Recently in Law Firm Marketing Category

Looking for more and better qualified clients than your current client development strategy is producing? Search engines like Google and Yahoo! have pulled ahead of the printed Yellow Pages as the leading source for local business information. Three out of four Americans now use the Internet on a regular basis. Join a free webcast next Thursday, November 12, to learn how your firm can create an effective Web presence.

The one-hour webcast will show you how to develop your firm's Web site into a valuable marketing tool that will drive more well qualified clients to your firm. Topics to be covered include:

• How consumers are searching for legal help on the Internet
• How to identify and leverage critical components of a Web site
• An evaluation of the different marketing options available and their return on investment

Two highly qualified speakers will provide their insights and practical examples on how to maximize your firm's marketing efforts:

• Caroline Curry Lewis of The Brad Hendricks Law Firm in Little Rock, AR
• Kevin McDugle, a FindLaw Senior Client Development Consultant in Tulsa, OK

"The Basics of Marketing Your Firm Online" is a FREE one-hour webcast and will take place on Thursday, November 12, 2009.

It will be accessible from any computer with internet access.

Register here for the 12PM EST/11AM CST/ 10AM MST/ 9AM PST time slot.
Register here for the 4PM EST/3PM CST/ 2PM MST/ 1PM PST time slot.

Trying to figure out how to make your firm's website stand out? Wondering how to attract qualified clients online? Join a free webcast next Tuesday, October 20, to learn more about standing out from the crowd.

The one-hour webcast will show you how to make more out of your online presence, attract more clients and grow your practice. Topics to be covered include:

• Best practices for creating a powerful law firm brand and differentiating your firm from the competition
• Finding highly qualified clients that match your firm's specialty
• Options for leveraging the latest trends in search engine optimization
• Print directories and the shift to online search

James H. Chalat and Linda J. Chalat, of Chalat Hattan & Koupal, will lead the seminar. Read more, and register, using the links below.


Beyond the Basics -- Standing Out From the Crowd

• FREE one-hour webcast
• Accessible from any computer with internet access
• Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Register here for the 11AM CDT time slot

Register here for the 3PM CDT time slot

So maybe it can't save all the BigLaw jobs, or address the crazy debt law students are taking on. But the ABA is at least trying to put a little positive spin on the recession with its "Legal Rebels" project.

Subtitled "Remaking the Profession," the project is part website, part social-media experiment, and part participatory recognition program. Run by the ABA Journal, Legal Rebels has begun posting on its website profiles of 50 legal professionals who it says are remaking the industry, helping along the "fundamental changes" being wrought by the current recession.

The first ten or so profiles are already up at the Legal Rebels site. Those profiled so far include a pioneer in using the internet to deliver legal services; the dean of Northwestern's law school; and the founder of a service that aims to place law students into contract clerk positions at firms.

The project also promises a Legal Rebels Tour starting later this month, which will include lots of Twitter and Facebook updates, live webcams, interviews and podcasts, and more content from personal visits to some of the selected Rebels. The ABA is also encouraging nominations for people to fill out its list of 50.

Adding to the participatory fun: a "manifesto" on which all attorneys are invited to place their digital signature, allowing them to declare their own legal-rebel-ness. We're not sure to whom, exactly, you would be declaring this, but perhaps some clever attorney somewhere, with clients who would appreciate the help of a self-declared "rebel," can figure out a useful marketing spin.

So your firm has a website, but now you're thinking about how to get the site noticed. Maybe you're even thinking about your web presence beyond your site. If you're thinking it's time to find an online marketing partner to help you handle all this, there are a few things you'll want to consider. Here are four questions you might want to ask as you consider your online marketing strategy.

1. How will you develop content on your firm's site?
Search engine algorithms usually put a lot of weight on whether a website contains new and original content. The more new content that goes up, the better your site's ranking in search results is likely to be. So you will want to have a plan to add new and relevant content -- blog posts, articles on legal topics, videos, or the like. Think about the kind of content-production plan you can put in place.

2. Are you considering your overall web presence?
Your firm's web presence will inevitably extend beyond your firm's website: to various directories, consumer review sites, and of course social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. How will you use these sites to brand your firm? How will you address the things, both positive and negative, that other people have to say about you on the web?

Louisiana firm the Wolfe Law Group won a victory in federal court this week in its challenge to Louisiana's new regulations on online advertising.

Judge Martin Feldman of the Eastern District of Louisiana granted in part Wolfe's summary-judgment motion, agreeing that the state's efforts to pre-screen ads that attorneys intended to post online ran afoul of the First Amendment.

The Louisiana Supreme Court had revised its attorney-advertising rules at the direction of the state legislature in an apparent effort to "clean up" lawyer advertising in Louisiana and make it more consumer-friendly. Part of this cleanup involved changing the rules for online ads. A firm that wanted to run an ad online would be required to submit the proposed ad to a committee of the Louisiana State Bar Association for review to ensure its compliance with advertising rules, at a fee of $175 per ad.

There are lots of social networks out there.  LinkedIn is the main social networking site for business networks, and the site allows people to post recommendations for other people in their network.  Many people look at this as an innocent way to build their network and strengthen their relationships, thus most recommendations are positive.

Many management-side attorneys are beginning to see problems with managers or employers using the site to post recommendations for employees, however, according to the National Law Journal. 

If you haven't started an account on the microblogging service Twitter yet, here's another reason to go ahead and take the plunge: businesses are often the subjects of fake Twitter profiles, some of which are even started by competitors. 

That's why it's a good idea to start an account and being posting updates - or "tweets" - in order to establish yourself as the real voice of your firm.

As the Iran election shows, people are getting more and more of their information from Twitter.  This trend suggests that many people are looking for information about attorneys on Twitter as well.  There's also this attorney's personal anecdote on how he found clients on Twitter and other social networks. 

When business gets slow, it can be a good idea to take on some pro bono cases in order to keep active and spread the word about your firm.  Pro bono work offers attorneys the chance to engage in some professional networking and learn about different areas of the law, all while doing good.

The only problem with pro bono work is that it's pro bono.  Attorneys don't get paid, and complicated cases can result in a large amount of expenses, which can be hard to deal with when the economy is already slumping.

In keeping with yesterday's theme of things to leave out of your overall firm strategy, here's a tale that illustrates how you shouldn't go about marketing your firm on Twitter.

[Twitter, as you may have heard, is the microblogging site that allows people to post short messages, or tweets, to the internet.  It's kind of a big deal right now.]

Users of the service noticed that the European furniture maker Habitat was tweeting about gift card offers using popular hashtags like #Mousavi (the opposition challenger in Iran's contested and tumultuous election) and #iphone.  The Twitterverse was none too pleased with Habitat's tweet spam, and users called the company out on inserting their message into unrelated conversations.

Yesterday I wrote about the new Facebook usernames that go into effect tonight.  The new system allows users of the social networking site to replace the random set of numbers associated with their profile with a name or set of words.

For law firms, this creates a great opportunity to spread the firm brand into areas it might not have reached yet.  It also creates some concerns when trademarks are involved.  Unlike LinkedIn and MySpace, two social networks that already offer personalized usernames, Facebook is giving users the option to reserve certain protected names so that no unauthorized person or group can claim them.  In order to reserve the names, the marks must be registered with the Patent and Trademark Office.