ALMResearchBlog

New “Success Kit” for Business Development

Not that we make a practice of promoting anyone else’s products and services, but Jim Hasset of the Legal Business Development Blog has developed the “Legal Biz Dev Success Kit,” and reviews—all positive—are popping up on a variety of sites, such as this one by Tom Kane on the Legal Marketing Blog, and this one by Kate Daisley on  Amid the Noise and Haste. A demo of  the modular course is available here. Check it out.

Lawyers Without Borders Seeks Book Donations

Sabrina Pacifici sent out this announcement on her blog Be Spacific: Lawyers Without Borders is seeking donations of law books for courts and lawyers in Albania and Liberia. The law library of the Supreme Court of Albania in the capital of Tirana, which is accessed by judges, practitioners, and law students, is seeking English-language major treatises, hornbooks, and other publications focusing on American law and legal institutions. Donations to Albania should be sent to Paramount Stamping and Welding, 1200 West 58th Street, Cleveland, OH 44102, with a marking that reads, Attention: Peter Kole–LAW BOOKS. Another donor has underwritten the costs of shipping to Albania from that address.

The organization is also seeking donations for the University of Liberia Louis Arthur Grimes Law School, as well as for judges, students, and lawyers in Liberia. In particular, complete sets of the AmJur series are requested. These include any edition of AmJur, AmJur Forms, and AmJur Trials. These donations should be sent to Mr. Ray Fallon, Fallon Moving and Storage, 800 Marshall Phelps Road, Building 3, Unit A, Windsor, CT 06095, with a marking that reads, Attention: Lawyers Without Borders, Book Donation Project, Liberia.

Litigation: Annual Boardroom Guide to Litigation in the 50 States

The American Justice Partnership/Directorship has published its Annual Board Guide to Litigation in the 50 States, noting that its raison d'etre lies in the fact that "most companies fail to accurately account for the total costs of lawsuits and underestimate the importance of a state's liability climate." The ranks states based on their "Tort Liability Index," and provides a description of the legal climate for each state, e.g. Nebraska "enjoys the top ranking for its favorable litigation climate. Its liability laws lead to fair and predictable litigation results. Nebraska law does not allow punitive damages, places limits on medical malpractice lawsuits, has a 10-year statute of repose for product liability lawsuits, and does not allow joint liability for non-economic damages. The Supreme Court is led by a rule-of-law majority and Attorney General Jon Bruning is a staunch defender of the rule of law. Nebraska's liability climate is conducive to growth and job creation."

Resource: World Competitiveness Yearbook 2007

The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2007 analyzes and ranks the ability of nations to create and maintain an environment that sustains the competitiveness of enterprises. It has been published without interruption since 1989 and ranks 55 national economies using 323 criteria. The WCY is an indispensable tool for business leaders, government and academia.

The Unique Psychological World of Lawyers

No, it’s not another lawyer joke. Findlaw posted this piece, called The Unique Psychological World of Lawyers on their site, which examines lawyer profiles, as indicated by the Myers Briggs Type Indicator  and other similar tests. Results were analyzed Martin Seligman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the founder of the school of Positive Psychology, which focuses on attributes and behaviors that produce success and happiness, has identified optimism as a critical attribute for both. 

Seligman found consistent correlations for in only one career type --  lawyering.  And the attribute?  Pessimism.  Pessimism was so highly correlated with success in lawyers that the higher the pessimism in law students, the higher their grades. Dr. Seligman points out that while pessimism is evidently a positive attribute for the practice of law, it can have profound effects on the individuals high in that quality, affecting their resilience and personal and professional relationships, for example. Other attributes that lawyers test very high in are urgency (sense of immediacy or impatience) and autonomy (prizing independence).  Attributes lawyers test particularly low in are resilience (processing feedback and recovering from defeat) and sociability (interacting with others and initiating intimate connections).

50 State Bluebook Guide

A 50 State Bluebook Guide, brought to our attention by the LawLibrarian Blogger, is available for free. This simple spreadsheet provides links to the guide for each state.

Business Development: Step by Step Guide

We don’t usually plug books (or movies, or magazine articles, or other products) unless they have something to do with ALM Media. But the author of this book, Business Development: A Step by Step Guide, Jim Hassett, writer/editor of the Legal Business Development blog, will be one of the featured panelists in the LJN web audio conference October  3^rd on Integrating and Masimizing Business Development Training: Following up on what you learned. We also don’t mind mentioning Jim’s book because it sounds like he has been getting rave reviews from many well-known marketing and business development folks around the country (see the book blurbs on Jim’s blog site).

The One Piece of Advice You Can't Sell Without

RainToday.com just released their new e-book The One Piece of Advice You Can't Sell Without, From 11 Experts on Selling Professional Services.  You can download it for free to read advice from Seth Godin, Jill Konrath, Alan Weiss, Paige Arnof-Fenn, Michael W. McLaughlin, Paul Dunay, Kieth Ferrazzi, Frank Stasiowski, Sam Reese, Larry Bodine, and Mike Schultz. Key themes that appear throughout:  trust, authenticity, listening, research, and passion.

Commemorating the Firm’s History: ALM Reprints Services

Posted by Margaret Daisley

At the beginning of the month, I wrote a blog item about archiving the firm’s history and mentioned several firms that are actively pursuing preservation efforts and a company that specializes in helping organizations preserve and archive important paperwork, photos, oral histories, film and other historical materials and turn them into beautiful commemorative pieces, such as documentaries or “coffee-table” books.

   

Twelve lashes with a wet noodle for me, as Ann Landers used to say when she fell down on the job. How could I have failed to mention the services provided by our own ALM Reprints? Especially since they have just recently launched some new services, including one in which they will bind into one lovely volume the reprints from press coverage that a firm may have received in ALM’s dozens of publications – firm profiles; attorney-authored articles; top rankings; mentions of the firm and its lawyers in newsworthy deals and suits, and so on.

      

The “reprints” division, in fact, offers numerous services besides the traditional fulfillment of reprint requests. They offer a wide variety of products (e-prints, banners and buttons, firm newsletters, plaques, trade show signage, custom publishing) and many useful services (article research, mail fulfillment, marketing packages, and permissions). Check out their web site, almreprints.com, for more information. Or call 212-545-6111.

Just Published: The Legal Intelligencer’s Law Firm Directory

This directory, published by ALM’s Philadelphia publication, The Legal Intelligencer, lists the address, phone, fax and web site information for over 2,200 law firms and nearly 4,200 key personnel throughout Pennsylvania, Delaware, and southern New Jersey. Find out more about TLI's Law Firm Directory.