@cynthiarrowland

Today we’re tweeting w/ tax & corp lawyer, Haiku poet & Director Emeritus of St Mary’s Med Center Foundation Board

1. @cynthiarrowland thank you for joining us today on Twitter. Tell us: who is @cynthiarrowland?
   Hardworking & seasoned CA lawyer devoted to clients, family, friends & community w/passion for making world a better place
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2. Tell us about your law practice.
   General counsel for wide range of nonprofit legal, regulatory, tax, business & ethical challenges & complex corp structures
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3. What type of clients do you represent?
   Mainly charities, community & family fndns, museums, universities, schools, churches, & philanthropists that support them
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4. What is the single most important legal issue affecting those clients?
   Effective nonprofit governance on a tight budget that’s also prudent, compliant, ethical & avoids conflicts of interest
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5. What do you tell every new client before you start working for them?
   I’m committed to their success, responsive, know they’d rather not spend $ on legal & won’t surprise them w/bill > budget
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6. Tell us about one of the more significant client representations you’ve had.
   Working w/ founders to create OneCal Foundation as charity that’s a holding co for a community bank www.onecalfoundation.org
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7. Why do your clients hire you?
   They trust me to help them do things right, and to do the right things.
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8. That’s a great endorsement. What’s the most active area of your practice at the current time? Is that typical?
   Tax & corp compliance; charities are highly regulated by fed & states & rules not intuitive-many traps for the unwary & yes
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9. How is the economic crisis affecting your non-profit clients? What are they doing differently to survive?
   Greater demands from grantees/clients means nonprofits need to be more effective & efficient; all are doing more w/less
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10. I’d imagine ‘less’ for your clients means absolute bare minimums right now…. How do you market your practice?
    Right. Seminars, articles, books, meals, ABA, NCCUSL + blog, twitter, LinkedIn, LegalOnRamp see http://tinyurl.com/kvdnhn
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11. How do you describe what you do to people you meet at networking events?
    Expert @ helping entrepreneurial philanthropists & charities, partner in general biz law firm; can help w/most legal needs!
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12. You blog @ Leadership, Women, Lawyers (http://bit.ly/k4LXE). Why did you start it? Are you meeting your objectives?
    Was looking for new & interesting challenge; at 1 yr mark soon! It’s been fun, I’ve learned a lot & have growing readership
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13. Congrats-Great blog! How are your Web 2.0 activities perceived by your firm’s leaders? Are others as active as you?
    No one else in my firm seems publicly active in Web 2.0 nor using it for client development. Yet. Might change after today!
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14. What specific impact on referrals and/or client engagements have you realized from Web 2.0 activities?
    Good Q–Many of my clients are active Twitterers so I follow them & RT; can’t say any particular new engagement yet but it’s early…
    more imp: Twitter/Tweetdeck is info source for following chatter about issues & orgs I need to know about (eg, adv parties)
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15. Very good point. How much time do you spend each day developing / enhancing your brand?
    Feels like 24/7; probably avg 1 hr/day, both old school methods (seminars, publishing etc) and Web 2.0 (blog, twitter, etc)
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16. Time well spent. Let’s switch gears now: what is the most significant issue currently facing the legal profession?
    Cloud computing & Web 3.0 are transforming biz & legal profession See http://tinyurl.com/n4m7kj & http://tinyurl.com/nfcbts
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17. What will the legal landscape look like in 10 years?
    Info access & communication will be very different, changing clients & service delivery-but they’ll still need wise counsel
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18. Absolutely! What would you do if you weren’t a lawyer?
    Probably go hungry; Maybe psychologist or novelist—I like figuring out why people do what they do & writing fiction & poetry
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19. I very much doubt that! How do you want to be remembered?
    Wise & thoughtful lawyer & team player & mom, devoted to increasing happiness quotient on the planet; a true & loyal friend
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20. What do you do when you’re not working?
    Spend eves & wknds w/family (husband, 2 sons and dtr, 2 horses, dog, cats) home & garden design, church & good friends 🙂
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21. I see why only 1 hr/day for SocMed.. What advice can you gvie lawyers under-/unemployed due to the economic crisis?
    Get out there & network(info interviews, volunteer) do what you love w/people you like; build skills as best you can; stay +
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22. And our last question: what advice do you have for people going to law school today?
    Here’s what I told my son (1st yr @ U Chi) It’s a great education! Don’t waste it & gd luck! See http://tinyurl.com/lhshxc

Wise words (and nice post)! Thank you so much for answering our questions today; this was a great twitterview

Thanks, great fun! I am finding it hard now to say anything with more than 140 characters! Will resume legalspeak shortly.

Filed under Twitterviews | Tags: Blawger, Business Law, Charity Law, Nonprofit Law, San Francisco, Tax | Comments Off on @cynthiarrowland