5 Ways to Make Your Membership Work for You!

Are you an active member of your local bar association?

If not, then it's time to GET INVOLVED!

A bar association can provide a wealth of opportunities for you to make meaningful connections and build your practice!

Here are five ways to get more out of your bar association membership.

1.  Join a section to get referrals.

Most large bar associations are divided into sections representing the various practice areas or topics of interest for lawyers.

Once you join, you can take full advantage of the the section's email listserv or discussion board, and subscribe to newsletters. Other benefits include:

• Making connections with people who do the same kind of work.
• Building a referral source network.
• Raising your reputation by becoming a leader. You can join the section council and eventually become chair.

2. Go to the Annual Meeting.

Put cost and distance aside and make time to go your bar's annual meeting.  It will be the  place you are going to find the highest concentration of powerful rainmakers in your state.

Go to the meeting and socialize. Collect and hand out business cards. CONNECT!

3. Volunteer for pro bono projects.

Think of a pro bono project as a team building exercise for the bar association. It takes people from very different practices, locations, and experience levels and throws them into a shared exercise where most of the normal rules do not apply. You may find yourself helping the managing partners of a 1,000-lawyer firm with something that is simple to you, but brand new and difficult to them. Those kinds of interactions foster strong and lasting relationships.

4. Sign up for the lawyer referral service.

If your bar has a lawyer referral service, take full advantage of it! It is a cost-effective way to generate potential clients.

5. Utilize the practice management advisor or the mentor program.

Many bar associations have a professional on staff called a practice management advisor (PMA). Typically, a PMA is a former practicing attorney or law firm staff member who offers FREE consultation on issues of law practice management. Others have mentoring programs.  If your bar association offers a PMA or a mentor, take the time to meet that person and find out how he/she can help you in your practice.

When it comes to making the most of your bar association membership, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Don't let your dues go to waste! Make every penny count by reaching out and taking advantage of all the business building opportunities your association provides. It may just be the most cost effective way to build your practice!

Adapted from article Ten Tip for Making Your Bar Association Dues Work for You by Erik Mazzone.

6 Attributes of a "Leadership Mind"

Leadership.

It's something many of us want, but attaining excellence as a leader can be difficult.

The truth is, people need the will to lead to become a leader and an influencer themselves. Leaders help motivate others and lead them in new directions.  Leaders also envision the future, and convince others that their vision is worth following.

So how is all of this accomplished?

With, what experts call, a "leadership mind" and the following personality traits:

1. High energy. Staying alert and focused are two of the greatest obstacles you will have to face as a leader.
2. Intuitiveness. Reasoning and logic don't get leaders through all situations.  They also use intuition and instincts to make decisions.
3. Maturity. This is based on recognizing that more can be accomplished by empowering others than by ruling others.
4. Team orientation. Business leaders today put a strong emphasis on team work.
5. Empathy. Being able to put yourself in the other person's shoes is a key trait of leaders. Without empathy, you can't build trust.
6. Charisma. Leaders who have charisma are able to arouse strong emotions in their employees by defining a vision which unites and captivates them. Using this vision, leaders motivate employees to reach toward a future goal by tying the goal to substantial personal rewards and values.

Interestingly enough, experts say people are rarely born as natural leaders. Leadership is learned through experience, persistence, and self-understanding.

Want to know more?

Read Polly LaBarre's article, Do You Have the Will to Lead? While lengthy, the thought-provoking article spotlights real leadership and how to attain it.

Don't limit your potential! All of us have the capacity to be leaders.

Skills and abilities will only get you so far in life.

In the end, only the mentally tough survive.

They are the ones who are able to bounce back from challenges because they continue to stay motivated, and they believe in themselves.

Did you know that self-belief is an essential element in the makeup of the world's best performers in business and sports?

That's right!

A healthy self-belief underpins the ability to achieve goals, take risks, control fear, and learn from mistakes.

START BELIEVING IN YOURSELF!

Overcome low self-esteem by setting your own self-belief goals.

Here are two strategies, as presented by performance psychologist Graham Jones, to get you started.

1. Highlight your skills and abilities.

These are the reasons you have risen to where you are in life, although in tough times people sometimes overlook the many accomplishments they have achieved thus far.

Listing your skills and the tangible achievements that have resulted from them highlights evidence of your professional and personal successes.

2.  Truly believe that you can achieve your goals.

Goals that are both realistic and appropriately challenging motivate you to achieve your performance expectations. But it’s also important to focus on the individual steps that will lead to each goal, as focusing solely on the ultimate outcome only adds to pressure. For example, reaching partnership may be the ultimate outcome goal, but component goals like building up your book of business and developing your leadership skills are fundamental to the process of rising in your firm as well.

Remember, self-belief is an essential part of internal motivation.

Energize your career and your mind by believing in yourself!

Real leadership is more than having authority.  You can grant someone a position, but you cannot grant him real leadership. Real leadership is being the person others will gladly and confidently follow regardless of your position.  Simply put, leadership is INFLUENCE.

How do you know if you have influence?  Leadership expert John Maxwell uses this acrostic in his acclaimed book, Becoming a Person of Influence:

• Integrity—builds relationships on trust
• Nurturing—cares about people as individuals
• Faith—believes in people
• Listening—values what others have to say
• Understanding—sees from their point of view
• Enlarging—helps others become bigger
• Navigating—assists others through difficulties
• Connecting—initiates positive relationships
• Empowering—gives them the power to lead

Mark the qualities listed above that you excel in.  Now  list the qualities you need to work on—along with a short note on how you are going to improve in that area.

Evaluate Your Leadership

Rate your leadership by placing the number 1, 2, or 3 next to each statement:

1=Never    2=Sometimes    3=Always

1. People seem to want to follow me.
2. Within the context of new acquaintances, I emerge as the leader.
3. As an elementary-school child, I was recognized as a leader.
4. My family recognizes me as a leader.
5. I find it easy to recruit people for volunteer projects.
6. I feel I am understood as a leader.
7. I have a great relationship with at least 80 per cent of the people in my firm.
8. When conflict arises between someone in the firm and myself, I confront that person one-on-one to deal with the situation.
9. Most of the key leaders in the firm agree with my leadership.
10. My partners and practice group members respect me as a leader and follow my lead enthusiastically.
11. It is easy for me to patiently listen when in a conversation, and I avoid interrupting until the other part has finished.
12. I make mistakes, but I do not make the same mistake twice.
13. I find it easy to relate to and connect with new people.
14. Concerning issues that are important to me, other leaders vote in a positive and supportive way.
15. I do not have trouble getting people to follow through with their commitments.
16. People trust me as a person and as a leader—my integrity is unquestioned.
17. I am definitely an encourager of people, so much that people migrate toward me in a crowd.
18. My influence is growing.

• 50-60 This is an area of strength.  Continue growing as a leader, but also ss area may not be spend time helping others to develop in this area.
• 40-49  This area may not be hurting you as a leader, but it isn’t helping you much either.  To strengthen your leadership, develop yourself in this area.
• 20-39 This is an area of weakness in your leadership.  Until you grow in this area, your leadership effectiveness will be negatively impacted.

Action Steps to Unleash Your Leadership Potential

Would you consider yourself to be a leader? Whom do you influence?

This week try to influence five people:

1. Your superior
2. A colleague on the same position level
3. A follower in your sphere of influence
4. A follower not in your sphere of influence
5. A family member or close friend

What you do to exert your influence could be as simple as suggesting where to go eat, or as important as suggesting a new project.

The measure of your success will be:  Did people follow you?