I can watch old episodes of the iconic TV show The Office on Netflix all day long. In my opinion the actor Steve Carell was brilliant in his portrayal of Michael Scott – a fictional character on The Office who served as the highly dysfunctional regional manager of a paper company known as Dunder Mufflin in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

However contrary to Michael’s own belief (and his coffee mug), he definitely was not the “World’s Best Boss.” Unfortunately we seem to be reading more news reports about senior leaders in well-known organizations across the business, political, cultural, academic, non-profit and sports worlds who unfortunately act like Michael Scott and are not good people managers.

While leading technology assets like software, cloud computing, devices, data and artificial intelligence can help law firms and corporate in-house legal departments digitally transform to provide more high-impact legal services to their clients, we can never lose sight that people are still the most important asset of any legal organization. As many of us know it is often the case that employees do not leave companies, they leave managers.

All lawyers can be better leaders and people managers. Leadership and management are key competencies that are generally not taught in law school and in continuing legal education programs that many of us may attend. Even if you do attend leadership/management trainings during your career, they are still vital skills that need to be  developed and honed over time.

It is important to remember that we are ALL leaders. Here are some guiding principles for lawyers to embrace as leaders:

Ethics & Integrity Are Non-Negotiables 

Leaders are role models and must always, always, always demonstrate a high-degree of ethics and integrity in their actions. Constantly setting this tone of the importance of embracing compliance and integrity will help make them part of your team’s DNA. Look for opportunities to share lessons learned when lawyers and business people have not acted in an ethical fashion.

Learn, Learn and Learn

Lawyers need to have a “learn-it-all” mentality versus a “know-it-all” mentality when it comes to leadership and management. Be sure to learn from the great, good, mediocre and poor leadership practices demonstrated by lawyers, clients and others that you observe over time. Also learn from the less than ideal actions that you have taken in the past as a manager.  Last July I assumed a new role leading 14 outstanding lawyers and legal professionals scattered across the US and I find myself constantly learning from my team, my peers, our customers, our partners and others on how I can improve to be a more effective and impactful leader.

Provide Recognition and Say Thanks 

Look for opportunities to recognize the great work of your team and get in the habit of continually thanking them for their hard work. Such recognition can range from informing your immediate management team of their great work to highlighting their accomplishments during team meanings to providing periodic awards to offering “Kudos” via LinkedIn. Also do not forget to congratulate them on their work anniversaries.

Be Empathetic

In my experience embracing a deep sense of empathy is a necessary skill for all lawyers. Lawyers can better lead their teams by being able to appreciate, understand and identify the needs of their teammates. Do you best in trying to “walk in the shoes” of your team members.

Invest in Your Team & Serve Them

Leaders need to have a service-first mentality with their teammates and should pose this question: “How can I serve you better?” When you hire new legal talent be sure to invest the time to train them. Develop a thoughtful on-boarding plan, introduce them to key clients/members of your legal team and provide them with opportunities to shadow you and others. Over time offer your team growth opportunities via stretch projects, mentor them (and suggest other potential mentors), provide them with chances to gain visibility with senior leaders, do not play any favorites and drive an inclusive culture free from Unconscious Bias.

Promote Wellness

The legal profession is filled with long hours, pressure and the wellness of lawyers is a growing and vitally important topic. Lawyers will only be their best in the workplace if they feel their best. Always be sure to emphasize to your team that they should take excellent care of themselves, excellent care of their families, and to take the necessary time away from the workplace to vacate their minds and recharge.

Have an Eye for Great Talent

Lawyers must have the innate ability to identify and attract great talent for their organizations. Leverage your networks to find such talent, avoid constantly hiring from the same sources (e.g., Top 20 law schools), seek lawyers from diverse backgrounds and do not rely solely upon your human resources team/recruiters. While hiring great talent is an inexact science, put a premium on the so-called “soft” skills and always go with your gut intuition.

Feedback is Fabulous

Take the time to periodically provide meaningful and constructive feedback to your entire team when applicable so they can learn and grow. Do not wait to share any feedback at a certain point in time like during a future performance review session – instead provide such feedback immediately. In addition, the best leaders always asks their team for specific feedback about themselves. 

Be Clear & Transparent  

Lawyers can often be vague, verbose and ambiguous in their communications. As leaders, we need to drive greater clarity, consistency and transparency in our communications to build trust with our teams and to better enable them to provide impactful advice to our clients. In my experience, lawyers and legal professionals crave and expect a high-degree of transparency from their leaders. Lack of clarity, ambiguity and inconsistency within legal teams can lead to confused and unsatisfied clients and legal team members.

Tough Conversations & Decisions 

On occasion being a leader will require you to have difficult conversations with members of your team and making tough decisions. When needed practice your delivery of those conversations with someone that you trust and be very thoughtful yet decisive in your decision-making process. Also do not worry about whether your team will still “like” you as managing a team is not a popularity contest. If you are unable to have these conversations or make difficult  decisions then you should not be a people manager.

Generate Positive Energy & Enthusiasm 

Whether we realize it or not, the energy and enthusiasm (or lack thereof) of senior legal team leaders is highly contagious. Like CEOs and other senior business leaders, lawyers also need to be positive motivators, passionate and inspiring.

Provide Air Cover

While practicing law is not an easy, it can be easy to second-guess a lawyer’s advice on difficult issues. Be sure to have your team’s “back,” never rush to any judgment regarding your team’s performance without speaking directly with your team and having a clear understanding of the facts and constantly reinforce your support to your team.

Put the Right People in the Right Place at the Right Time

Just like a head coach in sports, a legal team leader needs to be thoughtful as to how she assembles and deploys her team of lawyers and legal professionals to have the maximum positive impact. Doing so requires a deep understanding of the strengths/growth opportunities of team members, the specific requirements of clients and the business needs of your legal organization. 

Always Be Accessible & Responsive

While we are all busy, lawyers need to make themselves readily available to their teams to set them up for success. Be sure to have periodic high-impact 1:1 meetings with your direct reports, understand their preferred modes of communicating, and never ignore your teammates (and be quick to respond to their emails) as leaders must be super responsive to their team’s needs.

Be Present

During discussions with members of your teams be sure to focus on them, make eye contact, do not be distracted, avoid multi-tasking and engage in active listening. We owe it to our team to always “be present” when we connect with them. Leading psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais has spoken and written extensively that “being present” is a key attribute of high performing teams.

Stay Humble

On occasion I have seen lawyers promoted to senior leadership positions who have let their new responsibility, power and influence “go to their heads.” While it is important for people managers to exude confidence, it is equally important to remain humble and well-grounded as a leader.

It is always a shame when lawyers and legal professionals decide to leave organizations because of their managers and leaders. Remember to always work hard to continually develop your leadership skills so that you can help build the next generation of great lawyers and legal professionals – and leaders – within your legal organization.

 

Last week I was invited to speak about LinkedIn to the legal department of a highly strategic Microsoft customer and partner. My presentation was entitled “LinkedIn and You: Increasing Your Visibility with LinkedIn.”

I love talking and writing about LinkedIn – and other social media platforms like Twitter – as they can help us establish and deepen professional relationships, build both our personal brands and the brands of our organizations and they can help us learn. LinkedIn is a highly powerful social media tool that I believe is an underutilized technology by lawyers.

Ever since Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in June 2016, LinkedIn continues to grow. Statistics indicate that there are now over 600 Million LinkedIn users, 45% of those users are in upper management, two people join LinkedIn every second and 3 Million American jobs are posted on LinkedIn every month.

When I graduated law school during the 1990s, we were still in the midst of the Third Industrial Revolution – which was led by iconic technology companies like my former employer – IBM and my current employer – Microsoft. Exchanging business cards were the primary way of initiating professional relationships during the Third Industrial Revolution. Here is a business card of mine from back in the day when I was a “baby shark” lawyer for IBM working in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in beautiful Boulder, Colorado.

While many of us still exchange business cards, we are in a new era called The Fourth Industrial Revolution.  When I meet people nowadays I usually do not provide them with my business card (in fact, I’ve been meaning to order a new batch of business cards for the last several months). Instead, I search for them via the LinkedIn app on my smartphone and I send them a request to connect on LinkedIn. In my opinion, LinkedIn is our digital business card of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

I have been a power user of LinkedIn well before the Microsoft acquisition, here is my profile and I have learned a lot (and continue to learn a lot) about LinkedIn. Here are some of my LinkedIn best practices:

Build a Thoughtful LinkedIn Profile: A key foundation of using LinkedIn is to make sure you take the time to construct a strong profile that reflects your authentic professional self. Your profile is in essence how you brand and market yourself to the business world.  Developing your profile is not a “one and done” proposition – instead it is a journey that requires frequent updating. Check out the profiles of people you admire on LinkedIn as you may be able to pick up some tips on how to structure a compelling profile.

Here are some key focus areas for your profile:

  • Profile Pictures: Please be sure to include a relatively current professional headshot of yourself as your primary photo on your profile. As an example, I would not use the dated picture above of myself flexing in a black cowboy hat as my primary photo on LinkedIn. It is worth spending a few bucks for a nice headshot of yourself by a professional photographer – and I’ve attended many legal conferences where they have someone on-site taking headshots so that may also be an option for you. In addition, since you may leverage LinkedIn for work-related purposes, do not be shy in asking your manager if your employer would be willing to reimburse you for the costs associated with your headshot. Also do not forget that LinkedIn allows you to have a secondary/background photo on your profile. I have seen a range of secondary/background photos from company logos to picturesque sceneries to uplifting quotations to other interesting pictures.
  • Headline: The headline area is right below your primary photo and name – and you have 120 characters to provide a short description of yourself via compelling keywords. Your headline is a very valuable piece of “real estate” as it occupies an important section of your profile that is one of the most visible – especially since people are often viewing profiles on their smartphones. Be sure to give special thought and attention in constructing a headline that is Twitter-like to briefly summarize you as a professional and serves to differentiate yourself. As lawyers we have a tendency to develop headlines that are somewhat boring – so figure out how your headline can really “pop” and capture the attention of a reader.
  • Summary: Your summary is basically an executive overview of yourself as a professional. In many respects a summary is similar to your professional bio. While LinkedIn limits your summary to 2,000 characters, in my opinion your summary should just be a few short paragraphs long.
  • Experience: The experience section is akin to the work experience section of a resume and should contain appropriate and accurate information pertaining to your jobs experience.
  • Education: This section is fairly straightforward to depict your education. You may also want to consider capturing any executive education-level coursework that you have completed.
  • Licenses & Certifications: Please be sure to list your various state or local bar-related licenses in this section. Also do not forget to identify any unique certifications (e.g., privacy, compliance, technical) you have obtained during your career.
  • Volunteer Experience: Most everyone appreciates people who volunteer their time to help non-profit organizations and other worthwhile causes so do not be shy in listing out those experiences in this section – and it could be a source of similar interests with other LinkedIn users.
  • Skills & Endorsements: I think this section is of limited value to LinkedIn users as your skills can be highlighted elsewhere in your profile. I also do not routinely endorse the skills of other LinkedIn users.
  • Recommendations: I remain torn about the value and importance of recommendations on LinkedIn. On the one hand they can be useful – especially for people who are interested in seeking new jobs. On the other hand, I do not think I have ever seen a negative recommendation about someone on LinkedIn since the person seeking a recommendation would not be doing so unless she/he knows that the recommender will be providing a positive recommendation.
  • Accomplishments: This is a very valuable section that is often overlooked by LinkedIn users. I am a very big advocate of adding applicable content to the “Publications” area of this section – and not just for articles, blogs, etc…that you may write but to also include your external speaking engagements, presentations and panels that you may participate in. The “Honors & Awards” area also provides an opportunity for lawyers to amplify the various honors/awards that they may have be recognized for during their careers.

LinkedIn Connections: A fundamental premise of LinkedIn is to be connected to or “linked” with other professionals for networking-related purposes. I have heard from some LinkedIn power users and recruiting professionals that LinkedIn users should strive to have at least 500+ LinkedIn connections. While I am not sure that there is any sort of magical number associated with how many LinkedIn connections you should have, LinkedIn limits users to have a maximum number of 30,000 1st-degree connections (which is a LOT of connections). While I consider myself a very active user of LinkedIn, I have almost 4,000 1st-degree connections.

  • Who to Connect With?: A question always arises as to who should you connect with? While of course that is ultimately up to you, here is a suggested list of professionals that in-house counsel may want to think about connecting with:
    • Other members of your legal department.
    • Members of your outside counsel law firms and alternative legal services providers.
    • Your internal business clients.
    • Legal counsel and business professionals representing your customers, partners, vendors and competitors.
    • Law professors, deans and other law school personnel.
    • Legal professionals focused on legal technology.
    • Legal recruiters.
    • People you meet at legal-related conferences, continuing legal education events, etc…
    • People you may volunteer with.
    • Your college and law school classmates.
    • Your friends, neighbors, parents of kids who attend the schools of your kids, etc…
    • Your relatives.
  • Personalize Your Invite: Whenever possible try to send a personalized invite to connect with someone via LinkedIn. While doing so certainly takes more effort than simply pressing the “Connect” icon in the LinkedIn App on your smartphone, sending a personalized invite will help you stand out in the eyes of the invitee, provides a warm bespoke “touch” and increases the likelihood that someone will accept your invite.

  • Find Nearby: The “Find Nearby” feature of LinkedIn is great for legal conferences, continuing legal education events, etc…as it enables us to discover other LinkedIn members that are near you.
  • Be Bold: Sometimes we may be reluctant to send invitations to professionals who are very senior in our organizations or other organizations. My advice is do not be shy in connecting with these senior leaders and make sure you personalize your invites to them.
  • Follow Others: Keep in mind that there is always the option to “follow” people on LinkedIn versus actually connecting with them. For example, I follow several people on LinkedIn who have been designated as LinkedIn “Influencers” and although I am not technically connected to them, I can see their LinkedIn activity.
  • Thoughtfully Accept Connections: I used to always blindly accept connections from other people. While I accept most of the connection requests that come my way, nowadays I have become a bit more cautious and I always check out profiles before I accept any connections. Over the past few years I’m seeing more profiles that look suspicious/stealth in nature and I have become more reluctant to connect with people who seem to just want to sell something to me. That said, as a “seasoned” lawyer who prides myself in serving as a mentor to “junior” lawyers and law students, I think it is important for senior lawyers to connect with the younger members of our profession (who quite frankly we have a lot to learn from).
  • Unfollow/Block Users: Keep in mind that connecting with someone does not mean you cannot get separated or divorced in the future. It is easy to unfollow someone (but still remain connected to that person) so that you do not see their LinkedIn activity and you can also formally block a LinkedIn user via your privacy settings.

Evangelize, Evangelize, Evangelize: LinkedIn provides us with terrific opportunities to highlight our respective organizations and to showcase our personal brands as lawyers via posting content. As you share and post content think about how such content provides value to your audience of LinkedIn connections (and their connections). The more valuable content you share, the more people will want to connect with you, the more people will like/view/comment on your posts/comments and you may soon receive formal requests to speak publicly and write – which in turn helps to increase your visibility, credentials and brand. Active evangelism via LinkedIn can help you get noticed by others in the legal industry (and even in your own legal department if you are part of a large legal department), develop relationships with professionals that you will not have met but for your LinkedIn usage and grow your professional network.

Here are some evangelism strategies:

  • Likes: Consider actively using the “thumbs up” like feature of LinkedIn – which is a quick and “low touch” way of using LinkedIn. During the course of any given day I will typically like several LinkedIn posts/comments – especially those posts by my Microsoft legal team colleagues and those posts that serve to demonstrate  Microsoft’s leadership in the technology marketplace. I have often found that by liking the posts of various LinkedIn users, many of those users may provide a form of “reciprocity” back to me by liking my own posts.
  • Comments: Consider providing a comment (or two) on posts/comments to share your opinions, demonstrate your knowledge and to keep the conversation moving forward on the topic of a particular post/comment.
  • Posts: Periodically posting content via LinkedIn is fundamental to increasing your professional visibility. I try to post information that reflects positively upon both my employer Microsoft and my own brand as a lawyer. I try to post content that I am passionate about or which may be of interest to my professional network. I will also post about external presentations that I deliver, panels that I serve on at legal industry events or articles/blogs that I write. For example, knowing that artificial intelligence is of great interest to me and one of the hottest topics in the business world nowadays, I shared this post about serving as a co-chair for a Practising Law Institute program entitled “Artificial Intelligence Law 2019” in New York City a few weeks ago. One way to measure the “impact” of your posts is to see how many views, likes and comments that you receive.
  • Be Visual: To attract more people to view your posts be visual by adding interesting pictures to your post. Take care in adding pictures that are clear, have proper lighting, are well-centered and are appropriately cropped. LinkedIn also enables you to add videos to your posts – which is another excellent way to deliver messaging to your professional network in a compelling format. While I have only posted this one video on LinkedIn when I traveled to Shanghai last November, I look forward to incorporating more videos into my posts in the near future.
  • Use @Name Feature:  When you want to recognize someone or give them a “shout out” in your posts/comments, use the @name feature to specifically reference them and their name will appear in blue highlights that then links to their LinkedIn profile. The @name feature is not limited to individuals as you can also use it for organizations. Doing so provides a nice personal touch.
  • Give Thanks: Get into the habit of thanking people that may have some association with your post and use the @name to reference them. Also if someone provides a positive comment on your post or comment be sure to like that comment and reply back to that comment with a thank you.
  • Careful Cadence: Some social media marketers may disagree with me, but I think you should develop a thoughtful frequency as to how often to post content via LinkedIn. While I do not limit myself on my likes, I do limit the amount of my comments and I typically do not formally post items more than once per week (maximum no more than twice a week). In my opinion if you post too often, people in your professional network may start to ignore you or “tune you out.” There have been a few people in my network that I stopped following as I thought they were over-posting content. In my opinion if you want to constantly post social media content then use Twitter.
  • Be Current: I also believe that when you post content it should be based on relatively current events/initiatives/information to help draw maximum attention otherwise it may be viewed as being stale and dated.
  • Be Positive: There is already so much negative energy on social media so I always try to remain positive, upbeat and complementary in my posts. I also try to avoid responding to any social media trolls that try to draw people into negative discourse.
  • Use #Hashtags: Consider using #hashtags for key trending words and phrases in your posts to help increase their visibility with others.
  • Write Articles: Since many lawyers love to write, a neat feature in LinkedIn is that it allows you to write your own articles so you can serve as your own author. A few years ago I wrote this article about the importance of taking a “Real Vacation” after spending a fantastic family vacation in spectacular Jackson Hole, Wyoming and not looking at one email and not taking one work-related call.

  • Edits to Posts/Comments: Please do not be afraid in making any mistakes in your posts/comments as they can easily be changed by you afterwards.
  • SlideShare: SlideShare is a company that was acquired by LinkedIn in 2012 and is a feature that you can use to add content in the form of PowerPoint presentations – and of course lawyers deliver many PowerPoint presentations.
  • Increase Team Morale: LinkedIn can also be used to build more “esprit de corps” on your team. When a member of my team posts content on LinkedIn, I try to support and encourage them with a like and a positive comment. LinkedIn also has a nifty feature where you can provide a “Kudos” to someone.

Learn via LinkedIn: LinkedIn offers plenty of opportunities for users to embrace the growth mindset and to learn from others as there is a wealth of information at the fingertips for all LinkedIn users.

Here are some examples:

  • Insight on LinkedIn Users: In my role I work closely with the legal and compliance professionals who represent our customers and partners. It is important for me to try to develop relationships with these professionals so I spend time reviewing their LinkedIn profiles to better understand their backgrounds, I connect with them via LinkedIn and I try to begin to develop and sustain a professional relationship with them. I also try to do the same with my business clients – and I try to like the posts of many of my more senior business clients.
  • Business Intelligence: LinkedIn is full of incredible information that is available in our news feeds. Increasingly LinkedIn has become one of my primary sources of business-related information where I can learn a lot about the technology marketplace, Microsoft, our customers, our partners and our competitors. Having this wealth of information at my immediate disposal helps me provide more high impact legal counsel to my business clients.
  • Follow LinkedIn “Influencers”: You can follow business and world leaders who are officially designated as  LinkedIn “Influencers.” For example, two LinkedIn Influencers that I closely follow are Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Microsoft President & Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith.
  • Follow Companies: LinkedIn also enables you to follow companies and other organizations. To help me embrace both a customer and partner obsession mindset in my role as a lawyer, I follow several Microsoft customers, partners and competitors on LinkedIn so that I can have visibility to the content these organizations are sharing via LinkedIn.
  • Follow #Hashtags: You can follow various #hashtag words or phrases via LinkedIn. Some of the favorite #hashtag words that I follow are #cloudcomputing, #artificialintelligence, and #digitaltransformation.    
  • LinkedIn Learning: LinkedIn Learning is an excellent resource where you can have access to world-class on-demand video courses taught by industry experts.

Miscellaneous Considerations: Here are some additional considerations to keep top of mind as you use LinkedIn:

  • Office 365 & LinkedIn Integration: LinkedIn has now been integrated with Office 365. If you are an Office 365 user (and thank you for being a Microsoft customer) consider taking advantage of features like Profile Card to build relationships and Resume Assistant.
  • LinkedIn Messaging/Email: Remember that it is very easy to send messages/emails to your connections – including composing group messages/emails.
  • Find Great Legal Talent: LinkedIn is a tremendous resource for lawyers and legal teams to help identify great legal talent.
  • Help Resources: LinkedIn has very robust and easy-to-use “Help Center” resources that can assist users in troubleshooting issues and addressing common questions. Do not be shy in leveraging those resources.
  • Cybersecurity: Make sure to be cyber aware when using LinkedIn as social media has been an area that has been increasingly targeted by cybercriminals. Embrace strong password protection practices when using LinkedIn.
  • Social Media Policies: Many organizations have policies governing social media usage by employees. Please be sure to follow those policies when using LinkedIn.
  • Legal Ethics: Many national, state, and local bar associations have legal ethics opinions, rules and guidelines in connection with a lawyer’s ethical usage of social media. Please be sure to follow these applicable opinions, rules and guidelines.
  • No Confidential Information: Never ever disclose or post any confidential information on LinkedIn.
  • Be Smart: As I like to tell my business clients, assume that whatever you convey in a digital format can find its way to the front page of The Wall Street Journal. Please embrace a similar practice when posting on LinkedIn and always “be smart” with your LinkedIn usage.

Just like any leading technology you need to use LinkedIn on a regular basis for it to have a positive impact for you. I routinely check my LinkedIn news feed first thing in the morning, during my lunch break and in the evening. Best of luck in using LinkedIn as a valuable tool to achieve more.

 

Yesterday I delivered a keynote presentation on the critically important topic of Security & Privacy at the Association of Legal Technologists Ctrl ALT Del 2019 Conference in sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. As a huge baseball fan I unfortunately just missed the opening of Spring Training in the Arizona Cactus League.

My primary message point was that in our world of rapid technology advancement that has generated and will continue to generate massive amounts of data, data privacy and data security are the big issues of our time in the technology space – especially as cybercriminals become more sophisticated, bolder and also include some nation-states.  Every company is increasing transforming into a data company and in order for all organizations to continue to earn trust with their clients and customers, we all need to be even more laser focused on data privacy and data security.

During my keynote I highlighted these “Top 20” cybersecurity best practices for ALL organizations to embrace – regardless of their size or industry:

  • Set the “Tone at the Top” for Cybersecurity: Senior leaders in all organizations need to appreciate, understand and embrace the importance of privacy and security in our data-first world so that they and their organizations can make the appropriate cybersecurity investments.
  • Get Help: As the data privacy and security landscape continues to change and grow more complex, don’t be shy in seeking out the assistance of subject matter experts.
  • Conduct a Cybersecurity Audit: If you haven’t already done so, consider having a highly reputable cybersecurity expert conduct an audit on your organization’s technology infrastructure to help identify security gaps and areas for potential vulnerabilities.
  • Focus on Data Classification: Be sure to clearly understand, classify and conduct an inventory of your organization’s different data types.
  • Develop Thoughtful Written Information Security Policies (WISPs): Develop meaningful and easy to understand WISPs for your organization – and make sure you follow them.
  • Employees & Data Access: Carefully consider which employees need to have access to certain types of more sensitive data and when they exit your organization be sure to immediately shut off their access to your company’s network and data.
  • Conduct Cybersecurity Training: Periodically deliver meaningful privacy and security training to your employees either in-person or online – but make it interesting to capture their attention.
  • Transparency: Be very proactive in communicating to your customers the specific steps that your organization takes to protect data. As an example at Microsoft we embrace this type of transparency via the Microsoft Trust Center.
  • Use Strong Passwords: It seems like we live in a password world. Make sure to avoid reusing old passwords, generate strong passwords, consider using a password manager and as technology continues to advance, we will increasing become passwords free as passwords will probably become a relic from the past.
  • Embrace Multi-Factor Authentication (“MFA”): Many cybersecurity experts agree that simply using MFA or two-factor authentication practices can go a long way to preventing cyber-related intrusions.
  • Be Careful of Phishing Attacks: Be wary of emails from financial institutions, social media sites, etc…that seem legitimate, but upon closer inspection are imposter emails that seek private information from you and which may contain malware. Microsoft Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection provides protection against phishing attempts.
  • Download Security Updates: Don’t ignore installing the latest versions of technology solutions that may contain more robust data security protections.
  • Work with Hyperscale and Trusted Cloud Services Providers: Generally speaking, large, hyperscale and trustworthy cloud services providers that operate state-of-the-art and highly secured data centers can do a much better job at protecting data than organizations who seek to secure data via their own servers in a traditional “on-premises” computing environment.
  • Conduct Careful Evaluations of Technology Providers: It’s always important to conduct thorough due diligence on the privacy and security practices of any technology provider, vendor or third party that may have access to your data.
  • Be Social & Secure: We are all spending a greater part of our day using social media so please be sure more to be cyber smart when using Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc….as social media is a key vector for cybercriminals.
  • Be Cyber Aware in Public: Leading technology increasingly enables many of us to work remotely, but when you use public WiFi, always be sure to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) and be careful not to disclose confidential information in public places.
  • Develop Your Incident Response Plans: Build a clear playbook for what to do in case your organization suffers a significant data loss incident and stress test that response plan like a fire drill.
  • Consider Acquiring Cybersecurity Insurance: Another risk-mitigation technique is to acquire cybersecurity insurance from a reputable provider – but please be sure to clearly understand the scope and limitations of any such insurance.
  • Careful Emails & Texts: Unfortunately our digital worlds may eventually be compromised at some point in time so always, always be careful with the contents of your emails and texts and assume they could one day appear on the front page of The New York Times.
  • Learn from Others: Embrace a “growth mindset” mentality in this area by understanding the lessons from companies that have endured significant data loss incidents and learn from organizations like the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), the Cloud Security Alliance, the National Cyber Security Alliance and the Microsoft Secure Blog.

All in-house counsel have a tremendous opportunity to help their organizations earn more trust with their customers by actively encouraging their organizations to embrace leading privacy and security practices.  Also a big thanks to Legaltech News for publishing an article about my keynote.

Earlier this week I had the good fortune of leaving the remnants of Chiberia for sunny Miami to spend time learning from some of the best and brightest in the data privacy space at the annual Privacy Law Salon Roundtable Event.

This was my second time attending this fantastic event, Microsoft served as a proud sponsor and since Artificial Intelligence (AI) is such a hot topic in the data privacy law arena, we were also provided the opportunity to distribute copies of Microsoft’s book entitled The Future Computed: Artificial Intelligence and its role in society. 

While I learned so much at the Roundtable and had a terrific opportunity to network with many data privacy leaders, here were my primary takeaways: (1) the Roundtable provides a great “blueprint” for the legal and compliance community on how to produce an outstanding and high-impact event; and (2) as we are well into The Fourth Industrial Revolution that has resulted in leading technologies generating massive amounts of data that can help us achieve more but which needs to be properly used and protected, data privacy considerations needs to be top of mind for all in-house counsel.

Over the past several years I have attended my share of legal and compliance industry events, seminars, continuing legal educations, etc… Some have been excellent, some have been good, some have been mediocore and some have been a waste of my time.  In my opinion the Roundtable was better than excellent and here’s some reasons why:

  • No PowerPoints: There were no traditional presentations delivered during the Roundtable. As a result, instead of only a few people talking at you, everyone was talking with each other.
  • “Off the Record” Discussions: Attendees participated in various private group discussions – approximately 20 people per group – on leading data privacy topics. Participants have the opportunity to become acquainted with each other in such a smaller setting and these discussions are based on the Chatham House Rule so people feel more comfortable actively contributing to the conversation and learning from each other.
  • Highly Skilled Facilitators: The leaders for these group discussions are leading law professors who have outstanding credibility and privacy law subject-matter expertise. They are well skilled at keeping the conversations moving forward and drawing upon the insights of the participants to generate an even more robust dialogue. In fact, when I was in law school back in the day I wish I had professors just like them.
  • Built-In Networking Time: The Roundtable agenda is smartly designed with plenty of opportunities to network both between the group discussions and during meals/refreshments.
  • Great Venue: My wife is a realtor in the Chicago-area and she is constantly reminding her clients that real estate is all about location, location and location. In order for an industry event to be successful, the location also needs to be top-notch and you can’t get much better than being in Miami during February at The Four Seasons Hotel.
  • The Attendees: The Roundtable attendees are privacy leaders from a mixture of companies, law firms, cybersecurity practices, academia and the non-profit world. I’ve been impressed with the diverse nature of the attendees and their passion for the privacy space – which also rubbed off on me. After being at the Roundtable for a few days I’m fired up about the increasing importance of data privacy in our ever-changing world and I look forward to continuing the conversation during my keynote on Security and Privacy at the ctrl-ALT-del Conference in the Arizona desert next week.

Last month in a LinkedIn blog post, Microsoft President & Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith identified privacy as a Top Ten Tech Issue for 2019. In addition, here are some trends we are seeing in the data privacy area:

  • The “Internationalization” of Data Privacy: Countries across the globe have been leading the establishment of new data privacy laws. Last May the widely anticipated and transformative General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) became effective in Europe and a few months afterwards in August Brazil enacted a new data privacy law that is GDPR-like.
  • The United States & Data Privacy: It will be interesting to see whether Congress is ready, willing and able to enact any sort of federal privacy law in the near future. Historically United States federal privacy law has been more industry focused with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA) focused on the financial services sector. In the meantime, California passed the California Consumer Privacy Act which goes into effect next year and other states are actively considering enacting their own data privacy laws.
  • Rise in Data Breaches:  Cybercriminals are becoming more and more sophisticated and as depicted in this graphic below from an article in The Economist magazine last month, data breaches in the United States continues to increase across various industry sectors:

  • It’s AI All the Time:  AI requires huge amounts of data to help train AI algorithms – and such data needs to be properly used and protected. Facial recognition technology can also present some unique challenges and late last year Microsoft published principles that it will adopt for Microsoft’s facial recognition work.
  • National Security Versus Privacy: Balancing the need for law enforcement to have access to key data in order to protect citizens in the interest of security with the data privacy rights of individuals can be very difficult. At the end of last year Australia passed a law providing law enforcement access to encrypted data.

As organizations increasingly use data to help enable their digital transformation, I believe that both understanding and keeping up to speed on the constant evolution of data privacy/cybersecurity law is an absolutely necessary and foundational skillset for all in-house lawyers – regardless of their company or their area of legal practice. As you look for more opportunities to better serve your clients and earn their trust, think about how you can “skill up” on data privacy and cybersecurity.

 

 

 

The epic Academy Award winning motion picture “The Godfather” starring Al Pacino as organized crime family leader Michael Corleone is one of my favorite movies of all time.

An iconic scene in The Godfather is when Michael informs the family’s longtime consigliere Tom Hagen (portrayed by Robert Duvall) that Tom is “out” as consigliere. Michael is brutally honest with Tom and tells him, “You’re not a wartime consigliere, Tom. Things may get rough with the move we’re trying.” Ouch.

Our clients always deserve the very best from us as lawyers. In fact, I think our clients want us to be “wartime consiglieres.” Here are some guiding principles based on the spelling of the word C-O-N-S-I-G-L-I-E-R-E on how we can all be wartime consiglieres so we can better serve our clients:

Communication

A wartime consigliere needs to be an outstanding communicator. This means effectively communicating to our clients in less legalese and breaking down complex legal issues into more easy-to-understand layperson’s terms. Wartime consiglieres also do not write lengthy memos or long emails – instead they know when to tailor their mode of communication to their client by picking up the phone, connecting in-person, using Microsoft Teams, texting, etc…and they craft emails that are no longer than the screen size of a laptop. They also excel at delivering presentations that are not long and boring – but are short and full of energy and enthusiasm.

Openness

Wartime consiglieres also pride themselves in being open, honest and transparent. They understand that the foundation of any relationship is built upon trust, are always available at anytime to their valued clients and are always open to receiving and providing meaningful feedback.

Networker

Networking and building relationships with others is part of the DNA of any wartime consigliere. She/he is a schmoozer and knows how to “work a room” in order to create, develop and maintain relationships with the right people. Wartime consiglieres also leverage technology and they use leading social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to develop meaningful relationships with clients, colleagues, partners and competitors.

Smart Risk-Taker

To be considered a wartime consigliere, a lawyer needs to constantly demonstrate excellent judgment when dispensing legal advice to clients. She/he should not focus on theoretical risk when counseling clients – but instead a wartime consigliere provides practical, easily digestible and “street smart” advice to clients. Here is a link to an article that I wrote about the art of Smart Risk-Taking.

Impact

Wartime consiglieres are viewed as business enablers and not as business inhibiters. They invest time to understand the business needs of their clients and are problems solvers who drive positive impact by proposing solutions that are aligned to these business needs. They are also skilled at measuring the impact of their work in a tangible and quantifiable fashion to help demonstrate their high-value add to their clients.

Grow

The willingness to embrace change and to stretch professionally is another important attribute of wartime consiglieres. As Winston Churchill once said, “To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.” Wartime consiglieres are “learn-it-alls” and not “know-it-alls” as they continue to adapt and grow so they can better serve their clients. The growth mindset” mentality as outlined in the book “Mindset” by Dr. Carol Dweck is embraced by wartime consiglieres.

Listener

Being an active listener is critical to the success of any wartime consigliere. Listening to your clients, asking the right questions and understanding their important needs positions wartime consiglieres to be customer obsessed and impactful problem solvers.

Inclusiveness

In order to provide more thoughtful legal counsel wartime consiglieres understand they need to consider diverse and different perspectives on a particular matter. They also recognize that diverse and inclusive teams are higher performing than teams who are less diverse and inclusive in nature.

Ethics

Embracing a non-negotiable mindset of high integrity and ethics is vital for any wartime consigliere.  They do not “cut corners” and instead they lead by example to promote a culture of compliance within their respective organizations and on behalf of their clients.

Responsiveness

Wartime consiglieres are lightning fast when responding to their clients and colleagues. Even if she/he cannot provide an immediate answer to a client’s or colleague’s request for assistance, at a minimum a wartime consigliere acknowledges receipt of the request, let’s them know that she/he is working on it and provides a realistic timeframe as to when a meaningful response can be provided.

Empathy

During an Association of Corporate Counsel – Chicago Chapter Board of Directors annual retreat I was pleased to learn via a StrengthsFinder assessment that empathy was my number one quality since being empathetic is an underrated and important attribute for all lawyers.  When providing legal counsel wartime consiglieres put themselves in the shoes of their clients. They do their best in identifying with and being empathetic to their client’s specific needs so they can offer bespoke and differentiated legal services.

Always be sure to be a wartime consigliere so you can avoid being “Tom Hagened” by your clients.