Legal conference coordinators : Time to step up to the plate

One of the reasons the legal profession lags on the innovation front is the manner in which many legal conferences are put together.

• Sponsor stranglehold. Conferences understandably take huge sponsorship monies from the well entrenched dinosaurs of the legal industry. Two come to mind. This results in conference coordinators being hesitant to invite speakers who talk openly about products and services, sponsors bumping previously invited speakers they don’t like from conference agendas, and sponsors putting their own employees who have little domain expertise on panels.
• Inane rules prohibiting ‘consultants and vendors’ who often have the most domain expertise and follow innovative trends from speaking. It’s understandable you want to prevent selling from the podium. But good companies who are truly looking to serve the legal profession don’t do that. If you get a company that’s going to have a stooge tout their service, don’t invite them back. They’re also going to be crucified for you by audience members using Twitter.
• Member perks and politics. ‘Gee we have this good speaker with excellent domain expertise presenting, let’s put some members of the association on the panel for all they have done for the association.’ Politics are everywhere in organizations. But why ‘dumb down’ a panel for legal professionals paying thousands in tuition and travel monies to attend your conference? Why make it difficult for a panelist with industry expertise to give the most valuable presentation? Especially if the presenter is picking up their own travel expenses to help you and your membership.
• Law firm participation at all cost. ‘We need to get some lawyers and law firm personnel on the panel to round it out.’ Legal professionals are lemmings who follow each other, even if it means off a cliff. Limiting a presentation to someone from outside a law firm with a different perspective and sees the successes of innovative law firms can be a great thing.

There are some great legal conferences out there. I’ve had the honor of speaking at them, some within the last couple months. But I’ve personally experienced the above problems on numerous occasions over the last six years. The last three for conferences coming up this summer and fall.

Take the easy way out and call me a prima donna. But I’ve wanted to be a lawyer all my life. I practiced law for 17 years driven by one question, ‘How can we help more people?’ It pains me to see our legal profession being held in such low esteem by the public. For lawyers to be the butt of jokes for being so self centered and lagging in innovation is not something the proud in our profession should take lying down.

I am not alone in my feelings. I talk with other presenters who feel the same way. We know the organizations who honorably stand for offering the best at their association’s legal conferences. We also know the associations who place other interests first at their conferences.

Sure, as presenters with a company we know we advance our positions as thought leaders in our field by speaking at your conferences. We all know that’s in the best interests of our companies. But, believe it or not, as leaders of honorable companies built on a mission of service, we’re going to put the interests of your attendees first.

We can do better as a profession. One place it can start is with legal conferences and their sponsors. Take your obligation to serve our legal profession, the legal professionals it employs, and the public we serve seriously. It’s possible to serve others and make a buck.

Let’s put petty issues aside and propel the legal profession forward in a positive and noble way. We owe to ourselves and the public at large.