This week finds me in New York and away from my family–twice. NYC for three days, home for three days, and then back to NYC again. Why didn’t I just stay put for the whole week? (Indeed, after multiple travel delays, I’ve been asking myself the same question…)
However, I wanted to see my family. Staying in touch on the road is always a challenge. And so, I was glad to run across this article–albeit a very short one–from About.com with tips on communicating with family members while traveling. As How to Stay in Touch with Family explains, tech tools like Skype and webcams make it a lot easier to feel connected.
One international lawyer supposedly raced back to her hotel every night to read her children bedtime stories via webcam. A perfect solution it is not, but it certainly helps.
As travel costs rise, more clients are opting for virtual meetings, reports the New York Times this week. Improved videoconferencing technology–as well as the public’s growing comfort and familiarity with tools like wikis and online document sharing–have augmented their popularity.
This will impact the way that lawyers meet with clients although, as the article notes, lawyers fall into the camp of consultants that often need face to face client meetings.
The article concludes with the greatest casualty of virtual meetings: personal relationships, particularly those across cultures. After all, it’s hard to pick up cultural nuances, or to really forge relationships, through a screen. Somehow that cup of coffee doesn’t taste or smell quite so good when shared virtually…
International lawyers have always practiced law away from the office. Mobility–and the tools needed for a truly mobile practice–are prerequisites to success.
I remember nights in hotels in Buenos Aires, Bogota and other beautiful locations–evenings not spent enjoying the city, but rather talking endlessly to tech support in the States. Such is the life of any international practitioner.
Now it looks like the rest of the legal profession is becoming mobile, too. Read the latest stats reported by the ABA’s Inside Practice Magazine about the increasingly Mobile Lawyer .
Tonight I returned from Toronto–a stop which didn’t match my original itinerary. My quick and easy international trip had morphed into a travel saga and, like many travelers nowadays, I had been redirected–several times. However, this travel snafu had a silver lining–several, in fact.
First, I made lots of new contacts while waiting in Presidents Clubs and boarding areas, and while aboard various flights. My fellow travelers were businessmen from places as disparate as Lagos, Nigeria, Guadalajara, Mexico and Ann Arbor, Michigan. Some of these new acquaintances will simply remain contacts, while others may become referral sources or even clients.
Second, my changed itinerary gave me the chance to reconnect with some of my existing acquaintances. Unexpectedly landing in Toronto, I quickly emailed–and later dined with–one international lawyer friend, Lang Michener counsel Cyndee Todgham-Cherniak. We swapped travel stories at dinner, agreeing that one perk of an international career is having friends no matter where you land. During my journey I also happened to run across and spend time chatting with former Baker Botts colleagues and various other attorneys. Renweing friendships during in person contact really helps in this virtual-communication world.
Business travel today can be arduous and delay-filled. Your fellow business travelers may welcome friendly conversation as a respite from their boredom. One time I met a CEO of a public company under such circumstances; I was able to refer him to a lawyer friend of mine, and his company became one of her all time largest clients. She gratefully reminds me of this fact many years later.
Next time that you are waylaid, don’t just retreat to your Blackberry or Financial Times. Instead, try to connect with some fellow business travelers; you could discover a silver lining to your plight.
With more clients located abroad, attorneys are increasingly being paid in foreign currency.
Billing and receiving payment in foreign currency raises a host of questions, beginning when the client pays a retainer. Some firms require that the client pay a retainer in the firm’s national currency; other firms accept payment in the client’s native currency, and then convert it themselves (bearing any currency fluctuation risk and often any currency transaction fees).
The ABA’s Law Practice magazine’s June issue discusses this topic in Dollars to Dinars: Billing and Collecting in a Global Market by David Bilinsky and Laura Calloway. The article also explores the pros and cons of bearing currency risk, implications for financial statements, whether to bill in a foreign currency, and the like.
Regardless of whether a law firm will receive British pounds, Mexican pesos or Botswanan pulas, advance planning and research prepares lawyers to be paid by international clients.
