Giving Thanks All Year Long

Posted by Gina F. Rubel, Esq.

I received about 15 e-cards and two print cards saying thank you and wishing me and the Furia Rubel team a Happy Thanksgiving. All of this started me thinking – what is the corporate Thanksgiving all about? When you say thank you to your clients and customers and others that you do business or communicate with, do you really mean it or are you trying to beat the holiday rush with your message to stand out. Are you letting them know what you are thankful for? And do you say thank you all along the corporate trail?


Of the 15 e-cards I received this week, very few were personalized and many said “Thank You and by the way, check out our website…..” Is that how we say thank you today? I am a full believer in electronic messages – but the “thanks” are lost when they’re followed with a marketing message.


Of the two printed cards I received, one included a personal message starting with “Dear …”, including a handwritten message and a John Hancock. Of course, that card was my favorite. The other was a stock, unbranded, mass-printed card which include my name on the outside of the envelope. Without being too specific, thank you, Joanne for your lovely personalized note and branded Thanksgiving card. Your card stood out.


There are so many opportunities in the business cycle to give thanks. Here are just a few key touch points when you can thank your clients, customers and other target audiences professionally and with integrity:


- Immediately following the first meeting or correspondence
- When a prospect becomes a client
- After an in-person meeting
- When someone responds to a request in a timely manner
- At the end of each client matter or project
- When someone refers you business, connects you with another or sends you a testimonial
- When you’ve closed a piece of business that was referred, thank the referrer again
- Randomly throughout the year – just because


I’m sure there are many more times in the business cycle that we can say thank you. Feel free to add to this list by leaving a comment.


And yes, THANK YOU, for reading our blog. We enjoy sharing thoughts and information with those who are interested and truly appreciate the time you take to read and respond to us.

Raising A Few Eyebrows: Law Firms Deal With Gray Area In Employee Social Media Conduct

Posted by Amanda Walsh

There were a few giggles going around the office when this article, The Tweet that Roared: Lawyers and Law Firms Navigate Social Media Landmines, hit our inboxes recently. The story did bring to light an important question regarding law firm social media policies and lawyers' personal social media use outside of the office.

A recent social media firestorm began over a tweet from law firm Kramer Levein Naftalis & Frankel litigation associate Jill Filipovic. Returning from a recent trip, Filipovic tweeted a photo of a note left by the TSA in her luggage. The security tag had “GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL” written on one side and Filipovic explained, “Guess they discovered a ‘personal item’ in my bag. Wow.”

Needless to say, the tweet about a vibrator, spread through social networks like wildfire. The TSA responded and reprimanded the agent. In the meantime, Filipovic was doing her best to forget about the incident while worrying about losing her job. Fortunately for her though, her employer Kramer Levein Naftalis & Frankel had a policy in place and stood by Filipovic, responding that to their knowledge, “policies have not been violated.”

However, the article author Sara Randazzo, notes that this incident raises a good question, “Should a lawyer at a large law firm ever tweet about vibrators, or anything else of such a personal nature, even when doing so doesn’t grab widespread attention?” Law firms are contending with issues like these more and more since many attorneys are active on sites like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Furia Rubel strongly encourages law firms to put a social media policy in place in order to proactively face any issues that could arise from employee engagement on social media. Typically, social media policies prohibit online discussion of firm business or clients, however personal sharing crosses into a gray area. More and more, law firms are grappling with lawyers’ social media conduct outside the office that may not directly violate the policy, but could raise a few eyebrows.

Some lawyers have been reprimanded for racy comments online, while others have been able to strike a good balance between personal and business use of social networks. According to New York lawyer, and Sullivan & Cromwell corporate partner, Frank Aquila, “The key from my perspective is that lawyers should not be tweeting or saying anything in social media or blogs that they wouldn't otherwise be saying or writing in any other environment."

We couldn't agree with him more. This is also a rule of thumb that we at Furia Rubel try to emphasize when advising clients: what goes online stays online for an infinite amount of time; so if you have to second guess posting a tweet or comment, then you know it probably isn't a good idea!

To read more, http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202524814192&slreturn=1

photo credit: insure.com

Join Gina Rubel at "GENerate Performance! The Impact of a Multigenerational Workforce on Business Today" Event on 11/15

On Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011, Gina F. Rubel, Esq. will participate in “GENerate Performance! The Impact of a Multigenerational Workforce on Business Today” at the Independence Visitor Center in Philadelphia from 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m., sponsored by the Philadelphia Human Resource Planning Society. Other participants include moderator Kim Huggins, President of K HR Solutions; Dina A. Galeotafiore, Senior V.P., Human Resources for NBCUniversal, Inc.; Jason Conrad, HR Business Partner, IMS Consulting Group and Marty Lutz, V.P.; Sales for Endo Pharmaceutical. To learn more about the event or to register: GENerate Performance.

Google+ Business Pages Now Live

Posted by Amanda Walsh


The long awaited Google+ Business Page functionality is now available for companies. We wasted no time and have gotten Furia Rubel’s Page up and running. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments below. 


The HubSpot Blog gives 5 easy steps to setting up your business page.


1. Visit the website http://plus.google.com/pages/create or click the icon at the bottom right-hand side of your Google+ profile.

2. Create a public profile by picking a category and following the set-up wizard steps. 

 3. Promote the page using the "Spread the Word" button at the bottom right-hand side of the Page.

4. Post photos, videos, comments and share news and events with your circles.

Google+ is already working on transfer of account and multi-admin capabilities as well as page analytics according to Dennis Troper, member of the Google+ team. So far, it seems user-friendly and easy to set up a Company Page, although I had some difficulty adding people into the Furia Rubel Page Circles. Apparently, you can only add profiles to Page Circles for those who have already added your page to their Circles. I referenced this article on Google+ Help that was useful.


Are you planning on using Google+ Business Pages for your company?