One of the biggest mistakes I see law firms make with regard to their alumni relations program is excluding certain groups of people.
Sometimes it’s not inviting lawyers who are at other firms to events or not giving them access to the alumni directory for fear of giving away information and not wanting them to mingle with or steal potential clients.
The other group I see law firms leave out of their alumni programs are people who were either asked to leave the firm or who were fired. This is a huge mistake!
Extending an olive branch to be back in the law firm’s community is a way to repair hurt feelings about someone’s departure and massage whatever happened. I’ve seen this work firsthand.
If you want someone to not hate you for firing them, invite them back in to your community. Don’t further exclude them. Especially in the age of online reviews such as Glassdoor.
It’s incredibly shortsighted to omit certain alumni because every and anyone could be a potential client, employee or a referral source.
Also isn’t the whole point of an alumni relations program to build community? You do that by being inclusive.
If you start leaving out certain groups you defeat that purpose.
If you need help with this, message me to learn how I can create a custom strategy for you.
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I have other tips for creating an alumni relations program at your firm in this article and will be speaking on a Leopard Solutions webinar on this topic on November 3.
