Legal Marketing -- by Larry Bodine

Most Entertaining Business Card

Trust and estates lawyers and not renowned for their rib-tickling antics and uninhibited marketing messages.  So the winner of the most entertaining business card in my book belongs to Chicago lawyer Mark Broaddus of the 50-lawyer banking, health care, insurance, manufacturing and real estate firm Chuhak & Tecson in Chicago.  The front of Mark's card is what you'd expect for a T&E litigator -- unadorned and to the point.

Mark has extensive experience in contested guardianships for minors and adults, estate litigation and mental health proceedings.  He counsels individuals and families on a wide range of family law matters from adoptions to elderlaw issues.

Then you turn the card over and you get Mark's "elevator pitch": "Death, Dying & Disability, I've got you covered."  The card is illustrated with drawings of a crib, wheelchair and gravestone.

He doesn't give the "death, dying & disability" card to everyone, so he's got a backup set of cards that are plain on the back.  Not everyone appreciates his sense of humor when it comes to such a heavy-duty topic.  So only clients and prospects who share his wry drollery get the offbeat card.

I laughed out loud when I saw the card and thought it was an excellent marketing tactic.  A key tenet of marketing is that you've got to distinguish yourself from others, and that means you have to do something different.  Mark's card succeeds on all points. 

Google adds Blog Search Function

Google has started a blog search function, making it easier for journalists, bloggers and writers of all stripes to find experts on particular topics.

Just go to http://blogsearch.google.com/.

I typed in "law marketing" and got the top 10 results of 34,682 listings:

1. Hurricane Katrina - A Survivor’s Lament
2. Lawyer Makes Embarrassing Typo
3. THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE DAFT AT PM FORUM GLOBAL CONFERENCE
4. Canada's Do-Not-Hesitate-To-Call List
5. Tom Waits Radioactive to Advertisers
6. Being Part of the Solution: If Blawggers Ran Law Schools
7. Law firm site wins excellence award
8. MARTIAL LAW? “At least 70 percent of college fre...
9. UPN rolls out the marketing muscle for 'Everybody Hates Chris ...
10. Book Review: The Tipping Point

The blogs are listed in chrono order, with the top item being posted 6 hours ago,  my article on the PM Forum Conference in London 3 days ago, and the oldest being from Sept. 15.  Results can be organized by relevance (as defined by Google) and by date.

The advanced search features are available, and by clicking a "preferences" link, you can select the language in which you want to search, the level of filtering to eliminate porno, and how many results to display on the first page.

The new Google Blog service indexes blogs only back to March 2005 and does not seem to weed out spam blog posts yet.   Yahoo and Microsoft are both planning to launch their won blog search services soon.   The dominant player in the blog-search space is Technorati.com, although it attracts fewer than 700,000 unique visitors per month, according to my research.

Companies beg to become law firm clients to Join Online Club

Hello from across the pond.  I'm here in London at the PM Forum 10th annual global conference in London. Janet Day, IT director at Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) discussed a teriffic way to use technology to attract and hold clients.

They've created a "Rapport Club" for clients.  Clients pay to belong to the Club and may log onto BLP's extranet to ask questions about legal issues they're facing.  They are guaranteed a 24 hour response. Janet says it's so good, two companies called her this month to ask if they could become clients just so they could be members of the Rapport Club!

The questions get routed to a specialist who can answer the question, or are forward if the lawyer is busy.  The client gets an email notification that their question has been answered and they can log onto the extranet with a password to see their answer, as well as a searchable collection of other questions that have been answered. 

BLP is a top 15 London law firm with 1000 staff, additional offices in Brussels, New York, Milan and Paris, and revenues of £120 million. Their marketing is working because the firm's profits are up 35%. BLP's extranets offer auction sites, deal rooms and data rooms. They represent real estate clients and have online instructions on how to complete real estate documents. The extranet also features links, newsletters, bulletins and e-briefs.

The most popular feature is "Ask BLP," which is available to Rapport Club members only. "It is very effective and efficient," she said, "and clients like it. Indeed -- it keeps them." Lawyers like it because it's easy for them to write responses, and it provides an added value from the firm. Did I mention clients pay to belong and also pay for the answers they get?

The Rapport login screen features a search box, plus a list of previous questions and answers. By clicking "Ask BLP" they can get answers to questions like "how do I deal with stamp duty in the Channel islands" or "what clauses should I include in my particular real estate document."

BLP also creates extranets for sellers of portfolios of real estate. The seller may typically offer 2,000 properties it wants to sell. In the old days, the firm photocopied 2,000 sheets of paper describing the properties over and over for each bidder. Now they scan the documents once and give qualified bidders a username and password. The sellers love the extranet because it exposes them to more bidders and gets them better sales prices. The bidders like it because they can see and print out the information instantly, as opposed to waiting two weeks for several pounds of paper to arrive.

The extranets also show when a lawyer is away from the office -- because a major client may have 100 lawyers working for it. For fun, it includes fantasy football pools. "Essentially, clients get anything they want," Day said.

New Survey: Business Development Now an Essential Skill for Law Firm Associates

A groundbreaking new survey of the legal profession demonstrates that law firms are very interested in the capability of their associates to contribute to business development. “The research explodes the myth that law firms don’t want the clients that associates can bring in, or that practice development is not important for associates,” said Larry Bodine, operator of the LawMarketing Portal, www.LawMarketing.com.

To the contrary, the survey results show that firms place great importance on the business development skills of their associates.  But ironically, 57% of law firms fail to provide them any training to generate new business.

“The survey demonstrates the crying need among young lawyers for practice development skills training. High expectations are being placed on associates without giving them the know-how,” said Michael Cummings, head of the Sage Professional Business Institute, www.sagelawmarketing.com.  “Law firms need to give associates the business development tools and education to succeed as professionals.  They owe it to their associates as caretakers of the associates’ legal career.  And this investment makes sense when you consider that today’s associates are the foundation and future for all law firms,” he said.

The LawMarketing Portal and Sage Professional Development Institute published the results of the new survey, “Current Practices in Business Development for Associates,” in September 2005.  The respondents were CMOs, Marketing Directors and partners at leading law firms.  The key findings are:

• Business development is now an essential career skill.  93% of respondents in general believed it is essential for associates to be able to develop business to be successful in the legal profession. Only 6% said business development was “important but not essential” for associates.
• To be promoted to partner, associates must demonstrate business development potential: 65% of respondents said that their firm’s partners consider the business development capability of an associate as an extremely important or very important factor when considering the promotion of an associate to partner. (23% said it was “important,” 10% said it was “somewhat important, and a mere 3% said it was “not at all important.”)
• Associates recognize that they must excel at business development to be successful: 87% of respondents said that the attitude prevailing among associates themselves is that business development is essential or important to be a long-term success in the legal profession.  Only 13% said that marketing and selling is “not essential” to becoming a partner and building a career.

Most Law Firms Failing to Respond to the Need

Based on the survey, law firms seem to be offering a minimal amount of formal business development training – especially compared to other professions such as investment banking, consulting, accounting and commercial banking, according to Cummings.

Asked “does your firm offer business development training to your junior and senior associates (10 or more hours a year)?” the responses were:

·        Only 43% said yes.

·        29% answered “No, but planning to this year.”

·        A shocking 28% answered “No and not planning to.”

Going into further detail, the survey asked respondents how many hours of business development training per year was provided at their firm, respondents said:

·        For senior associates (4+ years in practice), 25% said “none,” 18% said 1-2 hours, 24% said 3-5 hours, 19% said 5-10 hours and 14% said more than 10 hours of training per year.

·        For junior associates, 27% said “none,” 23% said 1-2 hours, 23% said 3-5 hours, 15% said 5-10 hours, and 13% said more than 10 hours of training per year.

“This is deplorable,” Bodine said.  “Too many law firms are pressuring their lawyers to hunt for new business without showing them how.”

To develop this survey, we searched public records exhaustively and found virtually no other research on the topic of associate business development.  The American Bar Association published a report “ABA Young Lawyers Division Survey: Career Satisfaction” in 2000.  However, it showed only that 90% of associates spent 20 or fewer hours per year on client development – (a negligible amount of time).

Forms of Business Development Training That Associates Require

Respondents to the new LawMarketing Portal/Sage Professional Business Institute survey ranked the importance of business development techniques for senior associates (4+ years in practice) in this order:

1. Building their own network of professional relationships -- 97%
2. Cultivating relationships with their “peers” at the client – 91%
3. Becoming an active, visible member of a business organization – 78%
4. Forming an alliance with other professionals (accounting, banking, industry related, etc.) – 71%
5. Working with a partner to market a practice or industry specialty – 74%
6. Writing articles and making speeches – 64%

Steps Associates Should Take

“Associates need to take the initiative and find ways to get the training and career development they need,” Cummings said.

1. Find self study options like books, DVDs or marketing programs.
2. Get a mentor or personal coach (either inside the firm or in a related field).
3. Start a special interest group at their firm to sponsor speakers, or attend Web seminars.
4. Petition their firm’s leadership to offer formal training
5. Join an industry or practice specialty group at their firm.
6. Develop a personal marketing plan with the help of their marketing director.

The survey was conducted online from August 22-26, 2005.  Respondents included law firm marketers and lawyers at firms ranging from a solo practice to a 2,500-lawyer firm.  Respondents were primarily from the U.S., and a small number were from Canada, the U.K., Mexico and Australia. The average size of respondents’ firm was 148 lawyers. 

The LawMarketing Portal, www.LawMarketing.com, is the top online destination for law firm marketing, news and information.  The site receives 60,000 unique visitors per month.  It has been in continuous operation since 1996. The site includes articles on sales, marketing and technology, job openings, marketing events and links to the Professional Marketing Store and the LawMarketing Listserv.

The Sage Professional Business Institute, based in St. Charles, IL, is a publisher of best selling books for law firms including Best Practices of Legal Marketing and The Lawyer's Guide to Growing Your Network.

Sage and LawMarketing also offer business development training programs for lawyers and other professionals, including the upcoming Webinar, “Best Practices in Building Your Professional Network -- for Associates,” on September 21, 2005.  For more information see

http://www.lawmarketing.com/pages/events.asp?Action=View&EventID=323 or

http://www.sagelawmarketing.com/WebseminarAssociatesA1.htm.

Open New Windows for PDF and PPT Documents

Don't you hate it when you click on a link on a Web site, and it turns out to be a huge PDF file?  Then you must site while Acrobat launches, the file loads and a long time later to see what you wanted.  To alleviate this problem, Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, August 29, 2005 offers this tip:

Summary:
When using PC-native file formats such as PDF or spreadsheets, users feel like they're interacting with a PC application. Because users are no longer browsing a website, they shouldn't be given a browser UI.

Users are easily confused when websites link them to non-Web documents that offer a significantly different user experience than that of browsing Web pages.

In user testing, we often observe the following behavior: When people are finished using PDF files, Word memos, PowerPoint slides, Excel spreadsheets, and similar documents, they click the window's close box instead of the Back button. This gets them out of the document all right, but not back to the Web page from whence they started.

Blowing away browser windows is particularly bad on intranets, where users often have to log in or jump through other hoops to access document repositories.

Because users frequently close document windows, the best guidelines for linking to non-Web documents are:

1. Open non-Web documents in a new browser window.
2. Warn users in advance that a new window will appear.
3. Remove the browser chrome (such as the Back button) from the new window.
4. Best of all, prevent the browser from opening the document in the first place. Instead offer users the choice to save the file on their harddisk or to open it in its native application (Adobe Reader for PDF, PowerPoint for slides, etc.). Unfortunately, doing so requires a bit of technical trickery: you have to add an extra HTTP header to the transmission of the offending file. The header line to be added is "Content-disposition: Attachment". If possible, also add "; filename=somefile.pdf" at the end of this line, to give the browser an explicit filename if the user chooses to save the file.

For further details, see http://www.useit.com/alertbox/open_new_windows.html.