Starting again

Welcome back, though that may not be quite the right phrase, to Lawslot.

Some 12 months ago, struggling to find time to post to both Enough Said and Lawslot, to say nothing of my original blog, Dartmoor Letters, I decided to close Lawslot. I moved its posts to Enough Said: George Wilkinson’s Blog, and determined to concentrate on that blog.

So much for good intentions. There have been two difficulties. First, Enough Said has lost focus. It is something and nothing. It has certainly been a handy escape valve for some of my grumpier thoughts, mainly political, but these sit ill with what I had always intended to be considered posts on law firm strategy and management. If your blog is a window into your world, then reading mine I am clearly the Grinch.

Secondly, I discovered Twitter, and the joy of the Twitterverse: 140 characters, immediate, and the opportunity (still to be taken forward properly) of engagement with others who share my interests and concerns.

So as Twitter took over, my posts on Enough Said all but stopped. Work is an excuse (of sorts), but not much of one. I was also concerned with the ‘image’ thing. Having decided that I would stop blogging anonymously, I was, and remain, concerned to keep the blog as professional as possible. Ranting about some of my least favourite politicians is good for the blood pressure but, as on of my partners commented, what if clients read my blog?

Then some two months ago I read an excellent post, A Blog is a Better Social Media Hub than Twitter by Joel Postman in Social Media Today. I also revisited two posts I had bookmarked, Doug Cornelius on Why I Blog in Compliance Building, and John Naughton’s What no comments in Memex 1.1, the first blog I ever read and followed. At the time I was preparing my presentation on Client take on for a Risk Management Conference at which I had been asked to speak, and one of the key issues I was thinking about was that asked by Bill Knight in a PLC article some years ago: what do you ‘when your client wants to do something which is legal, but [which] in your view [is] highly questionable’. I posted about this in Professional unease last year.

And I decided, a slightly early New Year’s resolution, that I would revive Lawslot, as Lawslot Redux – but concentrate on legal ethics and the world in which I practice. There is, in many ways, overkill on law firms and social media, and there are a number of brilliant blogs on law firm strategy and management that I read, but with which I could not compete: Bruce MacEwen’s Adam Smith, Esq., Rob Millard’s The Adventure of Strategy, and Jordan Furlong’s Law 21. Certainly there are also blogs on legal ethics, but this is something that I have spent much of my professional career thinking about, and, when asked, speaking about – and it is time to start writing about them. I will continue both Enough Said and Dartmoor Letters (I have some stunning early Winter photos of Dartmoor) but the professional blog will be this one (again).

Where this blog will go I am still not sure: but stick with it and see.

Truss loses support

If New Labour is finding the re-emergence of its Union paymasters uncomfortable to live with, David Cameron’s Tory-lite party has problems of its own past. The report in this morning’s Sunday Telegraph of the goings-on (possibly, given the story, the wrong expression) in Norfolk takes us back to the wonderful alternative world of Tory backwoodsmen and Sir Tufton Bufton (although in this case Sir Jeremy Bagge).

This, if Melissa Kite who interviewed him for the Telegraph heard him correctly, is his take on the role of women in the modern world:

Sorry, no, I have never said I’m anti-women. I have got absolutely nothing against women.

Who cooks my lunch? Who cooks my dinner? How did my wonderful three children appear? Women, you can’t do without them. My god, take my wife.

What does she do for a living?

What does she do? She looks after me. Looks after the children. Runs the house.

Well, thank goodness we’ve got that straight: keep her in the house and not the House.

Apparently Sir Jeremy is to speak tomorrow at an emergency meeting of the Swaffham Conservative Club, supporting a motion to remove Elizabeth Truss as the candidate for true blue South West Norfolk. In his own words, “I might make a complete bloody idiot of myself but I will have done my bit and not done a u-turn.”

I have news for you, Sir Jeremy, you have already succeeded with the first bit. NFN springs to mind.

“I have let you down” – and in more ways than one

On a day when the BBC showed Into the Storm, and the Economist came through the letter box – and I got to read the obituary of Richard Sonnenfeldt, the chief interpreter at Nuremberg – the report in the Daily Telegraph of David Wilshire’s email reply to one of his constituents beggars belief. It included the following,

“Branding a whole group of people as undesirables led to Hitler’s gas chambers,”

Whatever the rights or wrongs of the MPs’ expenses story, comparing the treatment of MPs to that of Jews in Nazi Germany is a quite astonishing thing to say. One of Mr Wilshire’s constituents has suggested that he should go now, rather than stay on until the election. He cannot be the only one.

“Little Red Riding Hood has to go!”

Back from a day in Bristol at Familiarity 2009, a conference for family businesses and their advisers. What makes this conference different is that the speakers are prepared to share their stories. So it isn’t just the usual death by Powerpoint. There can be, and there was today, not just a great deal of insight but a lot of emotion.Family businesses have all the problems and issues that other businesses have; likewise the family members have all the problems and issues that other families have. It is just that there is often no separation: things happen in the both business space and the family space at the same time, and often in the same place.

For me, as a professional advising family businesses, and as an outside non-executive director of a family business, there was also a lot on which to reflect. But that is for later; for now, just some of the quotes that stuck in my mind:

From Steve Fudge, MD of Dorset Village Bakery aka Fudges

Little Red Riding Hood has to go!

As Steve explained, this was one of the first things his non-family director said when he arrived. LRRH has some 122 pages, but we all know the outcome, and it can be summed up in four words only – the wolf ate Grandma. So cut the waffle!

From Mandy Nickerson, MD of Bales Worldwide Travel,

We need to recognise our own success

All too often we are ready to recognise this in others, but we rarely look at we have achieved. Mandy also told us that there was not enough fun in business – but there should be. And she talked about how they deal with complaints (disarming customer terrorists).

And from John Tucker, of The International Centre for Families in Business, when talking about advising family businesses on ownership, control and succession

There are two questions you need to ask, and which are often very difficult to answer: who is family? And who isn’t?

Employer brand?

Once a week in the FT’s Business Life column, Stefan Stern tells it like it is. If you have no time for anything else, read him. Today’s column is as good as ever, Why you should pay attention to your employer brand. It is, or should be, common sense: and as important for law firms as for any one else: especially in the present economic climate.

You need to present a coherent and plausible sense of yourself as an organisation. That means having a robust employer brand: knowing who you are, and being able to tell a good story about yourselves.

This happy scenario will not come about by chance. It requires leadership and a sustained communications effort. You may need to bring to the surface your organisation’s values and attitudes that have remained tacit or undiscussed until now.

How did you deal with your lay-offs? And how will you deal with your next round of recruiting?