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

By Chuck Bingaman
<Email Chuck@ChuckBingaman.com Twitter @chuckbingaman>

#40 August 2009

Leadership Congratulations to Executive Director Paul Wood and Managing Director Jennifer Flynn of LESA—the Legal Education Society of Alberta—for their new edition of Alberta Residential Conveyancing Guide published two weeks ago as a wiki! Similar to Wikipedia.org where readers can edit the text, any registered owner of the LESA wiki volume has authority to change, correct or add to the original volume, thus starting a whole new tradition, culture, expectation, ethos, and power for the traditional CLE practice handbook. Certainly a bold experiment worth watching! And kudos again to Kimberly Hojohn and Terry Brooks of the New York State Bar Association for their new Comparison of Features of Mandatory CLE Rules as of July 2009! This complimentary volume has been a great service to the CLE community for many years! (In an unrelated development, Terry has announced that he is retiring as CLE Director for the NYSBA November 22 after 33 years at the helm in Albany…and two in New Mexico! A great career!) Finally we thank and compliment Lalla Shishkevish on her leadership in her recently completed year as President of ACLEA and welcome Kent Hopper to the chair in what promises to be an eventful year!

Management One of the most successful CLE programs in the USA takes place each June in Osage Beach, Missouri under the supervision of Dee Shepherd of the Missouri Bar: the Annual Missouri Bar Solo & Small Firm Conference. This year, with a theme of “Shake Off the Blues: Jazz Up Your Practice”, it attracted 951 registrants, 50 more than last year! “I believe that attendance was up,” says Dee, “because our members really understand the value they are getting by attending this conference—especially in light of the economy. Getting all your MCLE credits at one stop is a real bargain—particularly in the atmosphere that the Solo & Small Firm Conference offers. I also believe that having four levels of registration pricing was significant. (Early, Regular, Late, and On-Site). Each level offered a nice price incentive if registration was received before the expiration date. Early registration is about the cost of many of my one-day regular CLE seminars.” Dee says her advertising was the same as last year. “We mailed our first flyer the first week of February and the conference was in June.” The planning committee met the first time in October 2008; the second time in November 2008, and the last time in May 2009. This year’s program tracks were:

1. Substantive law

2. Practice Management

3. Technology

4. Computer Lab

5. Starting a Practice Boot Camp

6. Quality of Life

7. Ethics

8. Discussion Group

9. Trial College/Litigation

10. Hot Topics

Dee also notes “this value could never be realized without the generous support of our sponsors and exhibitors. This year we had 10 corporate sponsors, 12 law firm sponsors, 3 law school sponsors and 43 exhibitors.” Now’s a great time for many organizations to be orienting new governing board members before heavy fall course schedules begin (or spring course schedules start down in Australia and New Zealand!) New board members often know bits and pieces of your organization’s story, but they really need a thorough introduction to how CLE operates, who the key players and their responsibilities are, what expectations you have of board members, and a little history of CLE in general and your organization in particular. Sometimes it’s difficult to corral new board members for a day’s orientation, but they’ll usually thank you for it afterward. And neither you nor the board members will regret the time invested when difficult issues arise and your board’s working through challenging issues. Often newly elected officers can use the orientation session as well, and I’ve often had my incoming board chair make significant contributions to orienting new directors. Steve Yastrow, writing on Tom Peters’ blog, argues that we are in the “post customer service age” where good customer service is taken for granted and doesn’t offer an edge over competitors any longer. Rather, Yastrow suggests that the way to distinguish your company over competitors is through customer relationship building—something well beyond mere service. Any ideas? How about a Skype number for your top 500 customers to deal with you face to face? (Skype me at bing315 for a test!) Some large CLE organizations do highly detailed annual reports for their boards, customers and other stakeholders. And even publish them on their web sites. But many CLE sponsors might consider carefully done, but less elaborate, annual reports for their governing board members and their employees to highlight the past year’s successes, to build pride and understanding of the business and to point the way to the future. Key elements of a simple annual report may include…

1. Messages from the Executive Director (and maybe the Governing Board Chair): Keep them short and personal

2. The year in review: But focus on trends or events that will shape the future

3. Financials: Describe how your organization made its money, how you spent it and what that means for pay and benefits

4. Service: Explain what you've done to benefit the bar and the public

5. Looking ahead: What are your organization’s commitments and priorities for the next 12 months

6. Celebration: Highlight your successes, your best-received courses and publications, and your high performers: What did they do to get extraordinary results

Do you have a Press Section on your web site where you collect all organization press releases—and optimize ‘Web searches for information they contain? If so, Robin Wauters writing on the TechCrunch blog pleads with you to NEVER use the following hackneyed words that make most press releases sound the same: Leading/leader, best/most/largest, innovative, award-winning, cutting/bleeding edge, next-generation, strategic, synergy, and partnership. I’d add the thoroughly over used term “solution!”

Resources Need a brush-up on cross-generational communications approaches as they impact our daily work? For a terrific new take on this thorny nest of issues, see C-PSolutions.com/2009/07/cross-generational-communication-the-woman-advocate.This article by consultant Glynis Ross-Munro first appeared in “The Woman Advocate” published by the ABA Section of Litigation and will help everyone better understand the range of outlooks and communication styles out there today!   Two important adult learning conferences on tap this fall: LERN’s Annual Conference is November 19-21 in Savannah, GA. See LERN.org/conference for details. Elliott Masie’s “Learning 2009” is November 8-11 in Orlando. See Learning2009.com for details.

Meeting Your Organization's Renewal Needs

Following 20 years as Executive Director of a major American CLE organization, I now consult on CLE strategic planning, marketing, and management challenges with CLE organizations, bar associations, and law firms. This fall I will be serving as the Reporter for the ALI-ABA/ACLEA Critical Issues Summit “Equipping Our Lawyers: Law School Education, Continuing Legal Education, and Legal Practice in the 21st Century.” I welcome your inquiries on projects designed to enhance your organization’s effectiveness. You can contact me at 603-756-9268, at chuck@chuckbingaman.com, or at P.O. Box 390, Walpole, NH, USA 03068.

Past issues of this newsletter are archived at ChuckBingaman.com.