Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/7694
ILTA White Paper The Business of Law 50 T he practice of law is collaborative. Often attorneys engage peers within their own practice groups (PGs), other PGs or even outside counsel who are usually located in different geographical areas. They work together to reach their goals and objectives while enhancing business processes and reducing travel costs, both internally and for clients. And clients are demanding that their needs be met in the most cost-effective manner possible. Webinar technologies can be very powerful and can greatly improve your firm's collaboration efforts, not only the traditional uses in the areas of marketing and education, but also to enhance practice and business operations. CLE DELivErED via WEBinars Ongoing education is a cornerstone of law firm life. Attorneys are required to obtain continuing legal education (CLE) credits not only to maintain their licenses to practice, but also to stay on top of their games. Webinars can deliver the required CLE in a convenient package. Nexsen Pruet, LLC (NP) has started to use its webinar platform to deliver these educational programs to members of the Nexsen Pruet Law Firm Alliance, an informal network of attorneys in the Carolinas. While many of the attendees are usually able to be in one of the firm's offices, there are instances when attorneys cannot make it to the event, yet they still want to participate to obtain their credits. Through Adobe Connect Pro, remote attendees can view the session, which includes video from the speaker, and participate by asking questions in a variety of ways that includes Q&A Chats and voice-enabled interaction. This type of interaction is a requirement from the alliance and the bar association for both the delivery of content and the certification of attendance in order to receive CLE credit. MEnToring via WEBinars Mentoring is also part of our attorneys' lives. Senior attorneys are often responsible for training their juniors. When practice groups are geographically dispersed, training and mentoring can be ineffective over the telephone or inconvenient and costly when having to travel to different offices. Mike Mann, Intellectual Property Practice Group Leader at NP, explains how using a webinar tool can resolve this issue. "I am able to show online how an attorney can file trademark applications by using Meeting Place Express (MPX) so that we are looking at the same thing, and the other attorney can see what I am referring to. This feature is easily underestimated." He continues by explaining how collaboration is enhanced while working on documents. "I could simply e-mail a document to another attorney so that carlos rodriguez nexsen Pruet, llc Online Collaboration Enhances Business Operations at Nexsen Pruet