CLE Leadership & Management
Ideas, Resources, and Techniques for CLE Professionals
A periodic e-newsletter

By Chuck Bingaman - chuck@chuckbingaman.com

#26 January 2006

Leadership    Anne Mulcahy, Chairman & CEO of Xerox, was recently quoted as saying “My mantra around Xerox is to ensure that the customer is connected to everything we do. It’s why every senior leader—from our head of human resources to our general counsel—is assigned a customer account to cover.” Probably every CLE leader could also benefit from having a law firm or two to be in touch with periodically to listen to its leaders and its younger members, to listen for education wants/needs/goals, and to share that info with others in the CLE organization.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt balances daily business execution with consistent innovation management by seeing that he spends 70% of his time on Google’s core businesses, 20% on related projects, and 10% on unrelated new businesses. Would it be a useful discussion among your CLE staff to define those categories in your CLE context and to decide what percentage of their time each person should spend on them?

Management    When hiring new people, read the résumés and cover letters with care. But focus your primary attention on “behavioral interviewing”—seeking to learn how candidates handled challenging aspects of previous work and how they would handle the most important problems likely to confront then if chosen for your position. E.g. “Tell me about a time when you had a serious conflict with a subordinate and how you handled it.” “Tell me about a long and difficult project you have handled, how you dealt with problems along the way and maintained your enthusiasm and that of others working with you.” The best credentials in the world don’t matter if the candidate cannot give examples of and apply the behaviors you want in your situation.  Does your CLE enterprise have a policy for wireless devices, including cell phones? Do you simply pay submitted expenses for phones or offer employees a flat fee per month? If you want a sound investment for your money, you better have standardized devices that give you the ability to manage what you’re paying for. Cell phone use can spread quickly and ramp up expenses sharply without careful, consistent management.

Resources    It’s hardly news that online education has exploded onto the scene, but did you know that more than 150 business schools now offer online versions of their curricula? The University of Phoenix alone claims nearly 19,000 Internet-based MBA students! See www.GetEducated.com for the big picture and links to a world of resources. And see the hits you get when you Google “online law school”! With all the online CLE out there now, it seems to me that we are still behind the curve of where online professional education is going.  Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education recently added a chat feature to its web site, www.IICLE.com, powered by Liveperson. So far, IICLE tech ace Ginger Shepard says that usage is growing and has focused on customer questions related to IICLE’s web site itself. You can check out the software at www.LivePerson.com.  Speaking of live persons, would you like to be able to get to one sometimes when seeking customer service assistance? See www.paulenglish.com/ivr. English as created a long list of key words and numbers to use in common 800 number systems to escape the electronic choices and get directly to a real person.  Remember to print out your airline online boarding pass before heading to the airport for the ACLEA mid-year meeting in Tucson! May save your standing in one or two lines! Simply go to your airline’s web site and follow the directions!

Please keep in touch!  CCB

Following 20 years as Executive Director of a major American CLE organization, Chuck now consults and teaches on strategic planning, marketing, CLE executive hiring, and management challenges with CLE and other legal organizations, law firms, law schools and others. He also offers economical in-house training through conference call courses for CLE and bar association staffs. He welcomes your inquiries on projects designed to enhance your organization’s effectiveness.

You can contact him at chuck@chuckbingaman.com, at 1-603-756-9268, or at P.O. Box 390, Walpole, NH, USA 03068-0390. Past issues of this newsletter are archived at www.chuckbingaman.com.