Category Archives: Must See

Oops, I did it again … an upcoming presidency, an upcoming webinar, and a real-time #Britney flame war

14 September 2022

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LMA is pleased to announce its 2023 International Board of Directors. The slate of candidates was ratified on September 2, 2022, and the newly elected and continuing officers and directors will begin their terms on January 1, 2023. More: https://legalmarketing.org/2023-International-Board

Legal Marketing Association – LMA International welcomes:

President
Roy E. Sexton
Director of Marketing
Clark Hill Law
Detroit, MI (Midwest Region)

Immediate Past President
Brenda Plowman
Chief Marketing Officer
Fasken
Vancouver, B.C. (Canada Region)

President-Elect
Kevin Iredell
Chief Marketing Officer
Lowenstein Sandler LLP
New York, NY (Northeast Region)

Secretary
Amy Payton Verhulst
Senior Business Development Manager
Jackson Lewis PC
Houston, TX (Southwest Region)

Treasurer
Andrew Laver
Business Development Manager
Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC
Philadelphia, PA (Northeast Region)

Treasurer-Elect
Rachel Shields Williams
Director of Knowledge Management
Sidley Austin LLP
Washington, D.C. (Mid-Atlantic Region)

Member-At-Large
John Byrne
Chief Marketing Officer
Gould & Ratner LLP
Chicago, IL (Midwest Region)

Member-At-Large
Jessica Haarsgaard
Business Development Manager
Burr & Forman LLP
Greenville, SC (Southeast Region)

Member-At-Large
Diana Lauritson
Senior Marketing and Business Development Officer
Hogan Lovells
Washington, DC (Mid-Atlantic Region)

Member-At-Large
Trish Desilets Lilley
Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer
Stroock
New York, NY (Northeast Region)

Member-At-Large
Jaime Lira
Marketing Director
Cohen & Malad, LLP
Indianapolis, IN (Midwest Region)

Regional Leaders’ Committee Chair
Robin Devereux Gerard
Chief Marketing Officer
Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth PC
Newport Beach, CA (West Region)

Chief Executive Officer
Danielle Gorash Holland
Legal Marketing Association
Chicago, IL

So darn excited to work with these amazing souls, all of our fab volunteer leaders, our incredible membership, and marvelous HQ support team next year. ✨

REGISTER: https://bit.ly/3wwtImc … “Law firms and legal service providers: Know who’s gonna join us for Stack Ranking, Part 2 on 9/30?

“Meet our special guests: Roy Sexton of Clark Hill Law; Drew Hawkins of Womble Bond Dickinson US LLP; and Gordon Braun-Woodbury of Calibrate.

“Our esteemed colleagues will weigh in on the 2022 RubyLaw Legal Marketing Tech Study and opine on our insights. Come hear what they have to say!”

I seem to have started a flame war with Britney Spears 😂 – Britney, we do love you, but please stay kind.

Tara Alexandra Kachaturoff and I chat about all things legal marketing on the Michigan Entrepreneur tv show … #lmamkt

7 September 2022

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Thank you, Tara Alexandra Kachaturoff for having me on Michigan Entrepreneur as your guest. You can watch the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5RuJFyMXkE

We speak at length about Clark Hill Law, Legal Marketing Association – LMA International, legal marketing , social media , digital marketing , lawyers, thought leadership, media relations, podcasts, technology, and trends.

Shout outs abound, including Wabash College, Deloitte, The Ohio State University, UM-Flint School of Management, Trott Law, Kerr Russell, Beaumont Health, JD Supra, Tanner Friedman, Mary Zatina, Susan Ahern, Megan McKeon, Alex France, Joel Epstein, Dave Trott, Robert Hoban, Sander Zagzebski, and …. cannabis.

Thank you to Carrie LeZotte and Steve Rota as well for their exceptional work on the production of this show.

Special thank you to Tanner Friedman’s Joel Epstein for arranging this fun opportunity. Joel, you are such a rock star and we all love working with you and are grateful for your hustle and your heart. Tara and I are both in the Joel fan club for sure!

August 6 … life is a banquet

6 August 2022

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A year ago today … my beloved mom died suddenly.

It’s all been … a lot. Sometimes life feels in free fall. Other times oddly centered and calm.

A lot of change. Not all bad, nor unexpected. But I miss her.

That kind of brilliant, deep-feeling, vibrant, funny-as-hell force of nature, so unquestionably in your corner? You might know someone like that once in a lifetime, let alone be raised by one.

I’m deeply sad. Every day. But intensely grateful for who she was … and who I am as result.

And hopeful. Always hopeful.

And at peace.

“Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!” – Mame Dennis

John Mola, FOUR-time triathlete! #loveislove

25 July 2022

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I’m so proud of this boy. Life has been hard on everyone the past few years. But John’s carried a pretty big burden – parental caregiving, successful but intense workload, managing his own MS in this challenging health environment, the loss of my mom, loss of our Lucy dog, being so loving and helpful to my dad as he rebuilds his life, taking beautiful care of me (no easy task!) and Hudson and our home (including a full bathroom remodel), on and on. He rarely takes time for himself.

Two (!) weeks ago, he announced to me he wanted to run a #sprinttriathlon. His fourth, but it had been a minute since he’d run one. And he did it! He got his fitness where it needed to be, prepared mentally, and completed his mission on Saturday at the #CerealCityTriathlon.

I couldn’t be there, but I awoke (in Vegas) Saturday morning to this photo via text (the wonders of time zones!) and it brought such happy tears to my eyes. The joy and the sense of accomplishment are evident in his expression.

I’m so proud of you: John Mola, four-time (and counting!) #triathlete! 🙌✨ Love you so much!

Be a leader. Not a busybody.

14 July 2022

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One of the treasures unearthed at my parents‘ house. A cartoon my dad drew of my grandfather based on a Norman Rockwell image. Some of the humor clearly is of another era when a grown man taking good care of a cat was something tease-worthy.

That said, what I love about this, other than the creativity and the warmth it exhibits, is that it shows we’ve always been a “stand back and hold my beer” kind of family.

I will always be proud of that quality, and it will always be core to my personality.

#love #animals #family #art #beyou #bebold #bekind

#teamdifficult: “King Kong came to our town …”

6 July 2022

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My family often deals with sadness and heartache through wit and humor. I think that’s why many of us take a shine to satirists and absurdists. Mel Brooks. Sid Caesar. Stephen Colbert. Sacha Baron Cohen. Kathy Griffin. Richard Pryor. Noel Coward. Jonathan Winters. Steve Allen. Spike Jones. Carl Reiner. Oscar Wilde.

The arrivals in today’s mail fall right in that vein. My parents loved Dory Previn, the quintessential pop music feminist/satirist, so I had ordered this album for nostalgic healing. And my mom would have gotten such a kick from this letter/sticker combo that I received for my contribution at http://www.stickerformenonly.com.

I think of my mom often right now and about how fired up she would be over the state of the world. And how MSNBC would have been blasting from her TV set 24/7. I can only hope I find ways to honor her legacy and speak up for #teamdifficult.

A tale of two Susans: good will hunting … and abiding

25 June 2022

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Thank you, Goodwill Industries International, Goodwill Industries of Northeast Indiana, Inc. , Bill Warriner, and Lori McCutcheon! Susan is remarkable!

Original post: https://www.facebook.com/525651807446116/posts/5555854667759113/?d=n

There’s a bit more to all of this and I didn’t want to overdo my comment, but we were really struggling with a lot of this purging, and, as we pulled things off the truck, Susan was so complimentary about my mother’s taste and how well received her collection would be. It was such a relief and an encouragement.

And then we found out that Susan shares the same name … as my mother Susie Sexton. And there’s more: Goodwill Susan‘s mother was a professor at Ball State University in the speech department, and was one of my mother’s professors when she was there. My mother studied speech at Ball State. My mother wrote a couple of books, speaking at length about how much she loved her years there.

It all felt like fate, to be honest. And did our hearts a world of good!

#bekind

The rest is drag: Fisher-Price’s “Little People” take on RuPaul’s “Drag Race”

20 June 2022

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Picture it: 1992. Wabash College Lambda Chi Alpha house. Young Roy was walking through the “tube room” (where our ONE tv was) on the way to do my laundry. My frat brothers were going on in that performative way only young hormonal straight guys can for each other about how “hot” they were finding the “woman” performing on MTV. I giggled to myself when I realized the video they were watching was “Supermodel” by RuPaul.

After I put in my wash, I walked back to find them all a bit crestfallen, as the resident veejay had then interviewed MamaRu and they realized they’d been duped. To their credit, they weren’t spouting off any homophobic foolishness to cover for any embarrassment they may have been feeling. We were a really kind and inclusive house. Always.

All of that said, if you had told me then that I would be holding in my hot little hands today Fisher-Price Little People depicting this fabulous superstar, I would’ve never believed you. But here we are. I’m sure there are some hyperventilating pundits out there sputtering that these charming toys are somehow harming our youth more than guns and devious politicians do. C’est la vie. All I know is that I’m delighted that we live in a forward-moving world where these exist … and that I own them. At age 49. 😅🌈✨

#Pride … meaningful media: Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 and Madonna’s I’m Breathless

13 June 2022

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Clark Hill assembled a list of “meaningful media” to honor Pride month, with contributions and (most importantly) heartfelt stories from all across our great firm. Thank you to my colleagues Hannah Reisdorff who organized the list’s development and Ray Koenig and Tobias Smith who are leading our overall Pride recognition activities. Here is my contribution to the list …

For me, there were two albums that helped me as a young high school man living in a small town in Indiana still trying to figure out what his sexuality might mean. Might be surprising to hear but in the late 80s there wasn’t a lot of good guidance for people like me. Lol. But I found a voice in two records that weren’t overtly LGBTQ but were recorded by artists who have always been allies to our community.

In 1989, I wandered into our mall’s Musicland and bought a cassette of Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814. It was all the money I had in my pocket, and that album with its day-glo, percolating inclusivity gave me a summer soundtrack that made me feel like the world could be a better place.

The following summer, I was chosen by the US Senate as a youth ambassador to Japan. A bit homesick, I bought another cassette, this time of Madonna’s I’m Breathless, a pastiche of songs from Dick Tracy and songs inspired by the film. Problematic as the song “Vogue” has become as we are increasingly sensitized to cultural appropriation, nonetheless its thundering pulse and message of liberation – as well as the fizzy camp with which the queen of pop delivered the album’s other show tunes – spoke to my soul and gave me a sense of self.

I still listen to both of these albums often, now streaming, and they transport me to a time of discovery and give me a sense of great gratitude that these artists were willing to push the envelope of popular entertainment and acceptance.

Happy birthday, John Mola!

5 June 2022

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Happy birthday to my sweet husband John! Proud of you, John, for your kind and generous heart and grateful for all you do for all of us. Love you! ❤️

Part one of John’s birthday haul! He is over the moon – such fun when gifts speak to the heart!

And thank you, Aaron and Rob, for the Tanqueray and Seva Ann Arbor gift certificate and (most of all) the gift of your beautiful friendship. We love you!

Part two of John’s birthday haul. Thank you, Connor Trinneer and Cameo, for making this day so special. We love you!

Part three of John’s birthday haul. Felicia Day, your message was so heartfelt and fun and kind. You brought us both happy tears! We love you so!

Perhaps the best gift of all… This beautiful message from our niece Gabby. Family matters. ❤️