Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog : Law firm marketing, legal editor, legal marketing, attorney marketing, business development, marketing consultant, legal consultant, business development

The ghost in the Fisher & Phillips LLP advertisement began to appear in late 2006. 

The ad was published in five trade publications and in all of the firm's local markets except Florida where a different ad ran. Sixteen local publications are involved in the campaign. "The ads will start to appear again in March or April depending on the market. The "ghost" ad will not run all year, but is part of a three-ad series we are running this year," Sullivan said.

The ad depicts a spectral image of a woman in an office with the tagline, "You fired her a year ago. Now she’s come back to haunt you."  It won the firm a 2007 LMA Your Honor Award. To see the winning ad full-size in a PDF file, visit http://www.laborlawyers.com/files/13146_Ghost%20Ad.pdf

Remember the entrepreneurial partner at the megafirm who wantedth to throw a networking cocktail party, but got no support from his partners or marketing department? 

He proceeded on his own and got great results:

• Number of attendees: 100 out of an invitation list of 450.
• Out of pocket costs: $7500 including invitations and gift bags.
• Hours spent in preparation: About 25 hours over 3 months.  "10 to scrub my contacts and flag all the right people to invite, then check and recheck.  5 for the gift bags.  5 for invitations.  5 for miscellaneous. The next time I do this, it should take much less time.  I might do four smaller parties instead of one big one," he said.

He wrote me:

The party was a huge success. The head of my group was quite impressed with the turnout and the schmoozing opportunities.  Our associates loved it, because they got social time with people who they’ve only met on the phone.   That turned out to be an unexpected but really significant benefit.  I will not be surprised if we do some department cocktail parties going forward, though no one is really talking about it yet.

I spoke with just about every guest at least briefly, and 50 (in groups or individually) more in depth.  Of those 50, I’d say 10 or 20 were clients and the same number were referral sources.

We had a good turnout of clients and client types.  A few too many broker, consultant and vendor types, but that’s the price of the invitation list I used.  Even those relationships are important and I value them, though.

Lots of people made great connections and reconnections.  For example, one guy I invited turned out to have gone to nursery school with another guest.  Everyone had an incredibly warm feeling about the whole thing, and there was a buzz at the party talking about me, which was great.  Lots of follow-through thank yous and calls, etc.  Quite a few people thanked me for having had the brilliant insight that one could do a party like this during a month other than December.

The next question is: what’s the best way to follow through, stay in touch, and keep building the 100 relationships that I’ve just built a little bit through my party?  I suppose one could set up a lot of lunches, but one of the goals of the party was to take the place of a lot of lunches (which I find very tedious to set up and then reschedule 17 times).  But if not lunches, then what?

Many law students had that glazed over expression when the Morrison & Foerster recruiters would visit on campus.  To the students, most law firm web sites said exactly the same thing in the same way. It was time to get the MoFo Mojo workin.’

The results included:

• Many on-campus interview sign-ups and lots of good comments from students after the launch.
• A firmwide summer class size of about 120 recruits.
• A total of 230 lateral hires firmwide in the past year, including partners, associates and of counsel.
• Law school deans complimented the firm.
• Positive feedback from headhunters who place lateral hires.
• A 2007 LMA Your Honor Award.

The Morrison & Foerster recruiting campaign included a funny and informative Web site, http://www.mofo.com/career/index.html, a deck of 25 “Why MoFo?” cards, and a two-page advertising spread asking, “Do You Have IT?”

“What was different was that the interview process was more informed.  The quality of the interviews was better.  The discussions were more engaged,” said Anna T. Pinedo, a partner in the firm’s New York office.

The Juris economic survey, one of the largest in the legal community, is unique in that it targets midrange-sized law firms, particularly those with 10 to 150 attorneys.  The 2005 survey disclosed that partners in the top 25 percent earn twice the income of the next quartile and more than seven times the per-partner income of the lowest 25 percent. 

Blogger Thomas (Tom) Collins, Founder and Former President of Juris, Inc., expects expect this year’s survey to provide fresh insight into the economic state of these law firms and to shed more light on the behavioral differences that distinguish one law firm from another when it comes to the income the partners enjoy.

The survey now open for participation covers financial results for the year 2006 as well as the outlook for 2007.  Firms that participate in the survey receive the published results and accompanying analysis without charge.  

Law firms can participate by going to http://www.jurisinsight.com/2006survey.   

It's a fabulous LexBlog blog, built by the talented designers and engineers of LexBlog Inc., http://www.lexblog.com.  Built on a Moveable Type system, the blog gives me many expanded features, better than Typepad:

1. Custom graphic design to match my website, www.LarryBodine.com.
2. A URL that reflects my website, as opposed to the impossible-to-remember 48-character Typepad address.
3. A built in search engine that finds keywords in all 500 posts going back to April 2004.
4. Seven customized feeds to subscribe to the blog, as opposed to the cryptic Typepad "Subscribe to this blog's feed."
5. Visitors can get email notices when a new post is uploaded, and can subscribe by email.
6. A print-friendly display -- just press the "print" button in your browser and the text comes out beautifully, without cutting off the right edge.
7. A back-end admin screen where I can search prior posts, trackbacks and comments; open a power-editing screen to quickly assign hundreds of posts into categories in a few minutes; filter out unpublished entries; and assign multiple categories to a post.
8. Ability to subscribe to other blogs with a built-in newsreader.
9. Paste directly from Word, and filter out all the proprietary Microsoft code that screws up the formatting.
10. And most importantly, reach a live human by telephone for customer support!

If you are a blogger, I highly recommend you contact Kevin O'Keefe, kevin@lexblog.com, 206 340 8204 or their Sales Director, Mike Hellum, mike@lexblog,com, 206 340 8202.

When two partners returned to Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein & Breitstone after a five-year hiatus, the firm felt as if it had won a contest. Jubilation echoed throughout the 30-attorney firm on Long Island, leading it to create the best lateral partner announcement, ever.

Managing partner Lew Meltzer turned to his ace marketing consultant Cecilia Alers, to do something special.  She had created ads, a brochure and marketing campaign for the firm over the previous two years.

The returning lawyers had left the firm on very good terms, just after the former head of the employment and labor department had departed.  The two young lawyers moved to a firm that already had an established practice. 

After five years of building their skills and reputation, they decided to move on. "They could have gone to any firm they wanted to in the area, and they chose Meltzer Lippe," Alers said. 

Instead of mailing announcements the firm decided to take out an in the local business paper.  The ad cost about $2,000 to run. 

The purpose of the ad was twofold -- to serve as a recruitment tool to attract other laterals and to announce the expansion of this practice area.  "We decided to create an ad that would look like an actual newspaper story. So I wrote a headline and subhead using the rules of journalism, added the graphic and wrote the story 'By staff reporters,' including the quotes which looked like an interview," Alers said. 

The ad reads, "We pursued all our options," said Jon Farrell, an employment and labor law partner who has unique labor experience practicing before the National Labor Relations Board.  He and his partner, Michael Masri, went on to say, "Returning to Meltzer Lippe was the best option for our clients and the best option for our legal careers."  They have a solid corporate practice and a renowned tax practice.  "Combined with their legal experience in executive compensation this was the perfect fit," Meltzer said.

The ad created such a buzz, they ran it again.

I discovered a clever way for a lawyer to market his estate planning services when the phone rang the other day.  It was Gibraltar Trusts on the line, which monitored real estate transactions and saw that I had refinanced my Tucson office.

The salesman wanted to tell me about a new tax law I should know about, ("the lure") and how to protect my assets so they wouldn't go through probate court.  Intrigued, I made an appointment for him to visit me.  He was qualifying me as a client, making sure I had some money to spend.

When salesman came over, he told us that the new federal law would mean more homeowners would have to pay the death tax starting in 2011.  He said our will needed to be updated with HIPAA provisions and that our Illinois powers of attorney wouldn't work in Arizona. He was selling by educating.

The solution to avoiding probate was to put all our assets into a living revocable trust, which he could do for $1,895 with the help of a lawyer in Mesa, AZ, who had created thousands of trusts.  He gave me a printout of the lawyer's contact information and said that Gibraltar Trusts accounted for 1/3 of the lawyer's practice.  Of course we could pick another lawyer if we wanted to.

I thought -- what an interesting marketing technique for the lawyer.  Of course it's unethical for a lawyer to have a "runner," so I asked if the lawyer had any financial interest in Gibraltar or if he paid the trust company any fee.  Gary said, "no, but he does give our customers a heck of a deal."

This is classic marketing with allies.  The lawyer gets new business from the ally, in exchange for discounted rates for the ally's customers.

Setting aside the marketing aspects of this approach, I contacted my lawyer, and here's what he had to say: "Inter vivios trusts are primarily used to avoid estate taxes and secondarily used to avoid probate.  The Federal tax exemption is now at $2,000,000. for each estate.   Therefore, unless your personal assets total over two million dollars you do not have to be concerned about Federal estate taxes.  If your major property holdings are now held in joint tenancy, (your real estate, stocks, bonds, bank accounts, etc.) the property automatically is transferred to the survivor upon the death of the first to die of you and your wife.  Therefore, you do not need a living (inter vivos) trust at this time.  When either of you or your wife dies that is the time to place your property in a living trust.  If you have powers of attorney for health and property which were executed in Illinois they should also be recognized in Arizona, otherwise you would need a separate power of attorney for every state."

Lawyers ask me all the time how much salary they have to pay to get a good marketing director.  The marketer would be somebody who generates revenue and is not part of overhead, so the salary is an investment.

You'll also want someone with experience in handling standard marketing activities such as brochures, advertising, direct mail, newsletters, email broadcasts, seminars & events, public relations, branding and your Web site. A marketer will give a law firm a strategy, articulate the firm's unique sales proposition, and generate leads. 

Important: the lawyers are still responsible for closing new clients, opening the new files and acting as the firm's sales force.  Your marketer is not your sales rep.

Here's what law firms are offering right now:

• 27-lawyer litigation boutique in Atlanta: $100,000 for a marketer with 5 years of experience.
• 120-lawyer firm in Chicago: $100,000 - $150,000 for 8 years' experience.
• 1,300 lawyer firm headquartered in Philadelphia: $100,000
• 114-lawyer firm in Oklahoma City: $100,000 - $125,000

For more detail, see the JOBS page on the LawMarketing Portal, www.lawmarketing.com

My friend, the always brilliant Silvia Coulter, has spotted four big trends in marketing:

Firms are beginning to build out their strategic client account teams.  The more structured, the higher the results.  Some savvy leaders have hired strategic account team experts from industry and are seeing 25 to 75% growth from their strategic clients.  The big hurdle still remains compensation.  You get that for which you reward.  Firms that make all key clients firm clients, versus giving ownership to any one individual for origination, are seeing the strongest results.

Firms are hiring business development specialists and managers at a fast clip.  Raiding other firms for talent seems to be the norm since there is more demand than there is talent in this area.  To keep your own talent from leaving, recognize and reward the talent you have and build strong retention strategies around these individuals. 

Investment in associate business development remains strong.  Associates can provide a direct link to additional business for the firm by keeping their ears open for opportunities.  Teaching young lawyers to stay connected and build strong relationships that will feed them ten years down the road is not only necessary but helps build retention into firms' associate base (often thought of as your profit base as well). 

Marketing partners are coming back into vogue.  Firms are questioning the ROI on their significant marketing investments whether it's the growing number of marketing department members or the growing marketing and business development expenditures.  The new emphasis on which these partner are focused?  Building the bridges between marketing/business development and the partnership.   

Silvia L. Coulter is the managing director of CoulterCranston, Inc., a firm focused on strategic account management and business development consulting.  This text also appears in the Q1 2007 issue of the LSSO Review.

Being the "cool" choice is a good marketing technique, and a Los Angeles accounting firm is doing the next best thing with an "accountants aren't dorks" approach.

According to an article in the April 2007 Inc. magazine, Stonefield Josephson president Jeff Garrison "Smashes Accountants' Geeky Image!"  "I've never worn a pocket protector," he said, preferring instead to don a leather jacket and straddle a Harley.

To prove it, the CPA firm maintains a "back porch" section on its website to showcase the private passions of its CPAs, which range from art collecting to surfing to cooking. I wrote about this homey tactic in 2004.

Even their holiday cards are funny.

On the site, CPAs offer recipes for paella and chicken tarragon, and Garrison suggests wine pairings. Exposing the firm's soft side has helped it reach $40 million in annual revenue, said Garrison, and attract hip clients such as the Black Eyed Peas, the Sports Club/LA, Paul Frank Industries, and True Religion. They will file 400 corporate returns this month.

Law firms could kick-start their own marketing campaigns and click them into top gear with this kind of Harleyfied approach.

For those of you who missed the Legal Marketing Association meeting in Atlanta, here is the list of first place winners in the 2007 LMA Your Honor Awards.  Congratulations and mazeltov to all the winners!

1.   Identity: Goulston Storrs for their "Gateway to China" campaign. The firm achieved its objective to position itself as the go-to law firm for middle market New England region companies seeking to do business in China, and also for VC/private equity firms seeking to invest in China. This was accomplished with a China section on its website in Chinese and English (Verndale), creative for its advertising campaign, including a post card and green tea tins to clients (Hermann Design Group), PR consulting (Elizabeth Lampert), and client and staff give-aways (Grossman Marketing).

2.   Firmwide brochure: Mayer Brown for their "Retrospective" collection of client successes. Created by former Marketing Director Jonathan Asperger and X-15 Creative. The marketing concept was to present engaging stories about successful cases from the client's point of view. The result is a strikingly illustrated and deftly-written storybook recounting numerous tales. See their 2003 award winning version.

3.   Annual Reports: Heller Ehrman for their "11 true stories about our client successes" piece. The firm won a Your Honor for a similar concept last year.

4.   Announcements: Meyers Nave for their 30th anniversary reception invitation (see illustration at right). The cardboard invitation folded down into a stereopticon (old-fashioned 3D viewer) that displayed current and historic scenes in Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco and Santa Rosa, where the firm has offices. Click here to see it full size in a PDF file.

5.   Newsletter: Squire Sanders & Dempsey for their outreach piece in an oversized newspaper layout, profiling its litigation practice. The piece targeted a readership with vested interests in business litigation including American Corporate Counsel members and Fortune 1000 general counsel.

6.   Other: Steptoe & Johnson for their "West Virginia First" handheld booklet promoting the "Mountain State," designed by the Arnold Agency.

7.   Single Advertisement: Fisher & Phillips, a labor law firm with 18 offices nationwide, for their ad featuring the ghost of a former employee, "You fired her a year ago. Now she's come back to haunt you." To see a full-size PDF file of the ad, click here.

8.   Advertising Campaign: Blake Cassels and Graydon for their French language ad.

9.   Multimedia: Holland & Hart, for their noted in-flight video broadcasts on Frontier Airlines.

10. Trade Show Exhibit Novelties (formerly the "gimmie" award): Blake Cassels and Briggs - for their booth designed by Greenfield Belser for the Association of Corporate Counsel conference.

11. Promotional events: Bradley Arant Rose & White, for a promotion designed by Greenfield Belser.

12. Web sites: Godwin Pappas Langley Ronquillo of Dallas for their "We solve the problem" home page Flash video. http://www.godwinpappas.com/

13. Recruiting Web page: Morrison & Foerster: http://www.mofo.com/career/index.html

14. Alumni Web page: Goodwin Procter. https://www.goodwinprocteralumni.com

15. Electronic media: Harris Beach, with offices in New York and News Jersey, for their 150th anniversary interactive CD.

16. Media Relations: Sutherland Asbill & Brennan for PowerPlay, an interactive dance and nutrition program at the Grady Hospital Teen Clinic.

17. Community Relations: Stroock & Stroock & Lavan.

18. Internal communications: Patton Boggs for their weekly "Power Plays" and First Annual Success Party (at which they presented the Power Player Awards), which served as ways of recognizing those within the firm who consistently demonstrated a commitment to specific client service principles. (See illustration at right.)

19. Training: Fredrikson & Bryon for their "Fred Knows" program.

20. Marketing Research: Holland and Hart for their business class in-flight TV program on Frontier Airlines.

21. Recruiting: Paul Weiss Rifkind for their "What it takes to be a great lawyer and have a great career" program.

22. Best in Show: Heller Ehrman's annual report, "11 True Stories about our Clients."

Madonn'! Lawyers could learn a marketing lesson or two from Tony Soprano, the organized crime leader who has entertained us for 10 years on the TV show, "The Sopranos."  Whether you're in waste management or law, you've got to be a good "earner" for your outfit.  This means bringing in new business and generating revenue reliably. If not, you'll wind up like the 45 partners at Mayer Brown who got terminated, buon' anima.

The law is a jealous goomah, but you must keep revenue going up.  If you stand still, you'll lose clients through attrition and the boss will cut your points (the mob and law firms use exactly the same term for a percentage of firm income) and you'll be mezza morta.

You must develop new business as a team, because nobody succeeds without a crew. You need a capo, soldiers and associates (again, an identical word in mob and law). Otherwise you'll get agita and go oobatz because you're not getting any action.

Remember to say "thank you" to your referral sources and allies.  Everybody likes a little gabagool, and it doesn't hurt to give them a taste to begin with.

A meal is an excellent place to conduct business.  Think of all the times Tony would mangia on manigot while discussing this thing of ours.  Take your own clients to lunch or dinner and show them some respect.  Don't be a jamook -- demonstrate that you are their consigliere. 

Don't be shy about keeping clients satisfied, show that you've got the stugots to do a client survey. Your competitors consider your clients as their target revenue sources, and will make them an offer they can't refuse.

Finally, remember that business development takes time.  Col tempo la foglia di gelso diventa seta.

This post is not meant to offend my Italian-American friends. I simply looked up the jargon used on the show at http://www.hbo.com/sopranos/mobspeak/.

Here's a great tip on getting referrals, from Matt Homann, a St. Louis attorney who founded LexThink and is the author of the blog "the [non]billable hour."

"Find your five favorite clients.  Take them to dinner.  Don't let them leave until they answer this question:  What can I do to get more clients like you?"

Notice how the situation does not put pressure on the client. You are not asking the client for more work -- you are asking for introductions.  It plays on people's natural willingness to help people they like.

It also builds on your strengths.  You already have experience in the industry of your client, and you will have successes to discuss with the prospects your client introduces you to.

I actually did this myself, so I know it works.  At a recent trade association meeting, I took a friend to dinner at a fancy and expensive restaurant (I picked up the tab, of course).  My influential friend happened to be exactly the kind of person I would like to have as a client.  Never once during the dinner did I ask my friend to hire me or try to sell myself.  I sincerely wanted to know what I should do to reach other top executives just like my friend.

Her answers now compose my personal business development plan for the year.

Finally some good news about regulation of lawyer advertising:

The board for the Florida Bar has approved a proposed Web site advertisement rule, and it plans to soon take it to the Florida Supreme Court.

Website Rule 4-7.6 would allow lawyers to advertise their past results and statement characteristics concerning the quality of legal services through testimonials on Web pages that are just one click past the homepage, says Elizabeth Tarbert, who serves as the ethics counsel for the Florida Bar. Still, the lawyers' homepages must comply with traditional advertisement rules applied to print, radio and elsewhere.

To make the proposal official, the Bar will notify its members 30 days before filing with the Florida Supreme Court. The next step will be to collect comments from lawyers, which would be submitted along with the proposal to the court. Once the proposal is filed with the Supreme Court, lawyers are encouraged to send their comments directly to the court within 30 days.

The Web site rule can take as long as one year from the date it is filed with the Supreme Court to be adopted, says Francine Walker, the Bar's director communications. A timetable to file the proposed rule has not yet been determined.

If the Supreme Court approves the proposed rule, it would make Florida the first state to address lawyer advertisements via the Internet. The Florida Bar is the third largest in the United States with 80,000 members, 15,000 of whom practice outside the state.

"We have done what no other Bar has done, tackle [lawyers'] Web advertisement," says Charles "Chobee" Ebbets, chairman of the special committee that developed the proposed Web advertisement rule.

The rule has been under evaluation for a total of four years, says Henry M. Coxe III, president of the Bar's board. In 2004, an advertisement rules task force was established to evaluate lawyers' advertisement via the Web, and a year later, a special committee was established to evaluate the same concerns.

Thanks to my friend John Remsen of The Remsen Group in Atlanta for this tip from the Orlando Sentinel.

Ignore client complaints at your peril, say Sally Glick, CMO of Sobel & Co and Leisa Gill, director of marketing for Lattimore Black Morgan & Cain, in the March issue of the Ioma Partner's Report.  They identified the four worst complaints:

1. "I can't get them to call me back (or return my e-mails)."
2. "They wait until the last minute to deliver reports"
3. "The service level is less than acceptable."
4. "They do not understand my business needs."

Even if the complaint is baseless, "you don't want them telling their story about you on the street," Gill said.

The solution is "romancing" the client, according to Glick. "Romancing the client is a never-ending job.  It includes paying attention, really listening and maintaining communications--all things that go along with any other successful life relationship."

Glick says her firm has a rule requiring that any client call or email be answered within four hours, and that clients be told how they can reach you.

Clients are always judging you by missed deadlines, Gill said. "We try to map out a date of delivery and follow the receipt of the data from the client so we can tack it and remind the client if information is missing," she said.

If there is a problem with service, solve it with finesse, Gill advised. Fee disputes don't improve over time, so handle these immediately.   Sometimes clients don't speak up, so it's important for partners to visit clients.

Finally, stay informed about each client's business or industry. It helps if you can be the one to bring a development in the industry to the client's attention.

The ice-pounding law firm of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin is now an official sponsor of the popular Vancouver Canucks hockey team.  Remember that hockey is a near-religion in Canada.

The deal is considered a marketing coup and ground-breaking strategy for the firm, which wants to gain a stronger foothold in Western Canada.

"No other law firm has entered into such an agreement of this magnitude before with a western Canadian NHL team and both teams are keen to advance our common values on and off the ice," said William Westeringh, Managing Partner of Fasken Martineau in Vancouver said, posing with the hockey team's Orca mascot, "Fin."

Faskens has 650 lawyers worldwide with offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, New York, London and Johannesburg. Elements of the deal include:

• Faskens will be the designated legal counsel to the Vancouver Canucks and General Motors Place for the next five years.
• The law firm will have board signage at the arena.
• All televised games will flash the law firm's name to broadcast audiences.
• Faskens' message and brand will be on the 360 degree LED score-board high up in the middle of GM Place.
• The firm will get seats in a corporate box.
• Faskens will have an annual golf tournament that the Canucks will participate in.
• Westeringh and another partner will man the phones at the Canuck's Kids Telethon.

"Obviously it will get our brand in front of corporate Vancouver," Westeringh said. "In this province, that's where corporations are -- at GM Place," which is the stadium where the Canucks play.

A friend of mine who is a partner at a mega law firm wanted to hold a social event for business development purposes -- but he got no support.

So he printed up invitations, mailed them out and will pay for the party all by himself.  He was wondering if he was crazy.  I told him yes -- crazy like a fox.

"My partners and our marketing department did not support the idea of doing this (and I've been suggesting it for years), so I am doing it by myself. The partners said:

• What if no one comes?
• What if everyone comes?
• What if the wrong people come?
• We don't want our clients meeting our other clients
• We've never done anything like this
• Too much work
• We should do lunches instead
• We should do dinners instead
• We should do tables at charitable events instead
• We should do industry events instead
• We should go after a carefully targeted small group of super high end prospective clients

"The marketing department said:

• No one will come
• Clients and prospects don't want to come to lawyers' cocktail parties
• You need a theme
• You can't use the logo
• We don't have a budget
• You need more approvals.

"So I went ahead and did it myself. Do you think I'm crazy? Do you think my partners and marketing department might be right?" he asked me.

"No," I told him. "Your colleagues are dunderheads."  Putting on a cocktail party positions him as a leader, a guy who makes things happen.  And the party will allow clients to meet clients, which is a good thing! It positions him as a Maven.  As people leave, he will give them a gift bag with handles, which will remind guests of him.

In my experience, the best business developers and rainmakers are lawyers with an entrepreneurial attitude, which he clearly has.  As we know, new business comes from relationships; the more you have, the better. The party will enable him to to start new relationships and deepen existing ones.

Stay tuned. The party is coming up this month.