Lawyers.com Editor in Chief : Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog : Law firm marketing, legal marketing, attorney marketing, business development, sales training, practice development, training, marketing consultant, legal consultant, individual lawyer coaching, business development, client team, practice development, business development, law firm coach

A Two-Part Live Webinar for Lawyers Join us for this live webinar that directly addresses a key issue on every lawyer’s mind: How do I develop new business and generate more revenue in this economy? Register Now to attend parts 1 & 2 and receive our sponsor bonuses. This webinar will provide innovative strategies to help you and your law firm thrive in the current competitive market for clients. The presenters are the two top nationally recognized leaders in legal marketing and business development: Bill Flannery and Larry Bodine.  Part 1: “How to Acquire New Clients: Mining the Four Sources of New Business” – Larry Bodine Part 2: “How to Keep Clients and Earn Their Repeat Business: 11 Ways to Improve Business Development” – Bill Flannery Both Parts 1 and 2 include a live Q&A with Bill and Larry so you can get your business development questions answered by the experts. It is highly unusual for these two mavens to appear on the same Q&A panel and dedicate two full hours to your specific needs. Moderated by David Ackert. _________________________ “Bill Flannery has been a pathfinder in the field of effective legal marketing for two decades, with an approach borne of practical sales experience in corporate America. All lawyers, whether fully seasoned or newly minted, will benefit from his insights.” -- J. Terrence O’Malley, Managing Partner-United States, DLA Piper “I have never known a Larry Bodine workshop or program that wasn’t worth 10x the price and 100x the time invested. He shows you a clear roadmap to achieve your goals and doesn’t just leave you with some vague notion of how to proceed — he shows you how, step-by-step.” -- Arthur Bousel, JD-MBA, Leader at Lawyer 2 Lawyer Career Management _________________________ Your time and money is too valuable to waste on unsuccessful marketing. Learn the business development strategies that will increase your profit. Register and receive over $1,000 in bonuses from our sponsors. BONUS from The Likeable Lawyer Free with your registration: The Negotiation Success Series, a 10-hour MCLE course that presents a unique method for improving negotiation skills and building long-term influence. Bring in more clients and negotiate more successfully for them! Accredited for 10 hours (12.5 hours in 50-minute states) CLE (including up to 5 Ethics) in many states. Visit www.likeablelawyer.com for details and MCLE credit for your state. Available as streaming on-demand video (a $369 value). BONUS from MyLegal.com Free one-year Premiere membership, entitling members to valuable online tools and daily deals from legal vendors. Think of it as “Groupon for lawyers” (a $600 value). BONUS from TotalDiscovery.com Receive a 50% discount off full e-discovery processing for your first project using TotalDiscovery.com, BIA’s cloud based, remote data collection and early case assessment solution. As an additional bonus, an Apple iPad2 will be raffled off to one of the first 50 registrants who completes our User Survey by September 19th. BONUS from Practice Boomers Free six-week membership to Practice Boomers, the business development e-learning program that teaches lawyers how to grow their book of business (a $120 value). Early registration before midnight, September 19th: $475 Standard registration after September 19th: $525 Register Now to attend parts 1 & 2 and receive our sponsor bonuses.

Event Dates Part 1: “How to Acquire New Clients” Date: Thursday, October 6, 2011 Time: 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. EST Part 2: “How to Keep Clients and Earn Their Repeat Business” Date: Thursday, October 13, 2011 Time: 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. EST Audio replays will be available online in case you miss the live events. Register Now Featured speakers Bill Flannery Legal Practice Development Thought Leader; Founder of the WJF Institute Larry Bodine Legal Marketing Expert; Founder of the Law Marketing Channel Moderator: David Ackert Business Development Expert; Founder of Practice Boomers Sponsors

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This is a guest post by my friend Gerry Oginski, a medical malpractice and personal injury trial lawyer in New York and also the founder of the Lawyers Video Studio.

He is the leading expert on creating lawyer videos. Gerry helps fellow lawyers create an entire video library that educates and teaches consumers and potential clients about information they need to know.

1.   Personal Referrals

We all know that personal referrals are the best and most trusted source for new business. You certainly don’t need to create video to market to your referral sources. That is of course assuming that you already have a trusted referral network who already knows you and loves you. Assuming for the moment that you have a devoted group of followers who eagerly send you new cases on a regular basis and you don’t want any more new cases, then by all means do not create video.

2. TV Ads

If your TV advertising is bringing in so much profitable work that you do not need any additional cases, then it goes without saying you should not be creating video to market your practice online. Simply continue to pay tons of money to produce and air your commercials on the same time slots. If your ROI (return on your investment) is good with your TV ads, then you do not need online video.

3. Yellow Pages

If you are one of the few lawyers who is still using the yellow pages and are getting good results, then this article will probably confirm your desire not to create any video to market your practice. If you find that relying solely on an outdated and outmoded means of communication succeeds in getting more potential clients, then you do not need onine video. With luck, you will be up to grow your business exponentially as the yellow pages continues to become less and less relevant every day.

4. Networking

If you go to legal networking events 3 to 4 times a week, then you are likely getting tons of calls and referrals from your networking sources. In that case, you certainly wouldn’t want to create video to market your practice since you are generating lots of business from your networking.I do have a few important questions though. Does your networking work in the middle of the night? Does it work when you are on vacation? Does it work on the weekends when you’re not at a networking event? If it does, then you already have what online video can do for you.

5. You Have an Online Presence

Congratulations! You, along with millions of other lawyers in the United States have a website. When you created your website you must have thought that you were the only lawyer around with such a beautifully designed online brochure. I am sure you have great content that you update on a frequent, consistent basis. I’m also sure that your SEO experts have enabled you to maintain excellent placement in the search engines.

But let me ask you: How many people who actually come to your website become paying clients? How long do they stay on your website? When they call your office, do they tell you how much they love the information on your website and they feel as if they’ve gotten to know you, like you and trust you from photographs of a courthouse, a flag or a gavel? If the answer is yes, then you probably do not need to create video to market your already successful online practice.

6. You Already Have Video

If you have five videos, why would you want to create 50 more? Why would you ever want to create 100 more? I’m sure that every time someone does a search for your legal specialty, all five of your videos show up on the first page results. I’m sure that your five videos are doing so remarkably well that everybody who called your office has viewed all five of your videos and have decided unequivocally that you are the only lawyer for them.

I’m sure that the content you created in those videos are so compelling that everybody who starts to watch your videos becomes a caller. In all likelihood, you have created those videos on your own. Good for you. You’re a renegade. You understand technology and the hundreds of steps involved in creating great quality video that is properly formatted, edited, search engine optimized and distributed online. You must have lots of time on your hands to be able to do all that.

7. You Don’t Believe That People Watch Video

You also don’t believe that anyone in their right mind would pick up the phone to call a lawyer after watching a lawyer video. Besides, nobody watches video online anyway. If that conclusion is based on anecdotal stories from your colleagues, then obviously you do not want to create video to market your practice. It is a wise move not to confirm those statements for yourself and do your own due diligence to see whether those comments by your colleagues in the lawyer’s lounge are in fact true.

Of course, you will only do the type of marketing that your fellow attorneys do that you learn about through word-of-mouth, because copying other lawyers and what they do is the most successful way to market your practice.

Conclusion

If you fit in to any one or several categories within this article, then you do not want to create video to market your practice. In fact, you would be wasting your time, resources and marketing budgets to do so. Instead, let those other attorneys go ahead and do something foolish like market their law firms online using video. That’s perfectly okay, and in fact I recommend it if you see yourself in any one of these seven categories above.

In a shocking finding, new Forrester research discovered that only 20% of businesses act on the market insight obtained from customer surveys. This is true in despite the fact that these insights lead to actions that drive business improvement.

The report "How To Design An Effective Voice Of The Customer (VoC) Insights Program" can be downloaded for free.

"Market insights professionals often carry out customer satisfaction surveys — a key component in voice of the customer research — but then struggle to turn results into strategic insights that can support their company in achieving business goals," said senior analyst Richard Evensen.

Asking customers their opinions about a company's services and then not implementing responsive changes is a huge waste, in my opinion. It's a critical mistake when a law firm interviews clients and then ignores their comments.

What's the problem? Failing to align the research with business goals. "By aligning research decisions to business and stakeholder goals and needs, market insights professionals ensure that the research results will be more actionable and acceptable."

"Has your CEO put customer experience as a top 10 strategic goal? Or is there a big push to increase the base of renewal clients? If so, then you need to make sure that you have survey questions related to these," Evensen said. In testing out what a potential right question is for your company, make sure that at the very least, the questionnaire:

• Links to business gains. Forget interesting questions or like-to-have information. Executives and stakeholders are busy, respondents’ attention span is short, and survey real estate is at a premium. Make sure that the questions you ask, and the answers you obtain, will allow your company to improve business results.
• Links to strategic focus area. Getting insights on areas that the company is not focusing on, and likely won’t act upon, has no value. You want to make sure that stakeholders are ready and able to take the insights you provide and do something with them. As such, make sure your questions stay current to business and stakeholder strategic needs.
• Provides clear responsibility. Knowing which group or process is the culprit or champion in the customer’s view is important so that stakeholders know who and where changes should be made (or kudos given). Sometimes the customer doesn’t know the company structure, but you should always include questions to find out which touchpoints are the strongest drivers of customers’ experiences.
• Provides actionable insights. The answers to the questions you pose should make it clear what your stakeholders need to do if customer views come in low or high. It’s OK to have some general pulse checks (How satisfied are you? How easy/enjoyable was the experience? Would you recommend/renew/purchase?), but pulse checks do not provide actionable information and are insufficient for optimized VoC research.

According to marketing expert Stephen Fairley, There are thousands of law firm marketing programs, plans, seminars, workshops and other activities out there clamoring for your time, your attention, and your money. He knows that, which is why he is offering a free preview of his Rainmaker Retreat for lawyers who are unsure about committing their time and money to the 2-day legal marketing boot camp.

During the one-hour teleseminar, you will learn:

• How to avoid the most deadly marketing mistakes attorneys make
• 3 powerful strategies you must put into action in your practice immediately
• How to set yourself apart from your major competitors
• Secrets top attorneys are using to generate more referrals right now
• How attorneys are winning even in this economy by implementing a proven 8-step system

I've attended a Rainmaker Retreat and personally recommend it. The program is jammed with real-world advice and practical tips to build your clientele.

Stephen will be your host during the call, providing you this law firm marketing information. The teleseminar is designed to help you make a decision that can revolutionize your legal marketing strategy.

Attorneys who attend Stephen's teleseminars quickly learn that the information presented at the Rainmaker Retreat is something that they have not been taught in law school, and can change their lives.

I encourage you to take an hour out of your life and attend the complimentary teleseminar that are scheduled for the following dates and times: https://tri.infusionsoft.com/go/rrpc-sm/linkedIn/LI8 

Or take my word for it and register for the next Rainmaker Retreat.
 

"I’m burning out on all this moderation. I’ve been trying to help save my groups, but this is just ridiculous," said Alexander Lawrence, a Technical Recruiter who actually works at LinkedIn in San Francisco. "I had thought that the volume of spam was dropping, but after weeks of steady effort on my part, the volume of spam is still just totally overwhelming."

"I quit! I’m done with volunteering my own valuable time to constantly filter out all this spam," wrote Lawrence, the moderator of the LinkedIn Groups Product Forum. "It’s a tedious, thankless job and no one is paying me to do it. Unless I can think of a better idea, I’m going to have turn off all the moderation queues, and just walk away. Any quality discussions will once again drown against this relentless river of spam."

Carl Whalley bemoaned, "It's the age old problem - you've got the numbers, so that's all spammers see."

John-Patrick (JP) Skaar advised that moderators should not convert their groups to open groups from "members only" groups where anybody can join. William Jeansonne, MBA said the solution is to carefully screen new members.

I personally moderate the Chief Marketing Officers Forum and I carefully screen out members with no photo, few connections or no relation to the legal marketing profession. Profiles with no connections are generally bogus accounts. I also delete posts that are merely links to a vendor's home page.

A tough stance was advocated by Ian McCarthy: "The junk content is coming from members of the group - which underscores the importance of taking a very firm line on junk content and using the Block and Delete option on anyone who has degraded the quality of the group's conversations." Barnard Crespi agreed, saying he screens out 30% of new members from a group he runs.

Lawrence responded, "I think it's pretty sad that we've been reduced to a policy "guilty until proven innocent" with respect to which sets of members are allowed to enter a group."

Joseph Higginbotham said, "I have always been ruthless in dealing with spam. The worst spammers are ejected immediately. I've always rejected a lot of applicants and the percentage is rising. Lately, I have to reject nearly half the people who request membership because there's something about their profile that doesn't add up. The people you kick out of the group will tell everybody else in their other groups which gives you a reputation for being tough on spam, therefore, some spammers will simply avoid your group. That's fine with me."

My latest post on Lawyerist just went live:

When most lawyers think about selling legal services, an image comes to mind of a smarmy guy on a used-car lot selling a pink VW. The good news is that selling is not about pitching or convincing the other person to buy. It’s about asking questions.

In fact, your law firm marketing plan should include selling like a doctor who asks questions about “where it hurts” and listens attentively to the answer. Doctors are some of the best salespeople there are.

Nobody likes to be sold. Potential clients don’t want to hear about your credentials and they’re not interested in all your practice areas and the array of resources the firm has. They have no way to evaluate these things. But one to get your clients motivated is to talk about their favorite topic: themselves.

Accordingly, the best new-business call is an interview. Your marketing goal is to have the other person do 80% of the talking. If they are talking, you are selling.

For the rest of the story, visit Sell Legal Services by Asking Questions

My friend Ari Kaplan and I met for lunch (pizza for him, salad for me) and afterwards he produced his iPhone with a microphone and conducted an interview about Lawyers.com and Martindale.com. It's online at http://youtu.be/XdV-nZ7gz5Q.

Ari is a gifted speaker and the author of Reinventing Professional Services: Building Your Business in the Digital Marketplace (Wiley, 2011). I was impressed by all the great ideas in the book and I recommend it. He is very tuned into trends in the legal profession.

So without any preparation, makeup or studio, here's what I told him to look forward to on these two important websites.

Lawyers and legal marketers looking for a new perspective will soon be able to read a new print and digital magazine PeerSphere, newly published by the 6,000 member Chief Marketing Officer Council.

PeerSphere will be a quarterly 40-page print journal with a companion digital edition for computer, tablet, eReader, and smartphone users that features insights, best practices and commentary from CMO Council members, experts and academics. Localized versions will be created for North America, EMEA, Asia and Latin America.

“PeerSphere will include pithy, pointed, and thought-provoking content,” said CMO Council executive director, Donovan Neale-May. “We will rely heavily on peer-based perspectives, profile stories, and best practices. We will seek to inspire, enlighten, and engage with global insights and innovations from a cross-cultural, cross-border marketing world.”

The CMO Council is an organization dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership, and personal relationship building among senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide range of global industries.

Each issue will include interviews, contributed articles, regional views and perspectives, case studies, award submissions, best practice insights, as well as facts and stats. The journal showcases insights, best practices, and commentary for senior client-side marketing executives who have corporate, division, product line, or geographic marketing responsibility. It is a member benefit of the CMO Council.

The first issue, slated to launch December 1, 2011, will include topics such as:

• A cover story on "Geo-Political Turbulence and the Marketing Consequence" featuring interviews with Middle East marketing leaders.
• A deep dive into MasterCard's strategy and approach to maximizing the value and return of its $40 million sponsorship of the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand
• A wide-ranging interview with the president of Safeway's marketing division covering agency relationship management, competitive challenges, and marketing complexities in the North American grocery business.
• Profiles of new global contenders and power players who have grown remarkably well in stealth mode to deliver a wide range of branded products, commodities, and services worldwide. First to be profiled will be RAK Ceramics, a $1 billion emerging market success story.

Regular features will include:

• PunchLine – Opinion editorial from the CMO Council executive director
• Report Round-Up – Highlights from new CMO Council studies and thought leadership initiatives
• Localize to Globalize – Case studies and contributions from regional advisory board members
• Extracts + Abstracts – Content selections from new book releases, white papers, and strategic briefs provided by authors, consultants, and academics
• Situation Central – Lessons learned from CMOs facing real-world marketing issues, obstacles, crises, and brand recoveries
• Innovation From Automation – Where and how technology is impacting customer experience, engagement, acquisition, retention, revenue optimization, and marketing operation
• Hit + Miss – Winners and losers in new product introductions and line extensions in both BtoB and BtoC sectors
• Digital Discourse – Roundtable discussions, views, and opinions from members of the Digital Marketing Performance Institute
• Talent Talk – Performance management pointers and perspectives around how to achieve "more gain and less strain" in staff/agency relationships

For more info, view their Media Kit.

There are five things your law firm website must do well to attract and hold the attention of in-house corporate counsel. If your website is junked up with Flash, a wall of text and a lack of a call to action, you need to change it, according to Ruth Davis, the Senior Director of Web Services at LexisNexis.

She was the luncheon speaker at the LMA Legal Marketing Tech Conference West in San Francisco.  Her pointers are based on a new survey of US corporate counsel performed by uLab | Participatory Design and commissioned by LexisNexis about the preferences and behaviors of in-house lawyers when they browse law firm websites.

Her tips included:

1. Informative, well designed attorney profiles. It is not sufficient to list only your name, law school and jurisdictions admitted. Clients want to see your "elevator pitch: (1) who you are, (2) whom you work with and (3) what problems you solve.
2. Clear and easy navigation throughout the site.  Visitors should not have to spend any effort learning your navigation system. Call things by their familiar names, for example, "lawyer bios" should not be named "who we are."  One GC said, "I'm here for a reason and it's very specific." He liked law firm websites where he "could get what I needed to get at quickly, and it gave me an impression of who they are and what they're about."
3. Detailed case studies and client lists.  It is essential that a website tell stories about results and successes that the firm has achieved. Case studies are what sell the law firm to potential clients. Law firms also must put a list of representative clients online, because clients want to see names that they recognize.
4. Integration between practice areas and attorney profiles.  Viewing a lawyer bio should make it clear in which areas the lawyer practices, and link to practice group descriptions that list the lawyers with the related expertise.
5. Clarity of expertise – both for the firm and the attorney. "The main reason I am on a law firm website is one of two things: either to try to find expertise into a subject area, or to look up a specific attorney and see that attorney's credentials and experiences," a GC told the researchers.

What to stop doing

1. Make it difficult to find whom to contact and how. Every lawyer bio should have a v-card, phone number, email address and land address.
2. Use extensive flash, graphics or auto-starting video. "These [moving images] are just a distraction. Just get me to what I'm looking for," an in-house lawyer told the researchers.
3. Leave visitors guessing about the firm's personality.  Don't let your website look like a travel agency site. "I want insights into people at the firm and what it's trying to accomplish as a law firm," said a GC.
4. Overwhelm users with content, especially irrelevant content.  "If there's too much going on and I have to put too much energy into it, I'm going to get a little frustrated," an in-house lawyer said.
5. Ignore the needs of key constituents. Address the site to whom you're targeting, be it students, clients or prospective clients. Make sure to give visitors what they want.

Click the link to get a free four page synopsis of the research.

"If there is a discrete issue on my area of law, and I know a law firm has a two-minute video about it, that would be fabulous. It will also get the face of your partners out there," said Renee Lawson, Associate GC of Zynga, Inc., a video game company in San Francisco. Her company has a dozen lawyers in-house.

She spoke on a panel discussion with other GCs on the topic of using technology in legal marketing at the LMA Legal Marketing Tech Conference West in San Francisco.

"I don’t want anything on paper. I don’t have an in box; if I did everything in it would go into trash. I want something that will catch my eye in 30 seconds or less, certainly not a long block of text. I’m more likely to look at a video," said MeMe Rasmussen, VP and Chief Privacy officer, Adobe Systems Inc., which has 50 lawyers in-house. " If your lawyers are presenting CLE, put it on a video. If I see it I’m much more likely to hire your firm,"

"I am inundated with newsletters. If I get one or two good ideas from a law firm newsletter or learn something that I can use in my practice, it’s worth getting all the other ones I can’t use," Robert A. Shives, Jr., Associate General Counsel, Fujitsu America, Inc.

Rasmussen was more skeptical. "I delete 5-10 email newsletters from law firms every day who know who I am, yet they are sending me newsletters about bankruptcy and SEC.  I’m the Chief Privacy Officer."

Lawson added, "When you’re in Silicon Valley there are basic things I expect a lawyer to know. If you’re trying to target technology firm, you should educate your lawyers about technology so they understand it."

We know the statistics: 750 million people on Facebook, 300 million people on Twitter and 120 million people on LinkedIn. Social media is like ringing the medieval church bell in the town square, which tolled when there was an important event.

That's according to Adrian Dayton, Esq., the keynote speaker at today's LMA Legal Marketing Technology Conference West in San Francisco, which has attracted 180 attendees and features 30 speakers. Adrian is a columnist for the National Law Journal, a blogger, and a social media trainer.

Social media helps move a prospect through the marketing funnel and come out as a client. There are three forms of rhetoric: logos (logical arguments), ethos (a show of authority), pathos (emotion). Pathos is the most difficult -- how do we show that a lawyer is likable, engaging and trustworthy? Social media can accomplish that.

Your online bio (on Twitter or LinkedIn) is your new "elevator speech." A bad one is "Partner at ABC law firm." A good one is: "Partner in the AmLaw 100 firm of Dorsey & Whitney, Watergate prosecutor, complex litigation for Fortune 100, cycling daily around Central Park."

Pathos comes from what we say and how people perceive us: 53% derives from facial expression, 38% is tone of voice and 7% is words. Pathos is most important because it taps into emotion, and purchasing decisions are based on emotion.

"Video is one of the most overlooked things in our marketing tool belt," he said. Video is an effective way to connect with people. Womble Carlyle has 70 videos showing lawyers not as talking heads, but as real people. Allen Matkins has 50 videos. "Video is very powerful."

Law firms need to create a culture of blogging. "Nobody wants to be sold to but everyone wants free information," he said. The best way to generate meaningful traffic is to write a blog -- which produces visitors at 3 to 10 cents per impression, compared with pay-per-click visitors that cost $9 per impression.

Dayton recounted success stories with social media, including an associate who aggressively used LinkedIn and brought in his first client within six months. A young partner at another firm writes the Chicago IP Litigation Blog, following IP trials in his jurisdiction, and brought in a major IP trial that came in through a cold call from his blog. "He was getting the attention because he was able to show his passion for his topic," Dayton said. Another lawyer started his own firm and wrote about criminal law on his blog; he forwarded an article to executives in a crime story he had been following, and one of them retained him to handle his defense.

The social media event that changed his life was a tweet he answered in 2009, "Does anybody know a contracts lawyer?" It turned into his first new client.

He concluded with this "free hugs" video from YouTube. It's a great story - watch it to the end. It shows how a human connection starts, is reinforced and spreads. "If you connect with people, social media will work in your law firm."

It's about time! According to Mashable, Twitter Web Analytics, a new tool announced Tuesday, will enable website owners to see how much traffic is generated to their site from Twitter. Currently, web owners must drill down into their analytics programs to see what percentage, if any, of their visitors come from the short-messaging service.

Twitter Web Analytics is intended to give website owners more data on the effectiveness of clicks generated by Twitter. It’s powered by BackType, the social analytics company that Twitter acquired in July.

Twitter Web Analytics, explains BackType founder and new Twitter platform staffer Christopher Golda, will help publishers and website owners understand three key things:

1. How much of their content is being shared on Twitter
2. How much traffic Twitter is sending their way
3. How well Tweet Buttons are performing.

The tool is free and currently in beta. A small group of partners will gain access to Twitter Web Analytics this week, and Twitter will roll it out to all website owners in a few weeks. An API will also be released for developers.

Today's guest post comes from my friend Tom Ciesielka of TC Public Relations in Chicago. He can be reached at (312) 422-1333 and tc@tcpr.net.

When I was in college, there really were no formal degrees in public relations. Most professionals had degrees in English, Journalism or Communications. Yet, a "fake" lawyer managed to practice law after posing as an attorney and handled more than 60 cases without a law degree. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that he was sentenced to two years in prison for such a crime. Ironically, according to Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, “No one suspected anything for years because he did everything right — except obtain a law degree.”

While I enjoy working with lawyers and don't expect them to get a public relations degree, in order to work with me, there are some courses I wish were part of a law degree:

• Filing a Response to the Reporter on Time: Attorneys know all about statutes of limitations, court filing deadlines, and being at court on-time. Miss one of those, and it can lead to disciplinary actions against the lawyer. The same is required when attorneys are needed for a comment with reporters. The writers are on deadline, and with real-time news media, not responding in a timely manner can lead to being excluded from the story or even giving the impression you have something to hide.
• The Facts Will Come Out Somewhere, Sometime: Attorney/client privilege is critical to protecting a client's interest in a legal matter. However, it's better for the attorney to hear the bad and the ugly before someone else leaks the information. When lawyers work with the media, while they may not be able to disclose confidential client information, they can still respond in a responsible way that helps to maintain their credibility with the media.
• Associates Don't Become Senior Partners Overnight: I've had attorneys with no media experience, expect to become an instant source for The Wall Street Journal. Unless the attorney threatens the lives of the Supreme Court justices, it's not likely to happen. Attorneys know that most law firms have a path to go from first year associate to partner and beyond. It can often take years. While media relations may not move that slowly, building relationships and credibility with major news outlets requires paying your dues.

Perhaps Prison Legal News can develop a new section of their publication for when lawyers break the "public relations laws."

In this bad economy, some law firms are still taking their eye off the ball by focusing on gross revenue as opposed to profits, or by pursuing shotgun marketing to their entire client base as opposed to doing rifle-shot marketing to clients with the highest profit margins.

Here are the top ten strategies to increase your firm's profits as articulated by Darryl Cross, Vice President of Performance Development at LexisNexis, speaking in a Lex Mundi webinar "Mining (and Minding) Your Client Base."

1. 90% of percent of your profits come from 20% of your clients. Client analysis begins with ranking clients by profitability, not gross revenue, according to Cross. Once you have the list, winnow it down to the minority of clients who account for most of your revenue. A big firm may have thousands of clients, but a handful will generate 90% of profits. "Law firms should invite some of those clients into practice group meetings and get a briefing about what's going on at their company," he advised.
2. Big clients stick around long term. Small clients don't. The reason is that big clients use many services of a firm. This makes a  business an institutional client.
3. Find clones of your most profitable clients. "If you need to find 10 new clients next year, take your existing client list and we which companies have been most profitable, identify which industries they are in, and look for similar companies in that sector," Cross said.
4. Siloed clients are 7X more likely to leave within. If a client is using only one area of law (i.e., they're stuck in a silo), the odds are 40% that they're going to leave. But when a client uses three areas of law, they'll stay because it's too difficult to leave and because the transition costs are too high. So if a partner has all the relationships with a client but the lawyer handles only one area of law, the client is very likely to leave, Cross advised. It's time to talk about cross selling to that partner.
5. New clients are fickle. "The first year or two is when you lose all your new big clients," Cross said. "Right after handling a merger or after litigation when things settle down, firms don't maintain contact with the client, and they tend to leave." When the legal work is over they are more likely to leave. Partners should make sure to spend time to solidify the relationship and introduce the client around the firm.
6. A high number of partners involved equals high loyalty to the firm. To keep the clients it makes sense to have numerous points of contact within the firm and at the client. The more bonds between a firm and client, the easier it is to "zipper" the two together.
7. Bargain shoppers will never pay standard rates. Clients who press you at the beginning for discounts will never come up to standard rates. "The rate at which clients come in is where they'll be in three years," Cross said.
8. Big clients started big and small clients remain small. 20% of your clients will cause 90% of your problems. "I've heard from partners that someone they've met has the potential to turn into the next big client. And if we give them a discount they'll be big. We've found that this rarely happens. All your clients that are in your top 10% started there," Cross said. Rather than focus on "acorns" hoping they'll turn into oak trees, firms should instead focus on the largest 10% of clients. "That's how you'll build your future," he said.
9. Your top clients are not the most profitable. "Many top clients are paying fees based on special deals or the realization rate isn't high, they pay slowly, they challenge the firm at the end of the year for a deal, or you have to write off a lot of time," Cross said. Firms want to keep big clients happy, but it's a mistake to base a growth strategy on discounts.
10. The key to success is to focus on profit. Two clients may produce the same amount of revenue, but one could have a 22% profit margin and the other could be causing a 22% loss. Firms must start with the standard rate and compare it to the billed amount, the collected amount, and the ultimate margin. There are many steps in a process that lead to a low margin.

Catherine Alman MacDonagh and Laura Colcord are bringing their innovativeLegal Lean Sigma White Belt Certification Course to Chicago on September 20, and there are six seats left.

Legal Lean Sigma® courses and programs have been delivered to professionals from more than 100 law firms, legal departments and organizations associated with the legal profession. If you want to get in on this legal marketing trend, call 857.272.5695 or register online at http://legalleansigma.com/.

Both Catherine and Laura work at the Legal Lean Sigma Black Belt level. I've known Catherine for years as the Co-Founder of the Legal Sales and Service Organization. This means their program will be excellent. It's being hoted by the Legal Marketing Association, 401 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago.

The white belt certification course introduces participants to the leading-edge area of process Improvement. The course will teach you to maximize efficiencies, reconnect legal costs to the value received, and develop strategies and tactics based on the client perspective.

Learn more at http://legalleansigma.com.

You read it here first: we are now in a double-dip recession. Economists declared that the Great Recession started in 2007 and ended in June 2009. But no one who sees an empty strip mall, a foreclosed house or an unemployed friend believes it. The legal effects will spread though all levels of your daily life. Here’s the evidence:

• Jobs: the US unemployment rate has averaged over 9% for more than two years. Fewer jobs mean less consumer spending, which means the recession continues.
• Debt: 721,000 consumer bankruptcies were filed from January to June and now the numbers are climbing, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.
• Real estate: 1 in every 611 homes received a foreclosure filing in July 2011. The situation is the worst in California, followed by Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Illinois, according to Realtytrac.com

"If it feels like a recession, it is a recession," according to Michael D. Siegel of Siegel & Siegel PC in New York, who is the moderator of the New York Bankruptcy law forum at Lawyers.com. The President’s newly-proposed American Jobs Act has already hit partisan opposition. So as the economy worsens here’s what it means to you personally:

To read the top Top 10 Ways the Recession Will Affect You visit the Lawyers.com blog at http://bit.ly/q2qFzO.
 

Webinar Tomorrow, September 13, 2011
Business Development for Litigators

Join Barry Schneider and me in our most popular program about how to capture more litigation files. We will show you how to grow your litigation client base, by continuing the relationship after the case is over, focusing on dispute-rich industries, picking the "hot" practice areas for trials, and prioritizing your business development efforts.

TOPICS TO BE COVERED

• Pursue groups of businesses where you have clients already.
• Focus on the "hot" areas of practice, as identified by market research.
• Use methods to create a good reputation that will attract files and cases.
• Employ the four priorities of business development.
• Build long-lasting relationships with clients.
• Use our #1 most effective marketing technique.
• Penetrate organizations of potential clients.
• Become the industry expert that every business client wants.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

• Experienced litigators who want to smooth out the peaks and valleys of their practice.
• Young litigators eager to build a career in litigation.
• Marketing partners who plan to build up their firm's litigation practice.
• Managing partners seeking to maintain and grow the revenue from a solid litigation practice. 

Registration fee: $300. Click here to register instantly with a credit card. You can display the program in a conference room, put the telephone on speaker mode, and invite as many attendees at your firm as you wish. One connection per registration.

If you are a lawyer, accountant or consultant who wants to beat the recession and grow your business, I recommend you attend the FREE educational telesummit "Transformational Trends in the Professions." You'll hear from 15 experts in their field (see below) on the hottest trends affecting your practice. The presentations will be broadcast online from September 19-27. I'll be speaking on the topic of using the web and social media to grow your practice.

Register now - you have nothing to lose and all kinds of business to gain. Check out the video below (Thanks, YouTube for the nice video thumbnail, eh?)

Speakers at Transformational Trends in the Profession: 

• Despina Kartson, Chief Marketing Officer, Latham & Watkins LLP
• Joel Cooperman, Managing Partner, Citrin Cooperman
• Ari Kaplan, Ari Kaplan Advisors, and Author Of Reinventing Professional Services (Wiley, 2011) and The Opportunity Maker
• Bob Green, Partner, Singerlewak Accountants & Consultants
• Lou Grassi, Managing Partner, Grassi & Co. - CPAs
• Bob Ebers, Workplace Stars
• Marcia Wasserman, President, Comprehensive Management Solutions, Inc.
• Alan Vitberg, Vitberg LLC
• David Schnurman, CEO Of Lawline.Com
• Steve Erickson CPA, Steve Erickson LLC
• David Wolfskehl, Founder, The Micro Niche Method
• Robert Fligel, RF Resources LLC - Talent Search & Mergers & Acquisitions
• Paul Burton, Quiet Spacing
• Nancy Fox, President, The Business Fox Coaching & Training
• Phil Whitman, President, Whitman Business Advisors

You have to be writer at heart to publish a blog for seven years and to update it once a day. For me, it's not a chore -- it's an activity I look forward to. The best work I've ever done has been writing and editing articles, and trading ideas with artists, writers and marketers.

Now LexisNexis has given me an opportunity to return to my original calling as a journalist and appointed yours truly to be the full-time Editor in Chief of Lawyers.comand martindale.com. I'd be kidding you if I didn't say I was totally thrilled and consider it the opportunity of a lifetime.

Since I've been on the job I have been blitzed by the intelligence and savviness of the people I get to work with. Keep up with us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and of course, on both Lawyers.com and martindale.com.

Over the last 11 years I advised more than 250 law firms on business development, personal marketing and website renewal. That mission continues here on this blog, where you'll still get practical tips on getting new business and generating new revenue. And you'll still find me at the back of the room at marketing conferences -- tapping notes on my laptop with a can of Rock Star nearby.

I've always been at home with lawyers and marketers and will carry on in the new role -- by setting editorial strategy for two prominent websites, and creating original content around current legal news for consumers and attorneys across the United States. For details, check out the press release from LexisNexis.

I spoke recently with blogger and online marketing expert Joshua Fruchter of eLawMarketing about how his agency develops law firm websites using Drupal, one of the world’s leading free open-source content management applications powering websites such as whitehouse.gov.

A key advantage, explained Josh, is that Drupal brings the cost of a sophisticated website way down for law firms on a tight budget. With more than 11,000 free developer-contributed add-ons available as of August 2011 to add new features to Drupal’s core capabilities, “Drupal has a module for every function a law firm could want,” noted Josh. He estimated that a Drupal-powered website with multiple “bells and whistles” would cost less than $10,000.

Using Drupal also means that law firms no longer need to be locked into a developer’s proprietary system to which only the developer’s programmers have access. Instead, law firms using Drupal gain access to the collective “brain power” of a community of over 10,000 Drupal developers worldwide who are constantly working to refine and extend Drupal’s capabilities. See Drupal: A New Word in Law Firm Marketing

A critical feature of Drupal is its full support of key SEO best practices. Examples cited by Josh include:

• Editable, search engine-friendly URL’s that incorporate keywords, like this URL that incorporates key phrases related to a new law firm alert -- see http://bit.ly/quqPAG
• Screens that allow users to craft unique meta title and description tags for each and every page of a website.
• A checkbox to display links on the homepage to timely news items or publications, so that the home page is constantly refreshed with new content and more frequently spidered by Google and other search engines. See links on the home page eLawMarketing designed for Diserio Martin.

Other “power” features offered by Drupal:

• A contextual sidebar that displays links to content in a sidebar that is related to the content in the main body of a web page. For example, the sidebar on a lawyer bio page can include links to the lawyer’s practices, industry experience, articles and events. See the bio of Charles Spiess.
• Quick integration of buttons to easily share a page’s content via email, or on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and dozens of other online social networks.
• A calendar feature to easily create, date and manage events and news pages. See the Events page eLawMarketing created for the Rikleen Institute for Strategic Leadership.
• “Breadcrumb” navigation to allow visitors to navigate deeply into a topic and then easily retrace their steps back to their starting point.
• A module to build FAQ’s with questions that open and close accordion-style to display answers.

For interactivity on a homepage, Josh advises against using Flash, because it can’t be viewed on an iPad or iPhone. Instead, eLawMarketing mixes Drupal and JQuery to deploy Javascript slideshows that can be used to highlight success stories on a law firm’s homepage. See case studies featured at top of the homepage of EM Online Media.

Drupal makes life easy for marketers who update websites, offering them a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) view when they are editing their websites. The WYSIWYG view is accessible directly on each page after an administrator logs in.

If your website isn’t built in Drupal, it should be.

New research confirms a persistent gender bias in the legal profession. Although they all start out at the same pay as male lawyers, women associates, non-equity partners and equity partners earn a lower average total compensation than their male counterparts, according to the ALM Legal Intelligence 2011 Survey of Law Firm Economics.

Furthermore, women lawyers have lower billing rates across the board than male lawyers, the report finds. The same survey last year also found that Women Lawyers Have Lower Billing Rates than Men. This year's survey contains information from 12,952 lawyers including 4,535 associates, 7,306 partners/shareholders (equity and non-equity), 772 active counsels, and 339 staff lawyers working in 202 U.S. law firms.

The glass ceiling that prevents women from advancing in their careers as fast as men remains solidly in place.

The average total compensation for a woman equity partner is $312,507, compared with $396,572 for a male equity partner.  The average total compensation for a female associate is $132,510, compared with $142,752 for a male associate. Even when comparing median total compensation, women lawyers earn less than male lawyers at every level. The number of billable hours worked did not differ significantly between male and female lawyers.

Females have consistently lower average billing rates than males, across all firm sizes and titles. The average standard hourly rate for a woman equity partner is $339, compared with $369 for an equal-ranking male.  The average rate for a female non-equity partner is $329, compared with $363 for non-equity male partners. The average rate for a female associate is $236, compared with $243 for a male associate.

Copies of the report can be purchased at Lawcatalog.com.

 

Your already know that QR codes can add websites, bios, PowerPoints to your business cards. It turns out they are more widely understood and used that you may think. See the infographic below.

Where do you get your own free QR code? Go to www.vizibility.com and fill in the blanks. You will get a graphic of your QR code. It's a .JPG file you can download onto a flash drive. Take this to your printer and have them put it on the back of your cards.

Wouldn't it be great to hear a panel of 15 experts talking about the hottest trends transforming the professional landscape for 2012 and how can they be leveraged for greater success, growth and profitability? Wouldn't it be great if you could hear them without leaving your desk? Wouldn't it be great if the program were free?

Dream no more -- simply register for the FREE telesummit that will run from September 19 - Sept 27. Lawyers, accountants, firm decision makers, service providers and consultants to the legal or accounting professions are invited to a powerful panel interview series featuring leading experts and peers in the legal and public accounting arenas.

I will be speaking on “Using the Web and Social Media to Bring in New Clients.” You can also hear the top minds in the professional services arena sharing their knowledge and strategies on how professionals and firms can boost their results.

• DESPINA KARTSON, Chief Marketing Officer, Latham & Watkins LLP
• JOEL COOPERMAN, Managing Partner, Citrin Cooperman
• ARI KAPLAN, Ari Kaplan Advisors, and best-selling author of Reinvention of The Professions
• BOB GREEN, Partner, SingerLewak Acccountants & Consultants
• BOB EBERS, Workplace Stars
• LOU GRASSI, Managing Partner, Grassi & Co. -CPAs
• MARCIA WASSERMAN, President, Comprehensive Management Solutions, Inc.
• STEVE ERICKSON CPA, Steve Erickson LLC
• DAVID WOLFSKEHL, Founder, The Micro Niche Method
• ALAN VITBERG - President, VITBERG LLC
• ROBERT FLIGEL, RF Resources Inc. -Talent Search & Mergers & Acquisitions
• DAVID SCHNURMAN, CEO, Lawline.com
• NANCY FOX, President, The Business Fox Coaching & Training
• PHIL WHITMAN, President, Whitman Business Advisors 

What's a telesummit?

This event is a complimentary virtual conference, conveniently presented over a conference call telephone line or via webcast. Each panelist's presentation will be recorded and made available to all registrants. Why wait? Register now at http://bit.ly/nWF32m. It's free.

Mega thanks to organizers NANCY FOX, President of The Business Fox Coaching and Training, a leading business coach and renowned author, and speaker to the professional services arena for over a decade, and PHIL WHITMAN, CPA, President of Whitman Business Advisors, former COO of Berdon LLP and leader of his company specializing in talent and public accounting mergers & acquisitions.