifically asked for.

Heather’s point:

Customers often cannot articulate needs they do not know they have.
Innovation requires listening to what is not being said.
Organizations that focus only on perfecting existing solutions miss entirely new opportunities.

The Burrito Incident: A Cautionary Tale About Disconnection

Heather shared a fascinating, almost absurd story of the social breakdown we are seeing these days.

In Ohio, a woman threw a burrito at a restaurant worker because her order was wrong…twice. Instead of sending her to jail, the judge ordered her to work in the restaurant for six months. He called it “empathy service.”

Heather used the story to illustrate something much deeper.

Humans today are increasingly acting out, not because of isolated incidents, but because of systemic loneliness, social disengagement, emotional exhaustion, and the fraying of social bonds.

The broader implications for workplaces are significant:

Higher rates of workplace conflict and disengagement
Declines in emotional regulation and collaboration
A growing need for intentional efforts to rebuild trust, empathy, and connection

Heather emphasized that burrito-throwing is not just about bad manners. It is a real-world symptom of the emotional state employees and clients are bringing into professional environments.

Tectonic Shifts Beneath Our Feet

Heather drew historical parallels between the 1920s and the 2020s to help explain the magnitude of what we are experiencing now.

She pointed out that both eras share:

Pandemics that triggered massive social rethinking
Technology shifts that fundamentally changed labor (electrification then, AI now)
Rising income inequality
Increased global migration
Social and political polarization

Just as the Roaring Twenties gave way to profound societal changes, the 2020s are likely to lead to a full reordering of how we work, govern, and connect.

Gen Z Is Here, And They See The World Differently

Heather offered a thoughtful and sympathetic view of Generation Z, the newest entrants into the workforce.

Their lives have been shaped by:

Growing up during the global war on terror
Experiencing mass school shootings and climate change anxiety
Enduring financial instability and pandemic disruptions

They are:

The most diverse generation
The most highly educated
The most digitally connected but socially isolated
Potentially the most entrepreneurial

Rather than expecting Gen Z to adapt to old models, Heather encouraged leaders to meet them where they are and understand the life experiences that shaped their expectations.

The 5 Ms: What Today’s Workforce Craves

To succeed in today’s environment, organizations must deliver more than a paycheck.

Heather shared the “Five Ms” employees are seeking:

Money – Fair compensation is non-negotiable.
Mission – A sense of belonging to something larger than themselves.
Meaning – Daily work that feels purposeful.
Mentorship – Growth opportunities through learning and coaching.
Membership – A workplace culture that fosters belonging.

Companies that can deliver on at least three or four of these five will be the ones that attract and retain top talent.

Leadership Must Lead With Hope

Perhaps the most striking data Heather shared came from a recent Gallup study:

The number one thing employees want from their leaders is hope.

Not resources. Not even stability. Hope.

Leaders must offer:

A positive vision of the future
A credible path toward that vision
A genuine belief in the ability to adapt and succeed

Hope is not soft. It is now a leadership imperative.

Trust Is The Currency Of Performance

Heather emphasized that trust is built on three essential foundations:

Authenticity
Sound logic
Empathy

Without trust, innovation slows, collaboration breaks down, and organizational resilience weakens.

Heather reminded us that selling legal services is essentially selling trust, and that the same holds true internally for leadership.

Final Reflections: Time Is Our Only True Currency

Heather closed with a somewhat sobering reminder that resonated deeply:

“Time is your only non-renewable resource. You do not know your balance. Spend it wisely.”

For legal marketers, lawyers, and business development professionals navigating this era of rapid change, Heather’s message was both a challenge and an encouragement.

Be the leaders who offer hope.
Build workplaces where people truly belong.
Focus on what it means to be human in a world of accelerating technology.

Because in the end, it is not technology that will define the future. It is us.

Conference Content Can Be Found Here

For a running collection of content created about the conference, please bookmark this blog post and check back frequently as I will be adding to it over the next several weeks.

About Nancy Myrland

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social and digital media strategy when handling high-stakes, high-profile cases and executive orders.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing
Marketing and Business Development Plans
AI Discernment
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

The post #LMA25 Day 2 Keynote Recap: Forward Together – The Human Edge In An Era Of Rapid Change appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

#LMA25 Let’s Celebrate 40 Years Together – Annual Conference Content Curation

Nancy Myrland — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 17:41:03 +0000

I am here with more than 1300 of my colleagues in legal marketing and business development for the 2025 Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. This year is very special to us because it is LMA’s 40th anniversary. The theme the board of directors and conference committee has chosen summarizes how the association feels about what LMA does for its members:

“40RWARD: Proud Legacy. Exciting Future.”

Each year, we come together as legal marketers, business development professionals, service providers, and content creators to learn, network, and elevate the legal marketing profession so that we can help our clients, law firms and lawyers, serve their clients in the best possible way. As always, I’ll be curating insights live and after the event right here.

A Few Conference Details

Over 1,300 legal marketing and business development professionals are expected to attend
The largest global event focused exclusively on the legal marketing and business development profession
35+ education sessions featuring 140+ expert speakers
5 Pre-Conference Programs happening on Wednesday, April 23
The main conference kicks off Wednesday afternoon with meet-ups, breakout sessions, and the first General Session + Keynote
A Well-Being Room is open daily for quiet reflection
Evening events include the Welcome Reception, Regional Meet-Ups, and so much more

Helpful Conference Links

Thank You To The ACAC

A heartfelt thank-you goes to this year’s Annual Conference Advisory Committee, whose work has made this 40th celebration one to remember.

ACAC Leadership

John Byrne, Chief Marketing Officer, Gould & Ratner
(President-Elect, LMA International Board of Directors)
Tasneem K. Khokha, Managing Director, GrowthPlay
(ACAC Co-Chair, Pre-Conference Focus)
Katie Munroe, Chief Marketing Officer, Zuckerman Spaeder LLP
(ACAC Co-Chair)
Nikki G. Sherrill, Chief Business Development Officer, Parker Hudson
(ACAC Co-Chair)

ACAC Members

Maziel Abrego, Director of Marketing and Practice Development, Vedder Price
Cheryl Bame, Principal, Bame Public Relations
Sadie Baron, Chief Marketing Officer, Reed Smith LLP
Michael Blachly, Chief Marketing Officer, Gray Reed
Ashley Black, Diversity & Inclusion Manager, Porter Hedges LLP
Liz Boehm, Director of Client & Business Development, Benesch
Jaclyn Braga, Director of Marketing & Business Development, Morse
Miki Hanlen, Sr. Director, Global Field Marketing, Intapp
Andrew Hutchinson, CEO, Databall
Linda Sanders, Director of Client Experience, Troutman Pepper
John Witts, Director of Business Intelligence & Innovation, Barnes & Thornburg

Keynote Presenters

There will be two keynote presentations this year.

Crafting Messages That Resonate: Lessons from Presidential Speechwriters on Connecting with Your Audience
Speakers: Cody Keenan and Terry Szuplat, Presidential Speechwriters, Professors, and Bestselling Authors
Date & Time: Wednesday, April 23 | 4:30 p.m. ET

Forward Together: The Human Edge in an Era of Rapid Change
Speaker: Heather McGowan, Future-of-Work Strategist
Date & Time: Thursday, April 24 | 8:30 a.m. ET

‍The Most Important Thing I Can Share With You This Year

As I began planning for this year’s conference, the theme took on even greater significance for me, extending beyond LMA’s 40th anniversary celebration. There is a lot going on right now, in our firms and in the world.

This is a moment to reflect on who we are as legal marketers, as professionals, as advocates, as businesspeople, and yes, as superheroes.

Our work is about more than tactics.

That’s why the commemorative button I’ve created this year honors every one of us who shows up with courage, clarity, and consistency. Whether you are navigating firm politics, driving strategic growth, or simply advocating for what is right inside your organization:

You are a superhero.

My Message To All LMA Members: I Am Here For You

Stay Tuned As I Will Make This Your Curated Content Hub

As I have done in 2024, 2023, 2022, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2014, 2013, and 2013, I will be curating or creating content and linking to it from this blog post to provide a quick, easy place so you can find all of the information and recaps you might like to consume. I will also link to conference-related content from others.

This post will be updated frequently, so I invite you to bookmark it, as I will add content as I find it or as you let me know you’ve found it too.

This section will be updated throughout this and the coming weeks with:

Audio reflections
Videos that capture important moments
LinkedIn posts
Blog summaries
Photos
Takeaways from other attendees

Whether you are here in person or unable to join us this year, I will do my best to make this your ongoing window into #LMA25.

If you aren’t here this year, know that you are missed.

Presenting Your #LMA25 Annual Conference Content

This placeholder is waiting for the content you and I create!

(Video) Describe LMA In One Word, a beautiful video by Gittings Global

What Law Firm Clients Really Want: Relationships, Reputation, and Responsiveness, a keynote podcast recap by Gina Rubel and Jennifer Simpson Carr, Furia Rubel

(LinkedIn) Making Strategy Stick, a recap by Emily Gallagher, Womble Bond Dickinson

LMA 2025 | Leveraging Client Feedback for Value Creation and Increased Revenue, a recap by Catie Anderson, Passle

LMA 2025 | A Blueprint for Legal BD in the Age of Change, an overall recap by Alex Haidar, Passle

LMA 2025 | Using Activator Research to Drive Real World Results, a recap by Charles Cousins, Alistair Gone, and Will Eke, Passle

LMA 2025 | Aligning Digital Transformation with Strategic Growth, a recap by Will Eke, Passle

(Expanded Blog Summary) Harnessing AI For Cross-Selling: Don’t Miss An Opportunity For Growth by Passle CEO, James Barclay, a recap by Nancy Myrland

(LinkedIn) The Human Edge In An Era Of Rapid Change, Heather McGowan keynote takeaways by Dawn Sheiker

LMA 2025 |Crafting Messages That Resonate: Lessons From Presidential Speechwriters on Connecting With Your Audience, a keynote recap by Charles Cousins and Will Eke, Passle

(LinkedIn) What Two Former Obama Speechwriters Taught Me About Leadership, Storytelling, and Speaking Human by Jennifer Scotton

(LinkedIn) List of Miscellaneous Golden Nuggets by Kirstin Rojo

(LinkedIn) Key Takeaways From The In-House Panel by Michelle Calcotte King

(Expanded Blog Summary) #LMA25 GC Panel Reveals What Clients Really Want From Law Firms, a recap by Nancy Myrland

What In-House Counel Really Want: Insights from the LMA Annual Conference Panel, a keynote recap by Rebecca Edwards Hnatowski, Edwards Advisory

(Podcast) What Law Firm Clients Really Want: Relationships, Reputation, and Responsiveness, a keynote recap by Gina Rubel and Jennifer Simpson Carr, Furia Rubel

LMA 2025 | The Anatomy Of A Successful Sales Pursuit: Insights From Clients, a keynote recap by Will Eke and James Barclay, Passle

LMA 2025 | The Biggest Missed Opportunity for Growth: Harnessing AI for Cross-Selling, a recap by Yasmin Zand and James Barclay, Passle

(Expanded Blog Summary) #LMA25 Keynote Recap: Obama Speechwriters Deliver Lessons On Leadership, Authenticity, and Values, a recap by Nancy Myrland

(Expanded Blog Summary) #LMA25 Day 2 Keynote Recap: Forward Together – The Human Edge In An Era Of Rapid Change, a Heather McGowan keynote recap by Nancy Myrland

(LinkedIn) Day 12 Keynote Recap: Obama Speechwriters Engage LMA Members As Annual #LMA25 Conference Kicks Off, a recap by Nancy Myrland

(LinkedIn) A Few Words Of Advice For Those Heading To LMA For The First Time. From A Veteran, Clinton Gary

Thank you so much for spending some of your valuable time here in this post. If you have a moment, would you please share it with others in our community, too?

If I’ve missed anything or made any mistakes, you can always feel comfortable letting me know.

Also, don’t forget to ask me for a button. I don’t want to take 800 of these home with me!

Thanks!

About Nancy Myrland

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

Nancy is also the founder of the hybrid self-study and online course about LinkedIn, LICFL*, which is a course where she personally guides lawyers through the sequential creation of their LinkedIn profile and presence.*

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing
Marketing and Business Development Plans
AI Discernment
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

The post #LMA25 Let’s Celebrate 40 Years Together – Annual Conference Content Curation appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

AI: Do Women Have A Seat At The Artificial Intelligence Table?

Nancy Myrland — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 23:59:57 +0000

I recently had the privilege of attending the Women + AI Summit in Nashville, an event that brought together 150 to 200 incredibly smart and passionate individuals.

The common theme among us is that we are all committed to leading, teaching, supporting, and engaging in the critical conversations surrounding artificial intelligence.

Your Choice: Podcast or Blog Post

If you would like to listen to this via my podcast, Legal Marketing Minutes, just click the player below. If you would rather read, keep scrolling and you will find it below the player.

A Vision for Inclusion in AI

The summit was the brainchild of Professor Cat Moon of Vanderbilt University Law School. In just 60 days, she put together an event that ensured women had a seat at the AI table. Cat recognized a glaring issue: many articles and reports were highlighting male-driven AI advancements and overlooking womens’ contributions. Rather than simply observing this disparity, she took action. If you don’t know Cat, you should because she’s amazing.

Her goal was clear, which was to create a space for women and allies of women to contribute to and lead discussions about artificial intelligence. The event was open to anyone interested, and while predominantly attended by women, it was inclusive. After knowing him for many years via social media, I was happy to finally meet Dennis Kennedy, a well-respected name in the legal profession.

The Power of In-Person and Virtual Connections

Just like meeting Dennis, one of the most rewarding aspects of the summit was the opportunity to meet people I had only interacted with online. Out of all of the attendees, I had only previously met one, Lydia Flocchini, a very smart legal tech advisor, before the event. I met Lydia during Ari Kaplan, another legal tech leader’s Virtual Lunch, which he has hosted since the pandemic started. Lydia and I met at the LMA, or Legal Marketing Association, conference a few years ago, so it was wonderful to see her again. Thanks to social media, we had already built a friendship.

This reinforced something I often talk about, which is the power of virtual relationships. Social and digital media allow us to develop meaningful professional relationships long before we meet in person. I consider this a gift that we have all been given, and that is waiting for each of us to take advantage of.

Learning Beyond Legal

I enjoyed the diversity of attendees at the summit. While the summit was rooted in legal because of Cat Moon, she posted the invitation publicly on LinkedIn so that anyone who was interested knew they were welcome to attend.

I met new friends from inside and outside the legal profession, including professionals from, among others:

WebMD
Microsoft
Education
Public health organizations
The Washington Court System

This interdisciplinary approach is invaluable to me. Learning from professionals outside the legal bubble expands my perspective and helps me provide better guidance to my law firms clients.

“Expertise” in AI: A Journey, Not a Title

A key takeaway from the summit was a sentiment shared by one of the speakers: “There aren’t necessarily a lot of people who can call themselves experts in AI, but there are a lot of people with expertise.”

I like that distinction because, like you, I am on a journey of AI discernment, which means I help firms think through their AI adoption strategies. I am committed to continuing to learn from experts and those with expertise. AI has been around since the 1950s, and while some AI pioneers are true experts, many of us are still developing our expertise in this fast-evolving field.

What’s Next? More Insights to Come

I’ll be looking at my notes to share a few summaries of key sessions from the summit in the coming weeks. Some of this content will be written (blog and social media), some will be spoken (my 2 podcasts), and some will be visual (videos and graphics on social media), a concept I teach called The Relationship Continuum.

As AI becomes an integral part of the legal profession, I will help firms integrate AI wisely, effectively, efficiently, and ethically while continuing to focus on the foundational marketing and business development strategies I teach every day, such as:

LinkedIn
Podcasting
Personal branding
Video
Livestreaming
Zoom and virtual presentation skills
Content marketing, and
Marketing and business development planning

Let’s Continue the Conversation

I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions. Feel free to leave a comment, or message me privately at nancy@myrlandmarketing.com.

About Nancy Myrland

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing
Marketing and Business Development Plans
AI Discernment
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

The post AI: Do Women Have A Seat At The Artificial Intelligence Table? appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

Why Relying Solely On Your Firm To Share Your Content Isn’t Enough

Nancy Myrland — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:14:32 +0000

As nice as it would be if the firm shared all of the content that you create, such as when you write a blog post, record a video, or appear on a podcast, and you think, “Oh, great, the firm will share it for me, and that’s all I have to worry about,” it’s not that easy.

What you need to do is take the bull by the horns and help promote your activity.

Let me explain why.

Video or Blog Post: Your Choice Below

If you would like to watch this via video, just click the player below, or here if you are receiving this via email.

If you would rather read, keep scrolling as you will find my blog post below the video player.

It’s Time to Take Charge

When you take your valuable time to create a piece of content—whether written, spoken, or visual—it is important that it gets the attention it deserves. You’re not creating content as a hobby; you’re creating it for a reason. You want to make sure your clients, potential clients, referral sources, and even members of the trade media—those who are important to your practice and career growth—see that piece of content.

Why You Shouldn’t Just Repost What The Firm Posts

If the firm is the only one sharing the content you worked so hard to create, the reach will be far smaller than if you also share it yourself.

Your temptation might be to rely on the firm’s post and simply reshare it—what LinkedIn currently calls “reposting.” However, I recommend against relying solely on that approach.

LinkedIn’s algorithm loves new, original content, so sharing someone else’s post is nice, but it isn’t going to cause the algorithm to stand up and cheer because that is repurposed content.

What I’d like to see you do instead is to take your content and share it natively on your feed.

Here’s A Quick Example

Let’s say it’s a video.

Download the file and upload it as a post on your personal profile.
Create a thoughtful post to accompany it that will help your community understand why they should take the time to consume that content. Like you, everyone is busy, so give them a reason to watch.
Don’t just upload and go away. Stick around and be ready to engage with anyone and everyone who takes their precious time to interact with your video.

Additional Tips for Native Content Sharing

Here’s how you can effectively share content natively:

Write a Strong Post: As mentioned above, write a friendly, authoritative, and concise post that explains your topic and why it is important for your audience to know what it is you are talking about.

Help People Connect the Dots: If you are posting a carousel (LinkedIn calls them document posts), single graphic, video, or audio, include a sentence or two to highlight what they will learn and why it is worth their time. People are busy, and unless you make the connection clear, they’ll likely keep scrolling. Waste their time once, and they won’t forget.

Experiment with Timing: If you’re curious about the difference in reach between reposting and posting natively, try sharing the content both ways. Space them a few days apart at similar times of day to see how your community reacts…or doesn’t. This isn’t a perfect scientific study, but I know from experience and lots of experimentation (that’s my job) that you will begin to notice a trend.

Collaboration Multiplies Reach

Encourage your colleagues to share their content natively as well, and when the content is relevant to your audience, share each others’ posts. Think about the potential reach when everyone in the firm amplifies one another’s content. Combining your connections will result in far better exposure than relying on the firm alone. Also, and this reason cannot be minimized, this is cross-selling in its easiest form.

Wouldn’t you rather have your clients know about the full capabilities and intelligence of your firm instead of going somewhere else because they didn’t know, or they forgot, that you have those skills in-house?

Content Sharing Is Not Self-Promotion

Some professionals I know feel hesitant about sharing their own content because it seems self-promotional.

But remember: why did you create that content in the first place? You created it because you believed it would be valuable to your audience. Sharing it is simply ensuring your efforts reach the people who need it most. You aren’t forcing anyone to consume what you create. When they find it on social and digital media, they have chosen to do so, so let’s give it to them.

Addressing External Links on LinkedIn

If you’re sharing a blog post or any other external link, be mindful of how LinkedIn handles those links. The platform, aka its algorithm, tends to deprioritize posts with links because they want to keep users on-site. You will hear and read differing schools of thought about this, but I’ve seen it happen too many times to discount the impact links have on posts.

To overcome this:

You can share a compelling snippet or key insight from your blog post directly on the platform. Make that your post. This will deliver the valuable advice you originally shared in your blog post but won’t push them away to another site by adding an external link.
Engaging visuals, documents (think carousels), and brief videos can be scroll-stopping, which we want as we want your connections to stop and consume what you have to say.
Consider using an audiogram or a short clip to highlight key moments of a podcast or video.
Try to think of ways to encourage thought and discussion, as posts with higher engagement are often rewarded with greater visibility on LinkedIn. This draws more attention to your expertise without appearing self-promotional. Remember, it’s about sharing value, not just content. Make sure you are genuine when encouraging discussion, as it is obvious and often frowned upon when it appears you are just looking for clicks and reactions.
Add a call-to-action to enhance your post’s impact. Is there another resource that would be helpful for your readers? Is there someone else you could tag who your followers should also follow or who you would like to credit for inspiring your post? As with my suggestion above, be genuine about this as people can smell promotion a mile away. If they already love you, that won’t matter. If they are just getting to know you, that could be a turn-off. Learn when and how this is appropriate for your situation and community.
Test placing your external link in a comment rather than the original post. I don’t like that I even have to suggest that as I think it is gamey and incongruent with delivering content, but we are playing by LinkedIn’s rules, so testing this is important for your exposure.

Don’t Leave Your Content to Chance

Your time is too valuable to leave your content to chance. Don’t rely solely on the firm to promote it. When you share your content personally, you will not only increase its reach but also have the opportunity to be present and interact with those who engage with it.

Interaction on LinkedIn is part of effectively building your reputation and your relationships, which are two of the main purposes I teach when it comes to effectively building your practice.

Would You Like Help?

If you have any questions or feel like you would benefit from more personal help with all of this, let me know. That’s what I do!

About Nancy Myrland

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing
Marketing and Business Development Plans
AI Discernment
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

The post Why Relying Solely On Your Firm To Share Your Content Isn’t Enough appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

Are Your Comments On LinkedIn Posts Getting Lost?

Nancy Myrland — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 19:30:55 +0000

If you know that genuinely interacting with those you care the most about on LinkedIn is important, then I want to make sure those people are seeing your comments.

Your time is much too valuable for your comments to get lost, so let’s discuss.

Your Choice: Podcast or Blog Post

If you would like to listen to this via my podcast, Legal Marketing Minutes, just click the player below. If you would rather read, keep scrolling and you will find it below the player.

Let’s Talk About This

Now and then, you will see a LinkedIn post that has A LOT of comments on it. It might be news, education, a job change, an anniversary, or just a slice-of-life perspective.

Is it a good idea to comment on those? Sure it is if you care about connecting with that person and you are genuinely interested in them.

The Reality

But what can happen is that your comment can get lost in the midst of 20 or 200 comments on a post. The original poster might miss some of the comments, or they might not have time to do anything other than click a reaction to acknowledge their appreciation to those who have stopped by long enough to make a kind comment.

All Is Not Lost

This is not a terrible situation. It is just the way it is.

What I want you to do is to find a way to make sure that person knows you care, or that you are interested in talking about what they have to say.

Here’s A Plan For You

Go ahead and leave your genuine comment on the post. In the perfect social media world, it will be seen, not only by the original person posting, but by others who are also observing or reacting to that same post. There’s nothing wrong with that. Think of those as bonus views, or added attention. Those can be valuable contacts, too.

However, on these posts that are flooded with comments that you think might cause yours to get lost, I want you to also head over to your inbox and send that person a message.

What Should You Say?

It depends on what the original post was about.

It can be as simple as:

“I loved what you posted this morning about taking time to think through our business development plan to make sure we are on track. It struck me that I am half way through the year and I need to get back on track a bit. I appreciate it. Thanks! Nancy”

“Hi! I just read the comment on your post that called you out for sharing your perspective about the debates tonight. First, I applaud you for sharing an important perspective that wasn’t necessarily political, but more procedure-oriented. I definitely agree and want to make sure you know you have a supporter out here. BTW, I’d love to connect again after this first debate to see how you think it played out. Take care! Nancy”

Does This Make Sense?

You get the picture. It is no more than genuine conversation that you don’t have to fabricate because it is built upon what you read in the post and the thoughts you have about it.

That’s it.

You’ve Done Double Duty

What you’ve done is to not only shine a spotlight on that person you care about by commenting on the original post (the algorithm will love the attention being given to that person and post), but you’ve taken the time to go to their inbox and make a genuine connection.

This increases the chances for connection with those you care the most about. Spend time commenting, but spend time genuinely messaging those you care the most about, too.

Let me know how it goes when you try this.

If you are a little nervous about trying this, you can test it out on me. I don’t judge.

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing
Marketing and Business Development Plans
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

The post Are Your Comments On LinkedIn Posts Getting Lost? appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

The Art of The Follow-Up Question

Nancy Myrland — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 19:45:44 +0000

Let’s talk about the important skill of asking the follow-up question.

This is one of the most important skills you can develop.

Listen or Read: Your Choice

If you would rather listen to my 2-minute, 38-second podcast where this blog post originated, you can either click the play button below or click here if you are reading this via email.

If you prefer to read the transcript, keep scrolling.

{Transcript}

Welcome back to Legal Marketing Moments, my 2-3-minute podcast!

Let’s talk about the art of the follow-up question. This might sound trivial, but it is extremely important. In fact, probably one of the most important things you can be aware of when you are having a conversation with another person. And whether that is in-person, on the phone, on video, whether it be Zoom or Teams, or however else you are on audio, video or in-person with someone, this is really important.

When someone makes a comment to you about something, I want you to try really hard to not think about what it is that you are supposed to say next and focus very much on what they are saying. I had a conversation with someone close to me recently where he told me something about the conversation with another person, and I said, “Well, what caused that?” And he said, “I don’t know.” And so that caused me to think about the art of the follow-up, because when I asked him if he had followed up and asked him that question, and this was somebody who would have respected that follow-up question, wasn’t deeply personal, this person would have answered.

So I want you to remember that when someone makes a comment, whether that be about business, maybe they are sharing something with you that is personal, which is a clue. That’s a trigger that means they consider you close enough to share personal things with, so take that as that is. That means they brought you into their personal world.

But very often it is about business. And what I want you to do is to then think, well, okay, what is the follow-up question I should ask? And sometimes it’s as simple as,

“Wow, what does that mean?”

or,

“Why did they say that?”

Or any number of questions.

Somebody says, “Having a tough year,” don’t just let that sit. Again, they’ve trusted you. You might follow up by saying,

“I’m sorry to hear that. What does that mean?”

And then that doesn’t have to be it. Listen very closely to what they’re saying, and then decide whether a follow-up question is appropriate.

It is a conversation, so I want you to be very, very aware of it because when you are as aware as possible of what is going on in the minds of those who are important to you, then you stand the chance of building a more trusted relationship with that person.

And isn’t that what this is all about? You want them to know that they can trust you. Of course, you want them to know you’re smart.

All right, let me know if you have any questions. You can email me at nancy@myrlandmarketing.com, or if you’re somewhere where you can leave a comment, please do that as well.

All right, take care. See you next time.

{End Transcript}

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing
Marketing and Business Development Plans
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

*Nancy is not an employee or consultant hired by LinkedIn, although she was named a LinkedIn Top Voice on the platform in 2024! Top Voices is an invitation-only program featuring a global group of experts on LinkedIn covering a range of topics across the professional world, helping members uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. Top Voices was previously known as the Influencer program prior to October 2022. Top Voices are vetted to ensure that they meet high trust standards, are consistently active on the platform, and share valuable expertise through content that demonstrates their unique, original contributions to a topic.

The post The Art of The Follow-Up Question appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

Who Am I To Share Content?

Nancy Myrland — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 22:05:16 +0000

There are many professionals who are hesitant to share what they know on social and digital media because they can’t imagine what they would have to say that people would want to read, hear, and/or see.

In this 2-minute, 9-second episode of Legal Marketing Moments (my 2-3 minute podcast), I will help you get past this feeling of not being worthy enough to post the knowledge that is in your head that other people need to hear.

Listen or Read: Your Choice

If you would like to listen to my 2-minute, 9-second podcast where this blog post originated, you can either click the play button below or click here if you are reading this via email.

If you prefer to read the transcript, keep scrolling because I have included it below.

Transcript

Hi there! Welcome back to Legal Marketing Moments. I’m Nancy Myrland with Myrland Marketing & Social Media.

I continue to find professionals who are hesitant to share what they know on social media or digital media, digital, and I would put into those categories those platforms where people aren’t naturally talking back such as a podcast or a blog post, and social media, obviously, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or X, whatever you want to call it these days, Threads, TikTok, Instagram, you name it.

And the comment and the trepidation revolves around this thought:

“What could I possibly say that anyone would want to hear? I don’t know what to share?”

And so my answer to you, what I want you to seriously think about today is, instead of saying, who am I to share the information that I know, I want you to turn that around and I want you to ask yourself:

“Who am I to NOT share what I know?!”

Reason being, there are people who need to know what you have to say. You know things that are valuable to people, otherwise you would not be doing what you are doing.

You would not have studied so long and so hard to learn what you know so that you could make it your life’s work.

So instead of asking, who am I? Who am I to share what I know? Who am I to post about these sorts of things?

And also worrying about the format of your posts, we can deal with that. That’s the easy part.

I want you to seriously, each time you say that, I want you to instead cover that thought, that negative thought, by asking yourself,:

“Who am I not to?!”

Because even if it is one person, the right person, and I have a feeling it will be many more than one person, but even if it’s just one person who you help by sharing your knowledge, then you have accomplished your goal of building your reputation and your relationships.

Let me know if you have any questions or if you need any help with all of this.

Again, I’m Nancy Myrland, president of Myrland Marketing & Social Media, and you can email me at nancy@myrlandmarketing.com.

All right, we’ll see you next time. Bye bye.

{End Transcript}

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

Highly regarded as a top independent* LinkedIn consultant, Nancy is a highly respected LinkedIn trainer and content marketing specialist. She helps lawyers, law firms, and legal marketers learn and implement content, social, and digital media strategies that cut through the clutter, making them more relevant to their current and potential clients.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing
Marketing and Business Development Plans
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

*Nancy is not an employee or consultant hired by LinkedIn, although she was named a LinkedIn Top Voice on the platform in 2024! Top Voices is an invitation-only program featuring a global group of experts on LinkedIn covering a range of topics across the professional world, helping members uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. Top Voices was previously known as the Influencer program prior to October 2022. Top Voices are vetted to ensure that they meet high trust standards, are consistently active on the platform, and share valuable expertise through content that demonstrates their unique, original contributions to a topic.

The post Who Am I To Share Content? appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

4 Key Reasons Law Firms Shouldn’t Focus On Creating Viral Content

Nancy Myrland — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 21:36:04 +0000

Creating viral videos, podcasts, posts, and other content has been desirable to many for a long time.

Who wouldn’t want their content to go viral?

Today, let’s discuss 4 important points about viral posts that you will want to consider when you feel the pressure to “go viral.”

Let’s discuss.

Your Choice: Blog or Podcast?

If you would like to listen to my 4-minute, 56-second podcast where this blog post originated (faster if you speed up my voice in the controls), you can either click the play button below or click here if you are reading this via email. If you prefer to read the blog post, keep scrolling because I have included it below.

Going Viral Might Not Be As Beneficial As You Think

First, viral content is not always targeted toward your audience. Let’s say a video goes viral, it reaches a lot of people. Many of those people will not be interested in the practice areas and skills your firm offers. It might seem like a good thing to have thousands or millions of views, but if those views are not converting into profile views, website visits, conversation, interaction, or strengthening of your reputation and relationships with those you care most about doing business with or learning from, then what is the point?

The Goal When Creating Content

Instead of focusing on making a viral video, firms should focus on creating content that targets their specific audience.

Second, viral videos are often based on shock value. Some businesses and firms create content that is shocking, provocative, or humorous just to get attention. While this might work in the short term, it does not create long-term brand loyalty for you, your lawyers, and your firm. People might watch the video, but will they remember the firm behind it?

When Creating Content, What Differentiates You?

Instead of creating a shocking video, why not focus on creating content that showcases your unique value proposition, or that which makes you different than others?

Third, viral videos can be one-hit wonders. Just because a video goes viral, it does not mean that you and your firm will continue to get millions of views on every video you create. Viral videos are often a result of luck, and it is difficult to replicate that success. Instead of focusing on making a viral video, firms should focus on creating a consistent and strategic content strategy that speaks to the needs, challenges, and interests of their intended audiences.

Does Viral Content Convert?

Fourth, viral videos do not always lead to conversions. We don’t always talk about conversions in the legal profession because it is a very “salesy” term. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of thousands of views, but if those views are not converting for you, what is the point?

As mentioned above, I suggest you think about whether your videos and all other content have a chance of converting your viewers in some way, whether that be:

Profile views
Website visits
Conversation
Interaction
Clicks on reactions
Strengthening your relationships
Building your brand

These are infinitely more important than whether or not your content goes viral.

Instead of focusing on making viral content, you might want to spend your valuable time creating targeted, consistent, and conversion-focused content that resonates with your intended audiences. When you do this, you will find that you will build your reputation and your relationships, which contribute to building your practice.

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing
Marketing and Business Development Plans
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

*Nancy is not an employee or consultant hired by LinkedIn, although she was named a LinkedIn Top Voice on the platform in 2024! Top Voices is an invitation-only program featuring a global group of experts on LinkedIn covering a range of topics across the professional world, helping members uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. Top Voices was previously known as the Influencer program prior to October 2022. Top Voices are vetted to ensure that they meet high trust standards, are consistently active on the platform, and share valuable expertise through content that demonstrates their unique, original contributions to a topic.

The post 4 Key Reasons Law Firms Shouldn’t Focus On Creating Viral Content appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

#LMA24 Session Recap: Making It Rain – Developing Women Rainmakers

Nancy Myrland — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 01:21:04 +0000

During the recent LMA, or Legal Marketing Association, annual conference in San Diego, one of the highlights was a panel discussion led by the incomparable Deborah Brightman Farone. Deborah moderated a stellar panel of “four of the country’s leading female rainmakers” who were there to share business development stories and advice that have allowed them to build amazing practices.

This panel of strong, accomplished women was worthy of a keynote session as it contained honest, valuable, supportive, and often humorous advice that all conference attendees would benefit from.

A Standing Ovation

Further proof that this panel discussion was a favorite was the standing ovation this group received at the end, which was earned by the passion, support, and the willingness to freely share their negative and positive experiences as they built four of the most successful practices in the legal profession.

The panel included:

Janice Brown, Equity Partner, Trial Lawyer and Employment Problem Solver, Meyers Nave

Palmina Fava, Partner, Co-Head of Government Investigations & White Collar Defense practice group, Vinson & Elkins

Susan Eandi, Chair, North America Employment & Compensation Practice Group, Baker & McKenzie

Jess Heim, Government Investigations, White Collar Criminal Defense Compliance Partner, DLA Piper

These four accomplished lawyers shared their insights on many topics, but 3 of the business development categories covered were:

Authentic personal marketing
Mastering professional relationships, and
Empowering junior lawyers

Authentic Personal Marketing

The speakers challenged the notion that lawyers have to lead by selling their professional accomplishments and expertise, emphasizing the power of authentic, personal storytelling as a foundation for building meaningful connections and growing their practices. In other words, it is okay to be yourself and to show your personal skills.

One of the presenters shared a wonderful story about her experience mentoring a young associate, whom she called Tom. As a junior associate herself, the speaker was tasked with helping Tom navigate the early stages of his career. Though he was fresh out of law school and unsure of his path, she took him under her wing, offering guidance and ensuring he looked good in his role. This was a selfless act that made an impact on his career.

Over the years, the two maintained a close connection, and eventually, this presenter was able to help place Tom in a position as the head of employment law at a $25 million company. This experience, the presenter noted, taught her the power of authenticity and a willingness to help others – principles that have served her well throughout her career.

“My guiding principles have been authenticity and helping others when they ask for assistance,” the speaker reflected. “It’s essential to recognize the gift someone gives you when they seek your help. While there are plenty of calls I take with uncertain outcomes, I always learn from people in the process.”

Not All Business Development Activities Fit Everyone

One of our rainmakers went on to share another story about her first annual evaluation as a young professional. Despite believing she was doing well and eager to excel, a partner suggested she reach out to clients for business development, suggesting she take them to a Yankees game. She was hesitant as it didn’t feel right to invite an older male client to a game or dinner. She trusted her instincts as she knew she had to find her own authentic approach.

Drawing inspiration from her teenage daughters’ emphasis on authenticity, she began by starting small, saying yes to opportunities that came her way, like Friday lunches with colleagues, dinners with clients, and drinks with visiting partners from other offices. The point was getting to know each other on a more personal level, even if it meant embarrassing herself singing karaoke with clients in Tokyo or Hong Kong. That sounds kind of fun to me!

Find An Authentic Approach To Your Business Development Activity

For one of the rainmakers, finding her own authentic approach to rainmaking and business development meant being selective about self-promotion on platforms like LinkedIn, while embracing other outlets like writing articles and giving presentations. The key, she emphasized, is to identify what feels genuine and comfortable for you, rather than forcing a style that doesn’t align with your personality.

(I breathed a sigh of relief when another panelist talked about the majority of her business coming from LinkedIn!)

Is Your Business Development Activity Valuable To Your Potential and Current Clients?

Another important aspect is finding ways to make your events and invitations valuable for clients and potential clients. One rainmaker shared her experience organizing an annual event in San Francisco that provided networking opportunities and valuable content, an approach that helped her stay top-of-mind with potential clients.

Treat Everyone As A Potential Client

Another recommendation given was to treat everyone as a potential client. This includes being ready with a clear elevator pitch that anyone can understand – from your family members to former law school classmates. This lawyer shared that you never know where the next opportunity might come from.

Don’t Forget About Your Current Clients

One of the rainmakers recounted taking clients from Tokyo to a baseball game, where they had a great time learning about each other’s cultures while enjoying the game. She reminded us that maintaining relationships with existing clients is just as crucial as building new ones.

Mastering Professional Relationships

One of the lawyers reminded us that doing excellent work and maintaining connections with everyone you’re working with at a client’s business is crucial. Often, you’ll be involved in large investigations, collaborating with various individuals at the company, such as an internal audit or working with junior members of the legal department. She reminded us that people tend to move around quickly, especially in the Bay Area. A junior team member at a client today could become a deputy general counsel somewhere else next year. Having a good relationship with them from working together can be beneficial.

Networking Is A Team Effort: Work With Your Marketing & Business Development Professionals

A common theme was that it is important to find a networking approach that feels right for you, and to explore various methods of opening doors. One lawyer suggested that this is a team effort, and that lawyers should work with their marketing and business development teams because they are there to help. She said that when they post updates on the firm’s social media sites, you can then share or like those updates. She also suggested staying close to these business professionals as they can also ensure that your accomplishments are reported to upper management. By collaborating effectively, you can make strides in your professional growth and networking efforts.

Networking Opportunities Can Be Right Down The Hall

Networking isn’t always about meeting strangers at conferences or through cold calls. Another rainmaker panelist reminded us that connecting with a partner or associate just a few doors down who may think of you when they’re out with their contacts can be valuable. Also, try not to pigeonhole yourself too much in your area of expertise. Be prepared to showcase your versatility and range of skills, rather than just your specific area of expertise. This will make you a more attractive and valuable asset to both clients and colleagues.

Mastering the Challenges for Women in Law

Attendees in the room were also reminded that the challenge for women in the legal profession is that they are still considered different than others. Black women equity partners constitute less than 1% in the country. Women often compare themselves to how men approach their careers, which can be limiting. The real challenge is becoming authentically yourself while being successful in your field.

Authenticity is essential, but it’s not always rewarded in the workplace for women. Gaining confidence can come from various sources, such as building a $25 million book of business. Embracing your authentic self and attracting opportunities based on your true abilities is the goal women should strive for as professionals.

The biggest challenge for anyone is to create a mindset of courage and teach other lawyers to have courage as well. For one lawyer, it was about becoming comfortable with who she is, including her strengths and weaknesses. Once she became clear about that, people could sense her authenticity. She said that authenticity is like a magnet; people want to connect with you when you’re genuine. (I love that.)

Your skills and abilities also come into play. In her opinion, your inner self is the most significant component of everything you do.

Integrating Personal and Professional Life

As for managing everything in life, including business development and networking, one presenter shared that she doesn’t really like the word “networking.” Instead, she prefers to say that she connects with people in all aspects of her life. She doesn’t try to keep work separate from her personal life as it is a losing battle trying to find balance.

(Read that last paragraph again because it is very important.)

That doesn’t mean she doesn’t make time for herself – she does insist on spending time with her mom or going to Pilates on New Year’s Eve.

She also makes sure to schedule time with friends who aren’t lawyers and maintain connections outside of work. This way, she can create a well-rounded life where personal and professional aspects blend together harmoniously. She said that time together is essential. The narrative often revolves around balance and networking, but for her, it is more about connecting and integrating.

Junior Lawyers: Share Your Knowledge and Advocate For Yourself

One rainmaker said that she believes the firm’s primary goal should be to encourage a growth mindset among its employees, which can be challenging when working with lawyers.

Firms have a crucial role to play in nurturing their junior talent. By fostering a positive, supportive environment and helping employees recognize their strengths, she said that firms can empower their people to reach new heights.

She reminded us that junior lawyers are constantly learning, and to remember that not everyone has the same depth of knowledge on a particular issue.

She strongly suggests that junior lawyers find ways to share what they’ve learned recently, even if it seems insignificant. Reach out to marketing and other professional development staff and inform them about any new developments you’ve observed because knowledge is always valuable. Sharing insights through something like a one-paragraph blog post can be impactful.

“Don’t be afraid to share your knowledge and insights, even if they seem small – you never know who it might help,” one speaker encouraged.

Learn How To Ask For Help

It’s essential for professionals, regardless of their experience level, to develop good habits and a growth mindset. Be willing to advocate for yourself and stand up for your abilities.

As the speakers noted, it is important for junior lawyers to be willing to be vulnerable and ask for help when they need it.

“Being vulnerable means having the confidence to learn and grow,” one rainmaker said. “It’s essential to stay focused on growth and boldness.”

Another rainmaker shared that there is something special about being connected with others in the firm who know the right places to find what you need and who can teach you things you don’t know. It is important to consider whose team you are on – not just your own, but also working in the best interests of your clients. She said to not be afraid to advocate for yourself and stand up for your abilities. If there is room on a client team, be happy to join.

Additional Lessons for Lawyers and Conference Attendees

As you can tell from this session summary, there were many valuable lessons shared by these successful women rainmakers.

Here are a few additional memorable thoughts they shared:

Ultimately, the path to success is paved with authenticity, courage, and a willingness to support one another. By embracing these principles, we can all achieve remarkable growth and fulfillment in our legal careers.
Don’t be humble when sharing your insights. When you attend a conference, go back to your firm and tell them, “Here’s what I’ve heard. This is what other firms are doing. You don’t want to be left behind.” For example, if you attended a panel on women rainmakers featuring representatives from various firms, it’s clear that promoting women in law is a hot topic. There are countless ways to approach these discussions, but being tactical and sharing your knowledge is essential. Refer back to your own experiences and provide valuable input.
Rainmaking is a journey of authentic connections.
There is power in genuine interactions.
Embrace your authentic self.
Growing courage and exhibiting vulnerability are important.
Integrate, don’t separate, work and personal life.
Credibility grows by leveraging learning opportunities through thought leadership.
Personal marketing isn’t about following a one-size-fits-all strategy.
Remember that it is not just about making connections. It is about making them count.

We were reminded that, by implementing these lessons and embracing the power of authenticity, women lawyers can blaze new trails and build thriving, fulfilling careers while reshaping the legal landscape for generations to come.

Congratulations, Deborah Farone, on leading an interesting discussion between these four extremely successful women rainmakers. Our time was well spent because of the rich content shared by these amazing women.

Special Note

While I have you, I am curating content like this post over on my LMA blog post titled:

#LMA24: Are You Ready To Go All In?

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

Highly regarded as a top independent* LinkedIn trainer, Nancy is a highly respected LinkedIn trainer and content marketing specialist. She helps lawyers, law firms, and legal marketers learn and implement content, social, and digital media strategies that cut through the clutter, making them more relevant to their current and potential clients.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

Nancy is also the founder of the hybrid self-study and online course LinkedIn Course For Lawyers*, where she personally guides lawyers through the sequential creation of their LinkedIn profile and presence.*

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing
Marketing and Business Development Plans
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

*Nancy is not an employee or consultant hired by LinkedIn, although she was named a LinkedIn Top Voice on the platform in 2024! Top Voices is an invitation-only program featuring a global group of experts on LinkedIn covering a range of topics across the professional world, helping members uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. Top Voices was previously known as the Influencer program prior to October 2022. Top Voices are vetted to ensure that they meet high trust standards, are consistently active on the platform, and share valuable expertise through content that demonstrates their unique, original contributions to a topic.

The post #LMA24 Session Recap: Making It Rain – Developing Women Rainmakers appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

#LMA24: Are You Ready To Go ALL IN?

Nancy Myrland — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 01:32:18 +0000

As you might have guessed from the title of this blog post, the theme for this year’s conference is ALL IN. It makes perfect sense because, as the conference website says, “get ready to go ALL IN at the largest global meeting exclusively for the legal marketing and business profession at #LMA24 in beautiful San Diego!”

For 3 days, we will take it ALL IN as we learn best practices, tips, tricks, advice, and education that is laser-focused on helping our internal clients, our lawyers, do what they do better, which is to build their reputations and their relationships with their current and potential clients.

San Diego = Hugging

San Diego is one of my favorite conference locations. It could be the warm weather, the water, the green growth that I long for right about now, or perhaps it is just the fact that I get to see and HUG hundreds of amazingly smart, friendly, huge-hearted LMA members. If you’re not a hugger, don’t be scared as I am a great reader of body language. I see you, and I respect you. If you are a hugger, well, watch out!

Rule #1

Don’t EVER be afraid to walk right up to me to say hello, hug, smile, ask a question, or anything else that is on your mind or heart as I will always welcome you into my world. If I accidentally walk right by you, please feel free to jump out and scare me, motion to me, yell at me, or just yell out “Hey, Nancy!” I want to see you and will never intentionally ignore you.

39th Annual? That Means I Was Very Young

This is our 39th annual conference, which is very hard to believe because we were just celebrating our 25th on my 15th birthday! Time flies way too fast!

If you’ve already read this post and are here looking for new posts, podcasts, and videos from a variety of conference attendees who will be summarizing the #LMA24 conference, I invite you to head down to the green headings below for new content added regularly. Don’t forget to let me know if I’ve missed anything, okay? Thanks!

If you are reading this via email, come visit my #LMA24 summary post here.

I Get To Present During The Business Development Pre-Conference Program

I consider it an honor and a gift to be invited to present at LMA conferences because dozens would like to present. This year, I have been invited to join a panel as we discuss:

“Why Message Matters: How Marketing, PR, and Social Media Help BD Professionals” with 3 wonderful co-presenters:

Felice Wagner, Executive Director and General Counsel, The Trial Network
Clay Steward, Vice President, Infinite Global, and
Micheline Tang, Director of Communications, King & Spalding

Stay Tuned As I Will Be Curating Conference Content Right Here

As I have done in 2023, 2022, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2014, 2013, and 2013, I will be curating or creating content and linking to it from this blog post to provide a quick, easy place so you can find all of the information and recaps you might like to consume. I will also link to content from others, which will be written, as well as voice and video. I will do this before, during, and after the conference.

Stay tuned as this post will change frequently. It might be a good idea to bookmark this blog post as I will continue to add content as I find it, or as you let me know you’ve found it, too!

A Few Conference Details

There will be over 1000 marketing and business development professionals in attendance.
This is the largest legal marketing and business development conference in the world.
There are 35+ education sessions presented by 140+ speakers
There are 5 pre-conference programs on Wednesday, April 3.

I am sure there is still time to register for the pre-conference programs.

Opening Keynote

Our opening keynote speaker is Jamie Lawless, Chief Executive at Husch Blackwell, who will talk about her unique career journey in: An Uncommon Story – How One Trailblazer Went All In

Thanks To Our Amazing Leaders!

This conference could not happen without our amazing 2024 Annual Conference Advisory Committee.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing time and talents.

Kevin Iredell, President, LMA International Board of Directors, Chief Marketing Officer, Lowenstein Sandler LLP
Amber Bollman, ACAC Co-Chair, Senior Client Relationship Manager, Perkins Coie LLP
Morgan MacLeod, ACAC Co-Chair (Pre-Conference Focus), Co-Founder & CEO, Cubicle Fugitive, Inc.
Kathryn Whitaker, ACAC Co-Chair, Chief Marketing Officer, Burr & Forman LLP

Committee Members

Moustafa Abdel-Kader, Senior Director of Business Development, Association of Corporate Counsel
Maziel Abrego, Director of Marketing and Practice Development, Vedder Price
Robert Algeri, Partner, Great Jakes
Rhys Calcott, Head of Global Client Development, Slaughter and May
Allen Chichester, Marketing Consultant
Julie Eichelbaum, Director of Client Relations, Wardell Hansen Powell & Muñoz, P.C.
Rafeedah Keys, Head of Privacy & Tech Practice Marketing, Perkins Coie LLP
Amanda Lindley, Business Development Director, Thompson Coburn LLP
Brooke Loucks, Global Director of Marketing and Communications, Cleary Gottlieb
Bianca Madrigal, Director of Business Development, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP

Please Bookmark This Post and Let Me Know When You See Content

You might want to bookmark this post as this is where I will be curating all of the content I and others will create about the conference. I will also add an important links section titled in green below so you don’t have to search for them elsewhere.

As always, if you see audio, video, or written content for me to add to this post, please message me wherever it is convenient for you:

Tag or message me on LinkedIn.
Tag or message me on Facebook.
Tag or message me on Twitter.
Email me here with #LMA24 in the subject line: nancy@myrlandmarketing.com
…or anywhere else we are connected.

The Most Important Thing I Can Share With You This Year

Before, during, and after the conference, always remember to say this to yourself:

Important Links For You

Conference Content Curation Blog Post by Nancy Myrland
The #LMA24 Conference website
The Legal Marketing Association (LMA) Official Member Group (members only)
Follow all #LMA24 Tweets in one place
Follow all #LMA24 LinkedIn posts in one place
…and the easy-to-remember URL for this ever-changing post: https://www.myrlandmarketing.com/lma24

Presenting Your #LMA24 Annual Conference Content!

This placeholder is sitting here waiting for the content you and I create!

Take Away From LMA 2024: The ‘B’ Word by Ed Lovatt on the Passle blog (added April 18, 2024)

#LMA24 Session Recap: Making It Rain – Developing Women Rainmakers by Nancy Myrland on The Myrland Marketing Minute Blog (added April 17, 2024)

#LMA24: A New Song For LMA Members: We Are All In and We Are Enough by Nancy Myrland, published on LinkedIn (added April 17, 2024)

Annual Meeting Recap: A Long-Time Member Shares Her Perspective As A First-Time Attendee by Mercedes Smith on the LMA website (added April 17, 2024)

Getting Beyond The ‘Table Stakes’: What GCs Really Want In Lawyer Relationships by Jeremy Barker, co-sponsored daily content from LMA and Above The Law (added April 11, 2024)

4/5/24: What LMA Attendees Will Be Taking Home This Year by Jeremy Barker, co-sponsored daily content from LMA and Above The Law (added April 8, 2024)

4/5/24: Today At LMA: Top Picks For Novices, Veterans, and Data Junkies by Katherine Hollar Barnard, co-sponsored daily content from LMA and Above The Law (added April 8, 2024)

4/5/24: Livestream Of The LMA Members’ Report, Committee Recognition, and Hall of Fame Inductees by Nancy Myrland (added April 8, 2024)

4/4/24: Today At LMA: AI Deep Dive, ‘Fishbowl’ Sessions, Keynote & Kickoff, by Katherine Hollar Barnard, co-sponsored daily content from LMA and Above The Law (added April 8, 2024)

4/4/24: Livestream Of The Official Kickoff Of The #LMA24 Annual Conference by Nancy Myrland (added 4/8/24)

3/29/24: Message To First Time Attendees Or Those Who Are Looking For Their Community Within LMA by Nancy Myrland (added 4/8/24)

The #LMA23 Photo Album

Conference Networking Tips From Our Legal Marketing Friends, A Timeless Post by Nancy Myrland & Friends (Ongoing)

Thank you so much for spending some of your valuable time here in this post. Would you please share it with others in our community, too.

If I’ve missed anything or made any mistakes, you can always feel comfortable letting me know.

Thanks!

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

Also known as the LinkedIn Coach For Lawyers, Nancy is a highly respected LinkedIn trainer and content marketing specialist. She helps lawyers, law firms, and legal marketers learn and implement content, social, and digital media strategies that cut through the clutter, making them more relevant to their current and potential clients.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

Nancy is also the founder of the hybrid self-study and online course, LinkedIn Course For Lawyers, where she personally guides lawyers through the sequential creation of their LinkedIn profile and presence.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

The post #LMA24: Are You Ready To Go ALL IN? appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

Lawyers, Should Your LinkedIn Profile Be More Conversational?

Nancy Myrland — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 23:57:13 +0000

Recently, during a one-on-one LinkedIn training session with a partner at a law firm, my client asked an interesting and perceptive question:

“Is my LinkedIn profile a place where I can be a little more casual and conversational and share things I wouldn’t normally include in my firm bio?”

My answer was ”Absolutely!”

Listen or Read: Your Choice

If you would like to listen to the 1-minute, 27-second episode of my Legal Marketing Moments podcast where this blog post originated, you can either click the play button below or click here if you are reading this via email.

If would rather read than listen, keep scrolling because I have turned it into a blog post for you below.

When he asked that question, I had a smile on my face because we had already spent time talking about ways to communicate what he does and what he is and wants to be known for in his practice. It was obvious to me that he made the connection between his professional brand and LinkedIn. He understood everything we had been discussing.

What Areas On My LinkedIn Profile Can I Add More Of My Personality?

Before I go on, please don’t confuse this with personal posts on LinkedIn as we are only discussing your profile at the moment. I will touch on your presence, or how you use LinkedIn on a regular basis, below.

Back To Your LinkedIn Profile!

LinkedIn provides ample space for you as a professional to showcase your professionalism and your personality.

If you would like to use a more conversational tone on your LinkedIn profile, which I always recommend (after all, this is social media), there are several places to do so, but I invite you to first take a look at your “About” and “Experience” sections as they offer a lot of room for more conversational content. There are many other sections where you can add a conversational tone, but let’s start with these two.

In these two sections, you have plenty of space to become much more conversational, to let people know that you’re thankful for your clients, and you’re thankful for having the ability to work on specific projects. Based on confidentiality, you can then list them.

Let Your LinkedIn Profile Serve As A Conversation With Others

Yes, take advantage of these spaces to showcase your background and credentials, but don’t miss the opportunity to write as if you were having a conversation with your profile viewers. That also means writing your profile in first, not third, person. You are writing your LinkedIn profile, vs. someone writing it about you as is often the case with your law firm bio.

Your LinkedIn Presence

Your bio on your firm’s website shows your credentials. LinkedIn, as well as other social media, showcase your credentials, but they also help build your relationships with others who are important to you because of the social, conversational nature that is built into the platforms.

You could say LinkedIn is doing double duty for you.

Show others you are smart and approachable, and that the topics you are commenting on are important to you and your clients. Remember, your clients and potential clients can be exposed to your posts and comments even when not directed toward them. The algorithms are always watching with a keen eye toward matching relevant content and people to one another.

Again, LinkedIn is doing double duty for you.

Let Me Know

Please let me know what you think. If you have a moment, please leave a comment. If not, you can always email me at nancy@myrlandmarketing.com.

Thanks so much for being here.

Until next time.

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing
Marketing and Business Development Plans
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

*Nancy is not an employee or consultant hired by LinkedIn, although she was named a LinkedIn Top Voice on the platform in 2024! Top Voices is an invitation-only program featuring a global group of experts on LinkedIn covering a range of topics across the professional world, helping members uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. Top Voices was previously known as the Influencer program prior to October 2022. Top Voices are vetted to ensure that they meet high trust standards, are consistently active on the platform, and share valuable expertise through content that demonstrates their unique, original contributions to a topic.

The post Lawyers, Should Your LinkedIn Profile Be More Conversational? appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

Will Artificial Intelligence Allow You To Reduce Staff?

Nancy Myrland — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 21:13:43 +0000

Generative Artificial Intelligence, or GenAI, is allowing for efficiencies within companies and firms.

These tools allow shortcuts by taking the first crack at summarizing documents, conducting research, creating marketing copy, writing emails, answering inquiries, and so much more.

Time To Reduce Headcount

This means you can reduce business and professional staff because the machines are now making it easier to do all of these things, right?

After all, they are “generating” all of this “intelligence” for you, thus the name GenAI, which can help you consolidate functions and reduce staff.

Not So Fast

I encourage you to approach this from an innovation and expansion perspective.

Ask Management

Instead of calling for staff reductions, I encourage you to ask everyone in management what functions could be performed if their people suddenly had extra time.

Ask Business Professionals

Equally important as asking management that question, I would also take the time to ask all of your business professionals what they would be able to do for the firm if some of the more routine tasks were streamlined and completed for them.

I Have Too Much Time On My Hands

In all of the years I have been in this industry serving the legal profession, I have never known one person who has told me they have too much time on their hands and wish someone would give them more work to do.

Instead, I have often heard that it is very difficult to find the time to be proactive and strategic, both characteristics that contribute to the strength and growth of a law firm.

Legal and business professionals are longing to be called to “the table” to help their firms with strategy and growth.

Elevate, Don’t Eliminate

You’ve hired and recruited smart, wise, strategic people, so my recommendation for you is not to start thinking about how many people and positions you can eliminate, but how many people and positions you can elevate because their current jobs have become more efficient, allowing time for them to contribute their intelligence to the strategic goals of your firm.

As always, I am here to help when you have these discussions.

Additional AI Posts For You

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

The post Will Artificial Intelligence Allow You To Reduce Staff? appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

What Will Artificial Intelligence Do To Hourly Billing In Law Firms?

Nancy Myrland — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 19:30:24 +0000

It’s time to discuss the impact of artificial intelligence on the traditional billing structure in the legal profession.

With the rise of AI and Generative AI technology and its potential to streamline tasks and matters, lawyers must consider alternative billing models such as value-based billing. I will discuss what leads me to think now is the time, as well as how embracing these changes can lead to stronger client relationships and a competitive edge.

Your time is valuable, so let’s discuss.

Your Choice: Blog or Transcript?

If you would like to listen to my 9-minute, 5-second podcast where this blog post originated (faster if you speed up my voice in the controls), you can either click the play button below or click here if you are reading this via email. If you prefer to read the transcript, keep scrolling because I have included it below.

Transcript (with a tiny bit of help because I can’t look at one big block of text!)

In today’s legal landscape, with everything that’s going on with artificial intelligence and increased technology, as well as competition, and the economy being in a little bit of flux, I think it’s safe to say that change is the only constant. I know we’ve been saying that for a long time, and it can apply at just about any time, but there is so much going on right now that I think we have to talk about what happens when services become more of a commodity, and if the use of artificial intelligence is making tasks or matters not take as long as they used to, what happens to the traditional billing structure?

Well, let’s talk about that.

Welcome To Legal Marketing Minutes

Well, welcome to Legal Marketing Minutes, where I share short bursts of current marketing news and advice. I’m your host, Nancy Myrland. If we haven’t met, I’m a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, and I specialize in content, social, and digital media for lawyers. Your time is valuable, so let’s get started, okay?

Well, in recent years, but particularly since last November 30th, 2022, when ChatGPT launched, all of a sudden artificial intelligence became more understandable to more people because we didn’t have to be coders. We didn’t have to have a fancy program. We didn’t have to rely on the IT department to develop or bring these kinds of tools to us. And even though some firms have said, “We’re not allowing you to use them yet,” they’re still being tested and they’re still being studied.

AI In Law firms Is Not New

Artificial intelligence in law firms is not new. There have been artificial intelligence practices and software and other kinds of resources that have been used for many, many years. We didn’t think about them because they just worked. Well, now we have these very easy tools in front of us, most of them under the category of Generative AI, sometimes called GenAI, which is a subset of artificial intelligence, that is a conversational tool. We ask it something, we give it something. It does a great job transforming that data into another usable format that we ask for.

All right, that was a long story made very short on what Generative AI is, but one of the things we have to talk about is what’s going to happen to this traditional billing structure that we are so accustomed to.

Why Discuss (Non) Hourly Billing Now?

Let’s pretend that there is a certain task that you do, whether it’s research, or whatever it might be, but it’s something that you’re doing when you are not with your client, yet you are in service of your client. And let’s say it used to take you 10 hours. Software now makes it quite possible that a particular task will not take nearly as much time. So in a traditional billing model, what are you going to do? Are you going to then say, hmm, this only took us five hours, or, this only took five minutes. I can only bill you for five minutes, or, gosh, what’s the appropriate amount for us to mark that up and still pass that along to the client? And, what are the ethics rules going to say about disclosing the use of artificial intelligence? At this moment, that is still undecided, so it’s time to think more seriously, if you haven’t already, and many of you already have, about alternative forms of billing and value-based billing.

Generative AI Is Already Being Used In The Legal Profession To Streamline Tasks

There is no doubt that artificial intelligence broadly, not just Generative AI, but artificial intelligence as a whole, is going to streamline routine tasks. It’s already happening. It cannot go back to where it was before. What that is going to do is free up your time to concentrate on delivering other outcomes, or adding additional value for your clients. It’s not necessarily going to kick you out of your job, or take your job away from you, or help your clients see that they don’t need you. It’s just going to help you work on additional matters or additional ways of solving your client’s problem.

The focus is still on the client. It’s important to remember that clients are seeking value from you. They’re seeking solutions. They’re not just looking for hours on an invoice, so talking about alternative billing models very much is in alignment with what clients are expecting from you. And when you can do that, then you are fostering a much stronger and a much, I would say, more enduring relationship with your clients.

Value-Based Billing As A Competitive Advantage

Also, when you think about alternative forms of billing and value-based billing, it also can give you a competitive edge because when you are able to then focus on a more robust package, if you will, in the time that you have in your schedule to take care of your client in additional, more creative ways, then why would that not be a competitive edge for you?

When you do that, all of that bundled together, obviously, is good for you. It’s good for the firm. It’s good for your practice. It’s good for revenue. So again, it’s time to talk about this and get serious.

You Already Have The Tools and The Data To Create Value-Based Pricing

And I know it sounds like it’s such a hard thing to do. And how would I even begin to come up with that? Well, it really, if you’ve done this kind of work before, or if your firm has, it really doesn’t have to be as difficult as it may sound. It may feel and probably is causing some anxiety when you think about it. But don’t forget that you already have analytics in your firm. You already have an accounting system that you can go to and say, okay, let me look at all of the clients, or even start with one client and one matter. What is the typical amount of time that I and others have spent with clients like this on a similar matter? It’s not always going to be the same. Don’t expect for this to be apples to apples at the start because there are differences between people and matters. But pull this data out of your system and ask for help doing this so that you can see what the average matter actually cost your client, what you billed for that, and what you collected for that.

Collaborate With Finance and Accounting

Gather that data, and collaborate with finance and accounting. Work closely with them. You’re going to, obviously, if you are looking at all of your colleagues on your practice team, then somebody’s going to have different billing rates than you. Somebody’s going to have collected at a different rate than you have, but you can still pull out averages.

Then what I want you to do is to say, all right, let’s say that you’re seeing a range between 20 and $40,000 for matters just like this. Then you start to look at those and say, okay, which of these looks the most like this type of matter, and this type of client, and somebody who charges per hour what I tend to charge? Then you start to say, does that feel reasonable? Is there enough value for my client if I charge that? It doesn’t matter how much time you spent or how much time you didn’t spend because you used artificial intelligence tools in your firm that are helping you do it more efficiently.

The question should be always from your client’s perspective, are they getting the value that they need, want, and expect from you as their trusted service provider?

Remember, This Is A Starting Point

So it’s not like you’re starting from scratch. If you are, for some reason, and if this is a new practice area, you can look outside your firm and get some of this data, some of this information. So obviously, there are ways, but we are talking about a starting point. I would encourage you to get started with it because clients are only getting smarter. Like artificial intelligence and generative AI, they are only getting smarter, and when they are armed with these kinds of tools in their companies, you have to know that they are going to be very, very aware, and more so as every day and every week goes on, that these tools are going to be used.

I Want To See You Get Ahead Of This

So I would much rather see you get ahead of this and start talking about these types of issues, much better now than having a client be the one that actually brings it up to you and says, “Are you using any artificial intelligence, or what’s going on here?” So I’d rather see you get ahead of it and show them that you were paying attention to it.

There’s so much more to this discussion, and I was tempted to add more, but my goal for this podcast, Legal Marketing Minutes, is that it’s always under 10 minutes. So if you want to talk about it some more, obviously, we can do that.

But it’s time to talk about value-based billing and other alternative forms of billing. You will never be sorry that you did, but you could be sorry if you don’t.

Well, that’s it for today’s Legal Marketing Minutes. Please do me a favor and let me know your thoughts about this topic. If you’re in a place where you can leave a comment, I would love to hear it, read it, see it, however you want to leave it, please do so. I always love hearing from my listeners.

Thank you so much for spending a few Legal Marketing Minutes with me. I know your time is valuable, so I appreciate you spending a few of them right here with me. Until next time, I’m Nancy Myrland. Take care.

Additional Artificial Intelligence (AI) Posts of Interest

ChatGPT 9 Months Later

Will ChatGPT and AI Kill The Lawyer?

Lawyers, Your Fear Of Using AI/Generative AI Is Real and Valid

Artificial Intelligence (AI) For Lawyers: ChatGPT & Other Chatbots: Yes or No?

Will Your Clients Care If You Use ChatGPT or GPT-4 To Create Content?

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing
Marketing and Business Development Plans
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

*Nancy is not an employee or consultant hired by LinkedIn, although she was named a LinkedIn Top Voice on the platform in 2024! Top Voices is an invitation-only program featuring a global group of experts on LinkedIn covering a range of topics across the professional world, helping members uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. Top Voices was previously known as the Influencer program prior to October 2022. Top Voices are vetted to ensure that they meet high trust standards, are consistently active on the platform, and share valuable expertise through content that demonstrates their unique, original contributions to a topic.

The post What Will Artificial Intelligence Do To Hourly Billing In Law Firms? appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

Lawyers, You Don’t Need Permission From The Mayor Of The Internet

Nancy Myrland — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 21:10:10 +0000

Does it ever feel like there are two different versions of you that show up on any given day? One of you is confident. You know your topic. You know your practice area inside and out because you talk about it every day. You are confident that you know how to talk to your clients and potential clients about what you do.

Then there is that other person inside of you that sometimes tries to tell you you aren’t worthy of getting out there and building your reputation and your relationships by presenting or creating content for social media that will demonstrate your knowledge.

This other person sometimes lurks deep inside. When it surfaces, it says things like:

“Oh, you don’t know as much as you should.”

“Who are you to put yourself out there?”

“Why would you do this when someone else who is highly respected is already doing that?”

Let’s discuss.

Your Choice: Blog or Podcast?

If you would like to listen to my 8-minute, 21-second podcast where this blog post originated (faster if you speed up my voice in the controls), you can either click the green play button below or click here if you are reading this via email. If you prefer to read this via blog post, keep scrolling because I have rewritten the podcast as a blog post for you.

I Love This Quote

I heard a quote the other day that I really liked. This is the gist of it.

“You don’t need to get approval from the Mayor of the Internet to do anything.”

As much as I would love to be named Mayor of the Internet, I’m not even the Mayor of the Internet. For now, I’ll just settle for deputy mayor and grow into it.

There Is No One Way

The point here is that there is no one right way to do anything.

There is no one wrong way to do anything.

There is no perfect way to put yourself out there.

There’s just putting yourself out there and learning before you go and as you go, then learning what you did and didn’t do that you might want to tweak next time.

It’s Okay To Jump In

It’s okay to jump in. It’s okay to build a business development plan, a content marketing plan, or a marketing plan that takes into account all of the things you know are important, such as:

Who are your clients?
Who are your potential clients?
Who do you want to do business with?
Who would you like to have as referral sources?
Who would you like to report on or blog about you?

Then, after you have thought about those questions, ask yourself:

Where do these people hang out?
Where do they spend time?
What do they like to read, watch, or listen to?
Where is the best place for me to talk to them and interact with them and build relationships with them?

Once you know, go and do that. Learn what you need to do, and then dive in. Dip your toe in slowly if you want or need to. You will surprise yourself when you become more comfortable going through this process.

What If People Judge You?

Let’s say you are thinking about making a comment on someone’s post on LinkedIn, but you’re worried because you think someone is going to judge you for what you say.

Or maybe you’re getting ready to post something of your own that is based on information you know to be true in your practice area, or something that your clients care about, or something coming down the pike, or whatever it is that might be valuable to them.

It could be a post that will demonstrate your personality, your perspective, and your approach. Suddenly, that second you, that inside voice, keeps jumping up in your head (and it is all in our heads) that says:

“No, don’t do that. Don’t put yourself out there because people are going to think you’re silly.”

“You know what? There’s somebody already doing that. Why would you put yourself out there as well when they already have it covered? After all, they’re more well-known than you are.”

Or, thinking this voice is really you, you say:

What if I feel silly?
What if I stutter a little bit?
What if I hem and haw?
What if I don’t spell everything perfectly?”

There are so many what-ifs, aren’t there?

What if I mess up?
What if I don’t sound right?
What if I’m not accepted?
What if I don’t get a lot of likes?
What if I don’t get a lot of reactions?
What if nobody shares my content?
What if nobody makes a comment on my content?

What Will Happen If You Let The “What Ifs” Keep Holding You Back?

You can what if so much that you stifle all of your creativity and all of your opportunities to establish your reputation and your relationships to the point that you pull back and you don’t do it at all.

It’s Time To Give Yourself Permission

Then you’re frustrated because you see someone else putting themselves out there and you think,

“I could have done that. Why didn’t I do that? I know about that topic!”

You need to give yourself permission to jump in.

This Is Their Problem, Not Yours

Let’s get back to the part about people judging you.

If there are people who are judging you, that’s their problem. That really is their problem.

Seriously, if someone is going to make fun of you or think poorly of you because of the way you interact, the way you post on LinkedIn, the way that you say something on a podcast episode, or the way you have picked up your telephone and you’ve created what I call handheld video, then that truly, truly is their issue, not yours.

They are not your people. They are not your clients, potential clients, referral sources, or media that you should even care about because who wants to do business with people who are so judgmental?

It’s Okay

It’s okay to be a little bit hesitant. It’s okay to wonder every now and then if you really know enough, or if you’ve structured something correctly and should go ahead. That likely means you care about your personal brand, your words, your values, and serving others to the best of your ability.

When those times hit, I want you to think back on the times when you were able to present yourself in a way you felt good about. Call upon those times and remember that feeling of accomplishment and of helping others who needed to hear what you had to say. Remember that sigh of relief after you’ve done it and realized, you know what?

“I do know how to do this!”

What If, Indeed!

What if someone messages or emails you and asks for more information?

What if someone reads your words and visits your profile on LinkedIn because you’ve given them just enough to become curious about you?

What if suddenly there is a little spike on your law firm website bio because someone has followed you and your content all the way to your bio?

It only takes one or two of those results for you to realize that putting yourself out there was completely worth it. Those experiences also serve as a great tool to tamp down that second person, that questioning person, so that you find the confidence and the permission to go ahead and get out there and be the professional you know you are and that you need to be to grow your reputation, your relationships, and your practice.

Which Version Of You Will It Be?

So which version of you is going to show up today?

Is it the original you that knows your topic, that has enough confidence to move forward with sharing your thoughts and your perspective with the people you care to interact with and want to get to know better?

Or is it going to be that second person that almost every one of us has sitting deep inside, and sometimes not so deep inside?

I hope it is the original one, the one that has something valuable to share with your people, with your connections, and with your followers. Those people probably need to hear, read, and/or see what you have to say, and if they don’t notice this time, then maybe they will next time.

Don’t give up. Be your own Mayor Of The Internet!

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the right marketing practices in order to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

Also known as the LinkedIn Coach For Lawyers, Nancy is a highly respected LinkedIn trainer, as well as a content marketing specialist. She helps lawyers, law firms, and legal marketers learn and implement content, social, and digital media strategies that cut through the clutter, making them more relevant to their current and potential clients.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

The post Lawyers, You Don’t Need Permission From The Mayor Of The Internet appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

Conferences Are A Necessity, Not A Gift

Nancy Myrland — Thu, 11 May 2023 17:23:38 +0000

I just got back a few weeks ago from the Legal Marketing Association annual conference. This year it was in Hollywood, Florida. We had about 1100 attendees, which is up from the pandemic because last year there were about 850 attendees. The year before, which was really during the pandemic, there were only about 350. We’ve been known to have 1400 or 1500, so the conference is definitely back in what will be full swing next year. I wouldn’t be surprised if we surpass pre-pandemic numbers because of the quality of this conference.

Do You Send Your People To Conferences?

If you have any trepidation about sending your marketing and business development people at every level to these conferences because you are worried that they appear to be a bit of a boondoggle because what you know of conferences is that they’re typically in really nice places with really nice meals, with really nice weather (not always, actually) and that your people are just going to be playing around and it’s not really serious, I want you to know that is not the best way to think about these conferences.

Your Choice: Blog or Podcast

If you would also like to listen to my 2-minute, 42-second episode of Legal Marketing Moments where this blog post originated, you can either click the green play button below or click here if you are reading this via email. If you prefer to read this via blog post, I have rewritten and expanded upon the podcast as a blog post below for you. If that’s you, keep scrolling.

Conferences Are Not Gifts

What you need to know is that these are not gifts. Perhaps you have a limited budget and set a policy that you don’t invest in conferences for anybody until, you name it, their second year or third year, or whatever that might be. That is a different story, and we can talk about that because education and networking shouldn’t necessarily be the first things to go when budgets are tight. Again, I know there are exceptions, so let’s talk about that offline.

Conference Education Is Critical

What I do want you to know is that conferences like these are critical to the development of your people. Development in terms of their knowledge and staying ahead of what’s going on in the profession because we’re sometimes very isolated in the legal profession. If you only study what is going on within your own firms, don’t expect your people to be able to naturally and quickly expand their horizons because they’re going to have to spend a lot of personal time studying.

When we go to these conferences, we do the opposite. Our eyes are opened. We develop relationships, and many of them will last for decades, if not a lifetime. Of course, they are probably in really nice locations, but don’t let that stop you from sending your business and legal professionals to conferences.

These are not gifts. These are a necessity.

Help Your Business Professionals Continue To Develop

If you want your peoples’ minds and skills to grow, expand, and become more polished, precise, focused, and more strategic, then you should consider making conference attendance a requirement.

If you have professionals who can’t travel, then encourage them to find high-quality virtual marketing and business development conferences, but I encourage you to create an environment that encourages and accepts regular attendance at conferences like the LMA Annual Conference. Your team of business and legal professionals will become even smarter, and that is always a good thing, isn’t it?

Remember, conferences are a necessity, they’re not gifts.

If you have any questions, let me know.

Also known as the LinkedIn Coach For Lawyers, Nancy is a frequent LinkedIn trainer, as well as a content marketing specialist. She helps lawyers, law firms, and legal marketers learn and implement content, social, and digital media strategies that cut through the clutter, making them more relevant to their current and potential clients.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

The post Conferences Are A Necessity, Not A Gift appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

#LMA23: It’s Time To Amplify At The Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference

Nancy Myrland — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 01:22:19 +0000

It’s been about a year since the first post(ish)-pandemic LMA International Conference brought all of us back together for an amazing 3 days in Las Vegas, so I’m ready for my annual learn, grow, network, amplify, smile, and hug-a-thon, which takes place April 24th-26th in Hollywood, Florida. I can’t lie and say I’m not looking forward to the warm weather because that’s just not true. After all, I’m from Indiana and our Winters feel like they last 8 months. Just kidding, we’ve actually had a fairly mild Winter.

If you’ve already read this post and are here looking for new posts, podcasts, and videos from a variety of conference attendees who will be summarizing the #LMA23 conference, I invite you to head down to the green headings below for new content added regularly. Don’t forget to let me know if I’ve missed anything, okay? Thanks!

Also, don’t miss the Conference Networking Action Plan I have prepared for you. Now is the time to start that process as it helps all of us to feel at home at the conference.

If you are reading this via email, come visit the #LMA23 summary post here.

Why Do I Keep Going To The LMA Annual Conference?

Easy: The people and the content are what I long for every year. I have worked from a home office for over 20 years (yep, I started Myrland Marketing, Inc. when I was a child prodigy), and it is in my DNA to connect with other human beings, including my dear clients, colleagues, friends, and potential friends, so my mind and heart need this every now and then.

Look, Mom, I’m Presenting For The 1st Time!

I am also excited because this is the first time I am presenting at the main conference. I know, hard to believe, isn’t it? Just because you see me all over the place does not mean I get called up to The Show (for you baseball fans) all the time.

I’ve had the good fortune to present at pre-conference programs on ethics, as well as why marketers should think like owners, but this is a new and welcome experience for me because I do this for my client firms on a regular basis.

This will also challenge me because it is a 30-minute TED-style talk, which means I have to limit my words to 20-25 minutes, allowing 5-10 minutes for Q&A, which should be very interesting. I mean, how am I supposed to talk about

“Podcasting For Lawyers: The Next-Level Strategy Necessary For A Successful Podcast”

for just short of 30 minutes in order to allow for a few minutes of Q & A? It is not going to be easy. Ask Roy Sexton and Gail Lamarche, my conference committee liaisons (and the dearest of friends) as I am certain their eyes got very big when I showed them my draft outline during our prep call last week.

Just kidding. I told them it would be exhaustive because that is how I always start, and that I was looking forward to paring it down after hearing more about what they would like for our members to experience.

Here is my session promo video, which is just under a minute:

Anyhow, wish me luck as I narrow this puppy down to the most important parts!

(Note to self: Remember, Nancy, you don’t have to teach everything to everyone in one sitting.)

Stay Tuned As I Will Be Curating Conference Content Right Here

As I have done in 2022, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014,2014, 2013, and 2013, I will be curating or creating content and linking to it from this blog post to provide a quick, easy place so you can find all of the information you might like to consume. I will also link to content from others, which will be written, as well as voice and video. I will do this before, during, and after the conference.

Stay tuned as this post will change frequently. It might be a good idea to bookmark this blog post as I will continue to add content as I find it, or as you let me know you’ve found it, too!

Enough About Me (for now). On With The Conference Details!

Here are a few details about the conference:

It is the largest global meeting for legal marketing and business development professionals in the world.
There will be over 1100 attendees.
Choose from over 30 sessions.
Plan to meet 115+ speakers.
Learn from more than 90 leading solution providers (that’s me!).

Conference and Association Leadership

Conferences are a lot of work. I appreciate every second our selfless leaders have put into what I know will be a great experience.

The muscle behind this conference is the Legal Marketing Association, or LMA, and our International Board of Directors.

Annual Conference Advisory Committee

This conference could not happen without our amazing 2023 Annual Conference Advisory Committee.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you for your amazing time and talents.

The conference committee has been working diligently on this conference for over a year. The theme this year is AMPLIFY!

The committee shares:

“Our aim for this conference is that it arms every attendee with the tools, career guidance, networking, skills, and inspiration to leave for home fully in the zone and ready to amplify their impact, careers and professional standing.”

You can learn more about our Advisory Committee members by clicking on their photos. They are worth knowing, so I hope you will take a few minutes to connect with them and say thanks.

Co-Chairs

Conference Co-Chair, Jennifer Dezso, Director of Client Services Thomson Reuters

Conference Co-Chair, Lee Ashby Watts, Founder & CEO, Ashby & Co. Consulting

Conference Co-Chair, Megan McKeon, Director of Business Development, Clark Hill PLC

Board Liaison

Conference Liaison & 2023 LMA President, Roy Sexton, Director of Marketing, Clark Hill PLC

Committee Members

Amber Bollman, Senior Client Relationship Manager, Perkins Coie LLP

Arthur Uratani, Marketing Director, Bookoff McAndrews PLLC

Gail Lamarche, Director, Marketing and Business Development, Henderson, Franklin, Starnes & Holt

Jon Brewer, Chief Marketing Officer, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP

Joseph Edmonds, Esq. Associate Practice Development Director, JAMS

Michael Mellor, Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer, Pryor Cashman LLP

Ruth Morayniss, Manager of Client Relations and Business Development, Beard Winter LLP

Tahisha Fugate, Senior Marketing & Business Development Manager, Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider LLP

We Have A Playlist!

Thanks to LMA President Roy Sexton, who set up a playlist for us.

Of course, he did!

Click on the graphic below, or click here: AmpliMix Strikes Back

Notable Keynotes & Other Unique Sessions

Opening Keynote:

We are all looking forward to our opening keynote by best-selling author and motivational speaker, Laura Gassner Otting. Laura is the Founder & Chief Catalyzing Officer of Limitless Possibility, and the author of “Limitless: How to Ignore Everybody, Carve Your Own Path, and Live Your Best Life.” She will draw on #LMA23’s theme of AMPLIFY! and guide each of us in how to start living a “limitless” life. Her presentation is titled:

“Limitlessly: Bringing Contagious Confidence to Work that Really Matters”

You can watch a preview by clicking on Laura’s photo, or by visiting this preview.

Closing Experience:

One of the best experiences of our annual conference is the final day recap. This year’s recap will be no exception as the committee has planned one titled:

“Cheers, Celebrations, and Contemplations”

New this year, LMA has organized a conference retrospective panel that spotlights various viewpoints within our community. These thought leaders will discuss themes from #LMA23 and how they plan to amplify key takeaways and empower their teams and colleagues to do the same. Come prepared to reflect on your own experience, turn ideas into actions at your organization and leave energized to become a change agent.

Don’t miss this opportunity to put a capstone on your time at #LMA23. This panel will be sure to deliver an energetic, informative, and valuable wrap-up that will help us wrap our minds around all that has been presented, which will help give us focus as we go back to our offices to implement what we have learned.

The recap panel will include:

Simone Hughes, MBA, CM, Director, Business Development and Marketing, Gowling WLG
Alycia Sutor, Managing Director, GrowthPlay
Laura Toledo, Chief Communications Architect, EM Dash Consulting
Mohib Qidwai, Senior Marketing Manager, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner
Lee Ashby Watts, Founder and CEO, ashby & co. consulting (moderator)

For more information, click on the graphic above, or visit this page on the LMA23 conference website.

Also, don’t miss these sessions:

A gameshow-style GC Panel session (what good sports)
Three fishbowl formatted sessions for audience interaction (last year’s fishbowl session was extremely valuable)

Get An Early Start With One of Five Pre-Conference Programs

There are 5 pre-conference programs on Monday, April 24th that you might want to consider. I’m sure you can still register right here, and I feel fairly certain they will all provide high-quality insight and discussion you will find useful in your career.

LMA QuickStart LIVE! – Legal Marketing Essentials
CMO Summit – Leadership Amplified – Managing Teams through the Evolution of Law Firm Marketing
Solo/Small Team – Making a BIG Splash in Small and Mid-Sized Law Firm Ponds
Career Development – Your Seat at the Table: Leveraging Your Personal Brand to Amplify Your Leadership and Career
PR/Communications – (AMP) Aligning Efforts, Maximizing Opportunities, and Proving Value: Taking your Communication and PR Strategy to the Next Level

Please Bookmark This Post and Let Me Know When You See Content

You might want to bookmark this post as this is where I will be curating all of the content I and others will be creating about the conference. I will also add an important links section titled in green below so you don’t have to search for them elsewhere.

As always, if you see audio, video, or written content for me to add to this post, please ping me wherever it is convenient for you:

Tag or message me on LinkedIn.
Tag or message me on Facebook.
Tag or message me on Twitter.
Email me here with #LMA23 in the subject line: nancy@myrlandmarketing.com
…or anywhere else we are connected.

NOTE: In the comments below, or via message, let me know if you will be attending and what you are most looking forward to.

The Most Important Thing I Can Share With You

Before, during, and after the conference, always remember to say this to yourself:

Important Links For You

Nancy’s #LMA23 Annual Conference Networking Action Plan
Conference Content Curation Blog Post by Nancy Myrland
The #LMA23 Conference website
The #LMA23 Conference Event Page on Facebook
Follow all #LMA23 Tweets in one place
…and the easy-to-remember URL for this ever-changing post: https://www.myrlandmarketing.com/lma23

My Networking Checklist For Those Who Are Serious About Focused Networking at #LMA23 or Any Conference

For those of you who would like a little focus and an easy process to follow to ramp up your networking before, during, and after the conference, this year I’ve prepared a worksheet for you titled: “Conference Networking Action Plan.”

Feel free to download it and give it a try as it will make a big difference in the success of your conference experience. Effective networking at this conference also establishes friendships that will support and carry you through your entire legal marketing career. I speak from experience on this one.

Let me know what you think of it and if you would like me to make any changes to make it more valuable for you, okay?

Presenting Your #LMA23 Annual Conference Content!

This placeholder is sitting here waiting for the content you and I create!

Driving Successful and Impactful Content Marketing: An #LMA23 Recap by Yasmin Zand by Passle and republished on Strategies and Voices (added 6/20/23)

Insights from LMA 2023 – A Conversation on Community, Takeaways, and Career Impact hosted by Ben Chiriboga with guests, Jacob Bourne, Caroline Hall, Hans Chang, Tahisha Fugate, Sarah Short, and Jessica Haasgaard (added 6/12/23)

Future State of Law – Fishbowl Peer Exchange Session Recap by Mike Mellor and Tim Corcoran on the LMA YouTube Channel (added 6/12/23)

Annual Conference Recap: Minnesota Members Share Takeaways from LMA23 by Ashley Vetter, Mercedes Smith, and Levi Wick on the LMA Midwest Region blog (added 5/26/23)

Q&A with LMA First-Timer – Meet Jones Walker’s Savannah Kirk by Amanda Ferrari on the Hellerman Communication blog (added 5/19/23)

Keep On Amplifying: Recap of LMA Annual Conference 2023 by Ed Lovatt on Passle.com (added 5/17/23)

Why Curiosity Is Key For Business Development, a general counsel panel recap by Jeremy Barker at Above The Law (added 5/11/23)

Staffing & Retention in Law Firms – An LMA Fishbowl by Will Eke on Passle.com (added 5/11/23)

Conferences Are A Necessity, Not A Gift by Nancy Myrland on The Myrland Marketing Minute Blog and Legal Marketing Moments Podcast (added 5/9/23)

The GrowthPlay LMA23 Recap by Growthplay on LinkedIn (added 5/9/23)

The Power of Storytelling to Influence and Engage Your Audiences by Will Eke on Passle.com (added 5/8/23)

LMA 23: Driving Successful & Impactful Content Marketing by Freddy Dobinson, Eugene McCormick, and Yasmin Zand on Passle.com (added 5/8/23)

What’s So Special About Content That Supports Business Growth? by Robin Oliver on JD Supra.com (added 5/8/23)

LMA President Roy Sexton’s Annual Conference Follow-Up Message To Members on the LMA website (added 5/5/23)

Interview with Opening Keynote Laura Gassner Otting by LMA (added 5/3/23)

#LMA23 Session Sneak Peek Playlist on YouTube by Several Presenters and The LMA HQ Marketing Team

#LMA23 Conference Amplimix Strikes Back, a Spotify playlist by LMA President, Roy Sexton

#LMA23 Annual Conference Networking Action Plan by Nancy Myrland (Ongoing)

Conference Networking Tips From Our Legal Marketing Friends, A Timeless Post by Nancy Myrland & Friends (Ongoing)

Thank you so much for spending some of your valuable time here in this post. I would also love it if you would share it with our community, too. Thanks!

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

The post #LMA23: It’s Time To Amplify At The Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

Will Your Clients Care If You Use ChatGPT or GPT-4 To Create Content?

Nancy Myrland — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 01:24:13 +0000

We’ve all had a little time to experiment with ChatGPT and other generative AI tools. The news, developments, and evolution have been coming at us so fast that it is challenging to keep up with the hundreds of emails, posts, podcasts, and training videos that enter our feeds every day.

But, alas, I shall try my best to share with you what I can when I can.

GPT-4 Launched Today

This is an exciting day with the release of OpenAI’s multimodal AI system, GPT-4, because it is smarter than its predecessors, GPT-3 and GPT-3.5. For example, you can feed it different modalities, or forms, of information, such as videos, and it can react to them.

TechCrunch summarized the 5 biggest differences between GPT-4, and GPT-3 and GPT-3.5.

GPT-4 can see and understand images.
GPT-4 is harder to trick.
GPT-4 has a longer memory.
GPT-4 is more multilingual.
GPT-4 has different “personalities.”

As OpenAI said in its video announcement about GPT-4 on Twitter earlier today:

“It is a breakthrough in its problem-solving capabilities. It can read, analyze, and generate up to 25,000 words of text. It can write code in all major programming languages, and it understands images as input and can reason with them in sophisticated ways.”

The video continued with:

“Most importantly, after we created GPT-4, we spent months making it safer and more aligned with how you want to use it.”

Mashable wrote about the release of GPT-4:

“GPT-4 has improved accuracy, problem-solving abilities, and reasoning skills, according to the announcement. In a comparison breakdown between GPT-3 and GPT-4, the newer model scored in the 90th percentile on the bar exam versus the 10th percentile with GPT-3…”

In that article, tech reporter Cecily Mauran wrote about GPT-4:

“If you thought ChatGPT was an amazingly human-seeming AI chatbot, get ready for the next generation.”

A Word Of Caution About Your Clients

I am writing this post today to tell you about the launch of GPT-4, but also to caution you against using AI output as the be-all and end-all before you have taken the time to view the output for your personality, accuracy, and your clients in mind.

Losing The Trust Of Others

Last week, I saw a response on a social media post that was written by a very well-respected consultant. The response seemed rote and was lacking his familiar personality and dry sense of humor.

It also lacked proper spacing between paragraphs, along with a few other oddities.

My first thought was that he generated the reply via ChatGPT and did a very quick cut and paste before customizing it to make it his own.

That immediately deprecated the value of that reply in my mind because I know him better than that and know that he has always relied on his intelligence and his unique approach to conversation and content. More importantly, I, as a consumer of his content for years, have relied on his intelligence and his approach to conversation and content.

He is not an encyclopedia (remember those?), but a wicked smart marketing expert.

Someone replied to him, saying “What a perfect ChatGPT response!”

There was no reply to that, so I have no idea if it was generated by artificial intelligence.

Where Is Your Personal Brand?

I write this not to discourage you from using generative AI tools as a starting point to create content, summarize documents, provide outlines, write long and short-form content, and brainstorm, but to encourage you to use your brain power and your personal brand to make the content you share with others your own.

What Are The Risks?

If not, you risk losing the trust and respect of those who suspect that your content was written using AI and did not come out of your own brain. They might not think these thoughts intentionally, but those thoughts could be there.

Bottom Line

Until the day these tools have learned what is in your soul, your brain, your approach, your nomenclature, and everything else that goes into the content you create, be very careful to use GPT-4 and the rest of these tools in a way that complements what you do, or as a starting point to make your job more efficient.

Think of GPT-4 and generative AI tools as partners that can co-create content, help you think, get unstuck, and to source information.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Lawyers, No Time For Business Development? This Is For You.

Nancy Myrland — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 20:25:12 +0000

Whether you think you have time to do business development or not, it boils down to one thing, and that is it takes marketing and business development to grow your practice.

I know I might be making it sound too simple, but it can be.

I also understand that when you are busy, it can be very challenging. You have a lot to juggle.

Your Choice: Blog or Podcast

If you would also like to listen to my 2-minute, 46-second episode of Legal Marketing Moments where this blog post originated, you can either click the green play button below or click here if you are reading this via email. If you prefer to read this via blog post, I have rewritten and expanded upon the podcast as a blog post below for you. If that’s you, keep scrolling.

Simple Acts of Marketing and Business Development

It doesn’t take long to engage in effective business development that can grow your relationships with those you need or want to get to know better. It can be acts as simple as:

Touching base with past clients to say hello and see how everything is going
Making a comment on a potential client’s post on LinkedIn
Calling others you need and want to get to know better

Based on your comfort level, and even if they are a bit out of your comfort level, it can be any number of things. You know what those are, and if you don’t, let me know because we can work on those. I can make what feels complex very simple for you.

Let’s talk about the times when you say to yourself or you say to me,

“I don’t have time for that.”
“I don’t have time for marketing and business development.”
“I have clients to take care of.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“I’m not sure what my connections will find interesting.”

These thoughts often lead to backing away or never even starting to do those things that you need to do to build your reputation, your relationships, and your practice.

What If We Reframe Those Concerns Just A Little?

I’m going to ask you to reframe those statements in the bullet points above just a little bit and to think of yourself as the lawyer who takes time to do marketing and business development. There’s the old adage, we take time for the things that we enjoy, which is really true.

I know because I’ve done the same thing. If it’s more fun for me to watch a video tutorial to learn something that will help me stay on top of what I do for a living, I will sometimes do that before I have something else to do that must be done to help grow my business. I know those two things sound very similar, which they are, but one is often much more important than the other.

When I catch myself doing that, I still know that it gets down to the fact that if you and I make time, even if that’s five minutes, or regularly use those “in-between moments” that you may have heard me talk about, we will definitely contribute to the growth of our practices. These small acts add up quickly and will make a huge difference in the long run.

I Am The Lawyer Who Takes Time

So, when you are thinking to yourself or saying to someone else,

“I don’t have time for that,”

try to reframe it and say,

“I am a lawyer who takes time for marketing and business development.”

You Get To Decide

You decide what that timeframe is. It can be half an hour every other day, or maybe just ten minutes every day. We can all find ten minutes every day to do something that contributes to the growth of our practice and our business, can’t we?

Remember

Remember, tell yourself that you are a lawyer who takes time for marketing and business development and will do those things that contribute to the growth of your practice.

Thoughts or Comments?

Let me know if you have any thoughts or comments about this. You know I’d love to hear or read them!

Also, if you missed it, I invite you to take 2 minutes to listen to this via my Legal Marketing Moments podcast…thanks!

LinkedIn Is Rolling Out A New Way To Make Your Profile More Noticeable

Nancy Myrland — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 22:19:04 +0000

LinkedIn is rolling out a new feature that will call attention to your posts and other activity on LinkedIn.

As I often mention when I work with my clients, I want your profiles and your content to be scroll-stopping (desktop), or thumb-stopping (mobile). This new feature will help stop the scroll as it will make your profile more visual. Visuals are known to catch the attention of those who might otherwise scroll right on by. We have become a more visual society and are more attracted to visual content than ever before.

LinkedIn is responding to that trend.

NOTE: Don’t miss the video tutorial I’ve prepared for you at the end. It will show you how this works.

Why Is This Important?

Your activity section on LinkedIn provides an outstanding glimpse into your personal brand as it shows your comments, posts, articles, newsletters, or what I call your “presence,” meaning how you demonstrate your knowledge and your willingness to interact with others. In other words, your activity while on the platform. It showcases you.

LinkedIn will now give you the opportunity to decide what kind of content is going to be shown first in your Activity section.

As it stands, when you go to your profile, then click on Activity, you and your profile viewers will see the most horrifically boring Activity section on the face of the planet.

I mean…look at it. This is my Activity section, and it puts me to sleep. It’s not that it is my activity. Heavens no, that’s pretty interesting (IMHO…wink, wink). It is the format that is dreadfully boring. What about this is inviting to you…other than knowing there are major nuggets of gold if you click on any one of them, that is?

This poor Activity section of mine looks pathetic, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t call this scroll-stopping or thumb-stopping.

Now You Will Be Able To Showcase Your Activity With The New LinkedIn Profile Update

As LinkedIn is telling us,

“To help your content stand out and make it easier for others to discover, we’ve developed several new tools.”

and

“We’ve spruced up the Activity section of your LinkedIn Profile to more visibly display your content. Whether it’s images, videos, newsletters or documents, you get to choose the content type your Activity section shows first. This new experience will be available to all members in the next few weeks and we hope that as a result your network will quickly find and engage with your content, leading to more professional connections and opportunities.”

You and Your LinkedIn Profile Visitors Will Have Choices

It appears as though the new tabs across the top that will be visible will include:

Posts
Videos
Comments
Images
Articles
Newsletters
Events

We will now be able to choose the type of activity that we want our profile viewers to see first. As you will see in the screenshots below, even after you have chosen which form of content they will see first, they will be able to toggle over to the other categories to see additional forms of content. That allows them to go right to the type of content they want to consume first, which makes your profile more “sticky,” meaning they will linger longer on your profile.

We like that. We want that.

Videos First

What that means is that, if you have posted videos, then you will want to show those first in the Activity section because they will definitely be scroll-stopping.

Images First

If you have posted images and no videos, then you might want to show images to them first.

Articles First

If the articles you have posted are more important, then you might want to show those first.

Documents First

If you have uploaded what LinkedIn calls documents, you might want to show those first.

From what I have read and heard from internal LinkedIn friends, you will only be able to choose the first format that will then be showcased in your Activity section. The others will follow in a pre-determined order decided by LinkedIn. Who knows if we will see complete customization of the order in days, months, or years to come? What I do know is that change is constant in social media.

The Goal Is To Draw More Attention To Your LinkedIn Activity Section

As you can see, the idea is to make your Activity section much more visual, which will help attract eyeballs to your profile. The other obvious and extremely important benefit is that it will also attract attention to you and the content you post on the platform, which is a very important part of connecting with those who are important to you and the growth of your practice.

EDIT: I’ve Added A Video Tutorial For You

I woke up to this feature today, so I recorded a brief tutorial for you.

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing
Marketing and Business Development Plans
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

*Nancy is not an employee or consultant hired by LinkedIn, although she was named a LinkedIn Top Voice on the platform in 2024! Top Voices is an invitation-only program featuring a global group of experts on LinkedIn covering a range of topics across the professional world, helping members uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. Top Voices was previously known as the Influencer program prior to October 2022. Top Voices are vetted to ensure that they meet high trust standards, are consistently active on the platform, and share valuable expertise through content that demonstrates their unique, original contributions to a topic.

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing
Marketing and Business Development Plans
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

*Nancy is not an employee or consultant hired by LinkedIn, although she was named a LinkedIn Top Voice on the platform in 2024! Top Voices is an invitation-only program featuring a global group of experts on LinkedIn covering a range of topics across the professional world, helping members uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. Top Voices was previously known as the Influencer program prior to October 2022. Top Voices are vetted to ensure that they meet high trust standards, are consistently active on the platform, and share valuable expertise through content that demonstrates their unique, original contributions to a topic.

The post LinkedIn Is Rolling Out A New Way To Make Your Profile More Noticeable appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) For Lawyers: ChatGPT & Other Chatbots: Yes or No?

Nancy Myrland — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 18:04:45 +0000

We are living in a very exciting time with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbots.

If AI has been around for many years, what happened to suddenly catapult the chatbot category into outer space?

ChatGPT Was Born

ChatGPT is what happened. At the end of November 2022, OpenAI launched its chatbot, ChatGPT, as a conversational research and content tool that the everyday consumer could use. Other than the need to register for the waitlist, most human beings could type a query and have ChatGPT provide an answer in a full, conversational, seemingly comprehensive manner.

We didn’t have to know how to code, be employed in the IT department, be trained as a developer, or be a paying customer of an existing AI tool to type a query and receive an answer within seconds. This is no-code development at its finest.

The barriers to entry were virtually nonexistent, which is the key to mass acceptance, usage, adoption, and innovation.

Many Different Schools of Thought About The Use of AI Chatbots

There are many who are skeptical, or who suggest we exercise caution when using the chatbot AI output that answers the “prompts” we give these chatbots. I have also written about plagiarism and other IP issues with AI chatbots, including the need to exercise caution.

There are others who say that is nonsense, and that those who are so afraid that they hold back are going to miss the boat, are going to be left behind, and are going to be sorry because others will advance.

All Is Not Rosy

As with any new product or service that is introduced, there will be challenges. At Google’s recent launch event when they announced the limited Beta of its chatbot, Bard, the output showed incorrect information.

This happened for all the world to see at what should have been a very exciting time for Google. I’m sure it is still very exciting for them, but it also serves as a wake-up call about the accuracy of these new tools that are being rushed out to the marketplace to keep up with competitors and trends.

The Verge summarized the Google Bard error:

“On Monday, Google announced its AI chatbot Bard — a rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT that’s due to become ‘more widely available to the public in the coming weeks.’ But the bot isn’t off to a great start, with experts noting that Bard made a factual error in its very first demo.

A GIF shared by Google shows Bard answering the question: ‘What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9 year old about?’ Bard offers three bullet points in return, including one that states that the telescope ‘took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system.'”

The Verge goes on to say:

“However, a number of astronomers on Twitter pointed out that this is incorrect and that the first image of an exoplanet was taken in 2004 — as stated here on NASA’s website.

‘Not to be a ~well, actually~ jerk, and I’m sure Bard will be impressive, but for the record: JWST did not take ‘the very first image of a planet outside our solar system,’ tweeted astrophysicist Grant Tremblay.”

Then Came Microsoft’s AI Chatbot, Which Is Fueled By ChatGPT

Soon after, Microsoft announced its limited Beta of its chatbot, which will incorporate ChatGPT data alongside its traditional Bing organic search results. It wasn’t long before I began to read several stories of very odd, incorrect, and even inflammatory output when searches were conducted. BingGPT even released its own secret, internal code name, Sydney, to one user.

No, all is not rosy, but it’s early.

Are You A Luddite?

Don’t be shamed into thinking you are a luddite because you are being cautious.

You can be two things at the same time. You can be innovative, educated, brave, a student, and a tester, and you can also be a realist who knows there are sharp turns and curves that also have to be carefully maneuvered.

With AI, There Is A Happy Medium

As I have posted before, I think this introduction of AI chatbots is different and will catch on. We will see it evolve quickly, looking and sounding more like its users than we can fathom right now.

Will AI Replace You?

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it will just release you to spend time on more revenue generating and client service issues. That would be a gift for you and for your clients, wouldn’t it?

My Recommendation

Be both.

Pay attention. Learn from others who are measured, early adopters.

Jump in, observe, test, try to break things, have fun with it, and imagine how it can make your job more efficient and innovative.

Also:

Don’t feed it garbage. Remember, it is still learning. Be cautious about using its output as the be-all and end-all because mistakes are being made, ChatGPT’s Internet data is currently only through 2021, and the tools are still learning how to act like grown-ups.

Stay tuned & stay alert.

Your Thoughts About AI and ChatGPT and Other Chatbots?

If you would like to comment or add to this discussion, I’d love to hear from you right here on this LinkedIn post. Just scroll down on the post below, and you will be able to comment. Thanks!

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

The post Artificial Intelligence (AI) For Lawyers: ChatGPT & Other Chatbots: Yes or No? appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

Should You Copy & Paste Your Law Firm Bio To Your LinkedIn Profile?

Nancy Myrland — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 05:05:04 +0000

Setting up your LinkedIn profile is easy, right? You just copy and paste everything from your law firm website bio into your LinkedIn profile.

Done, right?

Not so fast.

Your LinkedIn Profile Is Not Your Website Bio

LinkedIn should not be just another placeholder for your website bio. What do I mean by that? Unlike your website bio, which is, except in a few rare cases, a static bio that doesn’t invite interaction and conversation, your LinkedIn profile is more personal.

I’m not saying your website bio isn’t important. Quite the contrary. As my brilliant friends and website designers and developers over at Great Jakes, Robert and Dion Algeri (two of the nicest people you will ever meet), who have studied websites and visitor behavior extensively for a very long time, tell us that lawyers’ bio pages are the most frequented pages on your website.

On LinkedIn, that’s different. The dynamic is different.

Your Choice: Blog and/or Video

Below, you will see an abbreviated video version of this blog post. If you are viewing this via email or another syndicated site and don’t see the video, click right here. The blog post continues below.

LinkedIn Has 2 Parts

LinkedIn is made up of what I describe as your profile and your presence. They are equally important, but I’d like you to pay attention to your profile first. After you have completed that, then I would concentrate on your presence. In my live and online course called LinkedIn Course For Lawyers, I teach you how to work on your presence while building your profile, but let’s talk about your profile here first.

You can have a robust, informative profile on LinkedIn, but if your presence is weak, then your LinkedIn experience is incomplete and will likely be disappointing to you. You need a healthy blend of both, meaning a robust profile and a meaningful presence.

First-Person Because This Is “Social” Media

Let’s dive a tiny bit deeper. Let’s say you have a strong profile on LinkedIn. You’ve written it in first-person because this is “social” media where you are talking to your profile visitors. Unless your firm has chosen a more social path for its website bios, your website bio was written about you and calls for third-person language.

When you interact with other people on LinkedIn, whether that is:

A comment
Clicking on a reaction, or
Sending them a private message

Or, when they:

Read something you posted
Read your LinkedIn newsletter or article
Watch your video, or
Attend your LinkedIn Live video or audio event

They will often follow you back to your profile to learn more about you. When you have built a robust, approachable profile, you have given them something to learn about you. You’ve let them into your world. You have provided information that will help them learn what they came to learn about you.

What If You’re Social, But Your Profile Is Incomplete?

Let’s look at another scenario. If you interact with other people on LinkedIn, yet you’ve done nothing about your profile to make sure it is as robust as it needs to be in the most important parts that LinkedIn gives us to use, then when they follow you back to your profile and find it is underwhelming and uninformative, what’s going to happen?

They’re probably going to leave because they can’t find what they came for. Like you, most people are too busy to begin digging around to find another link to follow you back to your firm website and bio. They are on LinkedIn for a reason and aren’t likely to leave the site unless you’ve given them a very good reason to do so.

Bottom Line

What I don’t want to see happen is that LinkedIn becomes another place to paste your website bio. I’d like you to build out your profile in first-person with all of the sections LinkedIn gives you. By the way, many of these sections are a bit hidden until you decide you want to add them.

When you blend these two, your profile and your presence, there are three things that can happen.

You can:

Build your reputation.
Build your relationships.
Build your practice.

That’s a pretty compelling combination.

When you are using LinkedIn this way, it is worth your while to spend time on the platform.

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the most important marketing practices to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

Long story short, Nancy spends a lot of time helping lawyers and legal marketers with:

LinkedIn Profile and Presence
Podcast Launches and Consulting
Content Marketing
Marketing and Business Development Plans
Personal Branding, and
Zoom and Virtual Presentation Training and Coaching

*Nancy is not an employee or consultant hired by LinkedIn, although she was named a LinkedIn Top Voice on the platform in 2024! Top Voices is an invitation-only program featuring a global group of experts on LinkedIn covering a range of topics across the professional world, helping members uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. Top Voices was previously known as the Influencer program prior to October 2022. Top Voices are vetted to ensure that they meet high trust standards, are consistently active on the platform, and share valuable expertise through content that demonstrates their unique, original contributions to a topic.

The post Should You Copy & Paste Your Law Firm Bio To Your LinkedIn Profile? appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

Lawyers, I’m Going To Make The Sales Process Very Easy For You

Nancy Myrland — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 18:09:35 +0000

Many cringe when the topic of selling, or sales, comes up. If I told you that you’re in the position of selling every day of your life, does that make your stomach turn?

Your Choice: Blog or Podcast

Does Your Livelihood Depend On Others?

It’s true. If you are an attorney whose livelihood depends on clients spending money for your services, you are in the business of selling.

I’ve Been Right There With You

My first jobs out of college were in sales, so I’ve been right there with you.

I’ve been through some of the best sales training in the world with a company that used to be called L M Berry. I believe now it’s called The Berry Company. I was sent out of town for two weeks of group and individual sales training before I was ever allowed out “on the streets” for what was, in retrospect, one of the most difficult products to sell, Yellow Pages advertising. No wise cracks from those of you who have never heard of them, okay?

I also sold real estate in a city I had just moved to, Indianapolis, which was incredibly ambitious, don’t you think? Sometimes being young and unaware is a good thing because we learn how to do things we might never have done if we had a few years under our belts and knew enough to question our sanity.

In a related field, I also sold title insurance. I sold to the same people I met while selling real estate, so it was fun. Both of those experiences taught me just enough to be dangerous several years later when we sold our house on our own in only 2 weeks. Yay, me!

You and I Will Always Be In Sales

The truth is, I’m in sales again as I run my own company because I need to talk to you about what I offer and what I suggest for you every day of my life, or at least every day of my life that I’m working. Okay, in reality, most weeks that is 7 days. I’m not bragging, I just tend to use those “in-between moments” that I talk about often, which are those moments when I communicate with others while I’m waiting for something else to happen.

Back to you and back to sales. Even when you aren’t talking to clients and potential clients, you are still selling because your thoughts, attitudes, the way you like to do things, the way you wish others in your life did things, where you want to go to dinner, where you want to hang a painting, what color you want to paint your walls, and so much more often involve making your case to another person. That, my friend, also calls upon your sales skills.

Sales Is Unavoidable, So Let’s Make It Easy, Okay?

We can’t avoid sales, so why don’t we just make it a little bit easier? In fact, I am going to make it A LOT easier. If we’ve been around each other very long, you might have heard me say that I consider it my job to make the complex simple, so here goes.

Knowing you can’t get away from sales, and also knowing that it is your responsibility to be good at sales, let’s talk about how you can do it so that it’s not so intimidating.

How To Sell? The Bottom Line.

Here it is. This is the bottom line right here.

The key to selling is to stop selling.

What do I mean by stop selling? I mean you can stop worrying about how “selling” yourself and your services, and learn how to ask good questions that you genuinely want to know the answers to. These are not just questions that you’ve been taught because someone told you to ask them, or taught you the proper order in which they should be asked, but natural questions that help you learn what the other person’s business is all about. These are questions that will help you learn what they do every day to make their product, sell their services, or keep their virtual or physical doors open.

Be Inquisitive

If you use this approach, which is very natural and conversational, you might find yourself asking:

How they started their company
How they got to where they are today
Where do they want to go
What’s working for them
What’s not working for them
What worries them the most
What excites them the most about going to work every day
…and so much more. I think you get the idea.

I can’t tell you exactly what to ask, or in what order. That comes when you become inquisitive, and when you concentrate on listening to every word that is being spoken, vs. worrying about making sure the next words out of your mouth are words that you came to say. That will come if you have listened first and are committed to taking care of and serving your clients.

Maybe You Aren’t The Best Lawyer For Them

When you stop selling and start listening, only then you can adequately even begin to think about what you have to offer that might be remotely interesting or necessary to that other person.

You might even learn that you’re not the best solution, and you have the opportunity to suggest another path, another person, or maybe even another solution. When you do that, that makes you an extremely valuable advisor. It also earns you a great deal of respect because you have put the other person first. Who doesn’t love knowing their advisor has their best interest at heart? I know I do.

The key word there is advisor, which is infinitely more memorable than someone who tries to convince everyone that their solution or their service or their practice area is the only one to choose. That kind of advice often comes back around when that person refers someone else to you down the road, along with a strong recommendation about how you have their best interest at heart.

Bottom Line

The key to selling is to stop selling and start listening.

Be an advisor.

Your time will come.

Additional Sales and Business Development Posts You Might Find Helpful:

Lawyers, This Is How Potential Clients Want You To Approach Meetings With Them

Lawyers, The Competition That Kills You Might Not Look Like You

Sales Is Not A Dirty Word

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

The post Lawyers, I’m Going To Make The Sales Process Very Easy For You appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.

Lawyers, What Is Holding You Back From Growing Your Practice?

Nancy Myrland — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 20:09:55 +0000

My husband just had knee replacement surgery on January 16. During the most normal of times, the Ortho docs will warn you that this is one of the toughest surgeries to recover from, more than his 5 meniscus surgeries, the hip replacement he didn’t need (another story for another day), the two rotator cuff surgeries he had, and on and on. Those words of warning are serious, yet there is absolutely no way the reality of the situation can be felt until one is right smack in the middle of all of it.

I said the most normal of times because he had complications…several of them…that resulted in ER visits and a hospital stay. The reason this is significant is that these complications caused him to lose about 10 days of professional physical therapy.

If you’ve been through this surgery, or you know someone else who has, you know that those early days are beyond critical in terms of PT because the body wants to form scar tissue around it to do what it does best, which is to protect itself.

Here’s where you come in.

Fight or Flight?

My close friend, Roy Sexton, just posted on social media that he and the LMA International Board of Directors just finished a 2-day board meeting. Something he said caused me to think of you, and how you and my husband’s knee recovery are very similar.

I know, I know. I’m not a huge fan of using my family’s personal situation to make a point in my business, but Roy’s post made it so obvious to me.

Roy said:

“In short, we all live to a great extent in the fight or flight side of our brains, and when we are in that survival mode, there is absolutely no way to grow, be strategic, be truly inclusive, or make a long-term difference in this world.”

The concept of flight or fight is not new, but it is timely and important.

My husband’s job, along with the amazing assistance of a professional Physical Therapist, assisted by my not-so-amazing assistance with the same exercises 2 to 3 times a day, is to move past the scar tissue that has now formed around his knee because it tried to protect that brand new, shiny, expensive device the doctor installed.

The challenge now is that scar tissue grew mostly uninterrupted for 10(ish) days while he was battling other hospital-born (we think) issues. Yes, when we weren’t in the hospital, I forced him to do his home exercises with me, but nowhere near what would have been done had he felt better.

Do You Have Those Same Barriers To Progress?

When you and I think we can’t do something, or won’t do something that we know will help grow our practices, it might be because we have these thoughts:

I don’t know how to do it.
I don’t want to do it.
I don’t have time to do it.
I don’t want to look silly.
I don’t want to make mistakes.
I don’t know what to say.
I don’t know what to post.
I don’t like the way I sound.
I don’t like the way I look on camera.
Someone else has already done this.
Someone else has already broken the news.
Someone else is smarter than I am.
Someone else is younger than I am.
Someone else is more experienced than I am.
….and so many more.

Our Own Version of Scar Tissue Develops

When we allow ourselves to think those thoughts, our own version of scar tissue develops in our brains.

Over time, we convince ourselves these things are true, so we put off what we know we should do. We put off doing the amazing things that will help set us apart and make us memorable, which are those things that draw others to us when they need the kind of help you and I provide.

As time goes by, those thoughts become scar tissue that we then have to fight very, very hard to move past because we have allowed them to become what we think to be true. The longer we wait, the more challenging it is going to be. It might even hurt to make progress because that thought, or those thoughts, are in the way and they don’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. We’ve allowed them to take up residence in our brains.

The Path of Least Resistance

We take the path of least resistance, or at least we think it is the path of least resistance because it feels easy to let another minute, hour, day, month, or year go by without doing what we need or want to do to differentiate ourselves.

We take flight in order to avoid the emotions that go along with the thoughts (excuses) I shared above.

It’s Time To Fight

Instead of taking the deceptive path of least resistance and fleeing from the amazing work that I know you can do, I invite you to allow yourself to fight through those barriers, that scar tissue, and to choose to do the things you need to do to grow your practice. There are amazing people around you, and yes, I am one of them, that are here to help you if you don’t know where to start. (That sounded kind of braggy, didn’t it?)

The important thing is to start. Whatever you have to do to make it happen, start.

Is it going to be uncomfortable? Maybe.

Will that discomfort go away? Absolutely.

As I tell my husband when I am pulling his leg back to a position that hurts like heck, this hurts but it is also going to help you get better.

Moving through those thoughts and emotions described above will feel very good down the road. I know it will.

Just like I cheer John on every time he tries to pull his knee back into shape while also feeling intense discomfort, I’ll be here, cheering you on as you fight through your own barriers in your mind, too!

It’s time.

Fight.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.

The post Lawyers, What Is Holding You Back From Growing Your Practice? appeared first on Nancy Myrland's Legal Marketing Blog.