SAD Story

Yesterday on Twitter I was amused to read this exchange:

The discussion was with reference to the latest blog post by Magic Circle Minx.

It conjured up imagery of tribes of albino trainees working underground digging for gold.  Personally, I'd opt to take a day or two holiday rather than rely on my standard-issue SAD lamp, but needs must in the magic circle it seems.

It also reminded me that when I was a trainee, all I was issued with for working late was the code to set the alarm and free access to the kitchen goodie drawer.

Dotted and Spotted

I just discovered that my previous "join the dots" blog post has been spotted by Law.com's  Legal Blog Watch!  Their take on my earlier post is called: Pursuing Unrelated Interests Can Help Lawyers Connect the Dots in their Legal Careers too.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

In the Mix. Creative Law?

In my recent 22twts interview I was asked:

My advice was inspired by a quote attributed to Steve Jobs who, speaking at the Stanford University 2005 graduation ceremony, said "You can't join the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in the future".

You can find his full address here, but the point which fascinated me in this speech was that when Mr Jobs was at college, he actually dropped-out of the course allocated to him and instead chose to follow his intuition and curiosity and take up a calligraphy course of study, the learning of which bore no practical application in his life at all.  10 years later when working on the design of the first Macintosh computer, he recalled his calligraphy learnings and fed them into the creative design process which resulted in the development of the Apple Mac with its signature typefaces, typography and fonts. An example of magnificent creativity.

Simply put, the more broad your experience and interests, the more opportunities there are in your life to connect the dots and bring a fresh and creative perspective to the table.

Law is no different, and some would argue more in need of creative energy: the best patent attorneys usually have a background in science and chemistry and a passion for photography might fuel a leading copyright lawyer's quest to represent image right-holders.

For me personally, a 'mumpreneur' moment during my maternity leave back in 2005 led me to develop and optimise a website for pregnant women.  What is this to do with your legal blog, I hear you ask?

Well, 3 years later I found myself interviewing for the position of in-house lawyer at a digital marketing company quietly confident that I knew, more than any other candidate, my SEO from my PPC, and my back-links from my HTML.  What's more,  my experience during an 'off-track' year as a PSL responsible for training lawyers in a commercial law firm, rather than practicing law with them, continues to feed into that element of my present job responsible for managing the Training & Development at my company.  It all adds up.

In my view, its easy for lawyers to pigeon-hole themselves as specialists, one trick legal ponies; but I'd like to challenge your  specialism and encourage you to take your legal wisdom, add a pinch of a personal interest and pour out a creative contribution to your workplace.

Branded Part 5: Take a Look at Facebook

A tweet caught my eye today, "What's the next big thing in social media for lawyers?". Samantha Collier's blog, Social Media for Law Firms, claims the answer is now Facebook because ultimately "everyone under the sun now finds you on Facebook".

I know some professionals will balk at the idea but I'm inclined to agree with Samantha, not least because of Facebook's powerful search-engine like presence, although my view is that she is way ahead of the curve here; a lot of lawyers I know aren't even on Facebook personally yet and a few more have just the one solitary connection on Linked In.  

However, a quick search on Facebook will reveal that there are already a modest number of "solicitors" and "law firms" with a professional Facebook presence and, indeed, a fan base.

But this blog isn't about law firms, its about in-house lawyers.  A quick Facebook search against "in house lawyer" revealed:

For the avoidance of doubt, this is not me.

Sensing competition, I have upped my social media strategy game.  This is me (note the all important capitalised 'H' in 'House'):

So there it is, the start of what will no doubt be the blog-post, "5 Reasons In-house Lawyers should use Facebook". Until then.

Turn On, Tune In, Tweet Out

If you turned on Twitter on Thursday evening, and tuned into the #22twts hashtag, you'll have seen me tweet out.

#22twts is the inspiration of Lance Godard (of the The Godard Group) and comprises a weekly live Twitter interview of tweeting lawyers "helping them to tell their stories one tweet at a time".

I was Lance's first in-house interviewee, and I was slightly nervous to begin, but the experience was great fun and I'd thoroughly recommend that any lawyer using Twitter contacts Lance if they'd like to feature on #22twts.

The transcript of my interview appears on www.22tweets.com.

Guardian Angel

This is an example of how Twitter can "do something for you" very simply and very quickly.

Last week I saw this tweet:

I responded with this tweet:

And this one:

Next thing I saw this tweet:

And this article in The Guardian referencing my tweet:

People talked about it:

And nice people said nice things:

Simple.

Privileged Position

I've always viewed working in-house as a privilege; that a company trusts one individual to be their primary source of leagl advice and cousel is a compliment in my book.

But now it appears that working in-house may be a less privileged role.  In the strictly legal sense.  The decision by the ECJ last week in Akzo Nobel vCommission means that legal privilege does not attach to advice provided by an in-house lawyer to their client/employer in EU competition law matters.

Swings and roundabouts.  On the back of the decision, it was indeed an honour and a privilege for me to be asked by the Solicitors Journal to pen an article providing an in-house perspective of this decision.  My article and views are here.

Branded Part 4: It's Lawyering, but not as we know it

Well, things are finally starting to move forward on the personal brand quest front.  I was delighted to speak with Legal Week recently in relation to a peice which they're writing on Tweeting Lawyers (I'll link to the piece once t goes live); I have an interview lined up for late September with 22Twts (a real time Twitter interview which asks 22 questions of tweeting lawyers, and  I have the honour of being their first interview of an in-house lawyer), and finally I have myself a press deadline (scary) as I've been asked to provide an opinion piece for the Solicitors Journal on the recent Akzo Nobel case decison on privilege and the in-house lawyer.

It's lawyering,  but not as we know it.

The Hub's got the Goods

One of the more interesting feeds in my daily RSS stream today pointed me in the direction of the OFT's website.  The OFT website is one of the Government websites which I do tend to frequent more than others as so much of the OFT's work affects business (what with its myriad of Codes of Conduct, protection and enforcement work and competition regulation), but also business can affect the OFT's work as well (such as by contributing to their industry focussed consultations).

The reason for my visit to the website today though was to take a look at its online Hub launched to help retailers comply with the Sale of Goods Act (SGA).  Like most legislation, the SGA isn't the most riveting of reads, as you can see here:

But the good old Hub has made it a much more user-friendly read, thus:

The Hub includes an at a glance flowchart, download area, case studies and even a quick quiz should the mood take you!

One of the many tasks of the in-house lawyer is to simplify legal concepts and make them less of an obstacle for business; the Hub is a terrific example of how lawyers can use technology creatively to achieve that goal.

5 Reasons for In-House Counsel to use Linked In

In the style of the popular 5 Reasons for In-house Counsel to use Twitter, and having noticed that I'm spending more time using Linked In lately, it seemed only right and proper to set out my 5 reasons for in-house counsel to use Linked In:

1.  In Branded I discussed the benefits to all lawyers of creating a personal brand online.  Linked In is a credible, professional online network which is designed to provide you with the the tools to establish your online professional persona quickly and simply on a canvas which Twitter and, say, Facebook can't provide:

• Your Linked In profile page acts as an online CV
• The profiles of those who you are connected with are stored in an easily-searchable Contacts list
• Links to your website, blog and Twitter account can be easily incorporated into your profile page to showcase your wider online presence
• Status updates, activity timelines, group links and recommendations showcase your business impact

2. Linked In is the place to formally cement any professional connections which you've made fleetingly in the online or offline world, particularly those connections from Twitter!  Linked In also provides access to a wider network of like-minded in-house lawyers and other professionals who you might not necessarily use the other social media networks which you also do.

3. Linked In groups offer you a members-only style form for you to connect with other in-house professionals.  To get you started, here are a selection of Linked In groups focussed on in-house lawyers:

• In House Legal
• Legal Week: In-house lawyers group
• The Lawyer: In-house Hub
• Law Department Management

4. Linked In groups provide you with the opportunity to, not only connect with other in-house counsel, but to also learn from, join in and create discussions on your group's specialist subject area.  Members of groups share information resources, survey data and pose questions on topics of interest, and if you choose to subscribe to your group's email update (on a daily or weekly basis) all of that valuable information and discussion-based material can be delivered direct to your in-box.

5. Lawyers are one of the professions which are traditionally dragged into technology. My real-life contacts from law firms are under-represented on Linked In and, those law firm contacts who are there, have the least active profiles.  As in-house counsel, I like to think we're more connected with the way the rest of business uses technology and we should prove to the professional community that lawyers can have a social (networking) life too!

And, if you're a lawyer who does embrace technology, Linked In is one of the venues where you'll come across other tech-savvy lawyers.

I'll see you on Linked In then: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/melaniejhatton