[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="13" gal_title="LEI Americas Regional Conference in Boston, June 2017"]By Fred TannenbaumPartner, Gould & Ratner LLP, Chicago, Ill. USAThe famous song pleads “Please come to Boston.”  But why? To sniff the wafting fragrances of  New England clam chowder?  No. How about pursuing the Freedom Trail past the State Capitol to Faneuil Hall?  Don’t waste your time.  Perhaps to drag oneself to some antiquated relic of a faux putative baseball field home to a perennial also ran?  Don’t even think about it.The most compelling reason to come to Boston is to be in the lovely offices of Morse Barnes-Brown Pendleton (“Morse”), our gracious hosts, in Waltham and Boston. Many thanks to Shannon Zollo for organizing and leading the festivities with his able partners Peter Barnes-Brown and Carl Barnes (and others). They planned and executed an excellent soiree. The meaningful and constructive participation of the LEI’s attendees also enhanced the quality of the event.Most of LEI’s seven North American firms participated in person.  Our colleague, Manuel Rodriguez from GISR in Mexico, won the distinction of travelling the longest distance! Our Brazilian friends appeared magically on a video screen, and the beauty of the Brazilian sun shone through.The conference was well worth the trip and time away from the office. First, the LEI Americas' member firms exchanged information about their service areas, specialties and work levels. Everyone is appropriately busy.Ian Sheridan from Vestigo Partners, a client of Morse, educated the group about his new venture capital fund that deploys a proprietary lab to analyze big data to target early stage fin-tech businesses. While my kids probably would have understand what I just wrote, as well as the various algorithms and other tools the fund will deploy, I think most of us over 35 were just wondering how long we can hang on!Jim Durham of GrowthPlay gave an excellent presentation and led a stimulating discussion on client service and ways to better inculcate these basic values and core principles into the fiber of every firm and team and attorney within it.The Morse star Faith Kasparian disclosed many excellent ideas on various aspects of U.S. privacy law and revealed early warning signs to alert a client to potential issues. This presentation compelled many of us to scrub our laptops and download enhanced firewalls.Finally, the group exchanged many ideas on how to collaborate better among ourselves as well as to improve LEI. We decided to attempt to form a group of Americas firms to explore privacy and related issues. Further, we are starting an initiative to tap into each other’s contacts to help client inquiries about – and make appropriate introductions for –selling their business, buying another business, raising capital, seeking management and other executive talent, pursuing joint ventures, and otherwise just being helpful.Spending two days with these talented lawyers from North and South America reinforces the compelling value of a law firm network populated with like-minded, experienced and talented professionals targeting entrepreneurial and middle market clients, in a cost-effective and seamless way.