Legal Management Talk

Ross Fishman, JD, expands on his recent Legal Management column about avoiding slashing all marketing costs due to the COVID-19-related business downturn ("The Top 5 Budget Items Law Firms Will Try to Slash in Response to COVID-19"). Instead, he advocates for hustling for new business, emphasizing busy practice areas and focusing your spend where it counts in order to stay competitive. F...

Lance Breger joins us to talk about how to handle team-building, negative emotions and wellness as we deal with remote work and major stressors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Visit ALA's Coronavirus Response webpage for more resources. Speaker BioLance Breger is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Infinity Wellness Partners, where he helped create a WorkLIFE Wellness Program and Exec...

Rob Mattern discusses information governance, outsourcing and back-office efficiency as they relate to his latest educational offerings for the ALA audience. Learn more from Rob through an upcoming webinar, The Getting to Zero Strategy, and his column in the March issue of Legal Management, "The Efficiency of the Attorney Experience in Your Firm’s Back Office."Speaker BioRob Mattern, MBA...

Rob Mattern and Nathan Curtis discuss Mattern, LLC's first-of-its-kind survey about law firm cost recovery for e-discovery and litigation support. Find the survey here. Learn more from Rob through an upcoming webinar, The Getting to Zero Strategy, and his column in the March issue of Legal Management, "The Efficiency of the Attorney Experience in Your Firm’s Back Office."Speaker Bio...

We spoke with IT consultant Michael Kemps about managing the remote workplace and keeping IT systems afloat as law firms and legal departments revise work-from-home policies in the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. He's a featured source in the Legal Management article "Surviving COVID-19: Tips for Managing a Healthy Workforce and Keeping Your Clients Informed." You can f...

Stephanie R. Hanna, Esq., the Founder of professional coaching firm The Other 85, discusses how to retain talented associates, teach them the ways of business and set them on a path toward rainmaker status. Stephanie is speaking at ALA's 2020 Annual Conference & Expo in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her Legal Industry/Business Management education session is titled Building Rainmakers: How to Hel...

Cynthia Thomas discusses how to protect your law firm's operations by succession planning not only for attorneys but also for administrators. She is speaking at ALA's 2020 Annual Conference & Expo in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her Human Resources Management education session is titled Don’t Let Institutional Knowledge Walk Out the Door: Succession Planning for Administrative Managers. Vie...

Anna Cates Williams, JD, MBA, shares her thoughts about improving efficiency by increasing your app use. She is speaking at ALA's 2020 Annual Conference & Expo in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her Operations Management education session is titled Apps and Social Media: A Firm Administrator’s Toolkit. View the session description here, and make sure you're registered for the May 3-6 event. As...

Brianna Leung of GrowthPlay talks about New Year's resolutions for the busy professional. She wrote "Resolve to Balance the Scales in 2020," the Business Partner Perspective column for the January issue of Legal Management. Speaker BioBrianna Leung is a Principal Consultant with GrowthPlay, where she leverages talent analytics to help legal professionals drive innovation and change...

Staffing expert and recruiting consultant Jennifer Hill talks about the conclusions she reached and action items she detailed in her white paper for ALA, "The Changing Role of Law Firm Leadership."You can also read her previous white paper, "The Changing Role of the Legal Secretary," and register for her webinars, like Is the Legal Secretary Becoming Extinct? and Creating an Em...

ALA Executive Director Oliver Yandle joins the podcast to talk about how conferences are going and discuss what your Association has planned for the future. Here are reference links for some of the things Oliver talked about:Chapter Leadership InstituteLarge Firm Principal Administrators RetreatC4 The Legal Industry ConferenceALA Master Class: Leadership for Legal Management Professionals2020 Annu...

Dan Lear, a speaker and facilitator for September's C4: The Legal Industry Conference, discusses the event, design thinking and the legal industry challenges attendees will tackle. The conference will occur September 18-20 in Boston, Massachusetts. The registration deadline for the early bird rate is August 5. Sign up now! Speaker BioDan Lear is a lawyer, blogger and legal industry gadfly. As...

Kim Cannon, David Miceli and Teresa Walker — go over the details of the 2019 Large Firm Principal Administrators Retreat, including some important changes to the format. This year, the annual event will focus less on classroom-style instruction and more on idea exchange among attendees. The retreat is happening in Nashville, Tennessee, August 1-3, and eligible legal management professionals are en...

ALA member Nadean Stone, CLM, MBA, describes what it’s like to publish her first book, titled No Stone Unturned: A Remarkable Journey to Identity. She talks about translating painful experiences into a memoir and how her professional background and network of legal management professionals inspire her to keep fighting for justice. Nadean Stone, CLM, MBA, is the author of No Stone Unturned: A Remar...

ALA members and Administrators Sarah Antonello, Danita Jones and Suzy Klepac have conceived a new way to support early career legal managers: the First Five Community. A part of ALA's Online Community, this members-only forum will provide a space for asking questions, sharing solutions and networking. As mentioned in the episode, the Legal Management article about the Capital Chapter presiden...

Lori Hughes, a panelist for a session at September's Intellectual Property Conference for Legal Management Professionals, talks about how she transitioned her own office to a paperless, cloud-based storage system. Speaker BioLori Hughes is a member of the ALA Board of Directors as the Region 5 Director and has been an ALA member since 2002. Hughes has been with Miller Nash Graham & Dunn L...

Consultant Tim Corcoran, who's speaking at 2018's Advanced Financial Administration workshops and Regional Legal Management Conferences, talks about why law firms might need to change how they handle partner compensation. Speaker BioTimothy B. Corcoran is a Principal with the Corcoran Consulting Group and a Past President of the Legal Marketing Association. In his practice, he advises la...

Wondering what you missed at ALA's 2018 Annual Conference & Expo? This audio exploration will help you get a partial experience — from speakers like John Quiñones and Vernice Armour to valuable education sessions. Interested in attending a future conference? Visit alanet.org/events to learn about our fall conferences, including Regionals and the specialty events, as well as information ab...

Kathy Scourby of KNS Consulting joins us to talk disaster preparedness and business continuity plans. She'll be a presenter at ALA's Annual Conference & Expo in May 2018, and you can find her insights in the April 2018 issue of Legal Management. Speaker BioKathryn Scourby is the Principal of KNS Consulting, LLC. She works with professional service firms to achieve their goals in the...

Information, data and knowledge are important business assets, but most firms aren't managing them in a way that reflects their true value. That's why ALA is conducting a survey in partnership with Experience Matters (James's company) and the University of South Australia: to find industry benchmarks and recommendation for information assets management. Speaker BioJames Price is the...

Mercer Principal Norma Sharara — who works closely with the ABA Retirement Funds Program, an ALA VIP sponsor — describes the current tax and regulatory picture for retirement plans. Norma Sharara is a Principal in Mercer’s Washington Resource Group, focusing on tax-qualified and non-qualified retirement plans, including ERISA fiduciary rules, state-run retirement initiatives and federal retirement...

As law firms continue to grow and merge, the question of office space and configuration is critical to legal management professionals tasked with operations. That's why First American Equipment Finance's Karen Leastman and Christina Floyd have joined us to talk about financing office renovations. You can hear them in full at their 2018 Annual Conference & Expo presentation. Karen Lea...

Michael Moore, a speaker at ALA's 2018 Annual Conference & Expo, talks with us about law-firm succession planning. Michael Moore, JD, is the Founder of Moore's Law, LLC, and helps both lawyers and law firms create professional success. Moore specializes in individual marketing, client development, and leadership coaching and advises law firms on strategic planning, growth initiatives...

Corey Saban, a 2018 Annual Conference speaker, answers some of our questions about the promotional and engagement powers of web video. Corey Saban is a Cofounder and Vice President of TheLaw. TV, a platform that helps lawyers effectively reach prospective clients and communicate their stories through video. He started his media career as a TV journalist, interviewing respectable and recognizable f...

Get the answers to your questions about background screening in today's law firm - domestically and internationally. Kevin P. Prendergast is the President & General Counsel at Research Associates, Inc., a corporate investigative firm serving clients since 1953.  RAI serves the investigative needs for professional service firms and works with law firms throughout the world for pre-employme...