I have always considered myself an introvert. I always admire those individuals who show no restraint as their laughter booms across the room, or who talk excitedly to someone they have just met. But, alas, that has never been me. As such, I struggled, particularly early on in my legal career, to connect with the colleagues and mentors all lawyers need to advance and succeed in their career. Through trial and error, I learned how to find the right ones to connect with who could mentor me, either formally or informally. To my delight, it turns out there are many ways to find mentorship and help from fellow lawyers.

How do you manage a post-speech chat with someone who chooses to tell you how the problem you spoke about affects their company, and convert it into a solid opportunity? Last month, I showed you how to greet and interact with the group of people who approach you after a speech. Your goal being to have a few words with each of them, but graciously keep them moving. More importantly, you learned how to shift that conversation to a better time and venue where you could conduct a proper sales investigation. So how do you develop those opportunities?

If you are like most lawyers, you spend more time worrying about where your next client will come from than you’d like. It’s natural. Even the busiest, most successful lawyers work hard at marketing and business development — they just make it look easy. But, back to “worrying” about it ... here are a few key ideas about business development to remember.

It’s only been about six weeks since you made your New Year’s resolutions. Perhaps you are doing great. Perhaps your motivation is waning. Or maybe you're just not as far along as you'd planned. Wherever you stand in relation to your resolutions, here are five ways to get back on track toward achieving your goals in 2017.

From entrepreneur to working lawyer and back again, Abdi Shayesteh (sha-YES–tay) has never lost the urge to start and run businesses. After 14 years in corporate, bank regulatory and financial transactions law, Shayesteh chose to act on a pain point many lawyers experience: the need to talk to specialists when you need their expertise. He set up AltaClaro Inc. to make that expertise easier to come by.

Cybercriminals tend to target industries that are the most dependent on the timely availability and strict confidentiality of their business-critical information. This means law firms are at high risk. With both on-site and cloud-based data storage, it's increasingly important to protect clients' sensitive case information against these threats.

Ever wonder how successful entrepreneurs find the courage to place bets that may or may not pay off? Mark Britton, founder and CEO of Avvo, recently spoke with serial entrepreneur Tom Breitling, a founding partner of Travelscape and former owner of the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas. Placing bets in business is a topic Breitling knows well.

When your brain knows just the right word, you can be more concise. And sometimes you can slip in the verbal dagger without the victim understanding what you’ve done.

Last fall, when I learned ALM Media had expanded the Legal Tech conference for 2017 to include a small firm focus, I was intrigued. During the newly branded Legalweek small firm track last week, hosted by How to Manage a Small Law Firm (HTM), topics included marketing, technology, metrics and hiring, as well as the challenges […]

On a recent call with my business mastermind group, one of the members shared how quickly he was able to overcome a challenge in his company by tapping into his network for suggestions. He summed up the process with, “Your network is your net worth.” He’s absolutely right — success doesn’t happen in a vacuum.