Baylor Evnen Curtiss Grimit & Witt, LLP is pleased to announce two new partners.

WBON Members Seek to Share Active Tips for Running Successful Businesses
By: Suzanna Stagemeyer

Every month, sole proprietors, business partners and corporate owners from southeast Nebraska join forces in Linocln to share advice on how better to steer their businesses. And it's all woman to woman.

Although business sizes, ages and revenues differ, the networking opportunities and relevant programming make Women Business Owners Network invaluable to its 41 members, President Gail Perry said.

"It's useful to put together a group of like-minded people," said Perry, a charter member who was elected president in September. "It's a forum, a talking place for people who are responsible for making their businesses work."

Perry is one of six partners at Lincoln's Baylor Evnen law firm and leaves every WBON meeting with ideas to imporve aspects of the firm or her work, she said.

"Your business has never been right where it is this minute," Perry said. "When you analyzed it a while ago, the business was different. Through our programming, you're thinking about it again."

About a dozen women formed WBON in 1995 as a chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners, Perry said. Three years later, members felt they weren't earning adequate benefits from their national dues, so they broke off and formed the local group, she said.

"We wanted to put our money to use locally," she said.

Overall membership has continued on a steady upward slope from the group's original dozen members, she said, and new women business owners join throughout each year.

"We've never had a membership drive," Perry said. "We've grown just purely by people liking us."

Some members hope the group doesn't grow much more, Perry said. "That would make it more difficult to know everyone," she said. About 25-30 people currently attend each month's meeting.

Increased membership has increased the demand for meetings, she said. WBON used to break for summers, but in the past few years, began doing summer meetings on lighter topics.

WBON founders initially envisioned a networking association, but added programming at meetings to attract members, Perry said. Now, some members come primarily for the programming.

Programs are designed to be interactive - complete with worksheets and other activities - so that members have ideas to act on by the time they leave the meeting, she said. Members have time to share ideas with each other and also may lead programs in their areas of expertise.

Perry said that many programs address topics that are important to all business owners, such as marketing, communicating, hiring for temporary positions, using basic business technology, creating partnerships and managing finances.

The most popular topics have been marketing-related, Perry said.

Some programs focus on challenges more specific to women business owners - from lighter topics, such as improving personal fitness to be better fit to run a business, to negotiating for women when gender becomes a challenge.

"WBON is an affinity group," Perry said. "We face some of the same challenges. We don't focus on problems we have as women; we're just trying to address topics specific to us."

In addition, Perry said, some businesses cater primarily to women, making WBON a valuable resource to them.

Contrary to what some outsiders may think, she said, meetings are run on a tight schedule with no room for idle conversation.

"We're not a coffee club," Perry said. "We're very business-oriented. We're multitasking constantly - we get lots done in that hour and a half."

She said that women business owners are very busy people. They're often trying to balance family, work, and other commitments, so they want the most out of the time they spend with WBON.

At the beginning of the meetings, she said, attendees quickly introduce themselves. One member is then allowed a "marketing minute" to talk about her business. After that, the program for that particular meeting begins.

If there are programs or events that members don't find useful, the seven board members waste no time replacing them, she said.

"We make sure that whatever we do is beneficial to members," Perry said.

When attendance began lagging at a longtime, annual event that featured a panel of successful businesswomen, board members scrapped the project and came up with the WBON Icon award. The annual award, which board members are developing this year, will go to a member who has met certain success qualifications, Perry said.

"The winner can celebrate her success and put it on her resume," she said.

At monthly meetings that are held at the Chez Hay restaurant in downtown Lincoln, organizers try to seat members next to people they may not know. That sometimes results in unexpected business partnerships, Perry said.

"The hallmark of any business group is networking," she said. "The more we get to know each other and what each persons does, the more we can make referrals to someone in our group. Lots of people have also struck up joint offerings."

Perry said she once provided legal advice to a woman who had an estate planning business but no legal degree, she said.

"We got together to figure out how to interface with each other instead of competing," Perry said. "We now work back and forth with each other. In addition, members will often hire each other to do work. We both benefit."

Perry said WBON sponsors events that are open to the public, such as the upcoming WBON on Display that will be held from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., Nov. 8 at HiMark Clubhouse, 8901 Augusta Drive, Lincoln. The free event showcases women-owned businesses in southeast Nebraska and offers holiday shopping, an open bar and refreshments.

It's also our Christmas party," Perry said. "We're always multitasking."

Baylor Law Firm is Evolving with Changing Industry, Technology
By Tom Johnson

As one of the oldest law practices in the state, the firm of Baylor Evnen Curtiss Grimit & Witt has pursued a conservative course in business development. Now the firm is looking at new ways of connecting with the public to show its evolution from a trial law and insurance defense firm into a full-service firm.

Baylor now handles trial work, estate planning, probate, domestic relations, business formation, real estate and commercial transactions, workers compensation defense, employment law and white-collar defense work, said Randall Goyette, managing partner.

“Historically, law firms in Lincoln have been reluctant to advertise, “Goyette said. “That trend is changing, and we’re changing with it. We’ve become more conscious of the need to market our services to business.”

The Baylor law firm’s first step is a retooling of its Web site at www.baylorevnen.com which will become more informative and interactive.

“There will be areas clients will be able to access with a password, which will allow them to view our publications,” Goyette said. “If a client wants to contact us with a new case, there will be forms people can submit online.”

Goyette said he hopes the Web site and other forms of promotion will reinforce the fact that the Baylor law firm of today is not the Baylor of 15 years ago.

Goyette’s near-term goal is to further increase the non-litigation side of the practice.

The public’s current opinion of the legal profession is also on Goyette’s mind as he thinks about marketing the firm. The chief way to counteract the often negative impression, he said, is to cater to the needs of clients.

“All clients expect quality legal services from their attorneys, but it’s not enough just to do the job right,” Goyette said. “Our clients expect to receive from us constant communication about what we’re doing. We also need to provide legal services in an efficient way that provides them value.”

The Baylor firm traces its roots to the 1800s, but formally pegs its beginning to 1910, when Lincoln attorney Frank Baylor joined an existing firm called Tibbets & Anderson. The firm was a tenant in the Sharp building from 1927 until 2003, when it remodeled and occupied the entire sixth floor of the Wells Fargo Center at 13th & O Streets.

Baylor now has 26 lawyers and 35 support personnel, 17 of them holding partnership at various levels. The firm adds one or two lawyers each year.

For Goyette, the staff is what makes working in the practice especially satisfying.

“I don’t always look forward to dealing with the files that are on my desk,” he said, “but every day I look forward to seeing he people I work with. We’re a very affable group. We have a lot of employees who have been here 25 years or more.”

Baylor’s attorneys practice throughout the state, commonly appearing in legal matters from the Panhandle to Omaha. Some are long-term, high profile cases, such as the firm’s handling of the Commonwealth Savings Co. receivership in the 1980s and 1990s.

“Things move at a much faster pace today,” Goyette said. “The cases are bigger and they involve more money and risk for the clients.”

Keeping up means advancing technologically, Goyette said.

“We’re in the process of installing software that helps us to retain institutional knowledge and retrieve it in an efficient fashion,” he said, “so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time.”

The firm’s law library has also been cut down to size.

“Most of what we do now is through Internet research,” Goyette said.

While technology is important, human resources in the profession are an ongoing challenge, especially in retaining graduates from the state’s law schools, Goyette said.

“We need to do things to keep talented lawyers in the state, “ he said. “It’s also a challenge to increase the ethnic diversity among the attorneys in the state.”

The firm has made headway hiring female attorneys. Ten of the firm’s 26 lawyers are women, a fact that continues to help in recruitment, Goyette said.

Goyette, an Iowa native, graduated from the Creighton University College of Law in 1980. He signed on immediately with the Baylor firm and became managing partner in 2001.

In addition to his membership in the American Bar Association and Nebraska Bar Association, Goyette is a past president of the Lincoln Bar Association and serves on the indigent defense advisory committee for Lancaster County.

In his off hours Goyette pursues golf, hunting, fishing and reading, usually digesting two non-fiction books for every work of fiction. His latest reading project is “Freakonomics” by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

The economics of running a law firm have led Goyette not to setting growth benchmarks, but to consideration that will help to draw and retain top legal talent.

“What kind of technology do we need?” he said. “How do we make this a pleasant place to practice? How do we balance the need to be busy lawyers with the need to maintain a home life? We have not had a plan to expand our business to a certain number of lawyers or a certain revenue point. We’re going to expand as the need arises.”