Lawyers in Transition Seminar

I have been tweeting about the Lawyers in Transition Seminar, but I haven’t written about it here.  This seminar was created by a great group of people who worked very hard to bring it together in a short period of time.  It began with a phone call to me from a co-chair of a law practice management division of a bar association with which my organization has ties.

The call, basically, went like this:  Jennifer, can we do a course to help all the attorneys in the Philadelphia area who have found themselves unemployed or underemployed during this difficult time.  And can we focus on helping them find jobs, market themselves and learn how to open a solo practice.

I loved the idea right away and said yes.  I rarely actually work with this particular bar association, someone else in my organization does, but since I do a lot of law practice management seminars I was the logical choice, and I have a long standing relationship with one of the co-chairs of the division (the person who called me.)

The panel turned out to be a diverse mix of attorneys and other experts who focused on the exact issues my colleague wanted to cover.  What was really unique about this seminar is how much my organization subsidized it.  We offered the program at a cut rate, probably about half price, to everyone.  But to attorneys who are in transition, we offered the program for free.

This program was time-consuming but fun to plan.  The faculty were wonderful, and since I love technology I found what they had to say very interesting.  And I learned a lot about marketing yourself and handling a career.  It was extremely useful.

In addition, the course planners and I encouraged the faculty to be very positive in their presentations.  The last email I sent before the program was, please be positive, let the attendees know there good opportunities out there.  It was also one of the last things I said to them before the seminar began.  They delivered.

The energy of the faculty was wonderful.  The energy of the audience was wonderful.  The room was packed, about 200 people attended.  The Chancellor of the bar came to say a few words, which was a great start to the seminar.  At the end of the day I missed my train back home because so many people wanted to talk to the faculty I couldn’t get out of the room until a good 45 minutes after the seminar ended.  And I was absolutely thrilled about that.  People were excited, invigorated, and I believe, given a lot of hope.

This is exactly why I became involved in CLE.  To help my colleagues in the legal profession.

Thanks to those of you involved in the seminar.  You did a great job.

Thanks also to those of you who attended.  You were wonderful and responsive.

I hope very much that the 200 people who attended the program found it useful.  And I hope that when I replay the seminar around the Commonwealth, that other attorneys find it just as useful.

If you attended and have any suggestions about the seminar, please feel free to post them here, or email me.

How an idea becomes a course, part III

I have been writing this slowly, I know. I apologize.  I’ve also been trying to finish a book on Internet Research for my organization and it has been slow going there too.  But now I will return to the series on how an idea becomes a course.

When I last wrote on this issue I mentioned that the next steps included locating additional faculty, identifying the program schedule, writing marketing and so on.

The first two, locating additional faculty and identifying the program schedule can vary in order.  It just depends on how best to create the program.

1.  Locating additional faculty

This can be a difficult part of the job.  I need to find the most qualified speakers available on the subjects that I need to cover.  If I have already established the program schedule, I will most likely look for speakers for a specific topic, so when I contact each speaker, I will ask him or her will you address X topic.  And if necessary I will ask, will you write on X topic.  If I have not already established a program schedule, but I have specific faculty in mind, I’ll just let the person know the dates, general concept and ask if s/he is interested.

Faculty come from a variety of sources, similar to course planners. Of course the course planner will be a big help and that is a major part of being a course planner, locating faculty.  Again, my colleagues at my organization are extremely helpful.  Also I will research the area of law and see who seem to be top people.  I have noticed, for the most part, people know what my organization is (inside PA) and are interested in speaking and pleased to be asked.  Of course, sometimes people are busy and unable.  Recruiting faculty for a course can take a long time and it can be difficult to complete the task in time.  I try to recruit everyone before the main brochure goes out advertising the program.  But it is an ongoing process.  Also I need to find faculty for each city.  So, for example, if I have a 6 hour course, with 6 topics being offered in 3 cities, I will at least need 18 faculty.  Sometimes the course planners will travel between cities, but otherwise we do our best to stay local.  Sometimes there are exceptions.

Most of the time my staff or I do the recruiting.  Sometimes the course planners make the contact for me and then I follow up.  It depends on whether I know the person I will be recruiting, especially in the case of judges, in house counsel and non-attorneys.

2. Creating the program schedule

Creating the program schedule, in essence, means creating the program.  I, working with the course planners, need to identify the issues we will be addressing in the program.  We need to determine how long the program will be (normally between 3 and 6 hours except for telephone seminars which are normally 1 to 1.5 hours.)  Once we determine the issues and general length of the program, then we decide how long for each issue, what order, and who will be addressing (and writing) on each issue.  This is also where I will discuss with the faculty how they will be presenting, for example lecture, mock hearing, panel discussion, so on and so forth.  Many of these decisions will be made before I recruit the full faculty.

3. Advertising

If you build it they will come might work in the movies, but it definitely doesn’t work in CLE.  For attorneys to attend my programs they need to know they exist.  In creating the advertising I speak with the course planners and faculty to find out what the key factors are that should make an attorney want to attend a seminar.

Next I turn the program schedule and the information I have obtained from the faculty into the advertising. This begins with a paragraph explaining the course. Then I write “why attends” which are the reasons, specifically, an attorney might want to attend one of my programs.  If the program has been offered before I will take quotes offered from previous attendees.  Over all, my goal is to tell the attorney (a) what the program is about (b) what he or she can expect to learn from attending (b) and why he or she should choose to attend that particular program.  Of course I also need to let the potential attorney know when, where and so on.

Advertising develops over time as the program develops. The first ad might simply be a title, short paragraph and name(s) of the course planner(s). The next ad will have more detail, more faculty.  The final ads will list a complete, timed program schedule, detailed information about the program, bios for the course planners (if there is space) and other information.

We advertise mainly by direct mail.  We also have a website and send e-mail ads listing a series of courses. Some courses get an individualized email.  Word of mouth is also extremely important for us.

So there you have it.  I’ve recruited the course planners and faculty.  Planned the seminar, written the advertising.  Next I need to get the book finished and do all the little things that come along with presenting a program.

I will address these things next.

Twittering Section Day

Well, it looks like my Twitter experiment was a success.  I had 13 people registered to follow me on twitter.  The most people ever read my blog today (not that this is a huge number, but still, pretty neat) and more people might well have followed just by logging in at Twitter.  All told, it looks like there were 30-40 of you out there following my tweets about section day.

I’m very interested in any feedback.  If people thought this was useful it might be interesting to try twittering a specific course or another meeting.   Or perhaps we could find a way for attendees of programs to ask questions with twitter.  I have a bunch of ideas from this experiment and I am very curious about what you think.

Thanks to everyone who followed today.  It was a new and fun experience for me.

Jennifer

Breaking in to talk about the PBA Committee Section Day

I’ll come back to how an idea becomes a course soon, but I wanted to mention that tomorrow is the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Committee Section Day. I’ll be attending as a representative of my organization, and I have decided to try to Tweet the event. Should be an interesting experience.

Committee Section Day is an opportunity for those interested in the various PBA committees and sections to get together and talk about their plans. It is also a good time for networking, getting to know various members of the Bar, learning about potential CLE topics.  Some Committees and Sections like to do CLE programs which is where I come in. I ‘ll be at several meetings.

The first meeting I will attend is for the Solo and Small Firm Section.  I have had the pleasure of working with this group for 10 years now, I feel like I might as well be an honorary member.  They are a fun group.  I will let them know where we are in terms of the Law Practice Management and Development Institute, which is a program that the Section co-sponsors with my organization.  It sold out last year. We already have 30 people signed up and it isn’t until July, so I think it will sell out again.

Anyway, for information about Committee Section Day, please see PBA’s website at www.pabar.org.
And if you see me there, say hey!

How an idea becomes a course – Part II

Sorry for the delay in continuing this.  Off line life has a way of interfering, doesn’t it?  To continue.  Last post I was explaining how I got an idea for a course.  This post I’ll explain the next steps.

These next steps happen somewhat simultaneously, but I’ll break them up.

1.  Who will serve as course planner(s).  The course planners are the people who, as the title suggests, help me plan the course.  How much work this entails on the part of the course planner(s) varies.

• If someone gave me an idea for a course along with expressing an interest in speaking, that is obviously the first person I will look to as a potential course planner.
• Otherwise if the topic is new, I’ll conduct research to determine who would be a good choice.

Since I am in PA, I generally search for the top Pennsylvania attorneys (or experts) to help me.  If the topic is one I have done before, and the planning has gone well in the past, I will frequently look to the course planner or planners who helped me the last time I organized the program.

I will also ask other members of my organization’s staff, and other attorneys with whom I have worked previously for suggestions.

How many course planners I feel I need depends on the course, where it will be held, and the course planner him or herself.  If the course will be held both in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia (and possibly in the middle of PA as well) I generally try to have two course planners, one from the east and one from the west. Sometimes I’ll add one from the middle of the state.  Each of these planners will help me identify additional speakers for the seminar.  Other times I will just have one course planner.  And for very complex programs, for example a multi-track Institute, I might have a planning team of 4-6 attorneys.

2.  At this point I also need to determine when I will hold the seminar.  In Pennsylvania we have 3 compliance periods, but we cannot only offer programs in a deadline month.  There are various considerations.

• If the program has been held before, when was it last held.
• Is there another program that is intended to attract a similar audience around the time period I am considering?
• Is there some other conflict, internally or externally
• We hold hundreds of seminars a year, so I have to determine if a room in one of our facilities is available.
• The convenience of the faculty, especially the course planners, is, of course, crucial.
• How does the program fit in with all of the other programs I am managing? Do I have the staffing to get the course done when I want to get it done.
• And so on.

3.  Where will I hold the seminar?

• We generally hold our seminars in 3 locations where we have offices.
• But we can simulcast programs around PA (and to other locations with which we cooperate as well.)
• Some programs really only should be offered in Philadelphia because of the topic. Others only in the Harrisburg area (say something specific to the middle district) and some belong only in Pittsburgh.
• Will I  simulcast it.  Will there be interest in other parts of PA? Might some law firms be interested in the seminar.
• Should I offer a video replay later on
• Does it have good potential to be placed online after the course is over?
• Where can I find faculty?

All of these issues must be considered when determing where to offer the seminar.

4.  How should I offer the seminar?

• I can offer a seminar in traditional format, meaning lecture in a room with a live audience watching it.
• I can offer a telephone seminar on its own, or offer a telephone seminar followed by a traditional format seminar.
• I can offer a webinar, again on its own or followed by a traditional format seminar.
• Should it be in lecture format, or is there another format that would work better? For example, hypothetical situations, mock hearings, small work groups, so on and so forth.

As you can see, these three items, who, when and how, offer many options and require some consideration.  It is only after these are decided that I can begin to move into the next steps.  Locating additional faculty, forming the program schedule itself, creating marketing and so on.  I’ll address that in my next post.

How an idea becomes a course – part I

Sorry I haven’t posted for a few days.

Anyway, one of my goals is to help attorneys and other legal professionals understand how the world of not-for-profit CLE works.  I thought one thing I might explain is how an idea becomes a program, at least when I am responsible for creating one.  This will take a bit of time to explain, so I will do so in several posts over the next few days.

The first step is the idea.  An idea comes to me in a variety of ways.

• Our director of curriculum assigns it to me (along with a bunch of other seminars or as an individual topic.) Our director of curriculum manages the balancing of our courses and what the different teams are doing. He is responsible for looking over what we have done in the past, deciding what we should repeat, etc.  Since we do hundreds of courses a year, it is a lot of work.
• My own research. I get ideas from various places, I read legal and other news a lot, and of course I am very into technology, so I often think of ideas involving law and technology.
• Someone outside my organization comes to me with an idea.  Most frequently that someone is an attorney, but he or she may also be a professional of some other kind.  I have gotten calls and emails from professors, psychologists, doctors, detectives, FBI, CIA and Secret Service, Accountants (forensic and otherwise,) electronic discovery experts, other technology experts.  One of the most interesting experts I encountered was a retired FBI polygraph expert. He had been involved in Watergate and numerous other important cases.  We created a course on conducting and using polygraphs together.  Anyway, you name it, people want to speak for us.  I imagine larger organizations such as the ABA get approached even more than do attorneys at my company.  There are definite benefits to speaking for a CLE organization in terms of getting your name out in the legal world.
• Another staff member comes to me with an idea.  I get ideas from my program managers (both of whom happen to be new attorneys,) customer service, assistants, you name it.  The folks on the front line, especially customer service and registrars are in a good position to let me know what attorneys are asking for in terms of courses or books.
• A friend comes to me with an idea.  Since I am an attorney, I guess it isn’t too much of a surprise that I have friends who are attorneys.  Sometimes a friend will turn to me and say, “hey, we are getting a lot of cases on x. You should do a course.”  And sometimes I do.
• Sometimes I get ideas from random places.  Once I decided to do a seminar based on a conversation two actors had on the show sex in the city (prenups as it happened.)  Other times a random news story on local news or cnn.com will catch my attention.

Next I have to decide, who, how, when. To decide these things I have to look at a couple of issues.

I’ll address that soon.  If you happen to have an idea for a course, feel free to drop me a line.  My email address is jnfere(at)gmail.com.

Want versus need

I love technology.  Call it a weakness.  Buying a new computer is an exciting thing and I stood in line (for only an hour mind you) to purchase the iPhone 3G (I assured myself I wouldn’t have stood in line for more than an hour – but I wonder.)  So when I came to my company and noticed there were not many technology seminars (remember this was 10 years ago) I immediately started developing a technology curriculum.  I have been sorely confused over the years.  The programs have been successful, to varying extremes, but never block busters.

About 6 or 7 years ago I created a program called Information System Security. This, I thought, would be a huge success. It is crucial to keep information safe.  Everyone will come to this program.  Alas, not so much.  So I learned there is a very big difference between what I think my colleagues  need and what they think they need or rather, what they want.  CLE is actually quite similar to the entertainment industry in this way.  Each year we try to identify programs that will be both useful and successful. And each year some program will surprise us and be a “sleeper” hit.  And another program will surprise us and become a complete dud.

That is, after all, one of the reasons I created this blog. I am looking for a way to identify what it is that the legal community both wants and needs from its CLE.

Good Morning – CLE By Ear

For about two and a half years now Pennsylvania has allowed telephone seminars and tele-web seminar to qualify for CLE credit.  I was given the task of creating these seminars.  It was an interesting experience taking a product that hadn’t existed in my organization and working with others inside and outside my company to create it.

The interesting thing about telephone seminars is that though they are short, they still require a decent amount of work to put together (depending on the topic and whether it has been offered before.)  I have found, generally, that the telephone seminars that attract the most attention are those that focus on hot topics, laws recently passed, decisions of crucial import, that sort of thing.  For example, we did an extremely successful telephone seminar on the PA Right to Know Law once it passed.

The other thing I tend to use telephone seminars for is hands-on training.  Providing computer training for lawyers has always been a challenge.  It wasn’t particularly convenient to ask lawyers to come to our office, sit in front of a computer and follow along.  Especially since we could only seat about 10 or 15 people at a time.  The other issue is the size of PA. Attorneys who are not near one of our offices didn’t have a good opportunity to come by for hands-on training. Once I could present tele-web seminars I found that I had a good way to provide information on various software and online research.  The instructor is able to share his or her desktop and the attendees can follow along via an Internet connection.

Just the other day I spent about an hour on the phone (the best way to schedule telephone seminars after all) working out some of the software and Internet training we will be offering over the next few months. We will cover basic Internet research, Word and Outlook.  Also, we have decided to add a new topic, an introduction to Excel.  I have had a couple of people ask for a seminar on Excel, so I figured I would give it a try. Hopefully attorneys will find it useful.

The feedback for the seminars is good, but as always, I wonder what else I can provide, and also, how to better publicize the seminars.

Howdy

Hi there.  When I graduated law school, too many years ago to talk about, I had no idea what CLE was.  No one told me that after I finished law school I would have to continue taking courses.  And I certainly never pictured myself as one of the people who would be providing those courses.  As it turns out, working for a CLE provider is an interesting job and I have enjoyed the 10 years I have been with my employer. I have met a lot of attorneys, created a lot of seminars, designed new ways to present programs.  I have even taught a few programs myself. I have tried to create seminars that are timely and interesting. Easier said than done for the interesting, I know.  But contrary to what I am sure is popular opinion, we do try and we do want you to enjoy your experience at our programs.

I have been thinking lately that there has to be a better way.   I have to be able to make sure my courses are what my constituents (i.e. attorneys) need.  I want to make sure that the attorneys who take my seminars leave having learned something useful that they can put to work immediately.  I want to address the right topics in the right way at the right time. And I want to, as much as possible, remove the chore nature from attending a CLE program.

I want to make the seminars interesting, even fun, if I can.  So I have started a twitter.  And I have started this blog.  And I am hoping, very much, to begin a conversation with the legal community, about how we can improve CLE.

I welcome your input.