Peer to Peer Magazine

He did not say, ‘Mike works for me,’ which in fact I did. This leveled the playing field –– I immediately gained respect for this particular partner (with whom I would work for four years), and he made me feel an important part of the team. Since then, I have always made sure that I introduce or refer to my team members in the same manner.” Another factor in soliciting loyalty from team members is to find ways to get them to share a common goal. Jim McCue states, “Being a leader is making the right decision, not necessarily the popular decision.” As Dick Jensen, ILTA’s Treasurer and Technology Director at Goodmans LLP adds, “It’s easy to lead when times are good. The best leaders stand out when times are tough.” TRUSTING YOUR PEOPLE Dick Jensen goes on to state that a leader “celebrates the success of others.” He believes in order to build a strong team that will be hard-working, dedicated and with the firm for a long time, you need to empower people, challenge them and then get out of their way. Know who does what well and then let them do it. Browning Marean, an attorney with DLA Piper, says that the most memorable advice he received, he ignored. A managing partner told him, “I do not want you teaching other lawyers to use computers –– it’s an evasion of law.” Browning assumed that the managing partner did not want him teaching other attorneys during working hours, so “what developed was a network of teaching fellow attorneys how to use computers as a subversive activity. The end result was that we would train on Saturday mornings together. The only requirement for attendance was that the attorneys in turn would continue to ‘teach each other,’ resulting in a ‘viral effect.’” Leaders come and go, but it’s the leadership qualities they exhibit that go on to affect the multitudes. And while the standards by which we judge our leaders change, good leaders will always strive to raise the bar. As Jim McCue so aptly points out, “People don’t remember how many good decisions you make –– just the last one, so make it a good one!” ILTA Shirley Gorman and Susan Horiuchi are the Vice President of Client Relations and Vice President of Training, respectively, of PayneGroup. Both have been with PayneGroup for more than a decade, and prior to that, each worked extensively in law firms headquarters in the Pacific Northwest. Both are primary authors of the PayneGroup bestselling “Word for Law Firms” series. Shirley can be reached at ShirleyGorman@payneconsulting.com and Susan can be reached at SusanHoriuchi@ payneconsulting.com. Do you have the Matter-Centric Collaboration 1.0 Blues? Increase Lawyer Adoption through On-Demand Folder Creation and Matter Team Management— the 2.0 Approach to Matter-Centric Collaboration for WorkSite Prosperoware Milan is a single platform that solves multiple problems: Matter-Centric Collaboration 2.0 Distributed administration for WorkSite Information barriers & ethical walls Privacy management Lateral file transfer Balancing Lawyer Latitude with Firm Governance at the ILTA 2010 Conference Visit us at Booth 330 30 www.iltanet.org Peer to Peer

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