Almost two months ago, I left my job as head of marketing and business development with a large North Carolina law firm to start my own company. Until recently, my interest within the law practice management and technology world had largely been technology, specifically marketing technologies.

Over the course of these last months, my eyes have been opened to the resilience, hard work, and investment of time it takes to get a business up and running.

I am regularly researching issues related to entrepreneurship and business operations. Most of the time, I am looking for help online late at night, once the client work is done, and I’ve won the battle of the bedtime routines with my two girls.

Last month, we had our first LPM&T Section Council meeting at the Bar Association. The conversation focused on our section’s role in bringing value to our membership by curating, developing, and distributing helpful information and resources. We discussed our “go-to” blogs and websites for staying up-to-date on practice management issues. We discussed the agenda for our 2016 spring CLE, and topics that might be of interest for our section’s newsletters. I hope that both are helpful resources for you, our members.

I want to challenge all of us to do more. To fill the gap between newsletters and CLEs. To serve our fellow lawyers who are not only practicing law but also running a business. To serve the recent law school graduates who are just getting started and may not have an extensive network of people they can reach out to with questions, but are adept at navigating social networks to find the information they need. To serve those of us who need answers now, not every quarter or once a year.

We can build a community of collaboration by sharing articles and resources on social media using the hashtag #NCBALPMT. We can engage in conversations from which our colleagues might benefit if they could be a part. If the five seconds it takes me to add #NCBALPMT to a post can save one of you 30 minutes researching the same issue, I am all for it. We are a profession that gets paid for our time, and every minute counts.

I am happy to have the opportunity to serve as chair of the Law Practice Management & Technology Section this year. I’d love to hear your ideas on how our Section can better serve our members through online engagement. You can find me on Twitter at @ginny_allen. I look forward to hearing your ideas – don’t forget to include #NCBALPMT so others can join in the conversation.

Ginny Allen is the principal at Adept Digital.

December 16, 2015/by NCBARBLOG

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