Tick Tock: How to Run a Productive Legal Project Meeting

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I am usually the first person to start fidgeting in any meeting. Most of the time, I attribute this to my short attention span or my impatience. But sometimes I attribute  it to the meeting leader’s poor facilitation skills.

Apparently, I’m not alone in my frustration. According to a May 2014 Harvard Business Review article:

  • 15% of collective organizational time is spent in meetings. This percentage has only increased since 2008.
  • Executives consider 56% of these meetings to be unproductive
  • 49% of attendees admit to doing other, unrelated work during meetings

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It’s Okay to be an “Invisible”

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UPDATE – September 23, 2014–I’ve just finished reading “Invisibles”. It was a breath of fresh air amidst what sometimes seems like a lot of hot air filled with non-stop social media, amplified tweeting and frenzied calls for attention. This book is well-researched (some might say meticulously so, in keeping with the conclusions Zweig has drawn about Invisibles). If you have ever wondered how to balance career fulfillment with the pressure to self-promote, you should read this book. Read more →

How to Start a Legal Project Management Initiative in Your Firm: 11 Ideas

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Are firms becoming more attuned to the benefits of legal project management (LPM)? Are clients? Judging from a workshop I attended on this topic last month in Chicago, the answer is “yes”.

But many firms – including almost every firm I’ve encountered – still struggle with the question of how to encourage organizational and individual changes required to inculcate wide-spread adoption of LPM.

The panelists who spoke at the “LPM Showcase and Workshop” lead some of the firms that have been the most successful at LPM implementation – Baker & McKenzie, Loeb & Loeb,Foley Hoag and Reed Smith. Their honest accounts of their experiences in getting the ball rolling, however, were common to organizations of more than 50 lawyers, regardless of practice or regional focus. Read more →

Identifying and Addressing Reputational Risk in a Law Firm

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How well do most law firms understand and address reputational risks? Last week, I referenced the extreme example of Dewey & LeBoeuf, a bankrupt global firm that ignored reputational risk to the point where it now serves as the profession’s poster child for what-not-to-do.

This week, I’ll be more constructive. Read more →

Frenemy Mine: Building Trust Between Colleagues

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This post was originally published on the Canadian legal blog slaw.ca on March 19, 2104

I’ve been feeling somewhat guilty about my post last week regarding the Edelman Trust Barometer and perceptions about the legal profession. Several lawyers have since asked if I have any advice on how to build trusting relationships within their own firms, never mind on behalf of the profession. I’ve heard laments bemoaning the loss of collegiality, too. Read more →