2014 OUTSTANDING CHAPTER AWARD WINNER: THINKING OUTSIDE.

Mantick, Kelly

Through its innovative programs, member engagement and unique "out of the box" thinking, the LMA Ohio Chapter has topped the charts in membership growth and community involvement. This winner of the 2014 Outstanding Chapter award originated in northeast Ohio in 2001, consisting of members from the Cleveland and Akron areas. In 2007, the chapter reorganized into the LMA Ohio chapter, spreading its influence to every corner of the state. Now, with more than 100 members in every large city in Ohio, this chapter has made great waves, extending its influence even beyond legal marketing, and inciting an 18 percent growth in membership in the process.

We talked to LMA Ohio Chapter President Erin W. Hawk, labor and employment practice development manager at Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP, and immediate Past President Liz Boehm, senior marketing and business development manager at Benesch Law, to learn more about the successes in Ohio.

To what do you attribute the 18 percent growth in membership?

The growth in our membership is the result of a number of factors, including:

* The rebounding economy and the healthy state of the legal industry across the country and here in Ohio.

THE BOX OF OHIO

* The continued availability of quality educational programming, networking opportunities and communications we provide to our members.

* A concerted membership outreach effort. Jennifer Shankleton, who is our membership chair and our president-elect, has done a stellar job this year of involving legal marketers in the Akron-Canton area in our chapter's activities. This has resulted in our membership in that area of the state tripling in 2013. We have also, for a number of years, focused on growing our membership in the Cincinnati area, and we have seen this year that interest in our programs in that market has been on the rise.

* The great reputation that LMA has within the industry. Our current members renew their memberships annually because of the tremendous value that being a part of this thriving international organization provides.

Tell us about some of your initiatives over the past year that contributed to expanding your reach across the state.

"Outside the Box"

Our goal in holding the "Outside the Box" program was to offer our members a chance to gain perspectives and ideas from leading marketers in other industries. Hearing from marketers at major organizations such as the Cleveland Clinic and KPMG helped initiate discussions about a set of topics that we don't typically focus on as legal marketers. This event drew one of our highest turnouts in 2013.

Law School Programming

The curriculum for our law school programming was developed by a collaborative committee within our chapter. We put our heads together and discussed what key topics would be of most interest to law students. Then, we figured out who within the chapter could present as an "expert" on each of those topics.

We drove interest in our law school workshops by creating a "menu" of sorts--a list of all the possible topics we were willing to present on to the students. Then we reached out to the career planning departments at most of the law schools in the state and worked with the schools to determine exactly what type of format and what topics would be the best fit for their students.

QuickStart Program

We are proud of our new QuickStart program that we launched in 2014 to address the needs of younger legal marketing professionals in our market. We created this turnkey approach based on resources from LMA international to help us reach out not only to younger professionals but also to help us offer programming and networking opportunities to some of our underserved markets throughout the state. Our chapter is offering this program at no cost to both members and non-members to encourage younger professionals and those new to the legal field to become involved in LMA.

What is the biggest challenge the Ohio Chapter faced in the past year?

Our biggest challenge isn't necessarily new; it is based on our geographic diversity across the state and how to offer quality programming and networking opportunities to all of our members. To address this, as we have described above, we have looked for creative ways to offer cost-effective programming in our smaller markets and to offer video conferencing options for those markets to participate in our larger sessions. in addition, we have alternated our Practice Development institute between our two primary markets to better reach our diverse membership base across the state.

What is on the future agenda for the LMA Ohio Chapter?

We are looking forward to another fabulous institute on Oct. 21 in Cleveland. We are also excited about our partnership with Crain's Cleveland in a joint sponsorship opportunity that will allow us to gain significant visibility for our chapter and LMA in general in the legal and business community in Cleveland.