Legal Marketing -- by Larry Bodine

Law Firm Lives Lifestyle Large

Those fun-lovin' marketers and lawyers at Parsinen Kaplan, Rosberg & Gotlieb PA up in Minneapolis are at it again, this time with a 32-page PKR&G Lifestyle Magazine called Perfectly Legal.

The cover features the firm's "5 best dressed as voted by their peers," including Joe Sokolowski, Sid Kaplan, Ella Chanba, Rebecca McDaniel (THE BLONDE IN BOOTS!) and Howard Rubin.

Again, the firm decided against sending out traditional holiday greeting cards and instead shared their "experiences and experiments in connecting" in the magazine.

Most of the magazine is devoted to the “Interesting People” Dinners and Surprise Experiences the firm staged.   Other interesting points:

• The firm held a runway fashion show in which partners received "strutting" training.  Clients were invited and were clapping, hooting and cheering for their lawyers.
• A "Most Likely To..." page including "David Gottlieb, (most likely to) correct your grammar, Laura Graf, (most likely to) Reply to all, and Shellie Gonzales (most likely to) drink from the carton. Click to see a bigger image.
• A Match Game, in which readers answer questions (like: "do you like summer or winter better?) and they are led through a maze to connect with a particular lawyer who matches them.
• An ad for their podcast found at http://firstcrackpodcast.com recounting interviews about firm members "experience" gifts.
• Numerous "Karen's Cheap Present Tips," such as give someone a goldfish.
• An Animal Tales page, describing the lawyers' pets.  Did you know there are 377 million pets in the U.S., and PKR&G owns 64 of them.
• PKR&G personnel and their cars, including the fact that secretary Judy Mellesmoen defies a stereotype by driving a pickup truck, and that Kathleen Doar drives an Audi A6 because "gosh darn it, I'm worth it."
• Movie Review.
• Secret Holiday Recipes.
• Horoscopes, and which lawyers have which signs (for example, the firm has 7 Scorpios, "often thought of as the sexual sign."

Marketing Director Mary Kay Ziniewicz first wrote an article about this unconventional law firm in February in an article "Personality, not Attitude, Builds Business" in Feburary 2005. I say kudos, praise and congratulations to a law firm that dares to  be different -- and funny!  They truly live up to their tagline, "Not your average attorneys.  Not your average law firm."

Ignore blogs at your own peril

"While legal marketing guru Larry Bodine didn’t use that exact phrase during his luncheon presentation, “Starting a Blog for New Business and Revenue,” to the Chicago chapter of the Legal Marketing Association on Oct. 27, the message to the audience at the Union League Club of Chicago was clear. Blogging is something that legal marketers really need to pay attention to as a number of firms out there are using blogs to create a competitive advantage. "

See the full article on the LMA Chicago Web site at http://www.lmachicago.org/news/news.asp?news_id=454

The Chiseling Client

I was visiting a lawyer in Chicago and had to sit through a miserable phone call he took, from a client who called up and to chisel the lawyer down on his rates. The lawyer actually begged the client not to leave his firm.  He failed.

It was completely pathetic and I was nauseated listening to the conversation.  Listen to this story and find out how to prevent this from every happening to you.


MP3 File

A Vintage Legal Proffering

You know you've been bestowed something special when you get a split of hand-crafted wine from Minneapolis lawyer Jack Clifford. Jack practices patent, trademark and copyright law, with an emphasis on trademark and advertising law, at 110-lawyer Merchant & Gould.

With the same tender care he devotes to filing a patent appeal or fashioning the finer points of a trademark brief, Jack bottles the wine at his private estate Wunde Hill. It is located in the little-known wine country of Medina, located near the bouquet of nearby Swamp Lake and the verdant greens of Baker Golf Course.

The wine is attentively created according to its unique vintage, in the traditional way to develop the full potential of the grapes.  "That sounds better than saying I made it in a plastic bucket in my basement," he wisecracked.

Select lucky patrons of the inventive arts were presented with a half-bottle of 2004 Chateau Merchant & Gould "Intellectual Property Pinot Noir."  As sophisticated oenophiles know, Pinot Noir comes from highly regarded, noble red grape variety originally from Burgundy, France, proven to produce some of the best velvety, voluptuous red wines to be had. Viewers of the move Sideways also know this.

The wine is very low in sulfites, which are naturally produced during fermentation.  According to empirical research, sulfites do not cause headaches.  There is something in red wine that causes headaches, but the cause has not yet been discovered by scientists no matter how much wine they drink. In theory, you can remove sulfites by adding hydrogen peroxide to your wine, but there is little specifically known about this treatment and I don't recommend it.

But this is beside the point.  Jack is a talented lawyer and superb marketer, as demonstrated by this fluid perk of knowing Jack.   The lawyer-made wine is unique, distinctive and memorable -- everything a good business development technique should be.

"Convergence" is Over. "Pinpointing" is IN.

For years now we've been hearing about corporations cutting back on the number of law firms they use in a trend known as "convergence."  Often it was referred to as the "DuPont Model." 

You can stop worrying about it now, because it's over.

The new trend is "Pinpointing" or "Cherrypicking."  This is the opposite of "convergence," and it's where big corporations keep detailed lists of "approved counsel" all over the country and hire them for specific purposes. 

I know this is happening because I'm seeing it happen now.  I get into many law firms, advising them on business development, and find that no in the firm is concerned about convergence.  Instead, they're all trying to get onto those approved counsel lists.  For example, I talked to a partner from a 3-attorney firm in a mid-sized East Coast city and their two big clients were major US auto makers.  They only did one particular area of law for the mammoth auto companies.  But note: this is a three-lawyer firm working for two Fortune 10 companies.

In my opinion, convergence was a failure for corporations.  The Big Companies didn't save any money using the DuPont Model.  Sure, they winnowed down their list of 200 law firms down to 5 law firms.  But the lawyers demanded to get all of a company's legal work, charged blended rates so that the handling lawyer would probably be an associate, and insisted on bonus fees for unusually good results.  In the end, the corporations wound up with 5 mega-firms, all charging $600 an hour and the company's legal costs went up.  ACC research bears me out on this.

So corporations in 2005 began seeking out litigation boutiques in Buffalo, rather than fly their megafirm lawyer up from New York City.  Big Companies began hiring local specialists, who charged local rates, to handle local problems in Baton Rouge.  After a while, I began to notice that lots of little firms everywhere are getting work from titanic publicly-held companies. 

A general counsel can save a lot of money with Pinpointing, and get nice personal service to boot from a little firm.   Those little firms give the big companies the red carpet treatment.  And the mega law firms will always be fat and happy (the rich always get richer) because the federal government will always do something like sue IBM for 10 years, or break up ATT and cause the Baby Bells to wage legal warfare ad infinitum.

So watch for this new Pinpointing  trend.  You heard it here first.

Take the survey: Increasing Marketing Effectiveness

Dear senior professional services marketer:

We are excited to invite you to participate in a ground-breaking new study, “Increasing Marketing Effectiveness at Professional Firms.”  Our goal is to help you deliver increased value to your firm, with practical, new information that can help your firm compete more effectively. 

The survey is online at http://www.zplink.com/lmp.

When you participate, you will get the first look at the full report (including the results for your sector and region), available in early January 2006.

Very little useful information on this subject currently exists for your area of professional service.  Will you help us shed some light on this important issue?  Our questionnaire asks:

·         What key marketing initiatives do professional service firms evaluate? 

·         How effective are their measurement / evaluation tools? 

·         How do professional marketers overcome the many obstacles to measuring and evaluating?

Our 15-20 minute confidential questionnaire is directed to senior marketers in a broad cross section of professional service firms worldwide, including: accounting, architecture, numerous consulting specialties, engineering, executive search, law, and many others.

This study, co-sponsored by Expertise Marketing LLC and the LawMarketing Portal, was created with the guidance of 20 senior marketers from leading large and mid-sized professional services firms.  Other participating organizations also include the Association for Accounting Marketing (AAM), Management Consulting News, the Professional Services Marketing Association (PSMA) and The Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS).

This study will conclude in 30 days, so time is of the essence.  Please click the link http://www.zplink.com/lmp right now to complete the questionnaire.  (If the link does not work, please copy and paste it into your browser.)  Your input is extremely important!

Thank you for your participation.  If you have any questions, please contact either of us at the numbers below.

Best regards,

Suzanne Lowe – President, Expertise Marketing LLC, www.expertisemarketing.com, 978.287.5080

Larry Bodine – LawMarketing Portal Director, www.LawMarketing.com, 630.942.0977

New data: How corporations select law firms

I am attending the Ark Group conference "Strategic Marketing for the Legal Profession," in Chicago and picked up some new research about how companies pick law firms. Key findings:

1. CEOs play a significant role in the identification and in some cases, selection, of law firms.
2. The most important criterion in the initial selection process for high stakes matters is the individual lawyer's expertise.  (In other words, corporations don't hire law firms, people hire people.  A personal relationship makes a huge difference in getting new work for a law firm).
3. Most companies use "preferred provider" lists to pick law firms.  Accordingly, the trick is to get to know the target client well enough to find the preferred provider list, get to know the person who maintains the it, find out and meet the criteria to join, and get on the list.  Then the new business will flow.
4. Companies outsource legal work for:
   • high risk cases
   • cases requiring a high degree of expertise or resources

So as Mike Cummings and I have been saying in our Webinars, the key to getting new business is learning the client's "business trauma" or "pain."  Develop close relationships with their clients so they will tell you their pain, if you just ask them. Ask questions about the big risks they face.  Ask questions about the specialized needs they have.  Then simply offer to help.  Bingo: you've opened a new file.

The research was conducted in May 2005 by LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell in a survey of 635 senior corporate counsel at Fortune 1000 and FTSE 100 companies.  Many thanks to Stuart Goodman for giving me an advance copy of the survey.  when I get the PDF of the full report, I'll put it online on the LawMarketing Portal, www.lawmarketing.com.