The Call of the Legal Marketing Association's Annual Conference

It's that time of year again - time to head to the Legal Marketing Association's Annual Conference. This year's theme "Change...Now What?" is particularly appropriate for the challenges that we're all facing in the current economy. According to Peter Vieth's article in Virginia Lawyers Weekly, "the slump in the economy has led to the increased use of social media" and we at the ILN have found that social media is a valuable way to support our members with almost no financial investment. Just last Friday, we learned that a referral we received and facilitated through Twitter had resulted in a very happy referree and a file for our member firm in the UAE. To continue to learn how to best leverage social media tools, I'll be attending LMA sessions focusing on social media, along with a few others, and then tweeting and posting recaps. You can follow along on what other LMA attendees are saying about the conference on Twitter as well.

Taking a page from LMA member Heather Milligan's blog, here's a list of the breakout sessions I'll be attending:

Thursday
- Conference Sponsorship Trends: 2008
- Thought Leadership: The New Frontier of Strategic Marketing

Friday
- Emergence & Benefit of Social Networking for Legal Professionals
- Legal Transformation Study - Your 20/20 Vision of the Future

I'll also be attending speeches by keynote speakers James Carville & Mary Matalin, and featured speakers Peter Sheahan and Arianna Huffington, in addition to networking with some of the best minds in the legal marketing community.

Of particular note for ILN members, on Thursday, the LMA will hold their annual Your Honor Awards. This year, our ILNBriefs cartoons are nominated as a finalist in the Internal Communications Category, so stay tuned for the results of the awards ceremony!