MassMutual joins growing list providing standalone fee structures

MassMutual announced they will now use their structured settlement annuity product to service standalone attorney fees. They join a growing group of life companies offering a valuable financial planning and tax deferral to attorneys.

The following is an excerpt from the press release:

"For the legal community, structuring standalone attorney fees offers plaintiff attorneys who represent catastrophically injured persons yet another option in receiving their fees over the long-term," said Tom Hawkins, vice president and head of MassMutual's Settlement Solutions Division. "The attorneys in these cases will have the same access to the financial strength of MassMutual as their clients."

Under existing IRC sections 104(a)(1) and 104(a)(2), a plaintiff qualifies for a tax-free settlement, which can be structured, at their discretion, as periodic payments through a qualified assignment under section 130. Although ultimately taxable when received, periodic payments can now be available to the plaintiff's attorney for income management purposes, potentially over the attorney's lifetime.

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Here's the Situation With Our Legal Marketing Super Conference

Here's the situation, and one, frankly that we had not anticipated. In the past we have sold seats right up to the morning of the conference. As you can imagine, however, the number of people who have heard about Great Legal Marketing, joined our mastermind and coaching groups, etc has grown exponentially.

For this event we currently have 108 seats alloted. We thought that would be more than enough. In fact, with over a month to go, 74 of those seats are accounted for. It may well be that we sell out even before our next price discount cut off of May 15.

I don't want you to be upset later. If you have been procrastinating, please take a moment to decide to join us. If you have misplace the brochure or order form, links to both are below.

Also, some people have asked "who is coming?" The PRIMARY registrants are on a list and the link to that list is below.

The Conference Brochure is Here (its 19 pages and some have called it an education in and of itself.)

The application for the conference is here.

The list of primary attendees registered so far is here.

Note that the list does not include situations where more than one lawyer is coming from an office or where the marketing director of an office is also attending. As of 3:30 this afternoon, we have 74 total seats taken for.

Remember, if we have any seats after May 15, those are all full price seats.

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The hills are greening

I'm always so relieved when the green starts showing under the dry grass. Maybe you'll get a picture in the next day or so.

A few weeks ago, a friend offered me a book that she was passing on. It is a exhibition catalog from, I believe, a single artist. It's all in Japanese and the artist is a textile artist. They are wonderful and make me look at everyday sights from a new direction. Like this one:

What could be more homely and yet lovely than two towers of stacked wood? It makes we want to interpret things on my desk, in my kitchen, the cats in such a simple style. If nothing else, it will teach me some economy of line and shape.

I don't know much about Chips or Diego's early lives, but we can surmise a lot. I know that they each started out with lots of love and attention as neither is shy in meeting new people. Each was found on the street -- Diego here in Marin and Chips up in Woodenville, WA -- but Diego has a confidence that Chips will never have. I think that Chips had to live on the streets longer and was tired and thin when found and infested with a really bad case of ear mites. And I think he was kicked or stepped on. Perhaps that's where the kink in his tail came from. All I know is that when he is on the floor and I or Steve get up to walk somewhere, Chips rushes to get up on the stairs, or the bed or a chair. Diego doesn't have that awareness and as he is a black cat in a narrow house inhabited by people with aging sight, he has suffered for it.

Oh, well, he will learn or not.

It is celery central here. We have lots of lettuce and chard, but the celery is a hedge! The collards are coming back after the assault of the cabbage moths. I'm tempted to add more collards to keep us in cruciferous veg through the autumn. Meanwhile, braised celery and cream of celery soup.

Now that we have Nancy's website up, Steve has returned to painting. He hopes to get a few more clients' jobs done before the rain really gets here. I'm hoping a new job will be along soon.

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One Good Reason to Attend The Lawyer Marketing Super Conference

People say to me:

"Ben, Give Me One Good Reason To Attend Your Lawyer Marketing Super Conference on June 20-21 in Fairfax, Virginia..."

Here's one:

Ben, no one spent more money to attend your Great Legal Marketing Super Conference last year than Chris and I did. We not only flew cross country but we flew my parents to Virginia and paid for their hotel rooms as well as our so they could watch our kids while we attended the conference.

We are doing the same thing again this year AND we've since joined your exclusive Mastermind Group, so we are actually incurring additional costs to meet with the other mastermind members the day before the conference. Why are we coming back? Because we experienced immediate results from implementing the things we learned at the Super Conference.

Here are our results so far:

In the first 90 days since we stepped off the plane back in Seattle, we experienced a 45% increase (vs. the prior year, same quarter) in potential client meetings and a 60% increase in the conversion rate of those meetings to actual clients.

In the next 90 days, when measured against the same quarter the prior year, we experienced a 411% increase in potential client meetings and a 317% increase in conversions of those meetings to personal injury clients.

After listening to Tom Foster and implementing exactly what he revealed to about Internet Marketing for Lawyers, we doubled out website traffic in the last six months of 2007.

We've booked our plane reservation and the hotel rooms. Virginia, here we come.

Mischelle Davis
Davis Law Group
(206) 727-4000


Note From Ben:

We are 60% sold out already and have had to expand our room block at the hotel once already. No other lawyer marketing conference matches what we offer and we guarantee it all. Think we haven't delivered? We'll gladly refund your money. Mischelle and Chris will be presenting at this year's Super Conference and they'll walk you through exactly what they did.

You have a choice. Keep buying what the yellow page rep, website directory group and other marketing vultures are selling you. Let them do their marketing for you. Or, come try us out. Another order form is enclosed. Please note the deadlines. We are serious about the deadlines and have disappointed a few who can't read a calendar correctly. Fax the enclose form in today.

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