Location / Room: TBD

As Administrators, HR professionals and managers, we’ve all said it more than we care to admit: “Ugh. My employees! I would write a book, but who would believe these stories are true?” Unfortunately, many of the tales are far too real! Well, Helga is back to talk through some new and even more complicated issues confronting the law firm workplace. While it is not clear exactly what Helga will confront at this year’s conference, there has been a lot of attention paid lately to substance abuse testing in light of the new cannabis laws, the rebound effects of the #metoo movement and other cutting edge concerns. This fast-paced session will focus on uncommon HR issues and examine practical, business-focused solutions that you can use immediately to solve those problems.

Michael Cohen, Esq.
Partner
Duane Morris LLP

Location / Room: TBD

Changing market conditions, generational differences impacting hiring and retention, the use of technology to communicate, collaborate and process information. Last year, the ALA Large Firm Administrators Caucus participated in a two-day future-casting intensive to address these and other big issues facing law firms. In this session, you’ll hear the results and uncover practical strategies you can put in place now to start to minimize the impact in your firm.

Attend and you’ll:

• Learn the 10 critical path issues facing law firms
• Participate in an interactive crowdsourcing exercise to build on the Caucus’ work in four priority areas:
  • Talent Retention and Development
  • Change Management
  • Technology Implementation and Innovation
  • Compensation
• Identify practical strategies you can use to advance conversations at your firm

Debra Baker
Managing Director
GrowthPlay

Frederick B. O’Malley
Chief Operating Officer
Shutts & Bowen LLP

Location / Room: TBD

When rolling out a new information governance (IG) program or legal technology project, you’re bound to generate apprehension, angst and fear. You need to ask: “How can we — as project champions — add empathy as a line item to be addressed within the information governance requirements checklist to ensure a successful project outcome for all?” You’ll learn a novel and empathetic approach to working with clients that will help you tackle your technology implementation and IG challenges. Discover how to improve both your technical requirements gathering and your user participation/adoption processes simply by incorporating a kinder and gentler approach to your change management.

Attend and you’ll:

• Learn how to identify and enlist project champions
• Develop strategies to include all employees and ensure adoption
• Make marketing moments to promote the success of the project deployment
• Ensure that requirements and processes remain on track
• Explore a proactive

Ann E. Gorr, IGP
Legal Technology Consultant
Ann Gorr, LLC

Location / Room: TBD

LawVision and Iridium Technology teamed up to conduct the “Biggest Law Firm Profitability Survey Ever”! The survey included more than 60 questions covering both strategic topics and the “nuts and bolts” of law firm profitability. With more than 100 participants, the survey provided a great data set for deep analysis. In this session, you’ll hear the key findings regarding law firm use of profitability metrics, data transparency and report distribution. In addition, you’ll learn the responses to the nuts and bolts questions about how firms are calculating profitability, designing allocations and running multiple scenarios for profitability analysis.

Attend and you’ll:

• Delve into how widely firms are distributing profitability results and what tools they are using
• Recognize factors preventing law firms from getting wider acceptance of managing to increase profitability
• Identify best practice strategies for reporting on the profitability of all slices of firm data, including partner, working attorney, department and client/matter
• Gain insights into profitability calculations, such as the most popular allocation methods and common exceptions, and how to handle partner compensation in the calculations

Tom Jones
CEO/President
Iridium Technology

Mark Medice, Esq., MBA
Principal
LawVision

Location / Room: TBD

Thinking about taking the spring Certified Legal Manager (CLM)® exam? Don’t procrastinate. Regardless of where you are in your career, certification adds a valuable dimension to your professional development. This session is for you, whether you’re beginning the application process or you just want a better idea of what to expect.

Join the Greater Chicago Chapter’s CLM Study Group for their Financial Review Session in preparation for the next exam and gain a broad overview of financial terms and processes that every legal manager should know.

Attend and you’ll:

• Gain a general understanding of the overall financial management of a law firm
• Understand the content and materials you’ll need to study to successfully pass the CLM exam as it relates to the finance section
• Learn general accounting terms and procedures used in law firms
• Appreciate the importance of financial information and analysis, including how it is used and why

Michael D. Hill, CPA
Controller
Gould & Ratner LLP

Location / Room: TBD

Data-driven management is becoming the norm across sectors. Leaders are looking for actionable business intelligence insights to make the right decisions at the right time. Firms that replace gut instincts and suspicions with metrics and measurements will quickly gain a strategic advantage as they measure and showcase efficiency and top- and bottom-line contribution. How can you take your law firm through the journey of becoming a data-driven business? In this session, you’ll address data governance, people, process and technology aspects. You’ll leave with a clear strategy on how to become a data-driven business.

Attend and you’ll:

• Discuss key challenges to consider before your firm starts the journey and how to build the business case for change
• Assess the components of a data-driven culture: access, use and thinking
• Establish a roadmap that includes the right starting point for creating a culture of innovation and improvement with the right data insights

Pedro Campos
Chief Executive Officer and Founder
Opex Legal – Operational Excellence for the Legal Sector

Location / Room: TBD

Gain insights and tips to help you integrate complementary marketing, public relations and business development tactics into a business development plan. In this session, you’ll set a course of action that offers effective tactics and time frames to increase visibility, promote thought leadership and grow awareness of your firm, practice group and individual attorneys.

Attend and you’ll:

• Discover why communication tactics work better together
• Break down communication silos for better sale results
• Learn the nuts and bolts of an integrated business development plan
• Uncover public relations tactics that enhance business development activities
• Delve into messaging for communicating the value of an integrated business development plan to leadership

Terry M. Isner
Chief Executive Officer/Owner
Jaffe

Location / Room: TBD

Location / Room: TBD

Broaden your firm’s perspective on differently abled employees. Your law firm will soon compete most effectively by leveraging the unique capabilities of employees carrying a “dis” label — as in disabled. While the legal industry will one day hone recruiting strategies for neurodiverse profiles, firm leaders and human resource professionals must recognize that such labeled people are already on your payroll.

Attend and you’ll:

• Learn what neurodiversity is and its remarkable competitive advantages
• Identify current employees and/or encourage employees to self-identify
• Recognize lessons learned from other industries, including recruiting and work environment tips to target and retain neurodiverse hires

John D. Bowers
Chief Operating Officer
Patterson IP Law

M. Suzanne Hartness
Chief Operating Officer
GSRM Law

Location / Room: TBD

The new challenges of the industry have brought about structural changes in the law firm business management model. New challenges and complexities are driving change in the set of skills and abilities required for non-lawyer professional managers and leaders. Historically, these positions tended to be more focused on functional implementation, but now they are increasingly becoming relied upon to lead and drive strategy. your firm.

This panel of Executive Directors and Chief Operating Officers will discuss:

• The emerging roles and expectations of the new C-suite
• Levels of skill and expertise sought to lead these new innovative roles
• How effective are they in driving change

Michael C. Blanchard
Managing Director, Law Firm Advisory Team
Aon

Denise A. Harris
Chief Administrative Officer
Russo & Toner, LLP

Robert K. Burger
Chief Operating Officer
Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox PLLC

George J. Wolf, Jr.
Managing Director, Law Firm Advisory Team
Aon

Location / Room: TBD

Now more than ever, law firms must realize that clients are no longer just talking about inclusion and diversity — they are putting their money where their mouth is. Both public and private clients are requiring that firms, attorneys and staff assigned to their matters be more diverse. You’ll gain a new perspective on zero tolerance and how it results in the loss of both potentially longstanding clients and good and valuable employees.

Attend and you’ll:

• Learn about client inclusion and diversity demands— including staffing requirements on matters and the effect on the law firm as a whole
• Take away tips on how to change hiring and promotion practices to effect real change
• Participate in a workshop on drafting a diversity and inclusion (D&I) statement
• Gain other resources and tools to respond to client inclusion and diversity initiatives
• Examine how to implement and utilize D&I committees and employee resource groups to enhance your initiatives

Jessica Mazzeo
Chief Operating Officer
Griesing Law LLC

Michael G. Stephens, PHR, SHRM-CP
Director of Human Resources and Diversity
Alston & Bird LLP

Location / Room: TBD

Sexual harassment and assault, #MeToo, lawyer suicides, depression, anxiety: How often do we consider what happens to individuals who experience a traumatic or stressful event? In this session, you’ll examine behavioral response to stressful incidents or crises and what actually happens in the brain. You’ll break it down into psychological stages that help to explain why individuals react in certain ways as they experience trauma. This session will help those involved in crisis management, incident response and crisis communication understand the human factor in a crisis and prepare your firm, lawyers and staff for situations that could affect your reputation.

Attend and you’ll:

• Examine factors that can affect a firm’s reputation
• Identify the types of exercises and training that prepare law firms and crisis management teams to ensure the safety of all
• Learn how to create an incident response and crisis communication plan and
  thorough policies and procedures to address any situation that may arise

Kathryn N. Scourby, CBCP
Principal
KNS Consulting

Location / Room: TBD

Technological advances continue to create an unparalleled array of third-party vendors you must work with to accomplish both business development and matter management goals. In this session, you’ll explore how providing access to your firm’s files, digital marketing channels and other data creates risks and surprisingly serious ethical issues. This session will cover recent ABA Model Rules changes, which rules are most often involved when working with third-party vendors, examples of real-life dilemmas and tips for avoiding ethical landmines.

Attend and you’ll:

• Learn about the types of vendors lawyers work with and their roles
• Identify important questions to ask vendors during the hiring process
• Find out how to ensure outsourced vendors comply with attorney ethics rules
• Assess which items and what access vendors will need to be successful
• Discover how to provide helpful feedback to optimize the working relationship

Stacey Burke, Esq.
Attorney/Owner
Stacey E. Burke, P.C.

Location / Room: TBD

“Do I use who or whom?” “Should there be a comma here?” “Did I catch all the typos?” Don’t let these distressing questions keep you awake at night. In this lighthearted yet usefully informative session, you will boost your writing confidence as we navigate the fascinating world of grammar, punctuation, and proofreading.

Attend and you’ll:

• Understand the grammar review (including: “who vs. whom” and “infinitives: to split, or not to split”)
• Learn about punctuation (the $5 million comma)
• Discover proofreading basics (you are smarter than spell-check)

Gretchen Luessenheide
Regional Office Operations Manager
Fredrikson & Byron P.A.

Location / Room: TBD

Location / Room: TBD

Hiring the best applicant is imperative in law firms and doing so without creating a legal liability is essential. In today’s demanding environment, it is necessary to take the time upfront to do things right. Learn how! This session will focus on what you, as Administrators, HR professionals and managers, can and cannot do during the hiring process.

It will examine the entire hiring process, including:

1. Taking appropriate precautions even before the first interview is conducted;
2. Avoiding unlawful questions during the interview;
3. Documenting the decision-making process.

The use of behavioral interviewing, the dangers associated with the use of social networking websites, proper documentation and other necessary pre-offer recruitment techniques will be discussed during this session.

Michael Cohen, Esq.
Partner
Duane Morris LLP

Location / Room: TBD

According to research, 70% of first-generation firms do not survive their founding partners. And only 31% of law firms have a formal succession planning process. Learn how one firm founded in 1969 has managed to navigate the future in a highly competitive and relatively small marketplace and was awarded in 2019 by clients with a quality satisfaction index of 5/5.

Attend and you’ll:

• View succession as part of strategic planning
• Address the key elements for the client’s relationship transition in a culture of excellence
• Look at mentoring programs and how to implement them in a multi-generational environment
• Understand the fundamentals of successfully managing knowledge and change management
• Recognize the importance of written policies and procedures

Angelina Angelov, CLM, MBA
Office Manager
Russin, Vecchi & Heredia Bonetti

Location / Room: TBD

Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter described strategy as “deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value.” Strategic thinking skills aren’t utilized as frequently as others, providing a challenge in advancing them and understanding how and when to bring them forward. Law firms are embracing the need for strategic planning as a differentiator in a competitive marketplace, and as a result, professionals who advance this skill are more valuable – in their firms and the marketplace. In this session we will break down the fundamentals of strategic thinking and discuss how to practice and play with these skills to advance you, and your firm.

Attend and you’ll:

• Understand divergent and convergent thinking, and how to move between them
• Differentiate strategic and conventional thinking, and how apply each
• Explore how to elevate strategic thinking in your firm

Judy Hissong, CLM, PCC
President
Nesso Strategies

Location / Room: TBD

Are you leveraging the digital tools at your fingertips? Application software and social media abounds in today’s legal industry. How do you make sense of it all and use these tools to work smarter? This session will introduce several lawrelated and not-so-law-related apps and social media tools that will help bring your firm (and task list) into 2020. While ideal for administrators of small- to mediumsized firms, the insights gained will be relevant for any administrator interested in how apps and social media can provide an edge.

Attend and you’ll:

• Uncover the “hidden gems” you aren’t using (but already have in your toolkit)
• Take the first steps to implementing a new app
• Evaluate five apps to help you increase efficiency at your desk
• Understand how social media is more than a marketing tool for law firms

Anna Cates Williams
Executive Director
Walker Lambe, PLLC

Location / Room: TBD

We have all been told how artificial intelligence (AI) will change law in the future. Hopes are high, but unfortunately, details are light. We are left to ruminate on an uncertain future, shifting dichotomously between the cataclysmic (with robots running the world, we all will be out of work) to the faddish (anyone remember Google Glass?). What is hype and what is reality? This session will lay out precisely what AI means in practice. You will hear practitioners using AI explore practical applications of the technology in today’s legal market. You will learn the future applications they are developing to fully exploit this robust, new technology.

Attend and you’ll:

• Learn how AI works in its simplest form and why there is so much hope for its future
• Understand ways AI has already improved legal practice, running largely in the background
• Discover how AI eliminates the routine through prediction and how that changes time keeping, conflicts, client updating, pricing and budgeting
• Uncover how AI helps run your “Data Conscience”
• Learn how AI creates a powerful “Opportunity Bloodhound”
• Evaluate how AI can be used to build your “Decisioning Sparring Partner”

Tom Obermaier, Esq.
Chief Executive Officer
Rippe & Kingston

Location / Room: TBD

The cloud has arrived in the legal industry. More and more law firms are augmenting or replacing their local on-premises infrastructure with cloud infrastructure and services. While there is much to be gained and the promise of this new paradigm are enticing, the reward does not come without risk. This session will address common concerns and questions that legal organizations have about making the transition, and it will reveal the enormous potential for law firms to reduce overhead and maximize productivity with cloud “as-aservice” solutions. You’ll learn common pitfalls to avoid and leave more confident about mapping out your firm’s cloud strategy.

Attend and you’ll:

• Consider the real-world benefits of utilizing cloud resources
• Identify where you can and can’t reduce cost by moving to the cloud
• Evaluate common pitfalls and risks
• Understand what workloads may not be right for the cloud
• Identify resources and methods for testing cloud services insights

Dominick Ciacciarelli
Practice Group Leader
Kraft & Kennedy, Inc.

Location / Room: TBD