Today’s 10 Most Important Law Firm Retreat and Marketing Training Topics
Firm retreats are cyclical. When times are good and money’s flowing, firms spend heavily to get together, renew relationships, and refresh their culture with educational and social events.
COVID forced the cancelation of nearly all firm, associate, and partner retreats. Lawyers temporarily fell behind in their marketing education, but in-person programming returned strongly in 2024.
This is critical, because as we know, meaningful relationships are formed in person, not by Zoom. Most of the most popular topics 20 years ago remain hot today, with some modern additions.
Today’s Hottest Topic is…
ChatGPT, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of Law.
Obviously. AI is completely revolutionizing the practice of law and its pace is accelerating far faster than even the experts could have imagined. If you’re not actively and regularly training your lawyers to understand and use AI, you’re already falling behind the competition.
AI is the most disruptive technology we will experience in our lifetimes.
Its impact will be greater than the Internet, computers, and the calculator combined. I’ve presented on this topic a dozen times in 2024 to thousands of lawyers and accountants from 100 countries, and have seen how many older professionals are reluctant to learn to use it.
Literally dozens of lawyers, accountants, auditors, and consultants in their late 50s and 60s have confided that they’re hoping to ride into retirement without having to adapt. Those are your senior partners.
We have to impress on our lawyers that it’s URGENT.
The asteroid has hit. You can’t ignore it — the only question is whether you’ll be a dinosaur or a mammal.
In my direct observation, most of their heel-dragging is due to a simple lack of understanding of (1) how powerful it can be, and (2) how easy it is to learn. Older lawyers remember how painful it was to learn complicated new technologies. But AI is different, it does not require a 300-page manual – I teach them the basics in a few minutes. That’s jaw-dropping.
If you do nothing else in early 2025, help them learn to use generative artificial intelligence. They’ll thank you.
Let’s now move to today’s hottest Marketing-related topics.
The Top Ten Marketing and Business Development Topics for 2025
Based on conversations with over 100 marketers and administrators seeking speakers for their firm retreats, here is my list of the Top Ten Most-Popular Marketing Topics:
- Focused Marketing (Finding a specialty niche or industry to dominate, the most important marketing-related topic)
- Networking Tips (Practical ways to motivate good behavior and reduce social anxiety)
- LinkedIn for Lawyers (Drafting a powerful profile and using LinkedIn effectively)
- Social Media and Online Marketing (Telling your story online, e.g. LinkedIn, Google, Avvo, Twitter/X…)
- Client Service Strategies (Learning how to improve a firm’s service and client-retention efforts yields enormous profits)
- Personal Branding (Standing out in a crowded marketplace)
- Developing an Individual Marketing Plan (Setting long- and short-term goals)
- Business-Development Techniques (How rainmakers turn contacts into prospects then clients)
- Client Roundtables (Hearing the clients’ voices, aggressively moderated to avoid generic platitudes)
- Associate Acquisition and Retention (How to attract and keep the best talent)
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health for Lawyers (Increasing awareness and showing lawyers how to get help for themselves and others)
If you’re looking for a firm retreat or training speaker, CALL ME ASAP at +1.847.921.7677!
Watch my law firm speaker demo video for more information.
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Interested in booking Ross Fishman for your retreat, marketing training, or Ethics CLE program? See rossfishman.com.
Contact Ross directly at ross@fishmanmarketing.com, or 1.847.921.7677!
