I’m happy to be hosting this week’s blawg review, a carnival (or roundup) of recent law blog commentary. Thank you to all the bloggers, readers and others who sent in posts for my consideration. I read them all and learned a lot from them. Below, you’ll find the submissions that worked best with my chosen theme of creating successful business relationships in the law. I hope you enjoy reading the selections as much as I enjoyed putting them together. So, here we go:
Tom Collins posts on a study finding that Law Firm Clients Prefer Smiles. Apparently, smiles are contagious. As Collins points out, “What you project through your mannerisms is often what you get back from the person you’re dealing with.” Simply put, people want to deal with people who improve their day.
Reflecting on the publicized, unsavory conduct of a particular lawyer, Sheryl Sisk Schelin notes that incivility in the practice of law (and elsewhere) “always – always – has an impact on those who observe it.”
In a post evidencing the relationships fueled in the blogosphere, Tom Kane points us to The 12 Rules of Client Service authored by fellow blogger Dan Hull. The rules are excerpted from a practice guide Hull’s firm gives to its associates and paralegals. Among the relationship-oriented rules Hull imparts is “Rule Four: Deliver Legal Work That Changes the Way Clients Think About Lawyers.”
David Maister shares his take on research showing that Happiness is Relative. He observes that, for most people, happiness lies in “whether or not you have more or less than others.” It all comes down to who you’re comparing yourself to. Maister ends by questioning how we pick the groups we use as reference points in determining our happiness quotient.
In a post on client relationships titled Don’t Treat All Your Clients The Same, Michelle Golden writes that it’s okay to calibrate our service offerings to the type of client we’re engaging (very best v. good v. base line). Drawing an analogy to the airline industry, she suggests that with each step up in the client hierarchy, we can step up our level of service.
Looking at the foundation for our business connections, Anthony Cerminaro writes that our business relationships thrive when we Live Authentically by being true to who we are – to our values, passions and needs – in our work. In another post called Seven Habits of Servant Leaders, he shares his views on how leaders can create strong workplace relationships.
Also exploring leadership in the law, David Jacobson opines that law firms and their business relationships benefit from having a consigliere in the firm's top management team.
Carolyn Elefant refers us to a handy checklist that associates can use to vet the employee-law firm relationship and assess whether they’re Living in a Dead-End Job.
Offering us additional insight into the law firm-associate relationship, Nathan Koppel posts about one firm’s decision to host etiquette events (focused on table manners) for its fleet of summer associates.
Taking us from the dining table to the larger networking circuit, Bruce Allen presents his latest installment in a series of posts on Developing Face-to-Face Networking Skills. He says that it “makes a lot of sense that most of us are not getting any relationship mileage from the people we’re meeting” at networking events. Allen goes on to tell us how we can up our mileage in a few easy steps.
Taking a look at the tech side of facilitating successful business relationships, Tom Mighell introduces a discussion of Wikis for Lawyers and refers us to a radio show he recently did on the topic.
That’s the roundup for this week.
A new blawg review is published at a different law blog every Monday. You can visit Blawg Review for information about next week’s host, Enrico Schaefer, and for instructions on how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.