2018 Summer Conference Agenda

7:30 AM PDC Walk 

 

8:30 AM Registration Open

 

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM New Member/First Time Attendee Welcome Reception

 

10:15 AM - 12:00 PM Welcome Remarks and Opening Plenary

 

It's a commonly heard phrase that people best learn through experience, but how does one create experiences that satisfy professional development objectives in a law firm context?  This session will demonstrate how experiential elements can be woven into training environments of any size in order to enhance outcomes.  Come prepared to participate, problem-solve, and learn practical skills that can be immediately applied to your next training session.

 

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Networking Lunch - Sponsored by: BusinessTalk, Inc.

 

12:15 PM - 1:00 PM Solution Showcase Presentations, Presentation 1: Micron Systems; Presentation 2: BriefCatch.com

 

1:00 PM - 2:30 PM Breakout Sessions

 

 

Join us for a thought-provoking discussion with leaders in professional development. We’ll hear why feedback is so important—not only for driving professional development, but for enhancing the client experience and for improving firm culture as well. Our panelists won’t be shy about sharing their experiences through the lens of good humor and best practices. Our panel includes Dr. Larry Richard, who will share research linking feedback to the retention of top talent. You will also learn about new tools that will permit more immediate and higher-quality feedback, along with some helpful tips about giving and receiving feedback.

 

 

Physician Well-Being” is a field of study and practice just a few years ahead of “Lawyer Well-Being.”  While there are differences between the two professions, the effects of burnout and need for well-being are similar.  Foundational to both is the need to connect with meaning and purpose of their work. This interactive workshop explores best practices in physician well-being and its application to lawyers.   This program will deliver evidence-based content, small group interaction, and individual time for participants to self-assess their own level of burnout and put together a well-being action plan.

 

 

First-generation professionals can face daunting challenges in the transition to practice. Firm norms and expectations can be unfamiliar – or, literally, foreign – to lawyers whose parents did not attend college or who were born in another country. This interactive program will cover best practices for integration and career advancement. The expert panel, which includes a first-generation professional, will provide strategies for PD professionals to help senior lawyers support first-generation lawyer success. The program will also highlight relevant law school programs and give participants an opportunity to share their own insights and successes.

 

2:30 PM - 3:00 PM Afternoon Networking Break

 

3:00 PM - 4:00 PM Breakout Sessions

 

 

No deck, no lecture, no panel. For this session, we’ll use blended learning techniques to foster an engaging, interactive discussion on … blended learning techniques. (See the link below to access the materials.). Instead of sitting through a lecture, attendees will learn the basics before the session by watching a short video. During the session, we’ll discuss an exercise that involves helping a managing partner rethink the firm’s training programs. The video and exercise can be accessed here: https://pd.hotshotlegal.com/blended-learning-materials-for-pd-teams. We’ll also hear from colleagues about how they’re using blended learning, including what’s working, what isn’t working, and why (or why not). It’s time to practice what we preach!

 

 

Attorneys stay at firms longer when they are invested in their colleagues and feel as though they have been well trained and mentored. It is also no secret that minority attorneys are harder to retain. This program will share one way to provide minority (and non-minority attorneys) with training and mentoring opportunities and the chance to do “good” in the community. We will discuss the brainstorming behind developing pro bono clinics (primarily led by affinity network members) and how those clinics provide support systems—both substantively (training) and personally (mentoring)—to retain good attorneys.

 

 

The time is now for your law firm to talk about its culture of integrity and effectively position its compass. This program will direct and promote necessary discussions on law firm culture and integrity and highlight the critical role PDC members play (and should continue to play) in steering their firms' values, practices, and policies. It will also look at ways attendees can continue to support and lead their firms’ best practices in integrity, particularly during times when firm values may be challenged.

 

4:00 PM - 4:15 PM Transition Break

 

4:15 PM - 5:30 PM Breakout Sessions

 

 

Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Blockchain, Machine Learning …There are so many new technologies and buzzwords floating around these days.  But what are they exactly? While there has been much discussion regarding how these new technologies may impact the field of law in general, not much has been said about how they will impact the training and education of lawyers (and everyone else for that matter).  And make no mistake…they WILL have an impact. 

Join us as we explore this new world of amazing new technologies together and discuss how they will impact our profession and how we can best leverage them to enhance lawyer PD.  

 

 

Increasingly, lawyers are delivering services and counsel on a team level. But how does a law firm build strong team skills? How do you teach lawyers and staff to be a high-performing team? In this session, we will look at elements of high-performing teams, discuss ways to teach team performance, and examine some team concepts such as effective followership, high engagement, stages of team formation, setting direction, leveraging relationships, building commitment, and managing conflict. Participants will engage in a team learning experience, with a debrief to illustrate elements of a high-performing team (or not!).

 

 

6:00 PM - 9:00 PM Group Dinner - Cocktail Reception at 6:00 PM, Sponsored by: Micron Systems

 

Join us for a night out at Oregon’s original craft brewery, BridgePort BrewPub. Located in an old cordage factory, the BridgePort BrewPub will provide a unique venue for this year’s Summer Conference outing. Tickets are $100 per person and guests are also welcome to attend. Ticket price includes dinner, drinks and a tour of the brewery. Plan to allot three hours for this can't-miss evening event.

 

 

7:30 AM - 8:15 AM Wake Up!:  Yoga and Meditation for People Who Hate (or Love) Yoga and Meditation

 

By now, many of us have heard about the benefits of yoga and meditation, but how many of us have a daily mindfulness practice?  Whether you have a hard time getting in the habit or think these practices aren't for you, you can still reap some of the benefits of yoga and meditation with minimal time and effort—all you need to do is come to this session!  We'll learn some basic techniques to wake up the body and mind that don't require headstands, toe touching, or long meditations.  

 

8:15 AM - 9:30 AM Breakfast and PDC Membership Meeting (PDC Members Only)

 

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM Transition Break

 

9:45 AM - 11:00 AM Breakout Sessions

 

 

Lawyer satisfaction and retention are once again pivotal concerns for law firms. This highly interactive session will provide several examples of resources that can be used to collect, assess, and manage in-depth details of lawyer hiring, development, satisfaction, and departures. Through group discussions and case studies, participants will learn about tools and techniques to evaluate obvious and not-so obvious trends, preferences, successes, and failures within their own firms. Attendees will also learn how to compile and present powerful data and information to management to support new or improved initiatives or programming.

 

 

The wisest and most effective law firm managers know they must use different approaches to get the best from underperforming, average, and superstar associates. A firm's highest performers aren't always the easiest to manage—contrary to conventional wisdom, they may present a thornier challenge than poor performers, while average employees may be an untapped key to sustainable growth and profitability. Learn how to identify the needs of each of these employee groups and how to design effective ways to teach these skills to supervising attorneys.

 

 

Political skills are essential for proactively managing your career development and becoming a change agent, but their positive aspects are eclipsed by their bad reputation as "office politics." Women and racial minorities are even more inclined to view politics from a negative perspective and opt out—to the detriment of their careers and well-being. The “positive politics” perspective emphasizes the many benefits of empowerment through political activity and presents strategies for engaging effectively, authentically, and with integrity.

 

11:00 AM - 11:15 AM Transition Break

 

11:15 AM - 12:15 AM Breakout Sessions

 

 

We’re increasingly working with and leading co-workers of different cultures in our organizations, so how can we leverage and be more inclusive of these differences? Based on her extensive research and work in this space, Ritu Bhasin says it comes down to authentic leadership, and that authenticity is the key ingredient for inclusion. In this highly practical presentation, Ritu will describe the profound connection between inclusion, leadership, and authenticity. She will also discuss the latest neuroscience, leadership, diversity, and mindfulness research related to authenticity, explain how to leverage the Three Selves (an innovative concept for being more authentic and adaptive), and explore how leaders can build stronger, more inclusive relationships within legal environments.

 

 

By some estimates, more than a third of U.S. companies are doing away with annual performance reviews, replacing them with frequent, informal check-ins between managers and employees. In keeping with this trend, a few large law firms have piloted projects to focus their evaluation systems on informal, real-time feedback rather than on an annual review. In this program, we will examine the pros and cons of the annual evaluation, describe the experiences of organizations that have eliminated or de-emphasized annual reviews, and discuss how PD professionals can guide their firms in exploring new options for delivering timely feedback.

 

 

Every company has a distinct culture, and much legal business is won and lost by a firm’s ability to assess a potential client’s culture and tailor its sales pitch to fit that culture. But how do you hit the right mark? Hear from in-house counsel at two Fortune 500 companies about their differing cultures and outside counsel hits and misses. You will learn to work with your attorneys to assess company culture and arm them to hit the target when making pitches and delivering work.

 

12:15 PM - 1:15 PM Networking Lunch - Sponsored by: QuietSpacing LLC

 

12:30 PM - 1:15 PM Solution Showcase Presentations, Presentation 1: Hotshot; Presentation 2: LawFirmElearning

 

1:15 PM - 2:15 PM PDC Talks

 

 

In today's frenetic, crowded marketplace, professionals tasked with corporate messaging and client management are increasingly using video to convey their ideas. Meanwhile, the lines between pre-produced video, interviews, and social media are blurring, giving professionals with strong on-camera skills a distinct advantage. This presentation will share some of the techniques that seasoned television news professionals can use to distill and convey sometimes complex concepts into digestible nuggets, all while maintaining the audience's attention.

 

 

Much diversity strategy focuses on the recruiting funnel: creating diverse candidate pools and mitigating bias in hiring to yield higher diversity numbers. The problem with this approach is that women and minorities exit the funnel at a disproportionately high rate. It's time to flip the diversity funnel on its head and create an inverted funnel that retains and advances diverse talent through inclusion-directed strategies that incorporate diversity into key organizational structures. Four areas of leading-edge research (“the four i’s of diversity and inclusion”) help guide the way: intergroup contact, inclusion-centered design, integration and learning, and interaction metrics. This session will explore these concepts.

 

 

Have you ever felt excluded from an opportunity before you've barely said a word? This 15-minute PDC Talk will show how a parent's words of encouragement following a playground rejection helped reframe a PD professional's approach to connecting with others. Whether you're meeting new people, counseling a colleague, participating in a meeting, or interviewing for an opportunity, you're more likely to forge an authentic connection and influence others when you ask open-ended questions and engage in active listening. This presentation will provide a framework for asking open-ended questions and role-play an approach to active listening that will help you open doors in your professional and personal lives.

 

 

A discussion of techniques to improve the capacity to handle life's surprises and setbacks through resilience, an individual's ability to persevere and adapt. It is maintained that resilience is what determines the happiness and longevity of our relationships, our success at work, and the quality of our health. More than any other factor in the scheme of emotional intelligence, resilience is what determines how high we rise above what threatens to wear us down. These seven skills can help individuals
evaluate the impact of their thinking on emotions and behavior and can result in improvement in how they communicate, make decisions, and navigate life, through recognizing and changing the negative thoughts and beliefs that are subconsciously undermining their resilience.

 

2:15 PM - 2:45 PM Afternoon Networking Break

 

2:45 PM - 3:45 PM Breakout Session

 

 

Everyone is talking about it: From #metoo to #timesup, the public discourse is flush with stories of everything from full-scale workplace harassment to all to common micro-aggressions. With all of this talk outside of work, in our organizations, the topic seems to be stuck at the water cooler, or within the walls of the ladies room. How can you provide a platform for the women (and men!) in your organization to have this and other critical conversations? In this session we will cover how to advocate for, manage, and deliver any difficult conversation on a broad scale. We will discuss common traps associated with the topic of gender and how you can focus on solutions and forward motion in any presentation. Using a highly successful collaboration as our case study we will share the impact and outcomes of one such program to guide and empower your attorneys during these turbulent times.

 

 

 

This presentation focuses on the assets that quiet lawyers – whether introverted, shy, or socially anxious – bring to the profession. Little support is given to these valuable legal minds who need help to amplify their authentic legal voices; instead, an unconscious bias exists toward extroverts who throw out the first answer, thrive on argument, and speak longest and loudest.  This presentation will highlight the strengths of quiet individuals, such as active listening, deep thinking, thoughtful writing, and creative problem solving. It will also provide practical strategies for cultivating awareness of the assets of introverts and help quiet lawyers amplify their “voice.”

 

 

No manager looks forward to saying no, handling conflict, giving performance reviews, or delivering bad news, but the ability to manage these business conversations positively and constructively is a core competency for success. This session explores the skills needed to take the discomfort out of a tough conversation and make it a positive tool for growth in business relationships.  It will draw on a 2017 learning initiative at Osler incorporating complex role-play practice.

 

3:45 PM - 4:00 PM Transition Break

 

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM Campfire Chats

 

Every law firm wants to generate more revenue and be highly profitable. Everyone’s actions within a firm should be in alignment with that goal, however, that’s not always the case. This is particularly true when talking about cross-selling, which is one of the fastest and most efficient ways to increase revenue and profitability. Systems, skills, tactics, and mindsets are often misaligned or non-existent, resulting is sub-optimal performance.

 

How to Design a Customized Leadership Program
Sandra Bang, Global Director, Legal Talent Development, Shearman & Sterling 
Jennifer Caggiano, Director, Professional Development, Shearman & Sterling

 

Many firms have leadership programs for their lawyers. Some are conducted inhouse, while others are provided "off campus." In this program, you will hear about how one firm partnered with a subject matter expert to create a customized leadership program for select high-potential senior associates with real return on investment. Learn about the process from the preliminary research stage through and including how we measure success.

 

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM Trusted Advisors Panel

 

5:00 PM - 5:45 PM Happy Hour - Sponsored by: Practising Law Institute

 

6:30 PM Small Group Dinners (PDC Members Only)

 

Network with your colleagues and meet new friends during our small group dinners. These informal and fun dinners provide a night out on the town at a unique Portland restaurant selected by one of our local planning committee members. Sign-up for the small group dinners will be available as we get closer to the conference.

 

9:00 PM - 12:00 AM Karaoke Party - Sponsored by: Hotshot

 

 

8:00 AM Breakfast

 

8:15 AM - 9:00 AM Solution Showcase Presentations, Presentation 1: Practising Law Institute; Presentation 2: Praktio

 

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM Breakout Sessions

 

 

Every PD professional negotiates, whether for a higher salary, needed resources, or buy-in on a new initiative. In this highly interactive session, Gianna Karapelou and Dr. Larry Richard will share five powerful secrets from Chris Voss, a successful FBI hostage negotiator and author of Never Split the Difference. Learn how you can apply life-saving negotiation techniques such as an Accusation Audit, Mirroring, or the Power of No in your own law firm, organization, or even at home.

 

 

The 2017 National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being shined a spotlight on the legal profession’s wellness crisis. To get the profession started on creating urgently needed action plans, three former lawyers and prominent thought leaders on lawyer well-being will provide science-backed practical guidance and tools for law firms.

 

 

Ever “pushed” on a “pull” door?  It’s not you, it’s the door. It’s poorly designed.  Learn how the principles of human-centered design apply to your work as a PD professional as we help a hypothetical law firm revamp its PD program using the Design Thinking process.  This fast-paced session will get your creative juices flowing to tackle common PD challenges with your peers as you build on each other's ideas in a fun and innovative way.  

10:30 AM - 11:00 AM Networking Break

 

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Closing Plenary Session and Remarks

 

Many high achievers (lawyers, anyone?) share a dirty secret: deep down, they feel like complete frauds and believe their success is due to circumstance and luck despite years of hard work providing evidence to the contrary. It's a phenomenon known as Impostor Syndrome, and it affects millions of people at least once in their life, including Melinda Gates and Meryl Streep. This session will discuss the evolving research on the different forms of IS, explore what contributes to it, and brainstorm some best practices for overcoming it—both in ourselves and the attorneys with whom we work.