When you get right down to it, continuing legal education is about relationships. It’s about the relationships between providers and speakers; the relationships between providers and their legal communities; the relationships between speakers and attendees; and the relationships among attendees.

And, of course, it’s about education, but the best way to ensure a quality educational experience is to enlist the right speakers, attract the right attendees, and provide a forum for them to exchange information and ideas.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some CLE providers are looking to social media not as a marketing tool, but as a way to enrich and expand the reach of the relationships they have always fostered.

If those providers look to other industries for guidance, they might come to the conclusion they need something like a community manager. Community managers are becoming common, especially in large corporations. They have a role to play in those organizations. But in CLE organizations, where relationships and community have always been a part of our model, I wonder if their role might be a little different.

I’m thinking the most important role for a person who is well-versed in online communication is to empower others in the organization to use social media to enhance their existing communication tools. This is no small task, when you consider that each person in the organization has a different role and different objectives–not to mention varying levels of online competence and comfort.

Program attorneys, coordinators, editors and customer service representatives should all be as comfortable communicating with speakers and lawyers in various online communities as they are with phone and email. These are the people who have always played a role in managing their CLE community and, ideally, that doesn’t change when the community goes digital.

Or so I’ve been thinking–what do you think?

Today I stumbled upon this important piece by the President of the State Bar of California. I have to hand it to Howard B. Miller. He attacks a topic that far too many leaders of legal organizations have shied away from: students who decide to attend school using school-reported job statistics and graduate into a jobless economy with around $100,000+ in debt and without the skills needed to start their own firms… and what this means for the profession.

This is a big problem and there are many players with big stakes in the game. And nobody wants to take responsibility for it. But Mr. Miller presses forward asking (and answering):

Do we in the profession have an obligation to deal with all this — especially the State Bar of California? I think we do.

He lays out three recommendations. The first will be familiar to anyone who participated in or read the Final Report of the ALI-ABA/ACLEA Critical Issues Summit.

First, for those who will have already graduated and passed the bar exam, we need to plan on developing post-graduate and post-bar passage legal education practice courses, continuing a tradition, as in the value of apprenticeships, of the profession training its own, focusing on law practice management, the needs of clients and how to meet those needs — especially by shaping new pricing models besides the billable hour to attract clients suspicious of legal fees.

This, of course, is the recommendation most related to what we do as CLE providers. He says the market is there if the right programming is developed at the right price. But pricing is the sticky point, isn’t it? Everybody loves transitional programming until you get to the point of deciding, “Who pays?” Continuing legal education is much [much] cheaper than legal education, but it still rubs me wrong to say, “You know that education you just purchased? The one you’re now paying back at $1,000/month–at a minimum? Well, see–it doesn’t actually prepare you to be a lawyer. You still need…” And transitional programming, to be truly useful, will be intensive. Which means it might be more costly to administer. Are there organizations that can help subsidize the price? Should bar associations step up to the task?

Next:

Second, the Committee of Bar Examiners, in consultation with California-accredited as well as ABA law schools, needs to begin a serious study of what kind of tests will genuinely determine who is qualified to practice law…

…How many would want a surgeon to operate on them who had only been tested on a written exam, without seeing or operating on a patient, even in a simulation? The bar exam continues to exist as an accepted but flawed tradition, with only tangential problem solving connections to representing clients or any realistic certification of the ability to practice law.

Now you want to take away our time-honored tradition of paying BARBRI to tell us what we need to know to pass the bar?

And finally:

[W]e need to be transparent with potential lawyers about the cost and benefits of studying law. All law schools need to gather, verify and report, in consistent and specified ways, the employment record of their graduates, as well report on those who may have started, paid tuition, but never graduated.

Of course, it’s embarrassing that we don’t already require greater transparency from our law schools–that we allow them to play numbers games that would probably be deemed unethical if applied to a legal practice. There are groups that are already working on this. And I would suggest that the best way to put pressure on schools (and the American Bar Association) is for student groups, alumni groups, bar associations and lawyers to present a united front.

So who’s with Howard and me?

Should lawyers get continuing legal education credit for marketing programs? That’s certainly the push we’ve been seeing online in CLE forums, blogs, and elsewhere. And yesterday, my friend Tim Baran posted more on the topic in the wake of the news that Fordham Law School is now offering a class on law firm marketing as part of its JD program.

There is a movement underway. A growing number of people think CLE credit should be given for marketing programs. I’m not one of them.

This isn’t because I don’t think marketing is valuable. I do. But if marketing programs are so valuable, shouldn’t attorneys attend them with or without CLE credit? These programs promise to teach them how to attract more clients and, thereby, bring in more money. Why isn’t that worth the cost of admittance?

The conference industry outside of CLE is full of conferences that offer no credit at all. And yet, people still attend them. And often pay quite a bit more money to do so than many continuing legal education providers charge. The conferences offer value beyond the equivalent of a CLE affidavit–and the attendees know it.

Our well-intentioned accreditation system has trained our industry to value programs–marketing, substantive or otherwise–based on the number of credits the program offers. And I don’t think that’s good for anyone–lawyer, provider, or client.

Have you seen all the tweets about people’s favorite U.S. Supreme Court cases this week? They’re all promoting a continuing legal education program.

Each tweet included #cbftech, the hashtag for Connecticut Bar Foundation’s Technology Symposium, a free program hosted by UConn Law School. And the “tweet your favorite U.S. Supreme Court case” initiative is intended to raise awareness about the conference, which is also available via webcast.

According to program chair Daniel Schwartz:

We’ve spread the word through conventional means (ads, e-mails, mailings) but there are still many others who we think will benefit from this (particularly for those out-of-state who would like to see the webinar). Thus, we’re going to try to use the power of social media to do so.  We need your help.

They’re even doing an as-yet-unannounced prize for the best tweet. I wouldn’t want to be a judge–there have been too many good candidates. Like this one. Or this one, for the Seinfeld fans out there.

Fun idea from Daniel Schwartz and the other symposium organizers.

The Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference has been over for more than a week, but online you find that many attendees are still talking about and learning from it.

First, there have been a number of posts on the conference. Lance Godard was kind enough to collect some here.

Then you have LMA twitterers who simply won’t shut up about LMA. And that’s a good thing.

And they’ve already rolled the LinkedIn group over from 2010 to 2011.

All of this means that people are revved up for a conference that is almost a year away. How many conferences get to say that?

As a conference organizer, you might not be in control of this energy, but you can foster it. For example, I’ve heard that LMA has tapped Heather Morse-Milligan, whose voice is prominent and influential in online (and offline) legal marketing channels, for next year’s planning committee. Good move.

But you can also stand in the way–in LMA’s case, it understood the need to promote the conference online, but underestimated the importance of providing WiFi access (even for-pay access) to attendees during the conference.

That said, LMA did a whole lot right–not least of all, it had an agenda with programs worth talking about. After a great 2010 showing, I’m excited to see what they have in store for 2011. Congratulations to its planning committee and organizers.

I’m still working through some of the great ideas and information I took away from the Legal Marketing Association Conference in Denver last week. While I wasn’t able make all the sessions  (attending a conference a half a mile from your office is always trying), I enjoyed those I attended, including the opening session and panel.

During the panel, “branding” and the challenge of bringing lawyers “in line with” the firm brand was raised. This challenge is made more complex when attorneys are active in online communities. The conversation was interesting and I certainly empathize with the challenges law firms–especially large ones–face, but I couldn’t help but think the approach of trying to mold lawyers to fit the firm’s brand was bound to fail.

My first thought was that this was really a human resources issue–that your firm should be hiring people who already fit your mold. But that was immediately followed by my next thought: “How boring is a firm when every single attorney fits one standard mold?” And if you’re trying to appeal to a variety of clients, how can you really do that if clients can’t even tell the difference between Jane and John?

What if your brand were more general? “We hire great people and let them do great work.” And if Jane does jiu-jitsu in her spare time and John races motorcycles (and they talk about it–online or off), this humanizes them and differentiates them from the next people.

It follows that those activities would differentiate your organization from the next one, which means all of those little personality traits and interests have become a defining part of your brand, even if just for a certain segment of clients or customers.

It may be scary, but it’s also pretty powerful. Your people are your brand. So stop trying to define it and just let them work their magic.

I don’t have time to be writing this post right now. I should be packing up for my trip to the ACLEA (Association of Continuing Legal Education Administrators) Conference in Orlando tomorrow.

But yesterday I set our conference hashtag (#ACLEA) on the recently relaunched EventVue platform (if you’re going to or interested in the conference, be sure to check it out). And this reminded me of how great Twitter can be at events, which reminded me of a post I wrote in 2008 claiming that Twitter really hits its stride at events and conferences. I can’t find that post to save my life, but I did find this one, which happens to be even more relevant.

First, it’s the first write-up I ever did of EventVue (a company just down the road from me in Boulder) and I highlighted its Chatter function, which is now the focus of the relaunch I just mentioned.

Second, I talked about Twitter for legal conferences and yearned for the day we might get to put it to use:

I love the new features. Focusing on legal conferences, my first thought was that this would be a ways off for me. But then this from Kevin O’Keefe. If lawyers, perhaps the latest of the late-adopting crowd, are already starting to look to twitter as a serious business tool, we might not be as far off as I thought.

Finally (and this is the kicker), I got a comment from Kevin O’Keefe on lawyers and Twitter.  From Kevin:

Thanks for mentioning my take on Twitter Alli.
Though I think it’s going to take some time for a app like Twitter to make significant inroads in the legal field, I am seeing Twitter discussed more and more. Just this week at a Law Firm PR Conference in Chicago, Twitter came up on a number of occasions.

Why is all this relevant? Because Kevin will be the keynote speaker of a plenary topic on social media at the conference. And I’ll be part of the follow-up panel discussing this very topic with him.

Twitter is almost nothing like it was in May 2008 when I wrote this post. Sure, the interface has changed only slightly, but its population has exploded, which has made it harder to manage and build relationships–at least for me. But its massive growth and popularity is also the reason we’ll be talking about it this week and I can’t complain about that.

To those heading to Orlando, I’ll tweet (and see) you soon.

I have a confession to make. I don’t like “virtual events.”

I don’t know quite why I call it a confession. I just have a feeling I’m supposed to like them. People I meet who know that I have blogged about conferences, and often about how technology is reshaping them, are always surprised–perhaps even suspicious–to learn that I don’t care for their “virtual” counterpart.

First, let me say what I don’t mean by “virtual event.” I don’t mean the grassroots virtual event that sprouts thanks to engaged attendees. That type of virtual event is something to aspire to.

Nor do I include online education, like webcasting, etc., and its integration with various online social tools to improve engagement. That’s all great, too.

When I say “virtual event,” I’m talking about this:

You might recognize this as one of the booths at the Virtual LegalTech Show on November 19.

I’m not picking on LegalTech. In fact, I think LegalTech has been an industry leader when integrating the use of online tools with its legal events. Its New York conference last year was one of the first legal conferences to really take off on Twitter and it seems to always be working on new ways to engage its tech-savvy attorney market.

What I’m picking on is the “virtual” platform and its effort to simply recreate the live event in an online format. LegalTech didn’t come up with this, of course. It’s simply another online tool they’re trying out. A variety of companies offer the virtual platform, and I’ve had my eye on some of them for the last year or so, but so far I’m not buying it.

See those people milling about in the picture? I think they’re supposed to make me feel connected. Instead, they make me feel like I’m playing the Sims, only the Sims is more interactive. How about the chat box you can see on the right? When I “went to the booth,” I received some type of welcome message in a long list of other welcome messages (with occasional responses) that went something like: ‘Hi, Alli. Thanks for stopping by. Let me know if you have any questions.” This exchange might take place in real life, but here it feels like I’m back in an AOL chatroom, circa 1995. And why do I need to hear loud background noise–mimicking the sound you might hear when you walk into a bustling auditorium–to let me know when I’m in the exhibit hall? It doesn’t make me forget that I’m actually just staring at my computer.

Maybe I simply lack imagination, but I think we can educate, engage and [in the case of sponsors] market online without needing to simulate the real-life experience with features that only remind us of the limitations of online events. In many ways, the online experience isn’t inferior and when we let its form develop and stand on its own, we might even see that some things are better online.

What do you think?

I've been dreadfully delinquent and I know it. I haven't stopped caring–I've just been deciding how to refocus given my new position. What I've decided, generally, is that my posts will focus more and more on continuing legal education, rather than on events in general. After all, it's what I do. And our industry is changing–for the better, for the most part. So there is a lot to talk about.

Which brings me to today. I'm at the ACLEA conference in Salt Lake City with other CLE providers from around the state. Today is day one for me, though the conference officially started Saturday (I had the small matter of an insanely fun wedding in Chicago this weekend). I'm looking forward to learning, sharing and getting to know people from around the country who are doing what I do everyday.

Be sure to stop by Cece's PR blog to take a look at a guest post I wrote about a conference I was running that veered off track. I actually wrote it while still at my last job, but the power of "sorry" transcends time.

Here's an excerpt:

I’m in Sacramento because I organize and run legal conferences
around the country–about 24 each year. Usually, things go seamlessly
(or almost seamlessly–it’s hard to imagine a completely error-free event). Occasionally, things don’t. Today was one of those days.

Each mistake, on its own, is relatively innocuous. The conference
room is moved and is difficult to find. But people find it and life
goes on.

We notice the printer left a section out of the materials. Okay. We can get Kinkos to deliver the missing section within hours.

But then the computer dies mid-presentation, forcing a speaker to
finish without PowerPoint. Now people are starting to think, “What is
going on here?”

Indeed.

Read more…