Use Industrial Strength Online Marketing
One of the most important points of information that a law firm can put on its Web site is a list of industries it serves. Industry experience is one of the first things that corporate executives and in-house counsel look for. They want to know if your lawyers are familiar with the trends affecting their business, and smart law firms put this information right up front.
Think about it: when your firm is choosing among vendors, you inquire whether the vendor has experience with the legal profession and can list other law firms as references. Corporations vet law firms in the same fashion.
The link to "Industries Served" should be right on the home page. Don't hide it on the back pages, because industry representation is a key selling point. This takes advantage of the way that clients and prospective clients think. Clients see themselves as being part of an industry. They do not view themselves as clients of a practice group. They also see their cases as business problems, not legal matters.
To see what other firms are doing -- including Womble Carlyle, Reed Smith, Winston & Strawn, Foley & Lardner, Jenkens & Gilchrist, and Holland & Hart -- visit http://www.lawmarketing.com/pages/articles.asp?Action=Article&ArticleID=19.
I practice in the energy regulatory industry and consider myself very familiar with the firms that work in that space. So I was very surprised to see some of the firms which list energy work as their expertise, as well as some firms which do not. I would think that the real players in the industry know which firms are for real.