MGI

Nice job in Budapest, working for MGI, one of the largest alliances of independent auditing, accounting and consulting firms in the world: 161 members across 286 offices in 82 countries.  Who said the world of accounting wasn't glamorous!

I was invited to attend this year's European Area Meeting and, among other things, consider MGI's points of difference.  As I reflect now, I'm wondering the extent to which you can simply package a brand and a message around 'trust'.  What I observed was a collection of professionals who know each other uncannily - more so than you see in some individual firms even - who have taken the time to build solid, collaborative reltaionships and who know intimately how best to work together, or refer work between one another.  Nearly all the firm representatives I spoke to named the need to refer clients to an overseas advisor they can totally trust as by far and away the most important benefit of their MGI membership, with referrals from other member firms very much a secondary.

So 'trust'.  Is this enough to hang a brand on?  Considering the damage done to the business world from a distinct lack of trust over the last few years, my current thinking is that, 'soft' as it is, this message would actually pack a powerful punch.

***

Whilst in Hungary, I had the fortune to meet UK- and Mauritius-based accountant and trust specialist Gary Killmister.  Not only is Gary an expert in offshore trust issues (he grew up in Jersey) but he is an alleged cousin, no less, of Lemmy from Motorhead. They even share a surname.

This reminded me of a wonderful story told to me by John McDonnell QC who represented Motorhead in their legal battle with GWR Records before the release of 1916.  John is credited on the album sleeve as 'Big Mac' for his help in allowing the album to see the light of day.

The story he tells though, is that on the first day in court Lemmy et al turned up in matching T-shirts, all emblazoned with the words "Judges Are Nice".  Neat.

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How did this story get such a grip of the headlines this week?

Yes it's significant as the first case of contempt of court involving the internet - particularly as the juror who communicated with a defendant on Facebook caused a multi-million pound drugs trial to derail, and particularly as the juror (and the defendant) now faces up to two years in jail. But what I can't understand is the continual debate on our airwaves this week about how 'even' communication on the social networks now needs to be controlled in the context of a court case, and how this must be impossible to police. Surely it's obvious that the same rules should apply to social platforms as they do to conversations in the real world, telephone contact etc? The one point I will concede is that it's easier to dig out someone's details on Facebook to make that connection. Maybe it's only a matter of time before jurors are secluded for the duration of a trial.

Your view?

Louise Restell

catching up with Louise Restell this week was a revelation.  Louise has been involved with the legal profession for a number of years, her interest beginning when she worked for consumer organisation Which? and had a key role in the consumer working party pushing for legal reform that ultimately led to Legal Services Act. When I caught up with her this week, she had just started her new role at The Law Society, on a project exploring the profession's interaction with its various stakeholders. 

Over coffee she took me through the detail of a lunchtime talk she was about to give staff at the Legal Services Board.  She had been invited to share her thoughts and experience of the profession, and how it interacts with consumers in particular.  Phew!  She wasn't holding anything back!  She has strong views about lawyers' delusions, particularly at High Street firm level, that they are intrinsically better at 'quality of service' than any of these newfangled, Legal-Services-Act-enabled, alternative legal-services-providers could ever hope to be.

On the way back to the office I tweeted Louise wouldn't be pulling any punches in her talk to LSB staff, and the inimitable Jon Busby immediately tweeted back:

 

legaltwo 

Legal 2.0

@ClareRodway @Louise-Restell Uzi 9mm would be my suggest ;) rather than punches

18 May

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A story that shocked us all this week
was Justice Secretary Ken Clarke's incredible PR gaff discussing the concept of rape sentence reductions for early guilty pleas on BBC Radio 5 Live.  Impossible position to defend, trying to describe a supposed line between serious and non-serious rape. What with the Strauss-Kahn fiasco in the same week and the Berlusconi trial coming up.  Judging by these astonishing attitudes to women crawling out of the woodwork, from educated men who should know better, I did wonder at one point this week whether I had suddenly been transported back to the pre-1970s.  All quite depressing really...

* * *

Super injunctions continue to dominate our headlines.  A new aspect each day - not least today's publication of the Neuberger Report - but even so it's astonishing the media hasn't bored of this topic yet.  Could it be because it's press freedom that lies at the heart of the debate?  Or is it more the fact that talking about superinjunctions is a far more pallatable way to present salacious stories about celebrity affairs and other peccadilloes, to an audiences that wants to pretend it is above such things!

If you haven't caught the Neuberger Report yet, you can find links to some excellent Guardian material on it here.

If you're after something more light-hearted about the role of social media in litigation, thought you might enjoy this (courtesy of @ChristianUncut via twitter)...

Jonathan Frewin

Chatted with the BBC’s Jonathan Frewin over  coffee at The Hospital Club this week.  Jonathan has worked for six years as a business features editor at the BBC’s World Service, but is currently setting up the Beeb’s business and economics social media platform.

Interesting to hear how he uses twitter and Facebook not just to push out news and stories, but to ask audience members what they would like the Beeb’s radio and TV interviewers to ask certain guests.  Apparently this is a popular value-add of BBC Business’s social media platforms from the audience’s point of view. 

Jonathan described an interview last month with Tesco’s CEO Philip Clarke.  The business Facebook page and Twitter feed invited questions from viewers to put to Clarke; the interviewer posed several of these to him; the best were included in the final cut of the website interview; and the full list of Facebook and twitter questions remains on the internet.  Interactivity with the audience on a totally new level.

Of course the most exciting breaking news that Jonathan shared with me is his excitement over the imminent arrival of his first baby, due any day now.  Congratulations!

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The Apprentice returned to our screens this week and The Lawyer magazine had the brilliant idea to invite twitter-literate employment lawyers to tweet live from their sofas during the show.  Excellent fun!  Our client Rachel Harfield of Russell Jones & Walker’s Cardiff office is relatively new to twitter, but she lapped up the challenge and thoroughly enjoyed herself, tweeting under the hashtag #lawyerapprentice.  She raised more than a smile or two as I read her tweets appearing on my laptop screen, watching the programme on Tuesday and Wednesday evening.  Not only was she speedy in pinpointing the legal issues...

rjw_rachel 

Rachel Harfield

#lawyerapprentice  boys' slang app - place your bets how many of the protected characteristics are they going to offend?

                11 May

...but she also had a real nose for the issues that the non-legal world was focussing on:

 rjw_rachel 

Rachel Harfield

#lawyerapprentice  can any one explain the purpose of the black gloves?

 11 May

(Did you see Daira O Briain’s pair in the aftershow?)

She also wrote a blog on the subject, asking whether the producers’ decision to switch the prize from a job to a £250,000 investment and partnership in a new business was a deliberate attempt to avoid Britain’s-Got-Talent-style discrimination claims.

The Lawyer joined in the conversation on both evenings, retweeted the best of the tweets (and the blogs) and used them in their own Apprentice blog.  

The drama continues over the next 10 or so weeks.  Tune in and log on 9pm on Wednesdays.

***

Loved the story this week of the 12-year-old boy who wore his sister’s skirt to school in protest at the school’s ban on shorts, even in hot weather.  They couldn’t stop him from a wearing a skirt, as that would have been discriminatory – and he used this loophole to make a point. He says that insisting boys wear long trousers throughout the summer can adversely affect their concentration in the classroom and their ability to learn. 

Impressed as I am at this young man’s ingenuity and courage, as I tweeted at the time I have to say that my two boys would think wearing a SKIRT to school would affect their concentration in the classroom!

See this brave young man interviewed on CBBC News Round.

Linda Cheung

Such a pleasure to meet Linda Cheung, CEO of Connectegrity for tea at the IOD and hear the story of the launch of this new business.  Linda is a well-established member of the legal twitterati (click here to follow her on twitter) and is soon to launch an innovative new software product to help law firms get the most out of their social media activity.  However, she started life on the other side of the table, regularly instructing magic circle firms as a special projects manager at Morgan Stanley.

Linda told me the story of how working on the launch of Morgan Stanley's first ever credit card gave her a taste for managing projects centred on evolving markets and 'change'.  Numerous other 'transformative' projects followed at the bank, before she decided to step out and apply those skills to a sector in desparate need of innovation: the legal profession.  

She describes her excitement preparing to attend her first legal IT conference at the start of last year, an event focussed on the Legal Services Act and how it would fundamentally change the market for legal services, forever.  She looked forward to discussing the challenges of change and innovation with legal businessmen and women, and exchanging ideas about how to turn that challenge to advantage.  Imagine her surprise and disappointment when the typical response of the day was "Oh I don't really think the Legal Services Act will affect me.  We're not in that part of the market."  Sorry?  Exactly which part of the market isn't going to be affected by this seismic change?  A rude awakening to the world of legal business!

At tea this week though, we both agreed that awareness within the profession has changed dramatically since then.  Today firms have a much better grasp of what the Act means for their business, in terms of both threat and opportunity.  It may not be obvious precisely how the Act is going to affect some firms, but management teams throughout the profession understand that keeping a watching brief is essential.

* * *

What a week for news! - at the weekend we were still celebrating the sublime of the Royal Wedding, but by Monday we had moved on to the macabre spectacle of the Bin Laden shooting.  And who would have thought that the ruling on the 7/7 bombing inquest would take place against the backdrop of Bin Laden's recent death. Clifford Tibber of Anthony Gold solicitors, representing seven bereaved families at the inquest, writes here in The Times of the emotional as well as legal and logistical challenges of managing the case.  Quite an insight into what it means to take on a case with such emotional charge. 

* * *

I just love being a fair weather cyclist!  As my twitter chums may have spotted, I have recently become a fan of the Transport for London Cycle Hire Scheme: total permission to cycle to work in the sunshine, then decide to tube it home if you just don't feel like the exercise at the end of a busy day, or because the weather is a bit cloudy. And it's so cheap!  Brilliant!!

Fay Gillott

Good to catch up over lunch with Fay Gillott, Chief Exec of multi-practice set 7 Bedford Row. A brilliant strategic thinker and planner, she is an excellent person to talk to about the pressures and challenges facing the modern Bar, and to hear how the best of the crop are responding positively.  Change is not an option: it's an imperative.

Not only do barristers need to take account of the likely impacts of the Legal Services Act, as do their solicitor peers, in addition those involved in criminal  legal aid work have to contend with seismic changes to the system of how the work is meted out and costed.

It is the sets with strong leadership and members who are used to collaborating well together for business that will prosper in this era of change.   In this regard, 7 Bedford Row is excellently positioned.

To some ears, this may sound like a statement of the obvious, but those familiar with the inner workings of barristers sets will recognise the reality that there are still many sets out there who, quite frankly, still don't operate as a collective, but a conglomeration of sole practitioners; the 'independent mindset' of the advocate spilling over into how they behave in business with one another.  I was even told in a meeting with one set, who shall of course remain nameless, that in their view  their barristers competed against one another for work, so how could they possibly work together on a business plan or pool resources for marketing and promotion.

Refreshing to talk to Fay about how her set is gearing up for change, about the level of engagement in the internal discussion and their ideas for evolution.


* * *

Oops!  Who noticed the apology in yesterday's Times to Simon Cowell, currently accused of helping a tycoon friend hide his wealth from wife Michelle Young (accusations which Cowell strongly denies).  The apology relates to a reporter's mistake in saying that Cowell's own ex-wife was suing him.  Now there's a man I wouldn't like to cross! 

 

Laura Hills

We had a visitor to our office this week, Laura Hills from top immigration law boutique Gherson.  Laura has a fascinating role, combining her work in the firm's 11-strong translation team (she is a fluent Russian speaker) with marketing activity.  This size of the translation team is pretty unique for an immigration firm, but founder Roger Gherson believes it is essential to the responsiveness of their work for clients, compared to outsourcing this aspect.

We invited Laura to spend a day at Kysen to see how a specialist legal PR team approaches its work.   Among the many things she discussed with us were the practicalities of running SEO programmes for her firm's Chinese and Russian version websites and how best to develop social media campaigns for overseas audiences generally.   Interesting challenges!

* * *

So what did we think of the news this week that Quality Solicitors are teaming up with WH Smith to provide 500 'open access legal points', with legal desks in store manned by QS representatives? Innovative for sure.  But who will ultimately control this brand?  And do we think QS has chosen the right brand on which to piggyback?  On the one hand WH Smith has an excellent reputation and is considered by British shoppers as something of a 'national treasure'; on the other hand, book and CD retailers have their own challenges responding to the threat posed by internet downloads and changing buying patterns.  Who'd have thought that they would start turning to legal services to plug the gap!

Share your thoughts in the comment box below..

* * *

Other news that caught our eye this week was the story on Friday of News International's surprise 'unreserved apology' to victims of phone-hacking by News of the World.  The corporation has set up a compensation scheme for 'justifiable claims' but also now faces possible criminal prosecution. Its bid for BSkyB is now also under threat.

Celebs and politician victims of the scandal include Sienna Miller, John Prescott (who called News International's conduct 'mass criminality'), Tessa Jowell - and disgraced football presented Andy Gray, sacked by Sky Sports last year for sexist comments about the offside rule, for whom some are suggesting this could be payback time.


To catch up on the story, see ITV's news video here.



* * *

And being British, we have to mention the weather...

How fantastic has it been! 

Loved this tweet from @lawyercatrin on Friday afternoon - under the hashtag #bestpressdayever. 

Look forward to reading Monday's edition.

RollOnMonday! 

Bribery Act

No buses, then three come at once. Having waited and waited for the long-promised Government guidance on the Bribery Act, suddenly we heard the MoJ was publishing its final form Guidance this week - the same week it chose to publish its formal backing of the Jackson report on civil litigation costs, and the same week the Supreme Court decided to deliver its landmark judgment overturning immunity for expert witnesses.  Phew!  It was all systems go at Kysen.  We all got a huge buzz out of it.

* * *
Two lighter legal stories that caught our interest this week.  First, the news courtesy of @TheTimesLive that American country star Willie Nelson was being offered the chance to avoid a jail term for marijuana possession by singing in court - apparently "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" was requested specifically.  Wonderful! Although prosecutor Kit Bramblett later clarified it was just a joke. 

Second, the rather disturbing news that George Clooney has been named as a possible defence witness in Silvio Berusconi's forthcoming sex trial, allegedly having attended one of his notorious bunga bunga parties.  Please, no!  In later reports however, Clooney responded to the news saying "It seems odd since I've only met Berlusconi once and that was in an attempt to get aid into Darfur."  Middle-aged women around the world breathed a huge sigh of relief: hopefully the fantasy can remain intact.

Feedback from Farrer & Co on our Social Media Update prompted us to highlight a couple of articles they found particularly useful, in case they are of broader interest to readers of this blog.  Cara Rowell, in-house marketing executive at Farrers (and much-loved former Kysen employee) said she and the marketing team found the following particularly interesting: a couple of news items referring to private banks' use of social media; an item on whether law firms need social media strategies at all (I'll tell you the answer now: Yes!); and a piece on the growing use of "tweeting" direct from Court.


If you don't receive our Social Media Update already, please do use the comment box below to let us know if you would like to be added to the e-mailing list. 


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Some conversations stop you in your tracks and put your daily strife into perspective.  This week, my conversation with Chris Moon MBE did just that.  Chris is an achievement consultant and keynote speaker, whose credentials for the job consist of not only surviving being kidnapped by the Khmer Rouge while clearing mines in Cambodia for the Halo Trust, but maintaining an impossibly positive attitude after losing two limbs in a landmine-clearing accident - and today, leading climbers to the summit of Kilimanjaro and personally running the length of Cambodia to raise funds for charity. His website says he 'challenges the concept of limitation'.  And how!

When I met Chris for tea this week, he said he had only just recovered from a 1,000 mile charity run for the Post Office  to raise money for Barnardo's last Autumn.  He ran an unbelievable marathon-plus of 36 miles a day.   Here are links to the Post Office 1000 Facebook page and a YouTube video if you are interested in learning more.

If you are looking for a motivational or after-dinner speaker, there are few more colourful or inspiring than Chris.   For contact details, see his website.