Continuing Legal Education Today : MCLE for Attorneys & Legal Professionals : Faith Pincus : Pincus Professional Education : Continuing Legal Education (CLE), Public Speaking

Ok, I admit it.  

Today I launched my blog, so I'm a bit more excited than usual and a bit more socially active than usual. Social networking active that is. 

Not that I don't have Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In open on a daily basis, it's just that I don't always look at them. It takes so much time... whine whine...

Anyway, today I am excited. And today I saw a post at legalinformatics about CLE and Social Networks that got me even more exicted.

Legalinformatics Blog mentions that:

Of particular note in recent months is the use of social networks by CLE providers. Many CLE services and content creators are using social media to market their programs and connect with lawyers and other customers.

Yes, that is true. Though this has actually been going on for a bit more than recent months. I think I met the handsome Tim Baran of uMCLE (@umcle) via twitter pretty early in 2009. And I've been staying in touch with Association for Continuing Legal Education (ACLEA , #aclea) members Mark Rosch (internet for lawyers @MarkRosch ) and Sean Carter (professional CLE speaker, @lawhumorist) via twitter instead of email, for the most part, for almost least a year. 

All three of these CLE related folks have been posting CLE announcements, interesting legal news tidbits and connecting with folks for much longer than I have, and I've been at it since Christmas 2008.

Many of my competitors have been posting announcements about their upcoming CLE seminars on twitter for quite some time as well, though I have to admit that just posting your own CLE seminar announcements on your twitter account gets a bit boring for your followers. 

Me, I haven't quite gotten into the swing of that form of twitter posting - yet. I still abide by the "provide value, don't just advertise" twitter manners mantra found on Mashable and elsewhere.  And I can't point to a single customer I have gotten via twitter - yet.  But I have made some great CLE contacts!

Some of my speakers have posted upcoming CLE events on Linked-In and Facebook (for example, see Nikki Mehrpoo Jacobson's linked-in post about an Pincus upcoming immigration CLE and Vickie Pynchon of www.negotiationlawblog.com @vpynchon). 

And while I haven't met him yet, @Richards1000, a law librarian in PA, posts about upcoming CLE all the time.

But what is most interesting about Social Networking and CLE is... 

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I recently read a couple of posts at Above The Law detailing the drastic reduction in average billable hours for associates in 2009.

Their survey  showed average associate billing for 2009 at less than 1600 hours (no surprises there).  The pithy follow up post by Kashmir Hill discusses what's left for associates to do (besides Facebook and Mafia Wars) - she's pretty funny actually.

Suggestions provided by legal recruiter Dan Binstock, include:

• Write articles.

• Write speeches and present at conferences.

• Help partners with business development.

Write articles, speeches and present at conferences really should just be one big bullet point. This list is missing: hone your skills and increase your knowledge base.  But I'll get to that in another post.

My focus in this post is on Dan's second suggestion: create presentations and speak at CLE conferences.

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When it comes to an attorney creating a CLE program, or any presentation, there is a right way and a wrong way to speak and teach. The right way: focus on the intended audience.

Who are they? What do they want? What’s in it for them? 

Good speakers - CLE or otherwise - tailor their presentations to their audience - no matter how many times they have given it. 

Speakers on auto-dial are the ones who phone it in. They may be top notch litigators or corporate attorneys at the peak of their game, but unless they tailor their presentation to the audience at hand, it just doesn’t matter.  It does not cut it to whip out an old, tried and true Power Point and try to make it fit with the program theme.  I've seen quite a few speakers do this and they may get through the presentation unscathed, but they do not make a great over all impression with their audience.

One of the fundamental rules of public speaking is that it is about your audience, not you. Meet their needs, and do it in a logical, and hopefully, somewhat entertaining fashion and you’re good to go.

In the CLE context you can find out from the provider who is attending, who is the typical audience, or get the registration list and have your assistant google them. You can ask the provider to send a short survey to the attendees to better tailor your program.

And for peet’s sake – when you get to the CLE the day of the event – mingle with the audience before the program starts. Introduce yourself. Ask attendees about their practice. Ask them why they are attending, if they have any particular concerns. 

Don’t just go sit up on the dias and flip through your notes for 20 minutes until the program starts. Use the pre-speech time as an opportunity to:

1. Get to know your audience personally and better
2. Network
3. Make any last minute adjustments to your presentation based on the feedback you get

Remember, it’s always about your audience.

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Why start my first blog entry with this particular line, which borrows James Carville’s famous sound bite from Clinton’s first race (the first Clinton that is)?  Because it matters. 

This particular blog entry is aimed at litigators, but frankly the message applies to everyone, as is painfully and articulately made clear in Carolyn Elefant's post on trust and blogging.

Here’s the deal. I’ve talk to a lot of judges and justices over the last six years, as well as their staff attorneys, and I have listened to a few hundred of them speak. And if there is one over-riding theme, one predominant pattern, one universal truth they all seem to communicate, it’s this: it’s about your credibility.

Yep. “It’s about your credibility.”

Every time I sit through a CLE program or watch an oral argument, I promise myself I will write an article along these lines for some legal journal. And of course, I never do. So instead of a lengthy article, here’s my blog post.

What does it mean?

It means, for litigators at least, that when you practice law, when you are in the court room, when you write that brief, every time the court has any contact with you what-so-ever:  your actions affect your credibility, your credibility effects your reputation, and your reputation affects your success. 

If you have a good reputation, a clean reputation – i.e. you are credible, you aren’t known for misstating the facts or the case law, or for trying to pull a fast one on the court or your opponent – the court will generally cut you some slack if slack needs to be cut. 

The court will generally believe your case cites, instead of triple checking every single thing you write or say. 

The court will be more inclined to believe the reasons you have for needing an extension or changing a hearing date. 

In other words, the court will work with you.

Why does it matter?

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