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

Somewhere in the Twitterverse, a 21-year-old Massachusetts woman who identifies her interests as “sex, drugs, rock n roll” inexplicably found herself facing a legal challenge.

She tweeted, “I NEED A LAWYER IMMEDIATELY.”

Enter Lawyers.com, which replied, “Oh no! what area of practice? in #Massachusetts?”

The tweet included a link to a list of Massachusetts law firms on its website.

This blog post is an excerpt from Lawyers.com attracts clients through content—and social media smarts from Ragan's PR Daily. Lawyers.com, which I edit, helps hundreds of consumers find lawyers every week. The attorneys writing in the "Ask A Lawyer" section field questions every day about divorce, criminal law, business law, child custody, and labor and employment law.

The exchange illustrates how LexisNexis’s Lawyers.com uses social media content marketing as a part of its unified marketing strategy. Weaving links through Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, it drives traffic to a content-heavy website and blog and creates communities on law-related topics for laymen.

The ultimate goal is to bring business to lawyers through the website.

Lawyers.com is a paid listing for attorneys hoping to win clients from among the site’s visitors, says Rocco Impreveduto, senior director of consumer marketing for LexisNexis. The site has 1.5 million pages of content for Lawyers.com alone. Last August, Lawyers.com kicked its content generation into high gear by hiring Editor-in-Chief Larry Bodine to head up efforts to create articles and other information.

Bodine’s team—a mix of employees and freelancers—produces timely, topical, and relevant content, Impreveduto says. (He declines to specify the size of the team, saying competitors are watching closely.) It produces both in-depth investigations and quick turnarounds on topics such as the Trayvon Martin shooting. It posts articles on consumer news and the legal aspects of gay and lesbian marriage and civil unions.

All this becomes “fodder in social media,” Impreveduto says. “It’s the kind of stuff that means something to talk about, that interests people, that fosters engagement, that brings them back in and makes them consumers of our site.”

Click here to read the rest of the story.

LegalZoom filed for an IPO to raise millions in an effort to crush small law firms. It is capitalizing on consumers' willingness to buy cheap, do-it-yourself forms as opposed to paying a lawyer to do the job right in the first place.

"Solos and small law firms will find that it will be very difficult to compete against LegalZoom with its superior capital resources," warns Richard Granat in his eLawyering Blog. "LegalZoom will, inevitably, put many solos and small law firms out of business as it grows and expands its suite of services."

LegalZoom slams lawyers in small firms on p. 62 of their S-1 filing:

When in need of legal help, small businesses and consumers lack an efficient and reliable way to find high quality, trustworthy attorneys...

Attorneys are frequently unable to predict the time required to address a client's legal matter, sometimes billing thousands of dollars to research a legal issue they have not previously encountered. This can be particularly true of generalist attorneys that offer many disparate legal services to members of their local communities. Unlike attorneys at large global law firms or specialty boutiques who handle high volumes of similar matters and develop expertise in specific domains, generalists can find it difficult to efficiently address a client's particular legal issue due to their lack of specialized expertise.

To me it smells like a play to raise cash from Wall Street to wage war on the little guy.

Richard warns, "LegalZoom is here to stay and will expand its market share as the major provider of the delivery of legal solutions to consumers and small business." He is right. It is time for America's lawyers to take back their profession.

For starters, solos and GPs must learn new online skills, provide legal services more efficiently and start marketing better. You must read Richard's blog post which lists steps that small-firm lawyers can take to be more competitive in this rapidly changing environment.

I recommend you take a look at Richard's DirectLaw web service -- a hosted virtual law firm platform for solos and small law firms that enables them to offer legal services on-line without a large capital investment.

For further reading:

14% of Lawyers Operate a Virtual Law Firm

Elawyering Award Goes to Rosen Divorce Firm

Virtual Law Firm Collects 250 Clients with Fixed Fees

Corporate Counsel Want to Hire Virtual Law Firms

An idea struck Catherine Alman MacDonagh as she watched a young lawyer working on a team with IT personnel, partners, marketers in a training exercise. It was the first time the lawyer had worked on a cross-functional team at the firm. The internal silos had been taken down. Collaboration was happening before her eyes.

MacDonagh, CEO and Co-Founder at Legal Lean Sigma Institute in Boston, is widely respected as a Big Thinker. She has summoned together the leaders in legal marketing, administration, placement, IT and law libraries. The aim is to break down the walls between the organizations and cause a sea change.

The inspiration will come to life on Tuesday, June 5, in Chicago at the RainDance Conference hosted by the Legal Sales and Service Organization (LSSO). The invitation-only "Take The LEAD Summit" will assemble executives and board members from the:

• Association of Legal Administrators

LSSO’s RainDance will take place on June 5-6, 2012, at the Mid-America Club in Chicago. Register here.

• College of Law Practice Management
• International Legal Technology Association
• American Association of Law Libraries
• Professional Development Consortium
• National Association of Law Placement
• Legal Marketing Association
• LSSO

“It will be the beginning of a grand experiment,” Catherine said. “This is the first time all these leaders have come together. Just the fact that people are coming represents recognition that it’s time to do this. The purpose of bringing them together is to break down the functional silos.”

“Why couldn’t LSSO provide marketing assistance to all the other associations? Why are we trying to figure out technology panels at LMA? Why aren’t we taking each other’s content and putting in on our websites?  Why aren’t we leveraging each other as the fabulous resources we are?”

RainDance attendees will be the first to hear a report from the Summit. The details will also be made available for bloggers and the news media. Be there and here the news first hand.

My Australian marketing mate Dan Toombs recorded his new Law Firm Marketing podcast, interviewing Jasmine Trillos Decarie, the Director of Business Development and Marketing at Foley Hoag in Boston. Dan talks with Jasmine about how the firm creates content and smartly syndicates it across multiple,  targeted channels.

Click play:

Jasmine's recommends:

• Harnessing your lawyer's intellect and writing talent to create content for business development.
• Don't have your PR firm tweet for you. Hear the mistake another law firm made this way.
• Why the firm's Corporate Responsibility Blog succeeded.
• Avoid spewing content into a vacuum, rather, blog to develop new business.

"Foley Hoag lawyers are renowned for being thought leaders," Dan said. "From an online perspective, a number of law firm marketing experts would hold Foley Hoag as a brilliant example of creating compelling content that engages prospective clients. Behind this content and its very smart syndication is Jasmine Trillos Decarie."

Also, I drop in with a reflection on a recent episode of Mad Men.

I found a neat list of tips by Wendy Bryant-Beswick to promote your attorney blog to business clients. Here are the highlights:

Write for the target audience. You want to target and create content relevant to them -- not you.

Frequency is important. There is no magic number but she suggests 3 to 5 times per week. Do not overwhelm yourself. Start with 3 times a week and build up to a higher frequency. Remember, you are not a news organization. No one is expecting you to blog multiple times per day.

Use Social Media. Send updates to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest to promote your content. Grow and nurture your communities. Be diverse and part of the communities you decide to participate in.

Submit your posts to blogger sites. Check sites like Technorati, Alltop and others that are relevant to the legal profession and your target readers.

Email your posts. People aren’t going to always visit your blog — take the content to them. Use an email service like MailChimp, Vertical Response or Emma -- and be consistent. For example, if you choose Tuesdays as the day to email content and Friday as a roundup of the week -- and stick to it. People will start to expect to see your content.

Send out press releases. Use them to spread the word about your services. Many lawyers wrongly assume that there isn’t much newsworthy happenings at their firm, but there are always events that are a gold mine for information such as: completions of projects, announcements of contracts, new partnerships, new personal awards, white papers and interviews with firm personnel.

Go here to o read all 10 blogging tips.

This is an excerpt of Chapter 7 of Secrets of Lawyer Video Marketing by expert Gerry Oginski, a trial lawyer and marketing expert in New York.

There is an art and science to creating and promoting your videos. Pressing the red record button and then directly uploading to YouTube is never your goal. There is much more to be done in order to maximize the chances that your video will be found and watched.

Your goal in creating video is to teach, educate, and inform. You should always be trying to create video that converts a viewer into a caller. If you try to use traditional forms of TV advertising, yellow pages advertising, and the like, and simply apply that to video marketing, you will fail miserably. Guaranteed.

Let me explain why. In 2006 when YouTube first came on the scene, there were video companies and lawyers who took their 30-second TV ads and put them online, believing that viewers would want to watch their TV commercials online. But they soon learned that viewers had no interest in watching a TV commercial online. Why not?

Why video works

The answer is simple. The people who were going online wanted information. The reason why video works so well is that you have the ability to teach and explain. You have the ability to talk for a few minutes and explain why. TV commercials don’t do that. A narrative PowerPoint presentation doesn’t do that.

Also, your goal when creating video is to connect and create a bond with your online viewer. Your viewer gets to see you. Your viewer gets to hear you. Your viewer begins to trust you. You cannot do that with a PowerPoint presentation.

Here are some amazing statistics: 48 hours of video are uploaded every minute to YouTube. YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, directly behind Google.

If you think video is a fad, you’d are 100% wrong. Video has revolutionized the way lawyers and businesses market themselves. Never before have people been able to see, virtually touch, and hear what an attorney has to say before meeting them in person.

YouTube has given us a way to get our videos found, clicked on, and watched. Importantly, it allows us the ability to convert a viewer into a caller.

This is not your father’s method of advertising.

There are still some “old-school” lawyers who believe that it is beneath them to advertise. It is not “respectable.” Those lawyers are practicing in the age of the dinosaurs. Although referral-based marketing is still the best and most profitable form of marketing, there are many lawyers and law firms who seek to boost their marketing beyond whatever referrals they get.

While it is true that you should never put all of your eggs in one basket, it is also true that if you fail to take advantage of video you will be left behind. It is becoming quite obvious that lawyers who fail to create compelling educational video are already at a significant disadvantage when trying to attract new potential clients to their law firms.

How someone finds your video online

Remember, the psychology behind someone searching for an attorney online is critical to understand in order for you to create effective video that targets their legal problem. Here is how someone looks for a lawyer online.  

• Someone with a legal problem is looking for a lawyer to help them.
• They don’t know a lawyer.
• They don’t know a friend or family member who knows a lawyer they could recommend.
• One of the simplest and easiest ways to begin to look for an attorney or, more importantly, to look for information about their legal problem or medical problem is to go online and type their problem into Google.

In the past, a consumer or potential client might go to the yellow pages and flip open the lawyers section and begin to call each lawyer. No longer.

I just picked this up from Jon Accarrino, the social media wizard at Definition6, an online marketing agency in New York:

It's finally here - the release of Timeline Movie Maker  for Facebook Pages, allowing law firms to curate customized one minute movies showcasing their most engaged Pages content, strengthening the relationships between lawyers  and their Facebook communities.

Timeline Movie Maker was released to users earlier this year where you can create your personal story of your Facebook life in a one minute movie.  Now lawyers can experience the same.

With this rollout, additional updates were made to the existing interface for Timeline Movie Maker to improve a user's experience, including the addition of 9 languages, enhanced editor capabilities for adding/replacing photos and videos, and updated text links to share videos with your friends.

To learn more about this, please visit TimelineMovieMaker.com and click on the text "Click here to make a movie for a Facebook Page." Or you can read a step-by-step guide on the Definition6 blog.

John says, "Watch our movie and let us know if you would like any assistance in creating this brand experience for your page."

More about marketing with Facebook:

How to Motivate the Next Generation of Rainmakers will be broadcast this Thursday, May 24, at 10 AM Pacific time. It's your last chance to register for this practical business development program. 

You get a trifecta of experts: David Ackert of Practice Boomers, Mike O'Horo of RainmakerVT, and yours truly, the Editor in Chief of Lawyers.com.  

We'll tell you what works and how to do it. You'll learn how to inspire your colleagues to market by directing their focus. You'll find out about proactive, methodical approaches to business development.You'll see how to create a "sales culture" that engages all your lawyers. 

How to Motivate the Next Generation of Rainmakers

PRESENTED BY: Practice Boomers and the Professional Business Development Institute.

DATE: Thursday, May 24, 2012 - two days from now.

   ♦ 10 am Pacific ♦ 11 am Mountain ♦ Noon Central ♦ 1 pm Eastern

LOCATION: On the web, on your computer

MORE INFO: Larry Bodine (Tel) 630.942.0977

WEBSITE:

bit.ly/attorneymarketing

Ward Bower

In-house counsel, legal recruiters and law firm management experts say there is a fundamental shift in the practice of business litigation in Texas. More than 40 large firm partners and associates in Austin, Dallas and Houston made lateral moves to litigation boutiques during the first four months of 2012, according to research by The Texas Lawbook.

Texas Lawbook says that big law firm litigation sections have been slowly shrinking during the past decade. Some are half the size they were in 2000. Meanwhile, litigation boutiques, which often specialize in areas such as employment law, intellectual property or securities matters, are booming.

Affected big law firms include:

• Vinson & Elkins
• Fulbright & Jaworski
• Locke Lord

“Major corporate firms are seeing clients take their litigation work to litigation boutiques, and the lawyers at those major law firms are leaving to follow the work,” said Ward Bower, Altman Weil principal and consultant.

Businesses such as AT&T Inc., Dell Inc. and energy companies have become increasingly sensitive to litigation fees.

“Most large, full-service law firms have overpriced themselves, and most businesses simply cannot afford $800 or $900 an hour,” said Michael Lynn of Lynn Tillotson. “We’ve deliberately priced ourselves at $650 an hour, and we clearly are not starving. We are busier than we have ever been.”

He gets about 30 résumés a year from lawyers at large law firms who want out.

“The two primary inhibitors to business development for a litigator at a major law firm are inflexible rate structures and client conflicts of interests,” said Sherrard “Butch” Hayes, former Fulbright parner-in-charge, now a partner at Weisbart Springer Hayes in Austin.

Legal recruiters and consultants told Texas LawBook that few of these lawyers are pushed out of their large corporate firms. But the firms aren’t necessarily begging them to stay, and they certainly aren’t replacing them with other litigators.

According to Great Jakes web marketing, most traffic on a law firm website goes right to lawyer bios (see the chart). This is exactly where marketing-savvy lawyers want it to go. So, why are they neglected?

The reason is deep in the attorney psyche, according to marketing consultant Amy Knapp. "Attorneys are slow to accept the real way that clients make hiring decisions. The person whom the client (1) Knows, (2) Likes and (3) Trusts, in that order, gets the job. So why wouldn’t the purpose of a bio be to make one known, likable and trustworthy?" she says.

Before I tell what works, here's what does not get new clients:

• Old articles (over 3 years) and anything you wrote in law school.
• Neglect: a bio that is out of date.
• Text that goes on and on (and the opposite: one content-free paragraph).
• No picture.
• Bios that start out with where you were born or went to school.
• No links to your speeches and articles.

Elements of a bio that do generate new business are:

• Peer reviews and recommendations from other lawyers.
• Client reviews and testimonials.
• Case histories of results obtained for clients.
• Text describing how you work with clients.
• A recent color picture. See How to Pick a Good Picture of Yourself.

Here's a great example:

Read "Turning Your Bio into a Magnet for Business," a short article I wrote about how you can create your own personal brand.

PRESENTED BY: The Ackert Advisory  and Apollo Business Development
SPEAKERS: David Ackert and Larry Bodine, Esq. 
DATE: Thursday, May 24, 2012 - one-hour program
   ♦ 10 am Pacific ♦ 11 am Mountain ♦ Noon Central ♦ 1 pm Eastern
LOCATION: on the web, on your computer
WEBSITE: www.PBDI.org

Mike O'Horo of Rainmaker VT joins David Ackert and me in this live program about how to overcome your partners’ and associates’ reluctance to bring in new business and how to create a vibrant "sales" culture.  

As many people as you wish can join at one location. Registration is $300.

In this webinar, you will learn:

• Why are lawyers frustrated by their efforts or reluctant to market?

• Which resources are most effective in shifting lawyers’ attitudes and behaviors?

• What can law firms do to create proactive, methodical approaches to business development at their firms?

• How can law firms improve their "sales culture"?

The program will include a live Q&A so you can get your specific questions answered by the experts. Join us and learn the strategies that will maximize your legal team’s rainmaking potential.

Click here to sign up for this event.

ABOUT THE FACULTY

Mike is the co-creator of the first Interactive virtual business development training program for lawyers. He has more than 35 years of experience in sales, marketing, strategy and sales training. Rainmaker VT is a virtual world where lawyers learn by doing. In simulated networking events, sales calls and beauty contests, lawyers manage an avatar through a series of "say/do" decisions, receiving context-sensitive video coaching that explains why each choice was or wasn't optimal. Learn, make mistakes and polish your biz dev skills privately before applying them successfully in the real world. 

David is the President of The Ackert Advisory, a business development consulting firm that has been helping lawyers and their firms develop clients since 1997. He is also the founder of Practice Boomers, a business development e-learning program that shows lawyers how to grow their book of business. He has written for and contributed to many publications including the LA Times, The National Review, and the Daily Journal. He has participated on numerous panels and been the keynote speaker at events on business development. He is also a guest lecturer at USC Marshall School of Business.

Larry is the Editor in Chief of Lawyers.com, the top online destination for legal news for consumers. For the previous 11 years he trained lawyers in business development, personal marketing and online client generation. He advised more than 250 law firms in partner retreats, personal coaching and strategic planning. Larry has written daily updates on the LawMarketing Blog since 2004. A former litigator, he writes and speaks actively to lawyer groups about modern ways to get new busines.

Check out these 10 marketing tips from Mark Herrmann, the Vice President and Chief Counsel – Litigation at Aon, which sells risk management services, insurance and reinsurance, and management consulting. He is author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law, and writes for Above The Law.

To generate new business by writing articles:

1. Write about a substantive issue, not a procedural one. No one cares about Rule 403.

2. Write about a niche area of the law. ("Colorado escheat law," not "real estate."

3. Write an article that is intelligent and well-written. You’re trying to attract business here, not repel it.

4. Write an article that is relevant to in-house lawyers or business people.

5. Publish the article in an appropriate trade, not legal, journal.

6. After you’ve written the article, distribute it widely via email.

7. Deploy your colleagues to distribute the article.

8. Hand out the article at beauty contests.

9. Use the article to generate speaking engagements.

10. Write the same article again, and place it in another publication.

The full article is at Inside Straight: The Ten Rules For Writing Articles To Generate Business

I've seen the future of legal marketing and it's Spreecast -- a new online video conference service that enables lawyers to broadcast a video instantly, and to invite clients and prospects to attend and participate.

Hats off to social media maven Mitch Jackson, a successful trial lawyer at Jackson and Wilson in Laguna Hills, CA, for introducing me to Spreecast. Mitch is all over social media and is particularly skilled at video.

Spreecast is free. All you need is a laptop with a webcam. I recommend you add it to your marketing toolbox today.

Mitch interviewed me online last night (see below) about online marketing, and it felt like we were in the same room. Many people attended the live web presentation and could watch -- and participate.

As the moderator, Mitch clicked in the admin screen and an attendee's webcam image appeared on screen. I talked live with David M. Ward of Attorneymarketing.com - it was so cool to see him and hear him live. Lawyers can use this technique by having a marketing professional interview them, or the lawyer can interview a client or colleague.

It took me only 30 minutes to figure it out. Caveat: it's glitchy and buggy -- the video quality can be poor and the sound cuts in and out. I blame my slow Internet connection.  But Mitch has Spreecast down pat -- check out how clear his image and audio are.  I can't wait to do this again.

When you read this statistic, let it sink in:

3 out of 4 consumers seeking an attorney over the last year used online resources at some point in the process

The way consumers look for a lawyer has changed in today's digital age. The advent of social media, smart phones and search engines has dramatically affected the way consumers find lawyers.

Think about it. Would you ask your neighbor whom to call if you were charged with a crime? Would you ask your relatives to help you shop for a divorce lawyer? I don't think so.

You'd rather research these issues in private by opening your laptop. And with smart phones now outselling computers, a wide swath of consumers can conduct an online search.

Read the latest research from LexisNexis (where I work) about how clients look for lawyers.

The Attorney Selection Research Study was conducted by The Research Intelligence Group during February 9-15, 2012. There were 4,000 completed interviews of people 18+ years old, with quotas to reflect the demographic proportion of Internet users within the United States. The statistical reliability is +/- 1.5% at the 95% confidence level.

You can't practice law today without knowing about the law as it applies to social media. Thanks to attorney April Besl at Dinsmore in Cincinnati for pointing out these important facts. Be sure to check out the invitation at the bottom of this guest blog post.

Check out the ABA's GPSolo eReport, which just published Surviving Social Media: Nearly All Small Firms Use Social Media in Legal Marketing by yours truly. Discover that:

• 90 percent of lawyers use professional social networks like LinkedIn and MyLegal.com.
• 88 percent write blogs.
• 73 percent use Twitter.
• 68 percent use consumer social networks like Facebook and Google+.
• 51 percent use video networks like YouTube and Vimeo.
• Only 19 percent use social question-and-answer sites like Wikipedia, Quora, and Yahoo Answers.

Joining the crowds online, lawyers in small firms are actively sending updates, tweets, and blog entries to promote their practices. In fact, 91% of lawyers in small firms (one to five lawyers) plan to implement social media as part of their marketing programs, according to research by Vizibility Inc. and LexisNexis. This is a higher percentage than law firms in general, of which 81 percent report plan to use social media marketing tools.

It’s true that LinkedIn Is a Happy Hunting Ground for Lawyers. Rule No. 1 of law firm marketing is to “go fishing where the fish are.” That fishing hole is LinkedIn, where 100 million executives and in-house counsel have profiles. In my opinion, if you’re not on LinkedIn, you are invisible online.

For all the statistics visit Surviving Social Media: Nearly All Small Firms Use Social Media in Legal Marketing

Collaborate and Succeed!

June 5 & 6, 2012

Mid-America Club, Chicago 

• Don't miss out on RainDance 2012 ~ the conference that will provide you with practical tools to bring back to your firm and put to use right away.

• Each session will be interactive with audience participation, table work, Q&A's or assignments, providing you with a great opportunity to share ideas with your peers.  

• All attendees will receive "Why Do Clients Choose the Firms They Do?".  This is an exclusive study conducted by Acritas, the world's most comprehensive study of the global legal market, which explores the processes currently involved in selecting law firms, the key considerations, best pitch highlights and why businesses ultimately choose the firms they do.

• Register now and join your peers from these and other firms....

Now you can have Mike O'Horo, David Ackert and me in the room at the same time, telling you how to get other lawyers in the firm to generate more files.

We'll be broadcasting live on the web in 14 days about How to Motivate the Next Generation of Rainmakers. Register now to get the 15 early discount.

This program directly answers the question:

How do we get our lawyers to generate new business for the firm?

In this live webinar, you will learn:

• Why are lawyers frustrated by their efforts or reluctant to market?
• Which resources are most effective in shifting lawyers’ attitudes and behaviors?
• What can law firms do to create proactive, methodical approaches to business development at their firms?
• How can law firms improve their "sales culture"?

Register by Friday, May 18 to get the 15% early discount -- registration for $255.
As many people as you wish can join at one location. After May 18 registration is $300.

How to Motivate the Next Generation of Rainmakers
PRESENTED BY: The Ackert Advisory and PBDI
SPEAKERS: David Ackert, Mike O'Horo and Larry Bodine
DATE: Thursday, May 24, 2012
   ♦ 10 am Pacific ♦ 11 am Mountain ♦ Noon Central ♦ 1 pm Eastern
LOCATION: On the web, on your computer
MORE INFO: Larry Bodine; (Tel) 630.942.0977 or Lbodine@Lawmarketing.com
WEBSITE: bit.ly/attorneymarketing  

How you present your services when you are pitching for new business makes all the difference. Here's a guest blog post by Roger Ledin of Legal Process Consulting, Inc. in Lakeville, MN. He he can be reached at rledin@legalprocessconsulting.com.

When a potential client asks why they should do business with your firm, do you struggle for an answer more substantive than, “because we’re really good lawyers?” Clients increasingly want to see the “why” that sets your firm apart – and Legal Process Improvement (LPI) can help provide the answer.

LPI helps you understand, and therefore better market, the detail behind your services. On many occasions for RFPs and marketing presentations, I have provided process diagrams of proposed services that clients can immediately relate to and then use as a benchmark for competitor comparisons. Setting the standard leaves a lasting impression and can significantly improve your chances of winning the business. 

The following simple example shows the roles, responsibilities, and sequence of tasks from drafting through signature of a real estate purchase agreement. These process diagrams should be easy to understand with the boxes representing key tasks and the color coding designating responsibilities. This task and assignment information can then be used to set expectations for responsibilities and delivery of service. Getting everybody on the same page helps eliminate dropped handoffs and missed assignments.   

Example: real estate purchase agreement.

Key: blue = buyer firm
Red = client (buyer)
Green = seller

Clients really like these visuals because of the clarity provided. In addition, with many clients already employing process improvement disciplines, speaking the “language of process” provides a distinct advantage. Your firm, in turn, reaps the benefits from the process improvements that help not only your firm’s bottom line, but also client satisfaction as delivery of services is more consistent and predictable.

I don't always drink beer, but when I do... I keep ENLawyers number on hand.

• Berg Injury Lawyers announced free cab rides home in San Francisco in a press release.
• Eldridge & Nachtman DUI lawyers put celebration advice from your Maryland Lawyer on its website. Hilariously, they offer advice from The Most Interesting Man in the World.
• PI lawyer Brian G. Price of Kingston, PA, wishes online visitors "Happy Cinco de Mayo – from Your Spanish speaking lawyer."

I recommend that you download Nielsen’s recent State of the Hispanic Consumer: The Hispanic Market Imperative report right now. Then read it, highlight key points and memorize it. The U.S. Hispanic population is the largest minority segment and is growing dramatically. The future legal economy will depend on Hispanics because of demographic changes and cultural shifts. 

• Latinos are a fundamental component to law firm success, and not a passing niche on the sidelines.
• Latinos are tech-savvy, are active in social media, go online with smart phones and watch a lot of online video.
• Rapid Latino population growth will persist, even if immigration were somehow to be completely halted.
• Latinos have significant buying power, despite perceptions to the contrary.
• Hispanics want their kids to speak Spanish as well as English.
• Rather than disappearing into the American melting pot, Hispanic culture is being preserved as a feature of American culture. Can you say benvenidos?
• Technology and media use do not mirror the general market but have distinct patterns due to language, culture, and ownership dynamics.
• Latinos exhibit distinct product consumption patterns -- they purchase less often but spend more when they do.

Tiene su negocio habla español? It's time your law firm did.

I found a fascinating post by David Meerman Scott on the Social Media Today blog about the superior effectiveness of LinkedIn for converting online visitors from businesses into leads.

LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.60%, four times higher than Twitter (.67%) and seven times better than Facebook (.39%). The stats are based on a study of 3,128 business customers of the marketing agency HubSpot.

This is good to know because 91% of lawyers in small firms (one to five lawyers) plan to implement social media as part of their marketing programs, according to research by Vizibility Inc. and LexisNexis.

"This data clearly shows that LinkedIn is a good lead source. But few B2B companies use LinkedIn to its full potential," writes Scott, who is a marketer for the agency.

This news comes with the introduction of LinkedIn “Targeted Updates, which allows a law firm to target certain followers specifically and exclusively deliver content to them. In other words, with this feature not only can a firm segment its LinkedIn followers by a range of variables such as industry, job function, company size and geography but also deliver them targeted content. Check out the quick video about it.

For more information, download HubSpot's free ebook  Learning LinkedIn From the Experts: How to Build a Powerful Business Presence on LinkedIn. In it, five LinkedIn specialists provide insight into how you can use LinkedIn to successfully grow your network and business.

Today Yahoo! launches its new Marketing Dashboard, which lawyers can use to see what is being said about them online, check directory listings, measure website traffic, and manage email and pay-per-click campaigns -- all in one place.

In development since last December, the Yahoo dashboard saves time by collecting marketing information stored in different locations -- such as the results of Constant Contact email campaigns or Google Analytics reports about traffic to a lawyer's website. Lawyers can create a free business profile at http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/marketing-dashboard that links all the data together.

The purpose is to get new clients online. The dashboard is a command center where a lawyer can analyze marketing efforts, spot trends and see which online initiatives are working. The free version has several modules:

• Local Visibility is a service that sources more than 100 search engines and directories like Google, Yelp and YP.com to show where a law firm is listed online. Users can add profiles to directories where they can make corrections and add profiles where they are missing.
• Reputation Tracker gathers ratings, reviews and mentions from up to 8,000 online sources and provides a glimpse of a lawyer's two most recent reviews. It shows an overall star rating and a breakdown of positive and negative reviews.
• Site Traffic displays a law firm website's most popular pages, which web sites and search engines are sending visitors and top keywords that are search to find the firm website.
• Campaigns shows the results of search engine optimization, email and online advertising campaigns.
• Orders reports online orders and revenue. Not many attorneys sell things online so this will be less relevant to lawyers.

The Yahoo dashboard is a service that will encourage lawyers to market online, by making measurement easy. You can't beat the price. The paid version includes upgrades that cost $52 to $124 per year and will be valuable to lawyers who are serious about finding new business online.

Click to enlarge image.