Last week I was in England and participated in the launch of Collaborative Law week, a week of educational events, articles and activities dedicated to raising the profile of Collaborative Law in the West of England. The week, organized by Collaborative Family Lawyers, began with a networking event in Bristol attracting over 100 professionals.
The networking event included brief presentations to educate referral sources on the value of Collaborative Law. I gave an introduction on how to attract clients to Collaborative Law, his Honour Judge Barclay gave an endorsement of Collaborative Law and told a compelling story on how children are negatively impacted by high conflict divorce and Collaborative Lawyer, Richard Sharp talked about the benefits of Collaborative Law from the client’s perspective citing quotes from satisfied clients.
The event was a success because of five key reasons:
- The program included a “sticky message.” All presentations, videos and handouts focused on the value proposition of Collaborative Law. Everyone in attendance walked away knowing what Collaborative Law is, who it is was for and how it benefitted clients.
- Attendees were influencers in the business community. Each POD member was asked to invite 10 top referral sources to the event. The referral sources were high level professionals who wanted to network with other high level professionals and learn about resources for better serving their clients.
- The excitement about Collaborative Law was contagious and created a “power of context” environment that influenced professionals to want to learn about Collaborative Law and get involved. I personally met two financial advisors who wanted to learn how to become part of the Bristol POD.
- Collaborative Family Lawyers leveraged social media to “spread the word.” The successful campaign included:
- Collaborative Law You Tube video
- Bath Lawyers promote Collaborative Law week You Tube video
- Collaborative Divorce News Blog
- Face book page
- A Collaborative Law twitter profile
- Revised web site to include relevant compelling content for divorcing and separating couples
- Collaborative Professionals worked together to make the program a success. The Launch initiatives were led by Collaborative Lawyer Peter Berry who inspired members in the West of England PODs to make a contribution to the event. Julia Smart, a Collaborative Lawyer in Bristol said, “The event brought us together because we were all working on a project that was important to us and our practice.”
With over 30,000 trained Collaborative professionals in 24 countries, we have the opportunity to move Collaborative Law towards a tipping point. This will require Collaborative Professionals to work together to effectively spread the Collaborative Law message in a way that is relevant, meaningful and speaks to the goals and interests of clients and referral sources.
Has anyone else participated in a successful Collaborative Law event? If so tell me your story.