The Care and Feeding of Volunteers:
Maximizing the Experience for Your Volunteers and for Yourself
Presentation for ACLEA Montreal Summer Conference 2002
Carol Weiss Kotler, Esq.
Program Attorney
Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education (MCLE)
Boston, Massachusetts
(617) 350-7006, ext. 1243; email
I. The Golden Rules of Successful Relationships with Volunteers
Plan ahead. Be well organized and well prepared.
Know what you need -- and ask for it.
Know what your volunteers want -- and give it to them!
II. Advance Planning; Developing the Program
Plan in advance
Know your topics, latest developments, important lawyers, firms, etc.
Create a preliminary agenda.
Describe the characteristics of the presenters: e.g., specialists or generalists, accountants or other non-lawyer professionals.
Identify the qualifications that the chairperson must have, e.g., specialized knowledge, contacts, reputation, ability to marshal resources for the seminar book.
Recruit the Chairperson
You've done your homework, now invite the lawyer whose skills best fit your program needs to be the chair.
Be honest, tactful and firm about the extent of time and effort you will require from the chair. If your first choice doesn't have the time to do everything, do NOT lower your standards. Instead, offer to showcase her in a future program, and invite someone else to chair this program.
Describe your conception of the program, and solicit her input.
Work with the chair to identify agenda topics, faculty qualifications, presentation styles (e.g., lectures, faculty roundtable discussion, faculty demonstrations of mock hearings, breakout sessions for registrants to work on hypothetical cases studies).
Now you and the chair are ready to recruit the faculty, solicit their input, and finalize the agenda.
State your expectations for volunteer participation. Don't lower them. Be firm, polite and consistent.
Do not minimize the amount of work that is required, or pressure a reluctant lawyer into volunteering. You need an enthusiastic and hard working chair and faculty members to produce a quality program and comprehensive written materials. Know what you expect before you recruit your chair and volunteers, explain it properly, be honest about the amount of time and effort it will take to produce a quality oral presentation and written materials, and stress the deadlines when you extend your invitations.
A comprehensive, timely, practical set of materials is important to the success of the program. Therefore, preparing quality written materials is an important aspect of the volunteers’ job. Stress this responsibility when you recruit your faculty members. Tell them that "Your name is on the cover as a volunteer author. Our CLE organization is dedicated to producing a high-quality book that is worthy of having your name on it."
If the invited lawyer cannot devote the required time, tell her that you will invite someone else for this program, and sure to offer her the opportunity to speak at some future program. Ask her to call you when her schedule clears and she has enough time to devote to a program. This will help potential volunteers be honest about their commitments, without worrying that they are losing a chance for the publicity that volunteers obtain.
Be consistent. Over time, your volunteers will know what you expect, and will be assured that everyone else on the panel will work as hard as they will to create an excellent presentation and seminar materials. They will be happy to work with you and will fulfill their responsibilities when they volunteer, knowing that they will be very satisfied with the quality of their programs. You will improve the quality of your seminars and written materials and will have an easier time administering the programs.
Of course, you cannot expect every speaker to submit written materials. There are always exceptions. Know when to make them, and how to compensate. Plan ahead! Judges, government officials, and some other lawyers may be vital to a particular program, but may not be willing to prepare written materials. You should anticipate this before your recruit them, so you can fill the panel with other speakers who can submit enough written materials to fill the gap.
Prepare an excellent program brochure
Your brochure should be written after you have consulted with the chair and the faculty and received their input as to topics and presentation styles.
The chair or you can write the brochure. You must edit it and refine it with an eye to content, proper descriptions of all its features, and marketing punch. Use your experience and expertise.
Your CLE organization wants a large audience, and so does your faculty. Prepare a good brochure, and help to attract one. But be honest when you recruit your faculty, and give them a realistic estimate of the size of the audience, so that they will not be disappointed or threaten to back out if the audience is smaller than they expected.
Your program must pass the "SO WHAT? test”
You may plan a very interesting, intellectually stimulating program, but you haven't finished your job if the program doesn't pass the "So What?" test. List all the agenda items, topics and features of the program. Then put yourself in the shoes of your potential audience, and ask "So What? Why do I want/need to know all this? How can I use this knowledge in my practice? How can I use this to help my clients?” Your program won't attract an audience or successfully deliver the practical, timely education they need, if you can’t answer these questions. You must make this clear to the faculty as you develop the program, and remind them as they plan their presentations.
III. The Second Stage: Faculty Meetings and Program Development
Faculty meetings
Schedule a faculty meeting as soon as possible, either before the brochure is finalized or immediately afterward. (Your brochure will reflect faculty input even if you have not had a meeting before it is published, because you and the chair will have discussed the program and solicited faculty input as you recruit your faculty.) In-person meetings work best, but conference calls are often used when the faculty is dispersed. Items to discuss and agree upon at the meeting are: oral presentations, the program schedule, the presentation methods, and written materials.
Oral Presentations: Allocate responsibility for oral presentations of each agenda topic. Decide on presentation styles that complement your topics (e.g., lecture by a single person; lecture followed by commentary by others, discussion of a hypothetical situation to illustrate your points; faculty demonstrations; breakout sessions to enable registrants to work in small groups on a hypothetical case study.) Finalize the time schedule.
Written materials: Assign responsibility for written materials for each topic. Get everyone's suggestions as to contents. Be sure to include substantive chapters, sample documents and other practical items, such as form letters, client intake checklists, charts, government regulations, etc. Many of your faculty members may be able to contribute their own versions of sample forms, documents and checklists to supplement the submission of the main speaker on each topic.
Arrange for a second meeting or conference call, if needed, two weeks before the program, to review everyone’s oral presentations.
Be helpful and proactive
Suggest ways your faculty can draw on their firms’ resources to prepare high quality written materials efficiently. Some examples: If this is a beginning or intermediate level seminar, the training directors in large firms may have prepared explanatory materials and sample documents for associate training. Senior associates may have developed their own form files of sample documents, useful source books and websites. Ask for them!
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IV. The Third Stage: Follow-up and Administration
Send your information to the faculty early. As soon as the brochure is written, send an information packet to each faculty member with all the details about the program: date and time of seminar; date and time of faculty meeting; deadline for submission of written materials, request for faculty biography; form of permission for written materials; faculty list, etc.
Enforce your due dates for written materials. Set your due date for written materials two weeks before you really need them! Then you can give a few days grace period to any faculty members who ask for last minute extensions and still have your materials when you need them.
Follow up with reminders! Urge, cajole, and NAG! But be polite! Send an email one week before the deadline submission for written materials reminding the faculty of the due date and repeating any information they need about format, etc. Send another reminder the day after the due date, for those who have not submitted on time. Keep track of submissions as they arrive and call any volunteers who are more than three days late.
Send a reminder a week before the program repeating final details. Be sure to tell the faculty to arrive early to ensure a prompt start.
Once again, be helpful and proactive. Suggest ways that the faculty can take advantage of their appearance at your CLE seminar to showcase their own participation. Send them brochure copies that they can mail to their clients and “friends of the firm.” Suggest that they publicize the seminar in the newsletters of the professional organizations that are important to them or to their clients.
V. Know what faculty members want, and give it to them.
Make every seminar and book an enjoyable and successful experience for your faculty. Volunteers want their experience to be pleasant and efficient. They will volunteer again if you are well organized, administer the program smoothly, and make sure that the end-product is something the volunteers can be proud of.
Volunteers want publicity to showcase their reputation in the legal community, to impress their clients and to attract referrals or new clients. Suggest ways that they can bring their participation to the notice of a larger audience. Send them brochures that they can mail to their clients and others. Suggest that they publicize the program in industry newsletters or publications. Offer the seminar book to the faculty at a quantity discount so that they can purchase extra copies to distribute to their clients and to display in their offices
Help faculty members leverage their participation and get greater recognition for their volunteer efforts. Suggest ways that they can adapt their speeches and written materials to use in presentations to clients, industry publications or their law firms’ client newsletters.
Offer to showcase your faculty in additional programs. Ask them for their areas of particular interest, and follow up with an invitation to volunteer.
Ask the faculty to recommend other lawyers in their firm to volunteer in future programs. You will recruit new talent and help your veteran faculty mentor their associates.
Above all, be well organized, creative and professional. You should be as expert in the creation and development of continuing education seminars as your volunteers are in their substantive topics. If you demonstrate this through your actions, they will be happy to volunteer for you again and again.
VI. Wrap-Up
Send a thank-you note to the volunteers as quickly as possible.
If you tabulate registrants’ evaluation forms, send a summary to the chair.
Prepare a memo to the file summarizing the points to remember about the program content and administration, including faculty performance and suggestions. The memo will be helpful if you repeat the program, and will help you improve the performance of veteran faculty.
August 28, 2002
Howard Zaharoff, Esq.,
Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton, P.C.
1601 Trapelo Road
Reservoir Place
Waltham, MA 02451-7333
Dear Howard:
Thank you for agreeing to chair MCLE’s program Advanced Licensing Issues. The seminar will take place on Thursday, December 12, 2002 from 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. at MCLE Conference Center, Ten Winter Place, Boston.
I ask the program chair to recruit the faculty and write the program brochure. I leave it to you to develop the agenda subtopics based on our recent conversations about the program content. I have enclosed several brochures from current programs for your information as to content and format. As you can see, most brochures are written in three sections: "Why Attend?" "You Will Learn" and "Agenda." You can type the brochure content with the faculty list as straight text and email it to me at . I will change it to fit MCLE format. Please send the brochure text to me by Wednesday, September 5, 2003 even if you have not confirmed the entire faculty. This will allow us to format the brochure as quickly as possible and add additional names as you supply them within the next few days.
Please keep in mind that choosing faculty members is a very important phase of program planning. The program doesn’t get any better than the presenters. In addition to the requisite substantive expertise and practical experience, we seek volunteers with excellent presentation skills and the willingness to put in the time to contribute to a professional presentation. Resist the temptation to coax the participation of a reluctant volunteer or negotiate away MCLE’s standard of excellence. In choosing faculty members, please remember that we seek diversity on our panels. Factors to consider include gender balance, racial or ethnic mix, geographical variety, plaintiff and defense, and attorneys from large firms and small firms as well as solo practitioners.
MCLE issues a paperback volume of seminar materials with each of our programs. When recruiting faculty, please underscore that there is a dual responsibility- authoring written materials and giving an oral presentation. MCLE’s audience relies on and expects to receive comprehensive, practical written materials supporting the oral presentation. If you want to recruit government officials for the panel, but they do not have the time to write a new chapter for the book, they can submit memoranda, position papers or other documents that their offices have already prepared for the information of the bar and the public. The faculty will not have to submit their written material to MCLE until Wednesday, November 13, 2002.
Please call me to discuss the program when you have prepared a draft of the brochure. My direct dial is (617) 350-7006 ext. 1243; my e-mail is
I look forward to working with you on this important program.