The LMS Annual Conference is in it's 15th year and there were over 100 people at Chancery Lane yesterday. The event was sponsored by NatWest and Moneypenny, which of course helps keep the ticket price down, as Chris Hart (from Wollen Michelmore) who chaired the event, reminded people.
I was there in my "conference shirt" as many people now call it…yes it's orange, yes it makes me stand out amongst a sea of suits and yes, I should post a photo here on the blog somewhere!
It's always a great learning opportunity for me at these events as well as a chance to catch up with clients and perhaps make the first contact to meeting some new ones.
The Presentations
You can download the full Xmind (http://www.xmind.net) mindmap from the whole day, or PDF versions of each talk from the links at the bottom of this article.
Anthony Hilton (Financial Editor, Evening Standard) kicked off the day with a rambling, funny, insightful talk titled Economic downturn - managing change (PDF). The highlight for me was Anthony's admission that he "...gave Robert Peston his first job in financial journalism...so it's his fault!".
Des Hudson (Chief Executive, The Law Society) came up with the one liner of the day as you can see from the tweet to the right that I posted during his talk. And (organisers) how come there was no "event hashtag" on the title slides so that other social media junkies besides me could post things during the event?
Des' talk had the sexy title of Regulation, management and liberalisation (PDF). One of the best bits for me was his summary of the changes in the opticians market since 1985 which you can find in my mindmap of his session.
Next were two speakers on Becoming an ABS (PDF). Don Clarke (Director of Strategy, Keoghs) presented really well on the history of their conversion to an ABS. Some of what he shared will be HUGELY useful to anyone thinking of converting to an ABS. Full details are in the mindmap of his session.
Christina Blacklaws (Director of Policy, Co-operative Legal Services) shared some information about Co-operative Legal Services. For me the least interesting session of the day. Not that the information wasn't somewhat interesting, and not because Christina is not a good presenter, she is. It was perhaps that I had heard Christina speak on a panel just last week at the Modern Law Conference and that there was nothing that new there for me.
Then came a great session from Charlie Keeling (Global HR Director, Clyde & Co) who's talk on Managing your Talent (PDF) I thought was excellent. He made the excellent point that the 120,000 qualified lawyers in the UK pale into insignificance globally when you realise that India are having 110,000 lawyers qualify EACH YEAR!
Lunch came and went, some more palms were pressed. The food was pretty good with the rhubarb crumble being many people's favourite based on how quickly it disappeared (photo below).
Julie Harrison (Consultant) stepped into the breach as Chrissie Lightfoot had to cancel on the morning of the event and turned her session on Leading a firm through change management (PDF) from what was planned to be a breakout session, into a main stage presentation. Her reminder on Kotter's theory of change was useful along with what skills effective "change leaders" might have e.g. resilience with uncertainty, being able to set out a clear vision for change.
I attended the breakout session given by Kim Carr (Managing Partner, FBC Manby Bowdler) on Achieving progress through mergers and lateral hires (PDF). She gave some insightful views clearly based on the FBC merger(s) experience and then the merger with Manby Bowdler to create the current firm. Two key points I took away were a) it's a marathon not a sprint and b) a merger per se is not the driver, there must be other reasons, not just "to merge".
I unfortunately missed most of the plenary session..damn clients calling when you did not want them to ;-)
I challenge from Ian Cooper at the end of the day…find better bit of "executive nonsense speak" than that at his excellent FT Guide to Business Development blog.
As the day concluded a few people made for a networking drink before a few hardy soles made it into Six Clerks before wending their way off for trains.
Getting Home
It was around 8pm when I got to Paddington and at the risk of boring you, the photo below makes the predicament clear.
Just one train leaving from Paddington. There were "thousands" of people hanging around with the PA system telling people to head to Waterloo and get a train to Reading…yeah right! So myself, Sally Calverley and Patricia Kinahan found our way to the bar to wait it out whilst checking with a husband, a sister & a PA as to various travel options/overnight hotels! Oh, the problem? "Line side equipment failure" at Hayes & Harlington. Then at 9:15 the board starting lighting up with trains and everything was back on the move.
In the end it was only just over a 45min delay for my train (so no compensation for me) so not too much harm done and made for an entertaining story at the end of the evening when two of my Twitter contacts & I managed to end up in three different bars at Paddington.