CaliforniaNeutrals.org - The California Academy of Distinguished Neutrals

JULY 2010
National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals - Site now live at www.NADN.org

OK, so it took a while longer than planned(!) We've finally taken the website live after rounding up many of the finest neutrals in the nation through a fast-track outreach to attorneys who have long been on the radar. We now have over 500 of the nation's leading ADR professionals, across more than 40 states. Although the website is officially "live" now, we won't see significant traffic until the start of September when we send out news releases through the wire services, and Google keyword campaigns are completed and active. The dog days of summer are not the best time to seek press, though rest assured, we'll be doing LOTS of that once we've got the conference in August out of the way!

I look forward to meeting some of you at our Aug 5-7 conference, and will be emailing you this week with news of that and also a question for those of you utilizing blackberries or IPhones. Meantime, I hope you are all enjoying the summer!

Exec. Director, CA Academy of Distinguished Neutrals
Exec. Director, National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals
Email: director@californianeutrals.org
Tel: (310) 341-3879
Fax: (866) 257-4698

JUNE 2010
National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals - Beta Site www.nadn.org/index.php
We're pushing launch date back to mid- July, just before the inaugural NADN seminar in Orlando, Aug 5-7.
This is to give me and my staff time to try to recruit a handul of the best established ADR professionals on the ground in each state (see progress at the Neutral Directory map page!)

New 'Family Businesses' Case Experience field
To synchronize the data from this California chapter to the national database, we have added an extra field for those of you with experience in handling the types of cases that involve business disputes between family members (perhaps following high stakes divorces or death of a patriarch, etc). Please be sure to check off this field in the Experience form on the above menu if this applies.

We're all hands on deck preparing the national site for launch so little more to update just yet, so I'll end with a reminder for anyone that can make it out to our Florida conference in August...

REMINDER - Advanced Mediation Training Retreat, Orlando, FL Aug 5-7 2010

We have just 2 seats left at our first ever members-only Advanced Mediation Training Retreat, which features trainers from the faculty of the American Institute for Mediation (AIM). This event is under the banner of our new national Academy group and neutrals from Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Iowa and North Carolina have already confirmed. If you have an interest in attending, please review the PDF brochure which includes the registration form on the back page - hope to see you there!

View PDF

MAY 2010
National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals - New NADN.org Website...
...is now open for you to take a sneak peek at! I've emailed ALL members inviting you to review your own profile, as published at www.NADN.org/firstname-lastname, same format as your CADN web address. The homepage can be visited directly at www.nadn.org/index.php
Please check out the Member Directory and Member Search functions in particular! The site is still in beta-test but we hope to go live towards the end of June.

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS FOR NEW NATIONAL NADN.ORG SITE, AS PER EMAIL:

1) Do YOU at least annually mediate or arbitrate cases in states other than California?
Check out the CONTACT INFO form above and you'll see we've added a new field, STATES, at the bottom of this form. We can now flag CA members as 'serving' other states. If you DO often handle cases out of California, please let us know by email which state(s), up to a maximum of 3, as we can add these to your profile for the new national database.

2) Have you authored ADR articles or papers, that might be of interest to other practitioners?
If so, we'll publish these in the Articles Library at the new NADN site, and post them to your new NADN profile page too.

3) Please review new (more stringent) criteria for being allowed to check off ARBITRATOR in your profile
Your profile data from this Academy site will now also be displayed at the NADN site, where visiting firms will trust that each state and member has been subject to the same stringent criteria. In fairness then to those attorneys that focus their practices primarily on arbitration, we are imposing a new standard for those attorneys that say they offer arbitration services. The full text can be seen at www.nadn.org/membership.html, but in summary:
You may now only check yourself off as an Arbitrator on the 'ADR Services' form if you have arbitrated to final award a minimum of 20 civil/commercial cases. An exception to this new criteria is granted to all members who are former judges, as their time on the bench is considered.

APRIL 2010
National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals - New Organization Website
...is still not quite there! Just a few issues left to iron out before we take the website live, but we are optimistic that we'll be contacting all members within the next week or two at most just to preview the site and invite you to review your bio/webpage there.
The website is then scheduled to complete beta testing and go public by the end of May.

IMPORTANT QUESTION FOR THE NEW NATIONAL NADN.ORG SITE:
Do YOU regularly mediate or arbitrate in OTHER state(s)?
If so, please let us know by email which ones, as we can add these to your profile for the new national database.

Interesting reading for our ARBITRATOR members...
CADN member Bruce Belding served as the President of the College of Commercial Arbitrators last year, and oversaw the college's National Summit on Commercial Arbitration. The resulting Protocols from that summit are the touchstone of the College's major program ("Arbitration Plenary") entitled "Get the Lead Out! How Arbitrators, Outside Counsel, Clients and Providers Can Make Business-to-Business Arbitration Faster and Less Expensive" which was presented at the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution's Spring Conference in San Francisco this month. They will also be incorporated in, and be a major component of, the Final Report from 'the Summit' which is due to be finished in June or so this year. View Protocols PDF Here

Website Traffic
Our ad campaign (now in full-Technicolor in LA Lawyer!) does seem to have caught the attention of a few more firms, with traffic averaging around 870 unique users per day across mid-January to the end of Feb, with some unusually high spikes of up to 1200 on 2 separate dates - we've hit those highs before, but ONLY after sending out massive email blasts to our database; this was out of the blue, but did correlate with the publication dates for LA Lawyer and SF Daily Journal ads so I'd like to think that was at least partly responsible.

February 2010
Advanced Mediation Training Retreat, Orlando, FL Aug 5-7 2010
We're going ahead with plans for our first ever members-only Advanced Mediation Training Retreat, which features trainers from the faculty of the American Institute for Mediation (AIM). This event is under the banner of our new national association, the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals, and is open to members from all our sister associations including Florida, Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina. (By the way, the website for the new national NADN group is under way at nadn.org and should be launched around early April.)

We have settled on the luxury JW Marriott Grande Lakes resort in Orlando, FL as the location and we're very pleased to confirm some of the country's most sought after ADR trainers: Lee Jay Berman & Doug Noll known to most Academy members I'm sure, along with Erica Ariel Fox of Harvard's Program on Negotiation and Florida's Mel Rubin, Miami Law School.

Brochure & Registration Form

Advanced Mediation Training Retreat
JW Marriott Resort, Orlando, FL
August 5-7 2010
Presented by the faculty of The American Institute of Mediation

Friday Aug 6th: "Harnessing the Power of the Master Mediator"
- Presented by Lee Jay Berman & Douglas Noll
Saturday Aug 7th: "Beyond Yes: Deeper Wisdom and the Art of Negotiation"
- Presented by Erica Ariel Fox

The event include tickets to an evening banquet for attendees and lunches/refreshments are provided throughout the daytime courses. The event is intended as an opportunity for members to network and meet their peers as well as receive coaching from some of the leaders in the ADR field.

We have around 55 hotel rooms available at a highly discounted rate ($125 a night vs $240), and a maximum of 80 spots available for the conference itself. I will be emailing each of you a copy of the PDF brochure before the end of February, along with the registration form to send back before the end of March if you would like to reserve your place.

JANUARY 2010
Website - New Look To Titles
As you'll see above, we've made our logo and branding a little more formal in keeping with the calibre of our association.
(Besides, yours truly was getting bored of those young attorneys permanently smiling!) We will tie this color scheme in with our new marketing effort , see below...

Press Ads - New 2010 Campaign
Thanks to all members for their survey responses over the holidays, we're just putting the finishing touches to the final adverts now that we have a critical mass of members opted in once more.

SOUTHERN ACADEMY MEMBERS:
The center-spread layout in LA Lawyer Magazine has been given a makeover, as although we could not get the LA Bar to lower the costs of the advert, they DID agree to give us free 4-color processing, so the ad looks
and a majority of LA members have again opted in. A preview of the ad can be seen below...

NORTHERN ACADEMY MEMBERS:
UPDATE JAN 16: Thanks to feedback from members, we'll be changing horses this year and going with a campaign placed with the Daily Journal San Francisco. Our ads will feature in the newspaper in prominent Page 3/Page 5 positions throughout the year...

New National Roster
The new national website and roster are coming together (slowly!) and we'll have an update on this and related annual seminar/training opportunities likely in early March

DECEMBER 2009
Website Software Update
Further to the calendar related edits last month, please note that we also now have another option for those members with calendars active...

Optional NOTES Text:
If you have Online Scheduling activated on your calendar, you'll know that this allows clients to enter their contact information, and the name of the case and email this form to you. Now, if you wish to have the client submit FURTHER information on this initial form, we can add an optional NOTES box at the bottom of the page, which can be labelled with your specific text (for example, "Please enter preferred location and names of attending attorneys"). The form will then capture the same and email to you or your designated assistant in the usual way. Please email if you'd like this function activated on your account!

Press Ads - Member Survey
All Academy members are being canvassed this month to see who wishes to opt in to 2010 press ads once more. The adverts will again be placed in the Recorder (Northern members) and LA Bar's Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine (Southern members). The new campaign is intended to start in both publication from Feb 2010 through to Dec 2010.

New National Roster - Work In Progress!
Members may remember that earlier this year, the International Mediation Institute (IMI) out of the Netherlands recognized all Academy members as being prequalified for "fast-track" induction to the IMI. A few members did go through the application process and, while I'm sure that the IMI will one day grow to be an impressive group, I was quite frustrated by the amount of paperwork and administration that they insisted on inflicting on applicants - frankly the process was anything but "fast", and their criteria and selection procedures falls short of our own high standards.

As ADRWeb now has rosters of the very best, top-tier ADR professionals in several states besides California (over 450 attorneys at last count, across Florida, the Carolinas, Georgia and Tenneseee) we are pulling together a new national roster and related website, with a view to promoting that roster to law firms as the nation's largest (free!) database of preeminent commercial mediators and arbitrators. Organizations such as the CPR Institute and AAA offer similar "pre-screened" distinguished neutrals rosters, but demand a very high member fee (between $2500 to $10,000 annually!) or charge for scheduling/adminstration services. Our national database will provide free and immediate access to member attorneys' bios/contact/calendar information visitors, just as this local Academy site does now.

This will essentially allow us to "double up" your online exposure - your biography and profile/calendar data as it is maintained on the California Academy site will be automatically exported daily to the new national database. Membership to this new national group will be covered by your existing local member dues. Much is still to be worked out, including finalizing committee members, formal name of the association, national rules/standards etc, but we hope to launch the new roster around March time - watch this space, as they say!

NOVEMBER 2009
Website Traffic
An average in October of 780 visitors per week day, a good 15-20% increase on this time last year - one or two days peaked at over 1000 users due to an email blast sent out in early October.

Press Ads
The LA Lawyer ads have now completed, as has the last Recorder ad of the year - thanks to all participating members. We will be surveying all members again shortly to guage interest in a commitment for 2010, likely in both these key publications once more, and for a 10 month commitment/run throughout the year.

Credit Card Fees
The transition of credit card transactions to our US shell corporation has been completed effective Nov1st, and so the banks can no longer charge the foreign transaction fees mentioned previously. Thanks to various members for checking their credit card statements and writing to confirm this last week or two. Please note that there will be a $10p/m raise in member dues effective January 1st 2010. This brings California ADR attorneys in line with the dues charged in other jurisdictions (Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Canada have all been paying $40-50 monthly for several years now) and it will also cover CADN members participation in a new national association of top-tier neutrals. We're in the early stages of this new project, but more will be revealed before the end of the year.

SEPTEMBER 2009
Website Traffic
As expected, we've seen the usual seasonal increase in traffic, back up to 750+ users per day on most weekdays throughout the month of September. We continue to see just 20-25% of traffic coming from search engines, which is a very low percentage compared to the 70%+ that have bookmarked or visit the URL directly.

CDRC Annual Conference - Oct 17th 2009
Academy member Maurice Zilber, current President of the CDRC, would like to remind fellow members of the CDRC's upcoming Annual Conference at UC Hastings Law School (Agenda PDF). Please visit the CDRC website here, for full information and to register online for the event. Our own Doug Noll and Lee Jay Berman will be presenting a segment which members will find interesting, discussing the implications of neuroscience on mediation.

Credit Card 'Foreign Transaction' Fees
Several members have reported being hit with extra charges from their VISA/AMEX/MASTERCARD issuers, due to our current ADRWEB Inc. corporation being an Ontario registered corporation. This has led to somewhere between 1.5% and 4% surcharges on some members credit cards, even though all electronic transactions are carried out in the USA by our US-based bank. Frankly, this is a case of the banks' using any/all means to nickel and dime card holders, but we've had little success pushing banks to waive these surcharges.

SO: We are almost finalized setting up a new subsidiary corporation out of Tampa, FL which will mean the banks will no longer be able to charge this surcharge to members! We hope to have everything set up in time for November 1st charges, so will update members with details at that time.

AUGUST 2009
Website Traffic
Traffic in early August is down to below 500 visitors per day, quite normal for this time of year. We'll see a surge when folks get back to their offices in early September.

August is traditionally a very slow month, so I'm taking the opportunity to take some time off to enjoy the summer (for the first time in 3 years!) I can be contacted via email as I'll have internet access through to the 27th August. I hope you're all having a pleasant summer too.

JULY 2009
Website Traffic
Traffic dipped a little in June and July down to 580 average users, a seasonal slowdown that we've seen before.

Print Ads - No ads in July
Opted in Academy members are reminded that we deliberately held off ads for July, as it's a dead month for "eyeballs on the page". The Southern and Northern campaigns will recommence in August (See dates listed in April update below)

JUNE 2009
Website Traffic
Traffic has remained constant at a mean average of 640 visitors per day, the vast majority from bookmarks and known servers, 9-5 office traffic. The ads continue to add a slight bump (peaks of around 750 users) but otherwise we're seeing the same sort of numbers as in previous months. In previous years we've seen a slowdown across July and August, so we'll likely not see an increase until September onwards.

International Mediation Institute (IMI) - All Academy immediately qualified
As per update below, I have written on behalf of a number of CADN members to the admin staff at IMI, confirming their standing and recommending them for certification by the group. Members are reminded that their applications must be in before June 30th to qualify for the fast-track certification, so please email imisupport@imimediation.org, cc'img myself, and name myself as sponsoring your nomination to the IMI.

MAY 2009
International Mediation Institute (IMI) - All Academy immediately qualified
I've been in contact since January with lawyers out of the Hague, Netherlands who are forming an impressive new group, the International Mediation Institute (see www.IMIMediation.org). The Institute (like the CADN and our sister associations in other US states) has a screening process to review applications, and seeks to create a genuinely global database of the most experienced lawyers in the ADR field.

The California Academy has now been recognized as an affiliated association, and our members can apply for certification through the fast track 'Experience Qualification Path' process, before June 30th 2009. If you wish to be recognized as certified by this international body through the fast track process, please visit the "Becoming Certified" page of their website, or contact Operations Director at irena.vanenkova@imimediation.org and mention your Academy membership and name myself as sponsoring your nomination to the Institute.

April 2009
Website Traffic
Traffic reached a peak of 800 users on a few days in mid-March, before returning to the usual 600-650 or so (a surge of Google searches, for some mysterious reason!) We hope to see the usual spikes associated with our new ads, as detailed below.

Press Ads
Thanks to all members for responding to proposals in February, and I'm pleased to confirm the rollout of the following ads:

American Institute of Mediation (AIM)
Several Academy members, including Lee Jay Berman, Kenneth Cloke, Douglas Noll and Richard Millen are involved in a new training institute, the American Institute of Mediation (see website at www.americaninstituteofmediation.com ).

This new group offers a wide range of ADR practice and development courses, though I think our members may be especially interested in the 'Mastery Mediation' series. These advanced courses are designed for the already experienced commercial mediators (such as you!) and might be an ideal way for Academy members to further their skillsets with the latest advances in negotiation and conflict resolution skills. Academy members interested should please contact AIM's Maggie So at (213) 383-0454, as attending Academy members receive a discounted rate.

March 2009
Website Traffic
Traffic remained steady at 600-700 users per week day throughout February. We continue to see about 20% of traffic coming from search engines, which is a very low percentage compared to the 80% or more that have bookmarked or visit the URL directly. We must presume that these are firms and interested parties (who else would bookmark the Academy site!)

Members are reminded that we do have promotional postcards available to those of you that might be attended Bar Section
meetings or similar (see Postcard PDF) - we have over 1000 card preprinted, so please let me know if you have any upcoming
events which you'd be willing to take these to.

February 2009
Email Campaign / Website Traffic
We've seen spikes of over 1000 users on days when our autuomated emails have gone out, pointing firms to the roster and QuickSearch pages, so we're hoping that firms actually bookmark the site for future reference.

Press Ads
Our ads in LA Lawyer Magazine (South) and the Recorder (North) have now completed their 6 month runs - thanks to those
members who participated! There appears to be interest in another ad campaign run, and I'll be emailing all members to see
who wishes to opt-in to another run - the next ad campaign will probably run from March/April editions through to the year end.
Please look out for an email from me before the end of February.

January 2009
Email Campaign
Commencing Monday Jan 26th, we'll begin sending personalized emails out to attorneys and firms, inviting them to review our
distinguished roster thus hopefully increasing the exposure of our group further. We will be careful to avoid any CAN-SPAM
issues, and the campaign will be staggered at perhaps just 1000 mailings per day, so as to handle any responses in a timely
fashion.

Website Traffic
We saw the usual drop in traffic over the holidays, but the visits have bounced back up to around 600-700 users per day. The average visitor to our website stays for over 6 minutes by the way, which in web terms means our website is very sticky(!) - visitors stick around to read and review the content (usually members' profiles). Please note that we also have sponsored GoogleAd campaigns active, to target relevant keyword searches, and we have also arranged to sponsor some well ranked third-party websites, to drive relevant traffic to our site (please see the California pages of www.MediationNow.com and www.SearchAMediator.com )

December 2008
Direct Marketing Database
I am also pleased to mention that I have a new and much-updated database of California attorneys, which will be used sparingly but effectively next year to further spread awareness of our roster throughout the entire state.

October 2008
SCMA Annual Conference
Academy member Myer Sankary, incoming President of the Southern California Mediation Association (SCMA), has asked me to remind members that they are welcome to attend the forthcoming 20th SCMA Annual Conference on November 7-8. You can register online for the event at the SCMA website here: http://www.scmediation.org/event_detail.asp?EventID=194

Website Traffic
Our email campaign of September has seen traffic spike on a few days in early October above the 800 unique users per day mark, a high for our roster. The traffic seems to have settled back down to a mean average this month of around 620 users, still a marked increase over the summers average.

September 2008
Website Update - New Search function
Members might be interested to note that, based on feedback from firms that use our site, we have added a new function to our website. We now have a "Keyword" search, accessible on the Advanced Search page. This allows law firms and other visitors to search all members pages for a particular keyword. Examples:

Website Traffic
Traffic held quite steady through the quieter summer months of July and August, with around 500-600 users most week days. We do expect to see that figure rise again now that folks are back at work this month and we're planning another mass email announcement to CA attorneys and law firm staff, to go out near the end of September.

August 25th 2008
I'm pleased to report that I am now out of hospital (after a marathon 7 weeks stay this time!) and I'm gradually getting back in the saddle. Thank you to the many members who wrote with messages of support - it meant a great deal, and I am optimistic that this most recent operation has solved some of the more serious issues and I look forward to a much longer period of good health (touch wood!)

During my absence, many of you have already dealt with my wife, Jackie, who I am pleased to announce is now joining ADRWeb Inc as Vice-President. She will formally act as Deputy Director for our California association (and our other state associations), and will help me in the day to day running of the website and our promotion and marketing efforts. Jackie has more than 20 years experience in the more traditional media world of television, most recently as a Sales Director for Warner Brothers Canada, and I'm confident that all Academy members will benefit from having her as part of the ADRWeb team from this month onwards!

As usual, if we can be of service or if you have any questions, please call (310) 341-3879 during 9am - 6pm EST hours or email admin@californianeutrals.org. Thanks again for your patience and support!

July 27th 2008
Unfortunately I am in hospital for longer than originally anticipated and will most likely be away until mid-August. I'll be unavailable by phone, so if you require anything in the meantime, please email me at dlee@adrweb.ca and my staff will deal with your request. Thank you for your patience.

July 2nd 2008 -
I'm sorry to report I'm being admitted to hospital once more, same Crohn's Disease issues as last year. I'm hopeful it will be for just a
few days to get fevers under control, and hope to be back in the office by Friday July 11th. I will of course be unavailable by phone, so if you require anything in the meantime, please email me at dlee@adrweb.ca and I'll deal with it on my return, or in case of emergencies, my programmer will attempt to deal with the request.

JUNE 2008

NORTHERN ACADEMY MEMBERS:
Thanks to all those members who once again opted into the press campaign, solely concentrated this time round in The Recorder. We're targeting Monday editions which get the largest circulation numbers, and will see Page 2 placement for the ads in the
Litigation Special Reports...

SOUTHERN ACADEMY MEMBERS:
The most successful (and best received) ad we've run in the past is the impressive center-spread layout in LA Lawyer Magazine,
and a majority of LA members have again opted in. A preview of the ad can be seen below...

MAY 2008
Press Ads
NORTHERN ACADEMY MEMBERS:
Thanks to all those members who once again opted into the press campaign, solely concentrated this time round in The Recorder. We're targeting Monday editions which get the largest circulation numbers, and will see Page 2 placement for the ads in the
Litigation Special Reports...

The Recorder - Full Page - Northern Roster Ad (2008) - PDF
Full page gallery ad, appearing on the following dates:
June 16, July 21st, August 18th (Litigation Special), September 8th, October 6th, November 17th (Litigation Special)

FEBRUARY 2008
Direct Marketing
Later in February, we'll be sending out letters once again to many of the state's largest litigation firms, commending the Academy
and inviting attorneys etc to use our online roster. This achieved a sustained bump in traffic last year, and is less costly than
print ads in the legal press.

NOVEMBER 2007
Website Update:
If you are logging in to update your calendar, you may like to know about the new interactive calendar option. This allows your clients to click on any date that appears as AM, PM or Available All Day, and send a simple request form to your preferred email address. If you would like to try this out, please drop me an email and I will adjust your account.

SEPTEMBER 2007
I'm delighted to be back after my unplanned stays in hospital over the last 2 months. I'm now resting up and recovering, and thank you to many of you for your kind thoughts and prayers. I'm not yet back to full working days (my energy levels are not there yet, and my wife would kill me!) but hope to be able to respond to most enquiries within a day or so. I would have liked to have attended the Anaheim Bar event later this month to do some Academy promotion work; health willing, hopefully next year.

Fortunately, our server behaved itself during my absence, with zero reported downtime. We've continued to have impressive visitor traffic throughout the months of July and August, with the site doing well in major search engines. The North/South print ad campaigns have run their courses, and we'll review the possibility of further ad campaigns later in the year.

I hope to add the new 'online booking' functionality to the website within the next month, which will allow your clients to send date requests through a simple user interface. That function is up and successfully beta-tested at our sister association in Florida (www.FloridaMediators.org), so it shouldn't take too long to complete the code now for our Academy site. I will notify all members by email when that new option is available.

JUNE 2007

Print Ad Campaign Continues...

Northern California
Current ad campaign runs through to the end of July - see advertising schedule below:

Southern California
Ad campaign currently active - see advertising schedule below:

Planned Enhancement to Calendar
I'm adding an extra (entirely optional) function to the calendar tool, to allow your clients to send quick and easy 'date requests' online.
This function should be ready by early July, resulting in the Academy site coming offline probably Saturday June 30th for the server changes. We'll beta-test this function before making it available to all members; if you have an interest in helping test this in July, please drop me an email or give me a call.

PERSONAL NOTE:
Thanks to various colorful pills I'm feeling much more myself the 2 weeks, so hope to get back to focusing more on the promotion of
the Academy roster and continuing the site improvements. Thanks for many of your kind emails of encouragement and support
- much appreciated!! :)

MAY 2007
Website Enhancements
The 'city search' enhancements mentioned last month now seem to work quite well, and April saw an increase in out-of-state search engine traffic to the site as a result. I also made a change to the 'View Map & Directions' map function, to more accurately locate everyone's exact GPS location on the map, and also make that GoogleMap page more easily printable.
By the end of May, I hope to have made an edit to the calendar function which members are free to activate, which would allow
clients to send online date requests.

PERSONAL NOTE:
I feel it best to share with Society members the news that I've recently had some health issues, specifically, a flare up of a condition known as Crohns disease which I've had all my life. It's not going to kill me, (and they say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger!), but it is somewhat debilitating of late to say the least, and I'm looking into treatment (including possible surgery) for the condition in the coming weeks.

I mention this specifically to request your patience if I'm not as quick as normal at responding to your phone calls or emails during this period, as there are good days and bad days and on the latter I shall be resting! I can generally respond more promptly to emails, but
will be checking voicemail once per day.

March 2007
Website Enhancements
An enhancement was made to our website in late March to pull in more relevant traffic from search engines. Any combination of 'City name mediators' will eventually result in a page highlighting members local to that city. (e.g.; a search in major engines for 'bakersfield mediators' results in a highly ranked page called www.californianeutrals.org/bakersfield). This should increase the general search engine traffic about 20-30% over the coming months, as 'city/subject' is one of the most common search types in Google etc, but it will take a few weeks for the engines to pick up the newly generated pages.

I am also working on a best-test version of on an optional, interactive change to the calendar function, allowing your clients to request dates online, and an improvement to the GoogleMap function. I'll update this news page in mid-April once beta-testing is underway!

February 2007
Direct Marketing
Around 100 calls made to staff on the compiled Top 100 Firms list in February, with some firms agreeing to propagate
awareness via their internal newsletters and bulletin boards, all of which can only raise awareness of our roster. This is a
very hit and miss affair, and quite time consuming, but I think the seeds have been sown for increased traffic over the
coming weeks and months.

For March, I'm looking into marketing the Academy website to attorneys and firms outside of California, as I have obtained
a new database of attorneys, broken down by state, most of whom have email addresses and fax numbers. As many of you
already know, often when a high stakes dispute comes up, firms will pay top dollar to fly in an appropriately experienced
out of state mediator/arbitrator. This marketing effort then will encourage firms to use the CA Academy roster as a first point
of call to choose an appropriately experienced neutral.

January 2007
Print Ad Campaign
The next 6 month ad campaign will run in The Recorder (full page, once per month) and the Daily Journal's Verdicts & Settlements Supplement (Half Page ad, monthly), commencing February 2007. Thanks to all Northern & Southern members for their prompt responses, all ads have now been placed with respective publications. Please review any ads you yourself are opted into, and advise urgently if there are any details that should be changed before Friday 12th January at the latest. Thank you!

December 2006
Direct Marketing
The legal transition of the last month rather put a hold on my direct marketing efforts - normal service is now resumed, so I hope to continue making at least 100 calls to the Top 100 firms list from December onwards.

November 2006
LEGAL NOTICE re: ADRWeb, Inc.
" Lynn Bevan, founder and first President of ADRWeb Inc. is pleased to announce her retirement from the Company. The Director of the CA Academy, Darren Lee, will now be the sole shareholder and will continue to make ADRWeb Inc. North America's first choice to find qualified dispute resolution professionals through www.californianeutrals.org in California, www.FloridaMediators.org in Florida, and www.adrweb.ca in Canada."

October 2006
Direct Marketing
Over 100 phone calls made in October to the offices of firms listed on the Top 100 list, as identified last month. Not by coincidence, we had a record number of visitors to the roster pages in October; a total of 5000+ unique users. Over a dozen firms thus far have been kind enough to now include information about the CA Academy and this website within firm-wide newsletters/bulletins and intranet systems. Hopefully this will effort will lead to many more firms using our member roster as a reliable resource to locate the state's finest neutrals.

Print Ad Campaign
The October edition of LA Lawyer featured our final print ad for this year. Thanks to all those members who took part; the consensus has been positive in favor of a second print campaign, starting from Jan 2007 onwards. I will be contacting all members by the end of November to finalize what form such an ad will take, and who wishes to opt in to the same.

Thanks to Academy members for their feedback and continued efforts to spread the word about our "ADR All-Star" roster. Please keep the eedback coming, email me at dlee@adrweb.ca anytime, or call (310) 341-3879 before 4pm PST most week days.

September 2006
Direct Marketing Campaign
We've now identified what our research shows to be the Top 100 firms across California, ranked by number of attorneys and offices.
(See PDF here) We've already begun these offices locations by phone (a slow process, but effective in the long term) trying to get through to those individuals best able to further promote awareness of the Academy roster throughout the firm.

Most of these large firms have "intranet" systems, or internal bulletins, which we're hopeful can be used to spread awareness of our group. The reaction thus far has been positive, with department heads and office managers liking the idea that ours is not a "panel" like JAMS etc, but a non-profit who's who of the California ADR Community. They also have reacted favorably to the ease of use of the search screen, particularly the calendaring. This will be a staggered campaign up to Christmas, with at least 50 calls going out per week to individuals across these offices.

We also remind members that we have promotional postcards and materials available, if you yourself are willing to distribute these on to clients and fellow attorneys. Please contact me directly by email to discuss further!

CA Bar Event, Monterey Oct 5-8
Unfortunately, it will not be possible for me to attend this event in person this year, but I'm grateful to the Academy members who have kindly agreed to distribute more of the Academy promotional postcards. There should be a 1200+ postcards in circulation at various Section events, so hopefully a good number of attorneys will be exposed to the Academy website through these efforts.

Print Ad Campaign
Just a notice to our SoCal members involved in the ad campaign with LA Lawyer, DJ etc. We needed to charge a small final over-run fee of $45 to each of you Oct 3rd, to cover the higher than expected credit card charges which left us short by about $5000. Thanks for your understanding; this will be the final such ad-related fee for 2006. A final expenditure report for the North & South ad campaign is available here - the Academy just about broke even in advertising costs recouped, but is about $4K in the red year to date when marketing costs such as postcard production, mailings etc are included.

August 2006
Direct Marketing Campaign:
A slower month, primarily as I've taken a much-needed vacation for 2 weeks of it!
I've already begun compiling the 'revisit' list of the Top 100 CA litigation firms, and will make that list available online within the next 2 weeks for members to review and comment upon. I'll then set up a call campaign, personally making contact with office managers, heads of litigation etc from mid-September onwards, making sure that relevant staff are aware of the Academy roster and the usefulness of our Academy website (the confirmed excellence of the members, the calendar functionality, etc).

Daily Journal's "TOP 30 Neutrals" List -
Academy Members are likely aware that the Daily Journal compiles an annual Top Neutrals list, through attorney nominations and the like. In previous years, I know a number of you have appeared in this list. Historically, the list has tended to swing a little too much towards the retired judges of JAMS and other panels for my liking (the collateral effect of extensive advertising perhaps), and I hope that we can put this to rights with a larger share of our own independent practitioners...

I contacted Jennifer Hamm, Business Editor for the Daily Journal and she was of course aware of our group through the ad campaign of recent months (phew!). She has agreed to award 1 vote to all recognized members of the Academy (I forwarded them a copy of our member roster, both North and South). We can only hope that this has some effect.

July 2006
Direct Marketing Campaign: Update
We've now completed the final (Southern California) phase of our direct marketing campaign; 6000+ law offices throughout the state have each been sent a personalized letter informing them of our online roster and encouraging staff to use the site as a resource. Overall, the response has been very positive, and with a quantifiable boost in traffic to the site on those days that faxes were sent.
This, combined with our press ad campaign, has led to around 250-300 users to the site each weekday, with an impressive 73% of
traffic coming from direct visits - i.e.; those people that know, or have bookmarked, the website address, NOT those coming in through Google searches etc. The traffic on the weekends always drops by over 70%, consisting mostly of search engine traffic, not law firms using the roster.

We'll be compiling a second-tier 'revisit' list of the Top 200 CA litigation firms over the coming weeks, with a view to personally
making contact with office managers, heads of litigation etc from September onwards, making sure that relevant staff are aware
of the roster and the usefulness of our Academy website (particularly the calendar functions).

Print Ads
Northern California: We've had generally positive feedback for the ads run jointly across The Recorder (See PDF) and the the San Francisco Daily Journal (See PDF) over recent months. My intent is to stop these ads for now though, as I feel that we have probably
reached as many eyes as we can through these publications over the last 6 months. There is also justifiable concern from some members that the print ad contribution (given the relatively small number of Northern members involved) is a little high. My preference then is to hold off further print ads until at least Oct/Nov, at which point my preference would be to combine forces with the Southern
members in perhaps reaching a wider attorney readership, at a potentially lower cost.

Southern California: Ads continue for all participating Southern California members through the end of September...

I will contact all SoCal members towards the end of the ad run, to get a consensus as to how Academy members feel about going
with alternate publications, etc for the next campaign run.

June 2006
Direct Marketing Campaign:
Our experience in both Canada and Florida shows us that having a database of attorneys to market the roster to is invaluable.
We had already compiled a master database late last year which has a total of around 16,000 individual California attorneys, most of whom we have contact details for, including phone, fax and email. One of the reasons for the ongoing success of JAMS and other such groups is that they have a fulltime marketing staff, charged with marketing their roster directly to the attorney community.
It's our intent to do the same, in concert with our advertising in the CA legal press.

We worked in April through that master database and identified around 5900 individual law firms, across 6200 office locations.
We then did out best to identify the relevant contact at each of those locations (usually managing partner for smaller firms,
or a current litigation partner for larger firms). We've now developed a direct marketing spreadsheet, which allows us to send personalized letters to each of these individuals, informing them of the website and asking them to let their support staff know about
this useful resource. We've incorporated some 'smart' personalization techniques, such as 'namedropping' those of you that are
nearest to each location within the letter itself, to add extra familiarity to the content.

For an example of how these personalized faxes to partners looks, please see the following examples:

We're staggering the campaign to about 500 letters per week, so that we can gauge response levels and resulting website traffic at
each stage, tweaking as we go along. The results are good, with an average of 60-80 new/extra users visiting the website each
day that the blast goes out (the week day average is now at around 200 unique users per day). We've deliberately sent the faxes out on a Monday/Tuesday, to separate them from the Daily Journal V&S ads and the LACBA E-Briefs newsletter sponsored banner ad, each of which run on Fridays. Although undoubtedly helping in raise awareness of the Academy/roster in general, the Friday print ads are resulting in only a small quantifiable increase in visitors to the website. (The LACBA Banner ads in particular are underperforming given our experience of banner ads).

Although direct marketing is less 'sexy' than the ads in the legal press, this sort of smart direct marketing is certainly better value
for money than the press advertising spend. By mid-July we'll have completed the letter campaign to all known law firm locations.
We've also just purchased a statewide print directory of in-house corporate counsel (around 6200 attorneys) and we'll be attempting later this year to create a second electronic database based on this print information (if our OCR software can do the bulk of the work!)
This will give us further mailing list "ammunition" for the future.

Next phase for the direct marketing later in the summer is to separate out the largest 200 or so litigation firms in the state, and phone
to speak with partners and/or office managers at each, following up with mailed information packs to staff. This is by far the most labor intensive stage yet (proselytizing is hard work!), so I won't be diving into that project until after I've had a week's holiday in early July!

Postcards
Another 600 or so postcards out to 3 Academy members last month, each of whom is attending an event where these cards
can be given out to attorneys who should find our roster of some use. If you yourself have any such event coming up, please
let me know and I'll courier promotional cards straight out to you! ( Sample PDF here )

Website Changes:
Hopefully you've all noticed the Member Spotlight feature on the homepage, replacing the old news ticker. The new feature
pulls members data up randomly from the database and gives everyone their 15 seconds of fame. Please note that only
members with a photo are displayed, so if you still haven't provided one for your profile page, there's an extra incentive to send
one over! (Note: About 10-15% of users might not see the movie, if they don't have Flash installed - there's a link to let them
download Flash8 if that's the case.)

May 2006
Direct marketing begins in earnest. Around 500 letters are now going out each week (not 'spam' but tailored directly to each
firm's managing partner or office manager as appropriate). We're now seeing more traffic coming in direct to the QuickSearch and AvailabilitySearch pages, which is only possible if firms are indeed bookmarking these pages to save time, as our letters and
the print ads request.

By the end of May, we'll have sent over 8000 personalized emails to individual attorneys (complete with requisite CanSpam
compliant unsubscribe/opt-outs etc), and over 2000 letters to firms' managing partners and/or office managers. We will continue
this direct marketing effort through to July, to better raise awareness of the roster, hopefully seeing a continuing upward curve
in non-search engine traffic as a result.

Search engine news: Although not our primary focus, I wanted to point out to members that we have made every attempt to
make sure that both the Academy itself, and individual member pages, are highly ranked in Google and other search engines.
If someone Googles your practice (eg; "fred bloggs mediator") most members should find that their Academy page is near the top of
the results. Similarly, searches for "california neutrals", "california mediators", "san francisco mediators" etc should bring up the Academy site at or near the top of the rankings. We've also placed banner ads also on some 3rd party websites, channeling
their California traffic to the Academy site.

New ads: We're running a new ad in The Advocate magazine (the monthly mag sent to all members of the Consumer Attorneys Associations for Southern California) on the advice of members who have had some success with this publication. Also found
below is the latest version of our LA Lawyer gallery advert, complete with esteemed new Academy members, as well as some
touch-ups and replacement of some members' unloved older photos!

April 2006
With the print ads now running across North and Southern California, we're seeing a steady increase in traffic to the site.
Here's a recap of some of this month's marketing work...

March 2006: Work continues on our new press ads for SoCal Members from April onwards: