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Four speakers and a moderator were presenting at a conference. 
That sounds like the beginning of a joke, but according to the 2022 ILTACon Conference Co-Chair, Martha Breil, that type of conference presentation just won’t draw in the next generation of conference attendees. Workshops, hands-on experiences, and interactive presentations are needed for conferences to stay relevant as we emerge from the two and a half years of lost conferences due to COVID. 
While ILTACon made an appearance in 2021, it was this year’s conference which was extremely successful. With nearly 3,000 attendees, the conference held at the National Harbor, MD, was completely sold out (thanks to those pesky fire codes!) Breil was very happy with how she and the team of ILTA staffers and volunteers pulled together the 2022 ILTACon and shares with us some of the experiences and comments from the event. 
Legal Conferences are a collaboration of Association leaders, members, volunteers, as well as partnerships with vendors and sponsors. As more and more conferences take place over the next few years, there will be different expectations from all of those different groups on how to attract attendees, volunteers, and sponsors. Once the honeymoon of 2022 is over, those expectations will need to be met to continue making conferences, and the money they bring in to organizations like ILTA, a success.

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LVNx Crystal Ball Answer
Speaking of conferences, Greg just returned from the Legal Value Network eXperience in Chicago with a fresh batch of answers to our Crystal Ball Question. First up is Kate Boyd, COO at Sente Advisors on the new generation of professionals and the diversity of experiences and knowledge they are bringing to the legal industry.
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Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert (We have stickers… tweet Greg for more info!)
Voicemail: 713-487-7821 (note the NEW NUMBER!)
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: Jerry David DeCicca
Transcript

Continue Reading What Does a Post-Pandemic Conference Look Like? Martha Breil on ILTACon (TGIR Ep.175)

Five years ago, Dr. Heidi Gardner, Distinguished Fellow at Harvard Law School and co-founder, Gardner & Co, wrote the book, “Smart Collaboration” where she laid out the “why” behind smart collaboration efforts. In her upcoming sequel, “Smarter Collaboration: A New Approach to Breaking Down Barriers and Transforming Work,” Dr. Gardner explains the “who” and the “how” behind collaboration. The issues that law firms face today are incredibly complex and multifaceted. And in an industry famous for “going it alone,” that approach exposes firms to much greater risk than those who find ways of implementing “smarter collaboration” techniques. 
Smarter Collaboration helps increase revenues, profits, and efficiencies while reducing risks and improving client relationships and positive outcomes. While the idea of collaboration may sound like a “soft topic” for law firm leaders, Dr. Gardner points out that there is empirical data behind this and if firms are not engaging in smarter collaboration when doing the “real work” then they are either doing something that is pretty low value, or that falls into the realm of commodity work.  
In addition to data driven analysis, Smarter Collaboration also includes a number of examples of how companies and law firms thrive through the use of Smarter Collaboration. Plus, there is a test on determining behavioral tendencies when it comes to collaboration. This psychometric tool helps identify seven different dimensions which can lead to great collaboration within the organization, or may be barriers to collaboration. And, as strange as it may sound to those of us in the legal industry, law firms are not unique when it comes to collaborative behaviors. In fact, Dr. Gardner says law firms are more different from each other than they are from other professional services industries or large corporations.
Listen in for more details on the upcoming book, Smarter Collaboration.

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AALL Crystal Ball Question
This week we have John Beatty from the University of Buffalo Law School answer our crystal ball question where he points out that the pipeline of traditional law librarians for law schools may be running dry.
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Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert
Voicemail: 713-487-7270
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: Jerry David DeCicca
Transcript

Continue Reading Increased Revenue, Profits, and Efficiencies through “Smarter Collaboration” – Dr. Heidi Gardner (TGIR Ep. 169)

When the pandemic began, many law firms prepared for the worst by furloughing or laying off lawyers and legal professionals. Many of these same firms then found themselves at a disadvantage when the hiring spree began in the fourth quarter of 2020. Leopard Solution‘s Phil Flora joins us this week to talk about the numbers that they tracked over this time on hiring and movement in the legal industry. Pre-pandemic, there were 6,000 – 7,000 open jobs at any given moment. Currently, that number is 12,000+. And it doesn’t appear to be slowing down.

Phil Flora discusses a number of issues around how law firms and others are managing, recruiting, and retaining talent in such an active market. Of course, money is the traditional approach for law firms, and that is no exception this time around. However, Flora points out that there are a lot of “greats” going on in the market, including the “Great Pause”, the “Great Resurgence”, and the “Great Reflection” to name a few. And while money will be one piece of the solution, legal talent is wanting many more adjustments in order to keep them content and in place. This includes more work flexibility, mentoring, and even more social awareness by the law firms when it comes to how they align with societal goals.

Crystal Ball Question

We asked Norton Rose Fulbright’s Zack Barnes to look into his crystal ball and predict what he sees for the legal industry. Barnes’ future expands upon the ability for the legal market to expand upon the sandboxes created by Utah and Arizona to allow for ownership of law firms beyond the licensed attorney ranks. For true business innovation, there needs to be diversity in the ownership ranks.

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Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert

Voicemail: 713-487-7270

Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com

Music: Jerry David DeCicca

Transcript

Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 153 – Phil Flora on What Law Firms are doing in the Battle for Talent

When Sang Lee set out to begin her own talent management and recruitment company, her two-decades of experience taught her that much of the industry felt like a charade. To change that, she thought of the phrase, “To Thine Own Self Be True” as a guiding principle and from that came the company she co-founded called Thine. The youngest of three daughters from an immigrant family, she had many expectations placed upon her, but while she and her sisters all graduated from Georgetown Law School, her father’s dream of a Lee, Lee, & Lee law firm never came into fruition. Instead, Sang found herself in the legal recruiting profession after working as an associate in a large law firm. In 2019, she launched Thine with Jon Strom where they focus on custom assessments and benchmarking for recruiting, leadership skills, and competency assessments to find and build great fits for both the law firms and the attorneys. Thine’s use of algorithmic data, Organizational Psychology, and interview insights creates assessments which reflect what it really takes to be a successful attorney within the firm.
Check out Thine’s and Ari Kaplan Advisor’s Report on how the legal industry is approaching hiring, development, and promotion of associates. 

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Information Inspirations
Down to the Struts is a podcast focusing on issues regarding living with disabilities. In the latest episode, host Qudsiya Naqui is joined by fellow podcasters Cheryl Green and Thomas read to talk about their experiences and the lack of support from the non-disabled community.
Data may be undervalued as an ESG strategy, but with new business scoring which looks at company ESG statements, businesses may need to start looking at the data as part of their overall strategy.
Maya Markovich, Kristen Sonday, and Sonja Ebron join Talk Justice’s podcast host, Jason Tashea to discuss this launching of the new Justice Technology Association (JTA.)
FTI Consulting, Inc. recently announced findings from Part 3 of The General Counsel Report 2022: Leading with Endurance Through Risk, Culture and Technology Challenges.
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Voicemail: 713-487-7270

Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com.

Music: As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca.

Transcript

Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 147 – Sang Lee: Talent Management That Enables People to Be True to Themselves

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
― Yogi Berra
Yet that never stops us from asking our “crystal ball” questions to our guests like Axiom’s Chief Commercial Officer, David Pierce. Some of the traits that David believes will make for successful businesses and people include:
  • Emphasis on creativity and great imaginations
  • Make it clear that everyone’s health and safety are top priorities through clear communication and transparent efforts
  • Be flexible on work environments with clear policies
  • Lay out clear business missions and objectives and make it clear what role each person plays in helping accomplish that mission
We also dive into Axiom’s mission and the role that David has played over the past few years. As well as David dropping some knowledge about Yellow Loading Zones he learned in law school.

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Contact Us
Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert.
Voicemail: 713-487-7270
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com.
Music: As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca.
Transcript

Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 142 – Axiom’s David Pierce on Talent Recruitment and Flexible Working-Models Amid Shifting Industry Expectations

With Thanksgiving falling on a Thursday this year… wait, I’m being told that it does that every year… we decided to release a panel discussion that Greg moderated with the General Counsel from McDonald’s, Fannie Mae, Western Union, and Tyson Foods. The discussion ranges from where these GCs are expanding their search for talent, to truly increasing diversity both in their outside law firms as well as looking at their own diversity ranks, to retaining talent by improving the overall structure of the workplace.
Speakers
  • Desiree Ralls-Morrison, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, McDonald’s
  • Terry Theologides, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary, Fannie Mae
  • Caroline Tsai, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, Western Union
  • Amy Tu, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary, Tyson Foods
Special thanks to Reuters Events for allowing us to share this discussion with our listeners. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

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Contact Us
Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert.
Voicemail: 713-487-7270
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com.
Music: As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca.
Transcript

Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 138 – Cultivating and Retaining the Next Generation of Legal Talent

Image [cc] CN Impressions

I read a great interview of an EVP from a major financial institution recently. It had two value points for me. The first was the international economic data he explained. He basically said everything is in place for a major expansion, except nobody seems to be paying attention. Whether that bodes

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Image [cc] Loren Zemlicka

I attended a seminar last week on process management in legal departments. Onit sponsored it and the content was quite useful.

However, beyond the value of the content on process innovation, I retrieved a golden nugget of wisdom. Bradford Power, an expert on process innovation and change, was speaking on…

Image [cc] ISCTE

I was on a call recently where a bunch of HR Directors were discussing, among other things, training new employees and providing those newer to their job or profession the skills they need to be successful.  Someone asked the question, “Does anyone have training programs in place that address this?” and one…