On Wednesday, April 21, 2010, from noon until 1:30PM, I’ll be presenting the labor & employment law primer at the Business Connections Luncheon – Best Practices Part 1 for the Lake Zurich Chamber of Commerce & SCORE (Service Core of Retired Executives; www.scorechicago.org).  The presentation format will be largely Q & A with handouts provided.  It’s at Vehe Barn, 23570 Cuba Rd., Deer Park, IL.  For more information visit http://www.lzacc.com/events_calendar.html; to register contact Dale Perrin at 847.438.5572.

On Tuesday, April 27, 2010, from 6PM to 8PM, I’ll be presenting a labor & employment law seminar for the Lake/McHenry Chapter of the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC), http://nawic368.org/.  It’s at the Cubby Bear North in Lincolnshire at 21661 Milwaukee Ave.  This presentation is co-sponsored by NAWIC & SCORE.  Registration information is available via Evite here.

On Wednesday, May 12th, from 8:30AM until 11AM, I’ll be part of a panel presentation for Business Network Chicago’s Entrepreneur’s Committee concerning hiring issues for startups and small businesses.  For more information, please contact Susan Barahia at sbarahia@bnchicago.org or 312-371-3786, or check out BNC’s website at http://www.bnchicago.org/index.php.  It’s at Wells Fargo Advisors, 222 S. Riverside Plaza (Adams & Canal), Chicago, 3rd Floor.

On Friday, May 14th at 9:30am, at Chicago’s City Hall, #805, 121 N. LaSalle St., I’ll be presenting a free labor & employment law seminar. Thanks to the City of Chicago’s Department of Business Affairs for setting this up.  This will be largely Q&A & open discussion along with handouts.  If you would like to attend, please contact Alfredo Camarena at 312-744-5344 or alfredo.camarena@cityofchicago.org.

In March, I was elected to the Lakeside Community Committee’s Board of Directors.  For the past 44 years, Chicago’s Lakeside Community Committee, has been committed to facilitating quality foster care and related services for needy children; reuniting biological parents and their children;  and strengthening the social and economic base of Chicago’s Grand Crossing neighborhood and surrounding communities.  Currently, the LCC has about 60 staff members servicing more than 250 children and families.  I remain Vice Chair of the Board and Chair of the Government Affairs Team for the Greater O’Hare Association, one of Chicagoland’s largest business associations; board member for the The Chicago Bar Foundation’s Young Professionals Board; Board Chair for the YMCA Alliance, the adult education and workforce development arm of the YMCAs of Chicago; and Board Member for ChildServ, a 115 year old child advocacy and children’s group home organization.

Starting in March, I became a regular contributor to Slate.com’s small business blog BizBox.  Slate’s BizBox, is sponsored by OPEN from American Express, and serves as a clearinghouse for the latest news, analysis and advice for entrepreneurs and small business people.  Obviously, my contributions relate to labor & employment law & HR management.  I’m part of a panel of four professionals writing on issues affecting small businesses.  Thank to Jerry Kalish of National Benefit Services Inc. for setting this up.  The panel includes Jerry, who works with business owners who want to put more money away for retirement, and companies who want a state-of-the-art retirement program; Chris Cooper, a Program Coordinator at the Small Business Succession Planning Program and The Ohio Employee Ownership Center at Kent State University; and Susan A. Berson, a partner in The Banking & Tax Law Group LLP, www.banktaxlaw.com.

One of my favorite activities is visiting a client or prospective client’s workplace.

There’s nothing like face-to-face contact and on-site experience to help me better understand a client’s concerns and needs.  Moreover, most business owners and operators (maybe even all owners and operators) love to showoff their business.

It was during my tenure in labor and employee relations for the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) that I started visiting worksites as part of my job.  I noticed that many CPS principals and administrators would complain about how many of the central office employees made decisions directly impacting their schools without any regard for them.  In other words, they complained about the same thing many employees complain about, top down management with little effort to understand their jobs or obtain their buy in concerning workplace initiatives.

Plus, when dealing with multiple union and employee grievances, or employee conduct issues, from a single school or location, it was unproductive to drag the parties to my office for hours of grievance hearings, meetings and travel when I could just as easily take the hearings and meetings to the schools, save everyone a lot of time and money, and learn much more about the issues at hand.

I carried this practice over to other salaried jobs that I held and found my colleagues equally appreciative and welcome.  Later, when I started my own law practice, I decided that I would continue holding as many meetings as possible at the client’s site to make it easier on them and improve my understanding of their concerns.

This doesn’t work for all clients and situations though.  In order to facilitate openness and directness during negotiations or other proceedings, sometimes the parties must meet off-site or at a neutral location.

Although I’ve posted general client testimonials, and will continue to post them, I’ve avoided discussing details about specific client cases and disputes.

Besides, the valid and usual reasons of maintaining the confidentiality and credibility of negotiations and dispute resolution, and other evidentiary concerns, there are additional reasons to not get into specifics.

A client’s competitor or adversary may be able to identify a client by recognizing the facts or circumstances described, and they may use this information against my client.

Furthermore, client advocacy involves representing businesses before government agencies like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Labor Relations Board and other similar federal, state and local agencies.  Plus, a lot of this work involves dealing with difficult employees, their representatives and other third parties.  Many of these third parties can be really difficult to deal with due to a lack of transparency in their conduct and labyrinthian rules which usually leads to seemingly arbitrary, illogical and capricious decisions.  In fact, sometimes a client and I can win or lose a dispute, and we may not even be clear as to why we won or lost.  This recently happened with an Illinois case where the judgment went against my client, but the monetary penalties assessed against my client were reduced by 99%!  We don’t know why, and won’t inquire lest we learn that they made a mathematical mistake.

Consequently, in order for my clients and me to maintain productive relationships with all of these parties, I’ve decided not to publicize in detail about the various disputes that we get into.   This way, I don’t risk vindictiveness against my clients due to exposure to their competitors, public embarrassment, vilification and the loss of bureaucratic anonymity.

In business, vindictiveness by third parties, including government agencies, employee side attorneys and unions, is crucial to avoid.  Some may argue that government personnel and other parties such as union representatives won’t be vindictive towards  clients who are small to medium sized businesses, or to solo practitioners like me.  Agencies and other parties won’t care about us because we’re too small to consider.  This isn’t true.

Even in a huge market such as Chicago, the labor and employment law community is relatively small and people get to know one another.  Maintaining a good reputation is crucial for effective client representation.  Consequently, even though I may aggressively, even zealously, pursue my client’s interests, and clients are willing to publicly testify to my ability to successfully represent them, I’m extremely careful as to how I discuss client matters on a public website.  I don’t want to represent a client and find out that my discussing of their case or dispute was detrimental to them.

On the other hand, when giving public seminars and workshops, I’m very candid about my dealings with these agencies and other attorneys.  Although I’m very careful about naming names, or divulging any identifying information, in some instances, I’ve been known to be openly critical of certain identified organizations.  If you’d like to find out how candid I’ve been, feel free to attend one of my seminars or contact me directly.

Of course, as I become more omnipotent and dominant in my field, I may change my position and use all of the information in my possession to crush everyone!  Kind of a Dwight Schrute thing I have going on!

On Friday, August 21, 2009, from 7:30AM-9:30AM, I’ll be presenting an assessing business liabilities workshop along with 3 other attorneys & a CPA. This is at the Silver Stallion Restaurant, 1274 Lee Street, Des Plaines, IL (breakfast will be served).  The seminar is free.

The focus of this seminar is assessing a business’ liabilities from the legal & accounting perspectives. Attendees will be able to ask questions about your their own business’ situation.

Topics will include:

• Reducing Income Tax Liabilities
• Real Estate Assessment & Taxes
• Employee Problems & Human Resources
• Intellectual Property – Value & Potential Problems
• Partner Agreements – Dispute Resolution

Speakers are:

• Frederick R. Dempsey – Real Estate Tax Appeals Attorney
• Leon Edelson – Intellectual Property Attorney
• Scott Greenberg – CPA
• Me
• Barry Mortge – Attorney for Closely Held Businesses

ADVANCE REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED AS SPACE IS LIMITED; RSVP By AUGUST 14th

For more information and to register, please call Ivey at 847-299-9901 or e-mail her at i.compall@hgaltd1.com; you can also contact me.

Presented by Hirsch Greenberg Accounting Ltd
950 Lee St
Des Plaines IL

Michael Zolno, a Chicago-based law practice marketing consultant, is a co-organizer and presenter at the following seminar (press release is below) taking place in San Diego, CA, on October 23 and 24 of this year. If you’d like more information, you may contact Michael at MZolno@aol.com.

Industry Experts to Offer Strategies for Law Firm Success – Creating Opportunities From the Recession

SAN DIEGO, June 23 /PRNewswire/ — Nationally recognized experts within the legal community are coming to San Diego on October 23rd & 24th with the message that law firms must change now in order to be competitive in the future. The conference titled “Inside the Law Firm of the Future” is a rare opportunity for attendees to meet key industry experts all in one place to discuss this broad range of topics.

For two days, industry experts such as author Ron Baker, legal strategist, Peter Zeughauser, CEO Chris Marston, Womble-Carlyle’s Director of Sales, Steve Bell and others, will convene and discuss the trends and changes affecting the business of law, and why change is necessary.

“No longer do we have the ‘business as usual’ attitude,” says Chris Marston, CEO of Boston based, Exemplar Law. “One good thing that has come out of our poor economy is that inherently defective business models have proven to be unworkable.” Marston also added, “Our goal is to jump-start those firms that want to get the competitive advantage while others are running for cover. We are there to show them the way.”

Peter Zeughauser of The Zeughauser group in Newport Beach, CA, advises firms to invest during the recession in developing their brands; a recession provides opportunities to build a brand even more quickly, because as many firms retrench from brandbuilding activities as a cost-saving measure.

Zeughauser’s final bit of advice is that we are certain that the best firms will lead the industry out of the recession by seeing and seizing opportunity in change.

This conference will be of vital interest to firms that are ready, willing, and able to shift gears into a more productive business model. With the experts advice, the transition should be easier. Attendance is limited and advance registration is required. See www.insidethefirmofthefuture.com for more details.

Inside The Firm of the Future is a presentation of The Catalyst Effect, Inc. A legal education conference company that focuses on providing advice for law firms. Founded in 2009 with offices in San Diego and Chicago. The website for the conference is: www.insidethefirmofthefuture.com . For more information

about this conference, or to schedule an interview, please contact: Bryan Weaver, 501 West Broadway, #1770, San Diego 619-544-0086 ext105, or bryan@insidethefirmofthefuture.com.

SOURCE The Catalyst Effect, Inc.

Bryan Weaver, +1-619-544-0086, ext. 105, bryan@insidethefirmofthefuture.com,

for The Catalyst Effect, Inc.

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