Yesterday the Legal Marketing Association hosted an end-of-year Town Hall, providing the perfect opportunity to step back and reflect on the fantastic achievements they have achieved in 2021. It has been a year full of challenges and the LMA under Kelly MacKinnon's leadership has done incredibly well. They have provided us with opportunity to connect, learn and have fun with our fabulous community.
Here at Passle, we've loved supporting the LMA throughout the years. In tough times we rely on our friends and what we have seen with the LMA is how strong those friendships are and how powerful the LMA community is.
The LMA has managed to achieve a great deal in 2021. At the Town Hall Kelly went through just a few of those accomplishments:
- Launched a brand new website. A new content hub - Strategies and Voices which has seen a growth of 60% in interaction. Plus as if that was not enough the LMA launched a very popular (and useful) FaceBook page.
- Launched in Europe. LMA Europe Region is up and running! Led by Reed Smith CMO Sadie Baron European law firms and the wider legal community can now properly be part of the LMA family. This is fantastic news for firms like Passle with people on both sides of the pond. My colleagues in London were lucky enough to represent Passle at the fabulous launch party last month.
- Exceeded the Membership Retention Goal by 130%! The LMA now has 3,468 members. Hoping to hit 4,000 next year.
- Hosted a truly successful and very enjoyable in person National Conference in Florida. I went and although smaller this year for obvious reasons it was brilliant. I think one of the best. The fact it happened at all was a great success but the quality of content, the venue and the wonderful quality-time spent catching up properly with friends and colleagues was a highlight of my year.
- Plus.... Heaps of other achievements like 55 educational events, financial Success with a tight budget, real progress with their focus on DE&I including bringin in a DE&I consultant, running a survey & laying the groundwork so that LMA can implement a strategic plan that has been built.
All of this - and this is the extraordinary thing about the LMA - has been achieved due to those in the legal marketing and business development community volunteering time and effort to make this all happen. Thank you!!
Hearing about plans going into 2022 was equally as exciting. We know the 2021 President of the LMA Brenda Plowan very well here at Passle. She is awesome and it was great to hear her plans. 'Tiny pivots for big impact' was a quote that really stood out to us. Next year will see the LMA continue to advance their profession to position the association as the ‘authority and voice for legal marketing'.
From the Annual Conference to the 55 educational programs hosted in multiple regions to the Christmas parties we have been thoroughly enjoying in the last couple of weeks the LMA this year has provided so much value to those in our industry - and there will be much more to come in 2022.
For anyone looking to get involved, it's well worth checking out the various committees and SIG's to see the various opportunities. We at Passle will continue our support both financially and now we have offices in the US and the LMA is in Europe we will support through volunteering.
As Kelly said in her opening speech, it’s been a rollercoaster year for everyone, but the highs have well outshone the lows, and they’re ready to do it all again next year for 2022, and we cannot wait to join them for the ride!