CaliforniaNeutrals.org - The California Academy of Distinguished Neutrals

Availability Date Email Notices - Please Update Calendar on Monday Jan 30th
As detailed below (see November Update), at the end of each calendar month we'll be sending an "Available Dates Notice" email notice to all the clients that have previously scheduled online with you. This EXAMPLE show the format, showing your dates for February, March and April. There is a good chance that at least a few of the attorneys/paralegals you've worked with in the past will indeed have a case pending and thus promoting your available dates in this way will increase the likelihood of an online or phone enquiry! As reference below in more detail, here are a few key points:

1) If members would prefer that these emails are NOT sent to their clients, just drop myself or Rose-Anne an email and we'll opt you out.
2) Please update your schedule through to at least April, as the next 3 months will be summarized in the notice.
3) The server will send these calendar notices out to clients on the last day of the month, Jan 31st from 9am-11am.
4) If your calendar is not up to date (ie, more than 3 days since last update) then the server will not send notices.

We'll see how this goes next week and we can tweak the process in time for February's notice!

2012 California Ad Campaign - Survey Coming!
We'll get the email survey out to members in February to gauge the interest in the LA Lawyer, Daily Journal and/or Recorder ads in early February, with a commitment to ads through to year end (too many balls in the air just now, apologies for the delay to those keen on the ads!)

National News - NEW YORK CHAPTER
We plan to formally announce the NY Chapter of around 60 members by mid-Feb and we're putting the final touches to the roster at both www.nadn.org/newyork and the local website at www.NYMediators.org. More next month!

2012 Annual NADN Members Retreat
With apologies for the delays - we're hammering out possible content, speakers, venues just now and we'll have a full agenda/brochure for all members in time for the February Update! For now, those interested should please tentatively HOLD the dates of Sep 13-15 or Sep 20-22 2012.

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

2012 AD CAMPAIGN
Partly as an experiment (and partly through being overloaded with efforts in New York State!) we held off confirming an ad campaign to run through the whole 2012 calendar year. All going to plan, we will survey all CAL members in January to see who once again wishes to opt in to an ad campaign in either LA Lawyer / Daily Journal or The Recorder. Meantime, it doesn't hurt to take a break to see if that has any impact at all on traffic to the site(s) from California.

In other news - we've completed beta-testing the Available Dates Notice email function (see Nov news below) and this will start from the end of January onwards to help maximize your exposure to local firms and staff. We've also purchased several new valuable national databases to better raise awareness of our roster - more on that in January!

On behalf of Rose-Anne, Jackie and myself, we'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays (delete as applicable!)
Our animated greeting card (featuring terrible likenesses of each of us!) is online at www.nadn.org/xmas/nadncard.html

ACC MAILOUT - National Mail Campaign
We received an updated version of the Assoc. of Corporate Counsel mailing list late this summer, so this month sent another 2000+ personalized literature packs out to members in those states in which we have formal chapters (FL, NC, GA, TN, TX, CO, MS, AR, AL, CO, AZ). This includes an additional 300 California based counsel that were not mailed earlier this year (see May 2011 Update).

We are making swift progress in the formation of our New York State Chapter and so will be contacting all known in-house counsel in that state too in the new year, once the charter members list is finalized in February. In related news, we are a sponsor of the CPR Institute's Annual Meeting in NYC in January, distributing NADN materials to the expected 200+ attendees, including many of the Fortune 500 company representatives that head corporate ADR programs - this can only help to raise awareness of our roster further.

NEW FOR 2012 - Availability Date Email Notices
Following an analysis of what might be done to better reach out to schedulers/firms for 2012 and raise awareness of our National Academy roster as a whole, we're concentrating our efforts on those thousands of firms that have ALREADY used the NADN or local chapter websites such as CaliforniaNeutrals.org in the past.

Commencing Jan 2012, near the end of each month NADN will send an automated email out to ALL law firm clients that have previously requested members for a mediation or arbitration appointment via the calendar system. (Click for example email format)

A few points on how this will benefit members...
(NB: members with their calendars disabled are obviously not effected by this.)

1) The NADN branding will promote the fact that you have been recognized for excellence in the ADR field by the Academy.

2) The clients that are MOST LIKELY to use you in the next few months are - those that you ALREADY have a relationship with. To this end, these emails will literally "put your face back out there" to all those firms for whom you've mediated/arbitrated in the past. These reminders simply list your confirmed available dates for the next 3 months and request the client to keep you in mind should they have any upcoming ADR requirements.

3) This also provides an incentive for Academy Members to encourage their clients to send Online Appointment requests, rather than having them call each time. As members with active calendars throughout Florida, California, Georgia, Texas and the other established state chapters can attest, this saves both you, your office staff AND your client's staff a lot of phone tag! With this new added advantage of the Academy regularly commending you to (former) clients, proactively putting your dates out to them each month as a service - this is yet another reason to get more of your clients at least trying out the online request system.

4) In order for these emails to go out at the end of each month, certain criteria must be met:

a) The calendar must have been updated within the previous 48hrs, so that dates are accurate for clients.
We will send an email notice to Academy members/staff to advise of this 'must update' period near the end of each month.
b) If a calendar shows too many available days OR is fully booked for the next 90 days, the Available Dates Notice will NOT be sent to clients, as in either case it's bad optics (in the first case, it might be perceived as" I'm Too Busy For Your Business", and in the 2nd, "I'm Not Getting Work!")
c) Finally, NADN members DO have the option to opt out of this Available Dates Notice service to their clients.

4) Of course, we'll ensure that the emails are not in breach of federal SPAM act regulations, with a clearly identifiable link to allow firms to unsubscribe from these informational (as opposed to commercial) emails, if they prefer. On unsubscription, that email is moved to a blacklist to ensure that they cannot be emailed notices in the future.

We'll be beta-testing this new function in December - any questions, please call or email to discuss this function further.

2012 - Northern/Southern Ad Campaigns?
We'll again be surveying members to gauge the interest in running ads again in one or more of the various regional publications (LA Lawyer, Daily Journal, Recorder Weekly etc). Meantime, those members opting into the ad campaigns will see the final charge put through on Dec 2nd for the 2011 ad campaign, with all cards then being reset to the dues payment-only in time for January 2012. More to come on this next month - watch your InBox!

WELCOME TO OUR NEW SERVER!
We successfully transitioned to a new more powerful server without any significant downtime, over the weekends of Oct 1-2 and 8-9. We've tested quite extensively and (touch wood) can't seem to get the server to overload so we'll see how it goes in the coming months. As an aside, we've also BANNED all traffic from China from accessing the website, as we were seeing quite a lot of spambots coming from that part of the world (as most major sites do in fact!). If any of you do happen to have clients based in Beijing, please let me know as we can seek a few exceptions to the blanket-ban if required!!

We are also making updates this month (almost completed) to the various State Chapter pages on the server, to better ensure they're picked up by Google and the major search engines. This includes pushing "CityName mediators" and "Cityname arbitrators" searches, rather than just "StateName mediators" etc. This should take effect from end of November onwards and give us a boost in localized searches.

STATE CHAPTER NEWS - ARIZONA, COLORADO & MISSISSIPPI NOW ONLINE
September saw the launch of our Arizona Chapter including the top 21 top tier neutrals in that state. The AZ Committee have given most generously of their time - thanks to Shawn Aiken (Phoenix), Amy Lieberman (Scottsdale) and Bruce Meyerson (Phoenix). As with our existing finalized state chapters, ads and announcements will be running in the local Bar publications in the coming weeks and months, ensuring awareness among the local litigators, corporate counsel and paralegals.

Our Colorado Chapter (www.nadn.org/colorado) of 16 charter members was formally launched on Oct 11, with press releases and announcements in the local Bar publications. Thanks to our Colorado Committee Members for their advice and guidance: Joe Epstein (Greenwood Village), Judge Bill Meyer (Denver) and Steve Meyrich (Boulder).

Our small but perfectly formed Mississippi Chapter (www.nadn.org/mississippi) of 7 charter members is also being announced via the local Bar press this month. Exec. Committee Members are Richard Bennett (Jackson), Larry Latham (Ridgeland) and Raymond Hunter (Gulfport).

We are also pleased to confirm our New York Executive Commitee, with whom we'll be working over the coming weeks to finalize the line-up for our New York State Chapter, likely to be finalized early 2012. Thanks in advance to members Irene Warshauer, Simeon Baum, James Morris and Peter Woodin.

ABA TECH SHOW - MARCH 2012, CHICAGO
Looking ahead to next year, we have confirmed that (for the first time) we'll have a booth at the ABA Techshow in Chicago (link). This show is attended by 1800+ tech-minded attorneys and firm administrators and provides us with an excellent opportunity to showcase the time-saving functionality of the NADN.org database to attendees.

GOOD NEWS - We're getting more traffic - BAD NEWS - Server Maintenance This Month!
The GOOD news is that twice this month (Tues Sep 6 around 9.55am; Wed Sep 7 at 10.40am) we've seen a large volume of traffic attempting to interrogate our NADN.org and local chapter websites at one time (in excess of 100 individual database queries all within 2-3 seconds of each other, both days!)

The BAD news is that this causes the server to crash out with a 'Too Many Connections" report, taking everybody offline for up to 15-20 mins while we reset the server. We thought that we'd be able to 'patch up' our current machine using a few tricks to get around such overloads, but it seems that our trusty old Linux/Apache server (circa 2005) is simply not going to be up to the job - with members now logging in from iPhones/Blackberries from 40 states, and 1000+ visitors searching & scheduling online most week days, it's straining to keep up. The problem will only grow worse with chapters in Colorado, Arizona and New York still to come online later this year.

SO: We're upgrading to a new Linux server with about 8x the processing power / bandwidth and improved firewall which will future-proof us for years to come. This does though mean the closure of the NADN/regional chapter websites for a few hours later this month, most likely Saturday OCT 1. As soon as we have confirmation of the definite server " switchover" date, a warning email will go out to all members notifying of this downtime.

Little else to report this month - this upgrading of all our current database platforms is going to take up most all mine/my programmer's time!

ANNUAL ACADEMY MEMBERS RETREAT @ RITZ CARLTON, AMELIA ISLAND, FL - AUGUST 11-13
The 2011 Members Retreat was (I think it's safe to say!) a resounding success, with members attending from more states than ever before (Florida, California, Texas, North Carolina, Tennesseee, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, New York) and a terrific line up of speakers with Lee Jay Berman (Cal), Doug Noll (Cal) and Don Philbin (TX). Just as importantly as the training, this was a unique opportunity for EXPERIENCED civil/commercial mediators (rather than hobbyists and family practitioners that haunt the usual Bar events) to meet in luxurious surroundings, share experiences and break bread together!

The 2012 Retreat will be finalized early next year, though it will most likely be a little later in the year (perhaps late Sep / early Oct) and will almost certainly be in one of our other states, perhaps Texas, North Carolina or further north - I'm exhausted even thinking about that right now(!) so leave you with photos and testimonials from the 2011 Retreat online over at the National website!

NEW MEMBER BENEFIT - COMPLETE EQUITY MARKETS, INC. - LIABILITY INSURANCE FOR NADN MEMBERS
As a new member benefit, we have partnered with Complete Equity Markets Inc. of Chicago,IL to offer our members reduced rate mediation/arbitration practice professional liability insurance. Although we do not require members to have insurance for their ADR practice, many full-time mediators and arbitrators use CEM to insure them against claims - the company has an excellent reputation, working with around a dozen other regional ADR groups around the country and comes highly recommended.

The insurance company website can be visited directly at www.cemins.com and any NADN members wishing to apply for coverage should please call Betsy Thomas directly at 1-800-323-6234, Ext.472. The CEM website will be updated in the next week or so to include NADN as one of it's "pre-approved" ADR organizations - meantime, official CEM press release viewable here!

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LEGAL ASSISTANTS - ANNUAL CONFERENCE - Dallas, JULY 28-29
One of the reasons for the late update this month - I've been waiting on photos from Rose-Anne to post here! Here are a few fresh from the event...

The NALA Conference is attended by more than 400 senior paralegals from more than 30 state chapters of the association and we have a captive audience for a presentation to attendees at the top of the conference on Thursday July 28. Although not the attorney 'decision makers', paralegals are an important target group for us, as we've seen from our Florida and other longer-established chapters that these are the individuals who are often the gatekeepers as far as scheduling the various attending parties - thus, they're the ones who tend to find the calendaring function most useful. If all goes to plan, all of these attendees will return to their firms around the US, armed with literature and a firm understanding of the calibre and usefulness of our member database!

We will be preparing for our annual retreat over the next week or two, watch out for photos and media from that event next month!

NATIONAL PRESS EXPOSURE - Corporate Counsel Magazine / Law.com
Our outreach to ACC members and in-house counsel the last few weeks' has caused quite the buzz, resulting in a call this month from the Senior Editor at Corporate Counsel magazine, published by ALM (owner of the Law.com online portals). The profile on the Academy is entitled "Taking Sides: The National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals' New Approach to ADR", written by journalist Dan Kaplan. It does a TERRIFIC job of highlighting the calibre of our membership and gives the reader plenty of reasons to refer to our online roster to find a suitably qualified/experienced neutral!

The article can be read online at http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202498204838

NADN STATE CHAPTERS - IN PROGRESS
We are making inroads into finding suitably qualified and experienced neutrals in several new states:

ALASKA - We currently have ZERO members. There appear to be just 3 "full time" neutrals in the entire state, so there will no formal Exec. Committee formed for this small state. We're hopeful that at least one of those will meet the formal requirements for NADN (likely for arbitration) and we thus hope to be able to turn this state to the light blue color on our NADN Directory map page!

ARKANSAS - We are pleased to have 3 of the very best neutrals in the state already named as charter members. Our research in recent weeks has suggested 4 other attorneys/judges who would appear to comfortably meet the criteria, each of whom also has the required votes from existing members. Pending due diligence, we may then see a maximum total of 7 top-tier neutrals in this state.

ARIZONA - Research still pending, but we now have sifted through the list of over 300 'registered' ADR attorneys in the state and sought advice from the AZ Committee members: Amy Lieberman, Shawn Aiken and Bruce Meyerson. It is unlikely there are more than another dozen attorneys who will make the cut but again, quality over quantity.

COLORADO - Again, research still underway - we're optimistic though of seeing as many as 20 very qualified, full-time neutrals added to this state chapter in the coming weeks.

NEW YORK - Litigation atty. research has now been completed across more than 200 individual firms across NY - we have whittled the 500+ known ADR practitioners down to around 100 that were referenced at least twice by different firms. We will be finalizing our 4 Executive Committee members this month and will then move forward with the peer nomination procedure to vet the 100 'name checked' neutrals down to those known to the committee members and believed to be of a superior reputation. Best guess just now would be perhaps no more than 50 neutrals making the cut for the formal NY Chapter, to be launched around September.

National News - Association of Corporate Counsel - CALIFORNIA MAILOUT
By the end of this month, we'll have sent out personalized letters and NADN booklets to around 1300 known members of the ACC in California. We will be recommending these counsel refer to our NADN roster to search for a suitably qualified mediator or arbitrator should they require assistance with their commercial/industry-related disputes. The total database contains around 10,000 members but we're concentrating on just those states where we have an existing state chapter presence for now - we'll monitor the response (online and offline) to this outreach over the coming weeks then likely plan to do a larger mailout to all remaining ACC members later this year, by which time we hope to have a further state chapters in New York and other states.

National News - ALABAMA Chapter Launches!
We're pleased to announce the launch of our new Alabama Chapter, see PDF PRESS RELEASE. As one of the smaller states, there are just 20 attorneys and judges in Alabama who were found to meet the high standards for Academy membership, but it's a definite case of quality over quantity, with most all of that state's heavy-hitter, full-time neutrals now on board, all publishing calendars for firms. The Alabama Chapter does not have it's own separate website like CaliforniaNeutrals.org, but can be visited online directly at www.nadn.org/alabama. This chapter format website works for all states now, including our own California chapter at www.nadn.org/california

NOTE: I'm off on a "royal" trip back to England next week, back around May 4th! I'll be checking email regularly but should you require an immediate response, please call NADN Coordinator Rose-Anne Raies directly at (813) 600-3678.

2011 NATIONAL TRAINING RETREAT - Reminder
I'd remind our California members that we're headed to Florida once more for our annual conference - so far, no California members have committed yet but we do have over 70 members attending from Texas, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Pennsyvania, Wisconsin and throughout Florida. If any of you would like to attend, please contact my paralegal Rose-Anne Raies at 813 600 3678 before the end of March. (See brochure below)

In other news: we hope by the end of this month to finalize a mailout to members of the California Chapter of ACC (Assoc. of Corporate Counsel), who will each be receiving a copy of the NADN booklet and a personalized letter. More on that next month!

2011 NATIONAL TRAINING RETREAT - August 11-13th, Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island, FL
I'm pleased to confirm that we've set the date and line up for our 2011 members' retreat...

Rose-Anne and I hope to again meet many of you in person later this year for a superlative training weekend. In the meantime, watch your mailbox for a copy of our new NADN Guidebook, which you should receive around mid-February - several thousand of these are already en route to litigation firms around the country, with further relevant direct mail lists now being purchased!

Press Ads - New 2010 Campaign
Thanks to all members for their email responses over the holidays, we've now completed the materials for both Southern and Northern campaigns...

SOUTHERN MEMBERS:

Our original plan to run again with LA Lawyer was changed based on feedback - the timing was also good, as our National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals group was recognized as a non-profit by the Daily Journal Corporation, allowing us access to much better rates then at any time in the past. There was a sense that the LA Lawyer campaign had likely run its course, and so we're switching this year to the Daily Journal and the associated Verdicts & Settlements weekly supplement.

Each month, the National Academy will run 6 'photo gallery' ads, each featuring 6 different SoCal members (Gallery Ads A to F)...

The schedule of ads for the campaign will be as follows:

MONTH1:
Week 1: Friday V&S Supplement (Page 2) - GALLERY A
Week 2: Monday Daily Journal News (Page 2) GALLERY B + Friday V&S Supplement (Page 2) GALLERY C
Week 3: Monday Daily Journal News (Page 2) GALLERY D + Friday V&S Supplement (Page 2) GALLERY E
Week 4: Monday Daily Journal News (Page 2) GALLERY F
MONTH2:
Week 1: Friday V&S Supplement (Page 2) - GALLERY D
Week 2: Monday Daily Journal News (Page 2) GALLERY E + Friday V&S Supplement (Page 2) GALLERY F
Week 3: Monday Daily Journal News (Page 2) GALLERY A + Friday V&S Supplement (Page 2) GALLERY B
Week 4: Monday Daily Journal News (Page 2) GALLERY C
(repeat)

- this way, the ads will be run at least once per week, and we're splitting the ads 3 to the main news, 3 to V&S supplement each month.
By rotating the line up every second month, we'll ensure that EVERYONE appears regularly in both the V&S and News, depending on their preference.
Final cost per participating member is $105 monthly, to cover costs - ads run from February through to December 2011, skipping August.

NORTHERN MEMBERS:

Following a hiatus from the Recorder in 2010, ALM Publications notified us that we would be awarded non-profit org rates for any future advertising, and so we're again running with prominent ads in the publication for 2011. Total cost per participating member is a low $60, monthly through to Dec 2011.

Publication dates as follows:
Jan 10, Feb 14, March 7 (Attys of the Year edition), Mar 21, APR 4 (ADR Issue), Apr 25 (Verdicts Issue),
May 9 (Litigation), June 7 (Personal Injury), July 25(Judicial Profile), Sep 12, Sep 26 (Best Of),
Oct 10 (ADR Issue), Oct 28, Nov 14 (Litigation), Nov 28, Dec 5 (Mng. Partner Survey)

AD CAMPAIGN FOR 2011 - Decision pending...
We're still chasing down the last of the votes to see if we can fund the Northern (Recorder) and Souther (LA Lawyer) campaigns for 2011. I hope to have the final tally by Friday Dec 17th, and if we DO have critical mass then I'll update this blog with copies of the ads for all to see. Watch this space.

NOVEMBER 2010

AD CAMPAIGN FOR 2011 - Survey coming...
Our current ad campaign with LA LAWYER (SoCal) and SF DAILY JOURNAL (Bay area) is now coming to a close with the December editions of LA Lawyer and the Nov 8th edition of the DJ. I'll be sending an email out to all members to see who wishes to opt in for the 2011 campaign, once we've negotiated the publishers best possible pricing for the Academy and our members for next year. Now a weekly, The Recorder is keen to see us promote through their pages once more and has offered a break on advertising rates so we'll possibly switch back to that for next year, if the interest is sufficient from Northern members... Watch your InBox for earl December for survey!

TITLES MAKEOVER
The more visually aware amongst you will have noticed a change in the titles above! This is to bring the California chapter website in line with the same navy blue/gold color scheme used on the other 6 state chapter websites, and we also now note that the CADN is affiliated with the National Academy too.
Members are invited of course to make mention of their membership of the NATIONAL Academy on their own websites, or in firm marketing - the NADN logos and materials can be downloaded at http://www.nadn.org/materials.html

TEXAS CHAPTER
Finally - we're pleased to announce the imminent launch of our Texas Chapter of the NADN. The Texas Academy of Distinguished Neutrals website goes live on December 1st at www.TexasNeutrals.org, featuring around 50 charter members, including a majority of that state's ADR superstars. This brings our entire national roster to around 650 attorneys and counting - hopefully you'll meet some of these folks at one of our future NADN annual retreats!

Also, if you haven't yet, please join our NADN LinkedIn Discussion group, more than 200 Academy members are now connected online in this way - just email me for details if you've lost your original invitation email.

OCTOBER 2010

BLACKBERRY APP - Edit Your Dates On The Road...

	Many National Academy members with iPhones / Android phones have been logging in remotely the last few weeks to edit their available dates, using the specially designed "mobile" admin calendar, but unfortunately this did not work with most BlackBerry phones. This is basically because most Blackberries do not handle graphics or web browsing as well as these other model. There are many (about 25!) different BlackBerry models, and so we've been busy developing an app to allow the many BlackBerry owners to have remote access too. After extensive testing we're finally there...

	INSTRUCTIONS FOR BLACKBERRY OWNERS
	Power up your Blackberry and go to the web browser
	Type following URL address:
	http://www.nadn.org/bb/nadncalendar.jad
	The phone will ask if you wish to DOWNLOAD new app - say yes!
	Once loaded, you can find the app in your Downloads folder
	To access the calendar, just enter your usual Email/Password.
	If you wish, you can have the App remember your log in for instant future access.

The new admin calendar simply allows you to first SELECT the date(s) you wish to edit via either the touch screen or the control pad, and then change those date(s) by clicking the status buttons down at the bottom of your screen. You also have access to edit Public/Private notes if you use them, just as you can on your regular web log in. It's quite intuitive, you should pick it up in no time - I'd recommend perhaps forwarding to an empty month to experiment! Please provide feedback on this new app if you download it, including your Blackberry Model# - thanks!

NADN - LinkedIn Group for discussions
I emailed everyone an invitation earlier this month to join the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals Group on LinkedIn. Obviously you have to have a LinkedIn profile to join (but if you're not already, you probably should be - it's really become the "FaceBook for Professionals" and over half our members are on there. The new members-only discussion group allows members from across the USA to share experiences, war stories and advice.
Just visit THIS LINK to join the Group and the discussion if you haven't already confirmed.

Just a note that I am heading off to the UK later this month for a long delayed vacation from Oct 27th through Nov 6th, but my trusty paralegal
Rose-Anne Raies will be available during office hours at her direct line at (813) 600-3678 during that time, and I will have (occasional!) access to email.

SEPTEMBER 2010
Software Update

1) Have you updated your CASE EXPERIENCE form lately (see above button)?
At the start of September, in order to better sync profile informatin across to the new National database, we added in more than a dozen NEW DISPUTE AREAS, which we would urge you to check off if you have settled such cases in the past. These include some head-slapping "How The Hell Did We Forget..." areas such as "Professional Malpractice" and "Class Actions", as well as a few that are specific to certain industries (Software, Mining, etc.)
PLEASE MAKE SURE TO DO A QUICK REVIEW OF THESE NEW CASE EXPERIENCE FIELDS ASAP!

2) Improvement to BIOGRAPHICAL FORM above
We've made it far easier now to tweak and modify the content of your webpage's bio, education, memberships entries. You'll be able to use a straight forward 'WYSIWYG' editor to now add new bullet points, parapgraphs etc, rather than the cumbersome text/web code entry system.

PLUS - Blackberry Owners - Volunteers Needed!
Our software for the iPhone and Android phones seems to work just fine, with more than 100 members nationally now able to log in to edit their calendar schedules from these smartphones. However, the Blackberry version still needs work! We should have a new version of a BlackBerry app working by October so if any members (only with calendars active) want to volunteer to help beta-test, kindly drop me an email!

AD CAMPAIGN - Traffic - CaliforniaNeutrals.org / NADN.org
It's been a while since I reported on the website traffic, but the news is positive - we're up about 10-20% from last years figures, tracking month to month year to date. We're regularly now getting between 800-1000 individual users each week day visiting the CaliforniaNeutrals.org database, with a few peaks in excess of 1200. More than 60% of all traffic hitting the homepage goes straight to the QuickSearch roster pages, and the vast majority of traffic comes from repeat users (ie; law firms, adjusters etc). Around 60% of all traffic comes in directly, from bookmarks typically, rather than Google searches (this is a very unusually high figure by the way, most websites get 80-90% of traffic from engines - another indicator that firms have bookmarked the site for quick reference.)

Although expensive, the ad campaigns in LA Lawyer and SF Daily Journal do seem to continue to raise awareness of our roster. We also intend to promote the NADN.org database (which of course features your profile too!) to several thousand California firms later this month. In early September, we sent an email out to more than 7500 legal assistants and contacts across Florida (those that have registered and utilized the FL Chapter website over the last 4 years) and invited them to try out the new NADN.org site instead of the FloridaMediators.org. This has led to more than 450 users daily visiting the NADN.org website since that email went out, which is most encouraging, and we intend to cross-promote firms in all regions to refer to the NADN site if they need somebody outside of their local pool of trusted neutrals.

FINALLY: All of you are welcome to track the National Academy's member news page directly at www.NADN.org/member-news too!

AUGUST 2010
National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals - Inaugural Training Seminar A Success!
After more than 5 years of living in the virtual world, communicating with members exclusively by email and telephone from my office in Toronto, it was my great pleasure to finally jump on a plane and fly down to meet nearly 70 members in the flesh and step foot in Florida for the first time! We had about 70 members in attendance, with a majority of members from Florida but mediators also flew in from California, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Iowa for the event!
(For photos and testimonials, please visit our National site over at www.nadn.org/retreat.html !)

My guest faculty of speakers from California's American Institute of Mediation (Lee Jay Berman, Doug Noll from California, Mel Rubin of Miami Law School, Erica Ariel Fox from Harvard) were all on top form across the two days, and I even managed a very brief speech or two myself! I'm delighted to report that many attendees were kind enough to provide feedback that this was in fact one of the single best training seminars that they had ever attended! I hope that more of our California members might be able to make it next year, the venue and dates for which are currently undecided.

Website Software Update
Do YOU use an iPhone or relatively-new BlackBerry or smartphone with a web browser?
I know that quite a large number of members have used their smartphones to log into their Academy account in order to edit their available dates. This is quite cumbersome, as it means zooming-in, logging in with email and password, then navigating the regular calendar administration page clicking dates on and off, then logging out. We now have a website page designed to be viewed directly on your IPhone that will let you edit your calendar data on the fly, without having to log in and out. If you'd like that personalized link to try it out, please email me directly!

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!

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: