Law And More

Legal Marketers - Tell How Your Law Firm Is Pivoting

The term "pivot" will peak.

And then another word will replace it.

Those still putting out there "pivots" will sound like yesterday.

But, currently, everything, such as careers, must be positioned and packaged as "pivots." Not doing so dooms the speaker, texter, emailer, journalist, thought leader or politico as out of the loop. That also applies to those playing in that very special sandbox: legal marketing. 

As legal marketers and the lawyers they promote know: We are our language.

It had been Donald Trump's use of workingman's language that catapulted him onto the global radar. Immediately he differentiated himself from the typical potential presidential candidate. And the media, which served him so well back then, moved in to take a closer look. 

 Next week I'll be pivoting to the next in my communications career. That's because this week I had two articles published, for my own byline, in third-party media. This is the one on how COVID-19 is reshaping marketing. 

Takeaway for legal marketers: Boost attention. Tell the world about your law firm's pivot. It doesn't have to be major. Just some new wrinkle on WFH. 

The Message Glut. You need bold strategy/ghostwriting. Let’s talk about what will work. Please contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

Legal Marketers & The Message Glut: Learning from Boston University Student-Run AdLab/PRLab

Legal marketers are working 12 to 14 hours a day.

After all, the partners can't go out there and wine and dine prospects or rent a booth at a beauty show.

So, the law firm is depending on you. And because they are, you have more status. 

But what kinds of results are you getting amid The Message Glut? 

In Odwyerpr.com today, I tell how the brass at Boston University realized that the only way to send a marketing message was boldly. Otherwise, well, don't bother sending it. 

Those powers that be allowed the student-run AdLab and PRLab to launch the @fckitwontcutit (F*ckitwontcutit) campaign.

See, the stakes are high. Those returning to campus had to have the Ah-Ha Moment that COVID-19 is real and not just for old people. Otherwise they could die. And take lots of members of Gen Z, along with professors and administrators, with them. 

Well, you legal types will want to at least know this: Boston University trademarked @fckitwontcutit. Yes, the administration knows that there is value (bigtime) in innovation.

And messaging at Boston University will never be the same. History might chronicle this campaign as the Communications Boston Tea Party.

The Message Glut. You need bold strategy/ghostwriting. Let’s talk about what will work. Please contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

BU Trademarks @fckitwontcutit

The fundamental of marketing is to identify and figure out how to appeal to the mindset of the target market. The language is especially important. 

In the serious matter of protecting university students from the coronavirus, the stakes are high in that.  As BusinessInsider documents, across the U.S., young adults are being affected the most by the pandemic. 

So, what is being done?

Boston Magazine reports that the Boston University student-run AdLab and PR Lab came up with a bold experiment. The objective of the campaign is to shake students returning to campus out of their denial about the high contagiousness of COVID-19. It embodies how students think and actually talk.

The meme is: F*ck It Won't Cut It or @fckiwontcutit. The brass in administration has approved it. Yes, BU has trademarked it. 

Of course, this innovation is news in the global distressed industries of advertising and public relations. There is bound to be plenty of chatter.

But the bottom line, as in all marketing, is the question: Does this dog hunt?

Will students dutifully maintain social distancing, wear masks and maintain hand hygiene? Or will BU have the same amount of COVID-19 infections and deaths as campuses not embracing such a cool type of warning?

However, that could all be mere speculation about results. 

The game might never be played or not for long. BU can decide against reopening or shut down campus pronto after opening. After all, many schools at Harvard, including the Law School, have gone total remote in instruction for the fall semester.

Time will tell. But time is not on the side of those vulnerable to the virus. At the top of the list are young adults. Gen Z and the youngest of Millennials could be wiped out.

Place your paid sponsored content on this blog. Here are 6 tips for search engine optimization (SEO) in 2020. Contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

Not the Lawyer You Used to Be - Lifequakes & Story Time

"I don't know who I am."

That's how people in transition usually sum up how they feel. Lawyers who had depended on their work to have an identity usually feel especially dismal when there could be change. Or the change has already happened. Those upheavals range from a stealth layoff to being forced into early retirement. 

But what would be more accurate and what would make moving forward less painful is if they noted "I need a new story."

We are the stories we tell about ourselves.

Both professionally and personally.

Way back when in a less chaotic era we used to call that the "elevator speech." In a sentence or two it summed up what we were about. If it concerned our professional identity, it could help our career. For instance, "I'm Joe and I help big companies sell a lot of products." 

In transition, that identity, once so solid, is shifting. In the interim and then longer term, folks can gain control of the process if they put together a fresh narrative. That tells the world where they are in their careers and personal lives. More importantly, it delivers the message to themselves that they are in-charge.

That's especially needed in what Bruce Feiler, author of "Life Is in the Transitions," has called "lifequakes" or seismic shifts. As MarketWatch reports, Feiler anticipates lifequakes to increase in number and intensity.

So, as folks sense a lifequake coming to rattle their lives to the core, a multi-dimensional tool could be conjuring up a new story.

The partner at a law firm gets it: The firm wants him out. He isn't bringing in enough new business or billing enough hours. The way to emotionally, socially, and professionally manage that experience is to capture it in a story that moves the process forward. An example? "I'm reviewing what could be Next. This is the first time in 30 years I looked up from my desk." 

A former star in public relations contacted me for a complimentary consultation on her career. She wanted another one. So typical she framed that in the narrative embedded in the past, in who she used to be. "At Corporation X, the world knew my name. I made a lot of money. The media quoted me." 

To have a shot at a Next, she had to extricate the story from the past to possibility. During four coaching sessions, she came to manage this lifequake with the story "I fix brands. That could be your personal or social brand. Or the brand of, say, Uber." That got people interested. Even before she had fully established her communications boutique she had business. 

In COVID-19, it's the rare professional, parent or retired who isn't being rattled by a lifequake.

How to start on the new story? 

Accept that what was is no longer. Then be ready to take the first few steps. Get those down in one or two sentences. Let language take charge. It's not what is happening. It's how people manage that whatever. Christians came up with the narrative of how the word was made flesh. 

Coaching, lecturing, and writing/ghostwriting thought leadership content on human resources and careers.  

For individual coaching – sliding scale fees. Complimentary initial consultation. The special area of expertise is the displaced over-50 professional. Please contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.

Snell & Wilmer - Tipsters Tell Abovethelaw about Alleged Stealth Layoffs

The power of Abovethelaw comes from its sources. They are primarily junior lawyers and law students.

Those tipsters have informed ATL, reports Kathryn Rubino, that there are alleged stealth layoffs at law firm Snell & Wilmer. Here are plenty of details.

Recently, Snell & Wilmer terminated associates in Los Angeles and Orange County, California. They were classified as performance-based. After all, official layoffs as in a reduction in force can put out there a red flag, signalling financial distress. Therefore, it's a clever move to position and package any financial need to reduce headcount as for underperformance. 

If the terminations were indeed stealth layoffs they deliver a double whammy. Not only do associates lose their mode of making a living. Like a turd on their shoe, they could carry around the stink of being fired for performance reasons. And they bring it into a glutted marketplace.

Any associate terminated from Snell & Wilmer, for whatever reason, can contact me for three half-hour pro-bono coaching sessions. My philosophy is: The answers are all inside you. The coach just opens you to them. Please make an appointment at janegenova374@gmail.com.

Some Psychics Are Making More Than Some Lawyers (but, angst-ridden lawyers, you can become your own psychic)

How will my performance review go?

Will the delayed start date wind up a rescinded offer?

This legal market for laid-off associates as well as in-house legal is brutal. How can I get an edge?

Are they forcing me into early retirement?

To get the answers to those questions, New Yorkers are willing to pay psychics and other representatives of the occult up to $997 an hour. You bet, they are earning more per hour than some elite lawyers. And, reports the New York Post, business is booming.

Some psychics have doubled their weekly business - and revenues - in 2020. Meanwhile, New York Magazine's column Madame Clairevoyant is very popular. That's a weekly free read.

But what's driving the psychic-industry surge aren't only the uncertainties generated by COVID-19. As those in the occult loop explain, the wildness was expected right from the get-go in 2020 since there was a conjunction of Saturn and Pluto.

Outside New York, psychic readings are more affordable for the Main Street kind of insight-seeker. That's the person who taps into the occult once a year. And is only willing to invest peanuts.

For example, online phone-reading service Psychic Interactive bills at $19 per 15 minutes. Credit cards accepted.

In-person and phone service in Salem, Massachusetts Angelica of the Angels costs $30 for 15 minutes and $40 for 20 minutes. Credit cards accepted.

In-person readings by Shadow at Once in a Blue Moon, Toledo. Ohio go for a buck a minute. Credit cards discouraged for in-person. But more welcome for phone readings, which also bill at a dollar a minute.

However, the reality is: Anyone can be his or her own psychic. Any lawyer can bypass the $1,000 intuitive hour. 

After all, all the answers are within oneself.

To be able to gain access to those insights requires shaking off being a closed system. Buddhists call that returning to a "beginner's mind." Essentially that's what babies experience. And that might account for some of their rapid overall growth. 

As I counsel those I coach about careers and job-search materials/interviews, likely it was their success in school and later on the job which caused them to, well, shut down. They felt they had to set up a wall to ward out the distractions of the world.

Those possible intrusions might have been thought of as Barbarians at the Gate. 

The result, of course, is that so many professionals retreat deeper and deeper into being a closed system.

But, then a curve ball comes. And there is no cognitive, emotional, and spiritual wiggle room for the unusual problem-solving needed - and old-fashioned resilience.

The first step in prying the system back open is reflecting on the zen mantra: Clear Thinking, Don't Know. You really don't know, do you. What a relief to align with that reality.

Along the way to becoming your own psychic you can calm the monkey mind by taking in free YouTube tutorials by American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron. Here is the classic on fear and fearlessness.

Reflection: The more tightly wound the culture, the more business for psychics. 

Coaching, lecturing, and writing/ghostwriting thought leadership content on human resources and careers.  

For individual coaching – sliding scale fees. Complimentary initial consultation. The special area of expertise is the displaced over-50 professional. Please contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.

The Momo Mob - Maybe They Are onto Something

Sure, U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening the funding of Social Security and Medicare.

And research documents that more than half of us will be forced out of our jobs (more and more during COVID-19) and only 1 in 10 of us will ever make comparable money, at least not from working for income. Soft landings are so 20th century. 

But, there is good news, for now, about our investment portfolios - and more.

Last week I made more from gains on equities than I did from operating my two boutiques.

Earlier things were so good that I contacted the financial advisor to lock in those gains and sure, I would pay taxes on those which hadn't been housed in my Roth IRA. But even with that I created unexpected wealth. If I choose, I can ride into the sunset and semiretire in a few years. 

This could keep up.

On MarketWatch, there is the opinion that the momo (momentum) mob could have the day. They are optimists about equities. They forecast the good times in equities will roll, despite the gyrations of external events. Among the signs of two chickens in every pot, for those who invested in equities, is that Facebook could take over the TikTok space. That will keep pulling up its stock price and with it the overall market.

Companies like Apple which are doing well seem able to sustain that. 

Pockets of the legal sector are enhancing their brands. That attracts new lucrative business. For example, Paul, Weiss, through the vision of its chairman Brad Karp, has launched a presence in Silicon Valley. For those in the media who configure concepts about leadership in volatile times, Karp is the model to analyze.

Small businesses who have learned to pivot are scaling. Not every small business owner is on PBS tearfully recounting operating at a 10th of capacity or shutting down. Those I do marketing communications for have spotted the opportunity in the catastrophe. And exploited it.

And professionals predictably cut loose during COVID-19 times are regrouping. For instance, several lawyers I coached did forms of apprenticeships in marketable niches as a bankruptcy. At first, the compensation was peanuts or none. Now it's a fresh career path to travel. 

Reflection: Adversity opens new doors. That bunch of misfits who couldn't make it in the old country - the Puritans - set up their own economic system in the new land. That became the most profitable economy for centuries.

The same goes for building brandnames. After he had been fired from Ford, the guy primarily known only for marketing - Lee Iacocca - went over to Chrysler. He evolved into a global folk hero. 

Coaching, lecturing, and writing/ghostwriting thought leadership content on human resources and careers.  

For individual coaching – sliding scale fees. Complimentary initial consultation. The special area of expertise is the displaced over-50 professional. Please contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.

Erika Kullberg Pays Off $225,526 Student Loans in 23 Months

Maybe the takeaway from Erika Kullberg's story is this: Continue living like a student long after you are no longer a student.

BusinessInsider reports on Kullberg's ability to pay off $225,526 in student loan debt in 23 months. Her goal after graduating Georgetown Law School was to launch her own company. An interim stop was to work in a corporate law job which paid well.

By embracing the radical frugality of her student days she had been able to pay $9,000 a month or 80% of her monthly paycheck on her loans. That included using credit card points for travel and brown-bagging it for lunch. 

In addition, she made it her business to learn about the loans. She invested 60 hours researching that bit of personal finance on the internet. Then she refinanced.

Currently she operates her startup Plug and Law. It provides legal protection for websites, blogs, and other digital platforms.

In addition, she has created a YouTube channel to tutor others about personal finance. 

Place your paid sponsored content on this blog. Here are 6 tips for search engine optimization (SEO) in 2020. Contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Johnson & Johnson's Spravato - New Hope for the Actively Suicidal in Legal Sector

The Food and Drug Administration has approved Johnson & Johnson's nasal spray Spravato for the actively suicidal.

Medical Press reports that it is the first breakthrough in the treatment of clinical depression since 1987. That had been when the FDA Administration approved Eli Lilly's antidepressant Prozac. 

The breakthrough is that this antidepressant acts quickly. Those from families in which there seems to be a suicide gene understand that darkness can fall fast. 

Overall, the pharmaceutical treatment of the kind of serious clinical depression associated with suicide hasn't exactly been the Promised Land. For instance, those in the legal sector who have struggled with clinical depression know it takes a while for other antidepressants to kick in. Also, that kick-in might not happen. It could take a while for medical community to match the depressed with an effective medication. In the worse-case scenario, there will be no match. 

In addition, Spravato doesn't act in the brain on serotonin or norepinepherine. Instead it acts on the glutamate system. 

Between 1996 and 2016, the suicide rate has risen about 30%. The upheaval put in-play by COVID-19 has also made suicide an urgent concern. The timing of Spravato might prove a massive life saver - literally.

Here is the information about Spravato provided by J&J. 

Place your paid sponsored content on this blog. Here are 6 tips for search engine optimization (SEO) in 2020. Contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

Quinn Emanuel $185 Million Fee - Belief in Protestant Ethic Seems So Schoolgirlish

Quinn Emanuel figures it has "earned" a $185 million fee in its legal work for health insurers who hadn't been paid by the Obama Administration. That number has been calculated on the basis of results. The law firm's work resulted in the insurers receiving $3.7 billion. 

The issue involved, reports Bloomberg Law, is that in terms of hours the fee would come to Quinn Emanuel's earning $18,500 an hour. There are those who object, including litigation funders. 

However, the fee only represents 5% of the results, note supporters of Quinn Emanuel.

At its core, this dispute is not really about high fees charged by elite law firms. That is so boring. The marketplace, including its dynamics during COVID-19, takes care of that. 

It gets down to questioning the Protestant Ethic. That had been woven into a system of beliefs by Max Weber. Essentially the meme is: Work hard. 

Such an ideology - actually almost a religion - dominated Americana since Puritan times. Hard work was valued in itself. Ironically, it still is. Those who sinned or stumbled professionally were advised to "Work Hard." That was the path to salvation.

Currently, that adage is still being touted, in some circles.

Many help-wanted ads on Craigslist, for example, indicate the need for a "hard worker." Yeah, an eye-roll. Professionals who want to get ahead in an organization sense that employer doesn't understand how success happens, is sustained and scaled. 

For players, the Protestant Ethic seems downright misleading. It's obvious that it can be even counterproductive. Looking for the way not to have to work hard can be the real path to wealth - as well as power and influence.

Through inventing the Mac, then the iPhone, Steve Jobs eliminated the need for lots of old-fashioned kinds of work. 

Before that, Ronald Reagan's branding was about not working hard. He came across as confident, a quality needed in a leader.

I landed a communications contract (one hat I wear) by pitching to the prospect a shortcut to boosting rankings on search engines. No, we weren't going to work hard together.

Mouthing platitudes about hard work can seem downright schoolgirlish. Even small business owners, at least those still in business in coronavirus times, understand that the game is about results - the bigger the better, the sooner the better. It's not about hours the workforce plows into a project.

The Emanuel Quinn fee controversy can be a flashpoint in law firm billing. The billable hour can be tossed. It could be replaced by performance-based metrics. 

More generally, parents, teachers, and guidance counselors who tell youth to work hard will have no credibility. As a sometimes career coach, I advise the over-50 unemployed/underemployed I guide to ditch their own hard-work ethos. It's all about what they can accomplish for an employer.

The pitch should be: This is what I can do for you - better and faster than those others competing for work. 

One professional in the real estate loop, after two years searching for a better job, reframed his marketing to just that: Promised results, supported by documentation of those created for other employers over the years. Those were his new marketing materials. Immediately, he received an interview. A prospective employer flew him to its headquarters and hired him on the spot. 

Sour grapes: Too long I worked hard at a doctoral degree that wasn't marketable. Early in the game the savvy owner at a business where I worked part-time recommended I pull the plug. Get a job in media or at a public relations agency, he counseled. I didn't. I assumed my unusually intense hard work would land me one of the few jobs in the field. I limped away from that disaster getting it that betting on the right horse, not hard work, is the key career fundamental. 

Coaching, lecturing, and writing/ghostwriting thought leadership content on human resources and careers.  

For individual coaching – sliding scale fees. Complimentary initial consultation. The special area of expertise is the displaced over-50 professional. Please contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.