What You're Missing If You're Not At LMA11

It's like Woodstock out there. Yes friends, all the legal marketers are making their way to the 2011 Legal Marketing Association's (LMA) 2011 Conference. And they're giddy. The excitement is dripping down laptop (sorry, iPad) screens everywhere. Posts are being written telling people how to walk and talk, planes are landing, and the tweets announcing the arrivals of social media marketers are met with smiling-from-ear-to-ear-faces on the other end, waiting to give big hugs.

As usual, most of the internet stars are headed to yet another conference, not to speak, but to hang out. They have their strategy, the managing partners they're going to try to meet and sell their services to, hoping that none of the real lawyers in attendance ask them about their fraudulent credentials.

Now the LMA conference has some interesting topics, and interesting ways of describing them, like:

Step by step processes to take advantage of social media in a compelling and meaningful way,

(Translated: how to link to your law firm 27 different ways over and over again while convincing yourself it's compelling and meaningful) and,

Examining the tools available to help you streamline your use of social media and disseminate the same information to different media outlets

(Translated: how to spam twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn at the same time with the same crap while trying to look credible.)

Then the big downer that no marketer wants to talk about:

Getting to grips with the legal risks associated with the use of social media
◦Ethical considerations and rules of conduct when using social media platforms
◦Making social media work for you while staying compliant with the bar rules

Ut oh.

Then there's this quick title:

Examining the strategy and elements of a winning client-focused pitch process. By being able to effectively influence the pitch approach, you can change partner behavior for both the written submission and the ‘live’ presentation in order to put the right client-centric strategy, staffing and pricing forward to increase your odds of winning in an increasingly competitive market.

(Translated: how to teach BigLaw stiffs with no social skills how to get clients.)

And there's: Leveraging client feedback as an organizational development strategy to increase your firm’s performance.

(Translated: How to get rid of complaining clients and make sure they keep their mouth shut.)

Then there's: Discerning the strategic priorities of your firm’s formal and informal leaders in order to be most effective with your key clients.

(Translated: Don't let Jim near the clients.)

Because the topic of just create a .pdf brochure that can be edited was too complicated, we have this:

Streamlining your submission process with project management strategies to ease the burden of multiple submissions when you have limited resources at your disposal.

Of course this is the topic I would love to be there for:

Determining whether to hire experts outside your firm and choosing a qualified professional development consultant.

A qualified professional development consultant... Just remember people of LMA, Google can be a wonderful resource. So can pointed questions. Plenty of people are passionate about legal marketing, because there's money in that there field. Qualified professionals aren't loitering at conferences hoping to meet you. The ones you meet at conferences, with no role there but to network, aren't qualified professionals, they just want you to think they are.

Have fun.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.