Networking, Marketing, ABA Techshow – How they are all closely interconnected.

Episode Notes

Transcript

Adriana Linares:  Let me tell you about David.  A criminal defense attorney in Ventura, California.  His firm is probably like yours.  Client intake was inefficient.  His staff was at risk for burnout and his client acquisition rate was just meh.  Then, he tried Lawmatics powerful client intake and automation software.  Within months, David’s lead conversion jumped by 200%.  If running your law practice is keeping you from practicing law, take Lawmatics for a free test drive.  Lawmatics makes automating your firm easy.  Visit lawmatics.com.

Before we get started, I want to make sure and thank our awesome sponsors.  Clio, Nota, Lawclerk and Lawmatics.

[Music]

Intro:  If I was starting today as a New Solo, I would do something — the entrepreneurial aspect would be — we’re going to have to change the way they’re practicing — by becoming a leader — analyzing one after another — to help young lawyers — starting a new small firm — what it means to be fulfilled — make it easy to work with your clients — bringing authenticity – new approach, new tools, new mindset, New Solo — and it’s making that leap.

Adriana Linares:  Welcome to another episode of New Solo on the Legal Talk Network.  I’m your host, Adriana Linares.  Are you wondering how you can become a better technology user as an attorney?  Where can you go to learn more about technology, practice management, accounting, and finance?  I get asked this question all the time, and oftentimes I have to point people to online resources, and especially over the past couple of years when we didn’t have a lot of places to meet in person.  But I think back to normal, it’s safe to say.  I’m going to give you the number one option, in my opinion, for where you can go to get all kinds of information, education and CLE about technology and practice management.  With me today are Jeannine Abukhater Lambert and Gyi Tsakalakis.  They are the co-chairs of the 2023 ABA Techshow, and I am so grateful to have them and their time so that we can talk about Techshow and also talk about what they do in their professional legal lives and help us learn as much as we can from them.  Hi, Jeannine.  Hi, Gyi.

Jeannine Lambert:  Hi.  Excited to be here.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Hi, Adriana.  Hi, Jeannine.  Thanks for having us, Adriana.

Adriana Linares:  Well, Gyi, let’s start with you, because my listeners may also be your listeners, therefore they are our listeners.  You have your own podcast as well on Legal Talk Network.  Do you want to talk – do you want to pitch it?  Go ahead and pitch it.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  I’m going to pitch it.  I’m a proud cohost of the Lunch Hour Legal Marketing podcast, which is also on the fabulous Legal Talk Network so check out Conrad and I ranting about all things legal, technology and marketing over there.

Adriana Linares:  That’s great.  And I listen to that podcast all the time.  I think it’s wonderful.  You guys give great practical advice and also the type of advice that attorneys, solos, smalls themselves, who might not be able to afford a marketing genius on the side can do themselves so if you all haven’t heard of or listen to their podcast, please go and sign up.  Jeannine, you’re a completely different animal.

Jeannine Lambert:  I think marketing is the hardest part of my job, so I refuse to do it well.

Adriana Linares:  What is your job?

Jeannine Lambert:  I have one of those complicated umbrella jobs where it is everything that doesn’t fit somewhere else ends up with me, anyway.  I work at Northern Kentucky University Salmon P. Chase College of Law, which is also where I went to law school so it was very convenient.  I know the building and how to park already, so I manage.  We have a lot of very practical skills, law practice management programs at the law school.  It’s known as a lawyer school for that reason.  So, we have programs in business and technology, entrepreneurship, cybersecurity and data privacy, addiction law and policy, and I oversee all of those as well as our alumni relations program and all of our events and conferences.

Adriana Linares:  That’s really interesting.  Here’s something we should talk about just real quick from your perspective, which is getting a law degree and then taking the path to becoming involved not necessarily as a professor, but in some sort of administration at a law school.  I have a lot of listeners that will write to me asking me questions about changing career paths or changing practices from something not so litigious to something maybe a little more soothing, if you will.  But what types of advice can you give to a listener who might be thinking about going into academia whether it be right out of law school or whether it’s ten years later or maybe it’s someone who sort of at the end of their professional career and they’re thinking, “Oh, being a professor might be interesting.  How do you get to do that?”

Jeannine Lambert:  It’s funny too, because I get phone calls and emails and texts frequently from friends and people who know where I work asking the exact question.  How do I leave a –

Adriana Linares:  Cushy corporate, full benefits —

Jeannine Lambert:  — an environment where they have maybe made it so hard to leave because of the money.  But –

(00:05:04)

Adriana Linares:  The golden handcuffs.

Jeannine Lambert:  I’m going to end up in a news article as the people reading law school about what not to do so they’re like, before that happens, how can I get off of this?  And so, lawyers to really just want to give back to get to a point their career, they’re just like, “You know what I wanted, I want to share.  I want to help students.”  Everyone here in the law school is an attorney.  Everyone who is in administration — so not support staff, but administration level or professors.  We have full time professors.  We have associate professors.  Then, you also have adjunct professors who are people who come in and teach just maybe one class and aren’t hired as a full-time professor so we have varying levels of that and everyone has come from a legal practice background.  I came into administration because I’d already known some people and I came in through alumni relations and then I just stayed.

My job is more through alumni in communications and then into the centers and programs and then, to teach, many people have come in and just they teach one or two classes that they’re interested in.  We have topics on women in the law.  There’s bankruptcy, there’s trial advocacy, all of these things.  These are things that are taught by practitioners.  Our law practice management class is taught by a judge who had his sole practice for years.  Our trial advocacy program is taught by a judge who is the chief regional district judge, and her partner has been a lawyer for 40 years and they teach you how to do trial work.  Our women in law class is taught by someone who works in gender studies so you have people who are practicing in the field teaching those classes.

Adriana Linares:  I want to remind my listeners that I’m constantly saying how important it is to network and stay involved in your communities or get involved in them if you’re not.  A lot of young lawyers, they just don’t understand the power of networking and relationships.

Jeannine Lambert:  Right and you talk about networking, that is a huge part of the direction your life takes is based on the network you build.  I take my students everywhere and I’m taking a group tomorrow night to the local bar association.  We have a women lawyers charity event, and I’m just taking students with me and saying, “Just come.  Just meet people in the region because you just never know who you’re meeting that will lead to a different life choice for you down the road and so that’s essential.”  It’s why I take 20 students who meet a Techshow every year just because there’s exposure to what’s out there in legal tech and what that industry can even be because if you are thinking that law is going to look like your parents and grandparents age of law, it is not in any way, shape or form and so you need to understand that that is gone.  It’s not even present, right now, a future topic, it’s a current topic so go to things like legal tech conferences, try out ILTA.  Explore, and understand that the industry is changing and you have to be ahead of it.

Adriana Linares:  You have to.

Jeannine Lambert:  There’s no more options for traditional law.

Adriana Linares:  I’m going to ask you one more question before we take a break, and then I focus on Gyi for a minute, and that is getting into academia and having that practical experience.  Is that where you typically become an adjunct professor first training and teaching in that area that you’re good at, and then from there — again, now you’re in the system, you’re building a network, and then when there’s an opening, you can apply for it or you might say, “Hey, I realize we don’t have this program.  I’m interested in developing it and becoming a full-time professor.”  Is that an option for some?

Jeannine Lambert:  You know, I’m going to give the famous legal answer and say it depends because there is such a thing as academia is in such a scholarship mode that the practical lessons you learn from becoming an adjunct professor aren’t always what will endear you to a hiring committee.  It’s going to be more generally, more of a focus on the research and the writing that you’ve done and are you going to become a name in your field?  Are you going to become someone who discovers new things?  If you go to my undergraduate university was a research university, and so my professors, their emphasis really was on performing research and learning new things so they can broaden the field that they were in.  I think that that’s generally how a higher education works, be it legal, medical, undergrad, graduate work, that you really have to start making a name for yourself in a certain topic and the teaching part, if you have passion for it, they will teach you how to do that.  They will train you in teaching.

Being an adjunct gives you a little — you get your sea legs under you.  You can kind of learn what to do a little earlier, but it’s not necessarily a big part of your resume.  In the same way that differentiating yourself from other lawyers is.  You just need to have shift your career towards something more academic.  If that’s an interest, I highly recommend reaching out to your own law school professors or finding ones at the local one and becoming friends and talking through that, because it is –

(00:10:04)

There’s a very small pool that those are selected from so you have to get in there, and then once you’re in, you still have to.  It’s like a big law you still have to achieve partner.  You have to get to full-time ten-year status, and that requires a lot of publishing.  You have to be very careful with your time and your boundaries as well when you’re doing them.

Adriana Linares:  Hey, Gyi.  What do you think of all that stuff she just said?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Jeannine is just such a smart person, and I’m so grateful for her to be my co-chair.

Adriana Linares:  Do you have any thoughts on advice that you would give to young lawyers?  Just before I start asking you about marketing which is — I’m trying to bridge the conversation and I know that you have lots of opinions and thoughts, just like I do, even though I’m not in academia, about why it’s important for law students to — well, first of all, be flexible and network and really become a part of the community.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Yeah and as a former lawyer myself, I’ll also say it depends.  But if you’re going to go and practice law, getting the confidence to practice is like table stakes and it’s funny that I say that because there are so many lawyers and one of the things in preparation for this conversation.  We all know this, but the ABA does their annual tech reports and you know what respondents to the ABA tech reports say when they’re asked about things like tech competence?  Doesn’t really matter.  Not really important, and yet I don’t see how you can be an effective lawyer for your client in almost every context I can think about the top of my head without at least basic tech competence.

Adriana Linares:  Sure.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  I think, interestingly, though, I think a lot of new lawyers, we’ll call them new lawyers, they come to the table a lot more tech ready than I think lawyers have.

Adriana Linares:  100%.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Before but that being said — when you ask me, what should you do?  I’d start marketing now.  You’re going to be like, well, that’s funny from a marketing person, but whatever you call it personal branding or networking or relationship building — your network is truly your net worth and so opportunities like Techshow, opportunities like getting involved in organizations in your law school.  It’s impossible to quantify the value of those relationships over the course of your career.

Adriana Linares:  It is.  Well, let’s take a quick break, listen to some messages from some sponsors.  We’re going to come back and hear from Gyi.  We’ll be right back.

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Adriana Linares:  Okay, we’re back.  I’m here with the co-chairs of the 2023 ABA Techshow, Jeannine Abukhater Lambert and Gyi Tsakalakis.  Hey, Gyi.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Hey, Adriana.

Adriana Linares:  How did you go from being a lawyer to running a marketing agency?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Essentially on a dare?

Adriana Linares:  Double dog dare.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Like Jeannine, I watched too much Law and Order, and I was enamored by being in court so I was a trial lawyer at a small plaintiff’s firm and loved it.  Loved being in court but also, as a young lawyer, I was tasked with going out into the world and saying, “Like, hey, what are somethings the firm can be doing from marketing standpoint?”  I’m having a lot of conversations with the lawyers.

Adriana Linares:  Because you were the young guy.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  I was the young guy.  To a large extent, the conversations with lawyers at that time where, people don’t really use the Internet to hire lawyers this way.  This is like, 2015ish so really wasn’t even — from my perspective, not even like front-end but as we know, lawyers are very reluctant to be dragged into the future so essentially, I was like, this just can’t be right.  And so, looking back, the options that were available at the time, we’ve come a long way, right?  Talking about a long time ago, we’ve come a long way.  I’m sorry, I said 2015 totally wrong.  It was like 2005.  We found an internship in 2008.  Yes, right 2015.  It took a decade off of my career.  That’s what it feels like.

(00:14:58)

But point being, that was like, “You know what, I think that there’s an opportunity to actually deliver some better services here to lawyers and I really do think that this Internet thing is going to change the way that people look for lawyers, do research, hire lawyers and so far we’ve been right so that was really what — I think I always had an entrepreneurial bend, and there’s things about practicing law that I truly do miss and here’s the great news, and we’ll talk about this when you get a Techshow.  I know lots of lawyers who do both.  They practice a little bit.  Maybe they’re a tech entrepreneur, maybe they do some consulting so there’s a lot of options out there for them.

Adriana Linares:  We should really do a whole episode on just alternative career paths.  I think I might have in the past, but I love that topic because I think what a lot of attorneys lack is the creativity and figuring out what else they could do, but then also the courage of what it would take to do something else or use your degree in a creative way.  So, Gyi, from your perspective when it comes to marketing and networking and relationship building is a form of marketing so I think we can sort of lump it all into the same category.  What are the two or three most important things that you would say to lawyers today, not necessarily a particular demographic or age or years in practice that are important when it comes to technology and marketing outside of the social side of marketing?

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Yeah.  I’m going to start with a little bit more of a strategic suggestion, which is you’ve got to figure out what your positioning is going to be, whether you want to call it like, Niching down or whatever you want to call it but you talk to – you’re in an elevator with a lawyer and you be like, what kind of law do you practice?  Like personal injury law –

Adriana Linares:  And criminal, and immigration and family law.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Right, that’s even worse.  That’s even going in the worst direction.  But even just saying that you’re in a particular practice area, everybody is saying the same thing.  If you’re saying the same thing, you are not going to stand out and so it doesn’t give you just a quick example in like family law context.  You’re like, I’m a family law lawyer versus I’m a divorce lawyer who focuses on child custody on behalf of fathers, right?  See, the difference there?

Adriana Linares:  Yeah.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  One of those speaks very specifically.  Positioning is so important, and then the second part, and this is more of the tech-ish side of it, is that all of your communications out in the world, digital and otherwise, need to be consistent with that positioning and so whether it’s your website, your Google business profile, your email signature, if you’re going to do blogging, your social media profiles, all this stuff needs to be communicating.  Who you help?  How you help them?  Why you’re uniquely qualified to help to use Matt Holman’s Haiku of what you do and you got to be able to communicate that in a very short time frame when in a society of attention spans on TikTok, where there’s infinite scrolling videos.  Ready, set go.

Adriana Linares:  You made me think of this client I have who their whole message is the following, and I’m going to alter it a little bit because I haven’t asked him permission if I can use his slogan, but his website, his signature block, his fellow attorneys and his assistants all say something like this.  A law firm specializing in helping families in crisis because of substance abuse.  I’ll just leave it right there.  To your point, that’s their entire message so it’s criminal law, but cleverly disguised in a way which hits a very specific note with certain types of clients, potential clients, and people who can refer you to.I think that is probably some of the best advice this podcast has ever given, including on your LinkedIn page.  If you’re going to do social media that message should be consistent throughout.  Okay, give me one more, then we’ll talk about Techshow.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  The other one, I guess that’s two in one.  But I need to give a plug to Clio’s Legal Trends Report.  Clio puts out this.

Adriana Linares:  I refer to it all the time.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  Okay, good.  I didn’t know if that was –

Adriana Linares:  Yeah, they’re sponsor.  We love talking about Clio.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  There you go.  All right.  This has actually been validated on Martin Delabo recently did a study on this.  Thompson Reuters has a study.  There’s one more that just came out that I was looking at, but they all say not shockingly, they all say the same thing.  You know what your next clients really care about one, they care about responsiveness and so being able to build infrastructure, technology infrastructure, whether it’s virtual receptionist, whether it’s text messaging, whether it’s an app, whether whatever it’s going to be.  However, you’re going to interact with clients and potential clients, it’s got to be fast.  And I think I don’t want to put words in Clio’s mouth, but I think they’re you got to respond in 24 hours, and I will tell you it’s not fast enough.

Adriana Linares:  It’s not fast enough.

Gyi Tsakalakis:  It’s not fast enough.  We see this all the time, when we look at conversion rates from ads reports and call reports.   People, they’re moving on to the next lawyer.  Now, look, if you’re getting referred somebody —

(00:20:01)

and I’m you know, all that stuff we talk about branding and relationship building and networking you should definitely be focusing on building your referral network but a lot of people that aren’t coming to you that way, if you don’t stop their search immediately they’re already on to the next lawyer and the second thing that comes out of all these reports is that reviews matter, like and lawyers hate this but we are trained by Amazon to select professional services, many people, not everybody, but a big segment of the potential client pool is shopping by reviews.  They go online, search your name and see a bunch of happy clients talking about how awesome you are and if they can’t do that, they’re less likely to even give you a call in the first place and so Google business profile you should definitely go check that out. It’s a free tool from Google. It’s good, it commands the most real estate for searches on your name so regardless of how —

Adriana Linares: For free.

Gyi Tsakalakis: For free regardless of how someone hears about you they’re more and more likely to go do a search for you on Google and what they find there’s probably power in some respect to the Google by Google business profile and when you have happy clients that are willing to sing you praises, direct them there, quick ethics, note check your state bar rules, some state have some funky rules around if you send somebody to the profile and it doesn’t comply with the rules and you’re accountable for what they wrote, which South Carolina but in any event, that’s something that’s definitely an extremely valuable tool to help people know basic information about your practice and to see happy clients sing you praises.  Also, there’s video so you can upload videos, you have where again, where permissible you can have clients leave video testimonials there I mean there is nothing more powerful than having a client sit there and talk about how they helped you through the worst time in their life dealing with substance abuse issue with their family and lawyers will say all the time, “Well my clients are going to want to say that,” the good news is they didn’t even say that they can just be like they’re, “I was there for them at their time of need, they answered my questions,” I see lawyers all the time with reviews where it’s like, “They weren’t even the right lawyer for me, but they put me in touch with another lawyer that was able to help,” and like that kind of stuff is for the next person super, super valuable it takes away a lot of that fear in the hiring a lawyer process.

Adriana Linares: Awesome.  Okay we are going to take one more quick break, listen to some messages from some sponsors and to remind everybody, if you want to hear more practical and wonderful advice like that from Gyi and Conrad, please make sure you subscribe to the Lunch Hour Legal Marketing podcast. This is a type of advice that you got from them and feedback and it’s wonderful. We’ll be right back. We are going to talk about the ABA Techshow.

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All right everyone, we are back to the last segment of New Solo with Jeannine Abukhater Lambert and Gyi Tsakalakis and we are going to talk about the ABA Techshow.  So the two of you are the co-chairs of the ABA Techshow, if someone has never heard of the ABA Techshow, can you give me a quick synopsis, Jeannine?

Jeannine Abukhater Lambert: Oh! No, Gyi does it so much better but all right, I’ll try and push my way through it so it is a place where you can go and see every type of legal tech industry out there.  You can meet with people who are founding companies, you can meet with people who are in marketing, you can meet with software companies so it is a chance to kind of explore and get a little bit of information about everything and find a solution to your problems because we know that businesses really are just solutions to problems.  You have an issue, you find a solution to it so thrown in with all of that and that huge expo hall with you know, I don’t know, how many booths we have then another floor of all educational programming.  Most of which is CLE but we have this year expanded because you know, there’s Gyi’s profession but really we all understand that marketing is essential to create the lifestyle that you want, the firm that you want, reaching to clients who need your help the most so, we have a lot of work on marketing and that may not all have CLE hours attached to it, which is I think a crime indeed. Generally, you can get a lot of CLE hours, and it’s all about things.  Everything from core topics to you know, word hacks and pc hacks something simple like that and PDF docs which people still have trouble with, I totally understand.

(00:25:03)

PDF changes all the time.  All the way to you know the future of things.  You know, let’s talk about you know, web three, let’s talk about NFTs, let’s talk about you know, different kinds of billing structures for your firm and let’s talk about marketing and this year also we’re going to do some kind of more workshop-focused programming because we really you know, in common you hear, you get this great and you’re inspired and you want to go sit in a room with people and talk through some of the things you worked on so we’re going to have some workshops on the idea of tech confidence, do we have it?  What is it?  How to obtain it, how to teach it in law schools, how to give it to young lawyers who are coming out because you know more and more jurisdictions maybe almost all now or are having professional ethics, things about tech competences.  So, when we know that most lawyers don’t even have the minimum qualifications for this so we’re going to sit through and talk to you know, with some great people who are working on this in the industry in workshops some ideas for how we can get this started going out there and spread the word and make a ripple effect.

Adriana Linares: It’s a wonderful in-person conference to connect with experts just like Jeannine and Gyi. I’m always there, I’ve been going since 2002 and participating.  Gyi, the ABA Techshow is held in Chicago every year, but if I live in Idaho, Hawaii or Alaska, should I still go to the ABA Techshow because can I get my CLE there?

Gyi Tsakalakis: I believe you can is the answer to that question and here’s my thing and look, I don’t want to dismiss I get it you know, it’s an expense but if you’re traveling from Alaska and you know flights are expensive and it’s Chicago and I get all that —

Adriana Linares: You’re not getting any better weather.  It’s always in March you guys, so it’s going to be March 1st and 2nd 2023, right?

Gyi Tsakalakis & Jeannine Abukhater Lambert: March 1st through 4rth.

Adriana Linares: March 1st through 4rth okay.

Gyi Tsakalakis: In Chicago but you know we talked about the educational programming and I there’s no doubt it’s really great education you’re good, you can get CLEs so if you’re looking for you need some justification with the powers that be, you can get CLE credit there, but I can’t tell you. It goes back to we talk about beginning of the episode.  The value of being in the room with someone who’s create — whether they’re a start-up person or whether they’re one of the unicorns in the legal tech space, people that are creating the technology, other practitioners who are using technology in their practice to solve the same problems you’ve got and the community of experts that help teach lawyers how to use the technology or consults on law practice and technology or marketing and marketing technology, when you’re in those rooms, even if you’re — even on the in the hallway conversations or the lunch tables, that’s the thing that I get so excited about.

It’s those serendipitous interactions of hearing those conversations with people who are dealing with a lot of the same issues that you’re probably dealing with and then meeting those people and again, you meet them there at Techshow, that doesn’t mean that you don’t nurture those relationships out past Techshow and so having that access to that network in that community, that to me is really the most valuable reason really to go to any conference in general, right?  Because you can learn a lot of this stuff from YouTube or from an online CLE, but to be there and hear the conversations and be able to get direct answers to your questions, to be able to actually like mess around with all of this technology you know, if you’re like, “Oh I’m not really sure which practice management tools I should be using, I’m not really sure what tools I should be using for intake,” and to hear the people who are creating it, other practitioners and the people who actually helped implement this stuff, there’s really no substitute for being in those conversations that’s why that’s my pitch for Techshow.

Jeannine Abukhater Lambert: My network really blew up when I went to Techshow because you know, it went from local and more regional and then I went to Techshow and all these people I heard about, these people who maybe create the products that I was using or I’d heard about or so and so is doing is moving inside the industry but I cannot meet them, they were all there and so I ended up you know, you have your agenda, your plan for the day and you’re like on your app, you’re like “I’m going to see this, this and this,” it’s either fascinating things. Well, I never left the hallway.  I stayed there the whole time and I just talked to people and I met everyone and now, I have people I can call for thoughts, advice, referrals from New York to Oregon, California, Florida I mean across the entire country, Canada and we have people coming into Techshow from Canada a lot because it’s you know, it’s right there close to the border and you can access it although we have one coming from Vancouver as well so it was such a broad range of ideas and thoughts.

Everyone is in one room and one place at the same time and everyone is working on the same issue you know tech competence and legal tech industry and expanding your profession and like we just talked about it earlier you know, law is not traditional.  Even if you go in and you practice law after law school, it is still not the traditional form of law that your parents and grandparents were practicing or using you know as clients so there’s just the world has expanded and it’s a place where people are talking about that at the same time.

(00:30:03)

Adriana Linares: My boyfriend was at a CLE a few weeks ago and he came back and said, “You know some guy said something really poignant, he said the practice of law hasn’t changed in 200 years,” I said the practice of law hasn’t changed but the business of law has certainly changed so if you’re really interested in learning more about what the ABA Techshow considers to be the four pillars of the business of law which is marketing technology, accounting, finance, those go together and management Techshow is a great place to go not only because of the CLE sessions and the non-CLE sessions and the networking opportunities but the people are so generous.

I think some of the most interesting people and the most helpful people you will meet are the other attendees.  The experts are great, the consultants are great and the speakers are great, but really talking to another three attorney firm attorney who’s practicing the same thing you are and you have three attorneys in your firm is really invaluable.  I love the sessions, I love the networking and then there’s also a lot of extracurricular activities like dinners and receptions and stuff so before the end of the year, there should be an early bird pricing that comes out and then you know, as the date gets closer eventually they pull that back and I will tell you this.  It’s not as expensive as you think and they haven’t really priced it yet so we can’t give them to you.  The value you will get out of something like this is going to be worth it.

When I have participated in Techshow, I’ve seen law firms do it a couple of different ways.  One, if you’re a solo obviously you got to try to come and pretty much read the entire set of encyclopedia books, but if you’re a few people, you can divide and conquer so I have had attorneys that are law firms that will send one attorney whose sole job is to figure out how to perfect the client intake and what to do with a potential new client when they come in through the website door or a phone call door then they’ll send someone else to figure out which is going to be the best communications technology that they’re going to use specifically, something like voice over IP and then how to integrate that with time and billing and then of course, there’s always someone or someone’s charged with figuring out what to do with case management. So, you can come and try to do everything.  Remember, you’ve got a lot of resources to pick from and you can take home or you divide and conquer.

Maybe you and another attorney you don’t even work in the same firm but you’re friends and you’re going to come together divide and conquer and figure out how to get as much information as you can out of it because it is a lot of that whole drinking from the fire hose saying, it’s a lot of it so I am excited to have Techshow back in person again and watch it grow.  I’m going to be in this year for sure as well as many of the guests we’ve had, the experts we’ve had.  Gyi, I’m sure same with your podcast so I really hope all of you consider if you have not or if you’ve got a little budget sitting there for CLE, for travel and for business development this is going to be a great opportunity for you.

Jeannine Abukhater Lambert: So that drinking from the fire hosting is real, so I figured I feel like there is an actual fire hose of information coming at you but what we do to get around that is everyone who comes gets access to all the materials and every presentation has I think almost ten pages of original material that goes with it you know, it can be outlines, it could be list of resources and articles you know, it could be their PowerPoint so you get access to all of that because sometimes I cannot make it. I mean, I just get overly ambitious like I’m going to go to everything from yoga at 7:00 a.m. to a taste of Techshow dinner with the speakers at you know at 9:00 p.m. I’m going — the whole day is booked and then I don’t leave the hall so I’ve missed some of the programming so what I do for that is I just have all the materials and then I come back afterwards and my students are required to go through the expo hall, which is where you have so many booths of different startups and vendors and people with at the solution bankers and they have to meet them and gather their information so we have kind of a debrief afterwards where we go through.

Adriana Linares: That’s great.

Jeannine Abukhater Lambert: What did you learn, what you know do we want some of the appointments with people to talk about their work, go share the materials when the books are used to bring physical books, I’ll take my students down there and they each, I’d let them by up to five books each and so everyone we walk away, it was comical like a bunch of like a trail of ducklings is carrying all these books.  The physical bookstore is no longer now it’s a digital bookstore so it’s not as much fun but we always — I let them pick out what they want because you have books on everything from you know, I remember how Alexander’s Evernote you know years ago like that was essential. I bought that and then you know, you got stuff on just kind of the future with practice so we do a lot of practice division has a hall of publication so we come out with a lot of bookstore stuff.

Adriana Linares: You know and the last thing I’ll say is if you’re not a member of the ABA which I know for a lot of attorneys that can be expensive.  Think about it because what you get for free with their membership with ABA is a law practice division.  The law practice division to me is an all-encompassing section of the ABA you know, there’s the litigation section, there’s the real estate section and those are very practice-specific law practice management is for everybody, whether you are in a big firm or small firm and just learning about how to run your law practice, whether again you’re solo or part of a big firm there are resources there for you.

(00:35:18)

When the pricing comes out you guys take a look there might be a discount you get if you’re in academia, if you’re in government law there are ways to get in there and then the expo hall is always free.  The expo hall believe it or not, is a wonderful place to get information so I hope everyone considers coming to see all of us at Techshow.  The two of you have taken on a monumental task by the way, being the chairs of Techshow.  It’s a process that takes about two years for you know, you’re vice chairs first and then you ascend up to being the chairs and I’m sure that the show that you and your board are planning is just going to be amazing.  I’m sure the best Techshow ever so I’m really excited to get there and see everyone.  Any parting words from the two of you before I let you go and thank you so much for spending time with me today, Gyi?

Gyi Tsakalakis: Just thank you for having us and thanks for the support on Techshow and if you’re out there and you’re kind of like wherever you are in your tech journey, whether you think you’re you know, a future lawyer or you’re just practicing law and you’ve been a little bit of a luddite and you want to catch up, Techshow will greet you with open arms to help you solve the issues at your practice that relate to tech and again, the relationships you form there, they’ll have so much value for you and I can’t reinforce that enough, yep.

Jeannine Abukhater Lambert: I would say, don’t let the name scare you. I heard about Techshow before I went for years and people who went there you know, they talked about it but they were really tech people and so I thought well I mean I’m you’re slightly above-average tech competent person so that’s about it so I was like I think that’s not for me, I don’t have a computer science degree so I just wasn’t going to go then when I went and discovered that half the program is talking to people like me who are just a little above average and the other half of the program is people talking to people who are really going to talk about the actual future of technology not as in law but everywhere in general, you know AI tech was you know ten years ago they were talking about that so don’t be afraid of the name because it’s not a program for people who were in IT for 20 years before they went to law school you know the rest of us go because we need some tech and really more because we want to be positioning ourselves better for the future and know what’s happening, what’s coming around the corner before it gets here so you can pass it on you know either to my lawsuits or practice it in my own life.

Adriana Linares: I want to remind everyone or at least say it out loud there’s no remote options this year it’s only in person. Well thank you both so much for your time.  Last thing I’m going to ask you to do is tell everyone where they can find, friend or follow you, if they want to connect, Gyi?

Gyi Tsakalakis: I would say LinkedIn is probably best.  You can type in my very unique name G-Y-I T-S-A-K-A-L-A-K-I-S on LinkedIn or I’m still on Twitter for now so while I’m still on Twitter you check me out there otherwise attorneyssync.com, you can get all sorts of information you probably didn’t care about about me.

Adriana Linares: And that’s attorneys sync like synchronized not the kitchen sink.

Gyi Tsakalakis: That’s right.

Adriana Linares: Jeannine, how can everyone find, friend or follow you?

Jeannine Abukhater Lambert: So I was exaggerating when I said that I really don’t market myself well or like so I don’t I mean I think I’m on social media but I’m not present.  If you message me I won’t see it. I probably write for anyone to steal my stuff because I’m just not monitoring it but I do get on LinkedIn pretty frequently to kind of check whatever else is doing so I’m on LinkedIn and I think I’m on there as Jeannine Abukhater Lambert, which is all three names and that’s pretty unique or just Jeannine Lambert probably pops up because I have three ends in my name, which is unusual enough but you can find me on LinkedIn and if you message me, I might reply to that but I’ll try to I would do better, just in case you’re getting on there.

Adriana Linares: Listeners, you can always email me at New Solo at Legal Talk Network to get to any of the guests we’ve ever had on the show so reach out if you need some help.  Thank you so much you guys.  I totally appreciate your time, for the rest of you, thanks again for listening.  I hope you picked up some good tips and maybe some inspiration and certainly hope to see you at the ABA Techshow on March 1st through the 4rth of 2023.  See you next time.

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