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

Last week, The American Lawyer 2012 Report on Growth of Am Law 100 Firms came out.  Here is a press release with its results:

NEW YORK – April 26, 2013 – *The nation’s 100 largest law firms achieved modest cumulative growth in 2012, gaining 3.4% in total gross revenue over the prior year to $73.4 billion, 2.6% in average revenue per lawyer to $844,245, and 4.2% in average profits per partner to $1.47 million, according to the 26th annual Am Law 100 report published in the May issue of ALM’s *The American Lawyer* and at AmericanLawyer.com.

However, 2012’s gains were uneven, with only 76 firms showing gross revenue increases, down from 80 in 2011, and 66 registering higher profits per partner, down from 72. In addition, profitability gains were concentrated among the higher-grossing firms. The 50 largest firms registered a cumulative 8.0% jump in profits per partner while the others fell 3.3%.

DLA Piper, powered by an 8.6% gross revenue spurt, topped the Am Law 100 with $2.44 billion, pushing former leader Baker & McKenzie, with $2.31 billion, into second place. Latham & Watkins with $2.23 billion took over third place from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom with $2.21 billion. Kirkland & Ellis retained fifth place. Jones Day took over sixth from Hogan Lovells, which fell to seventh. Sidley Austin held steady in eighth place as did White & Case in ninth. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher moved up to 10th place from 12th in 2011.

The law firms that prospered last year “tended to have an international footprint, a strong transactions group, and a diverse set of practice areas," wrote Robin Sparkman, Editor in Chief of *The American Lawyer*. "The boutique labor and employment and immigration firms were the exception.”

"Many of these firms also have a strong brand and are known by clients for standout work in a particular area," Sparkman added. "The firms that did well also held the line on their equity partner head count and continued to raise rates, increase billable hours, or both. Some stood out for capitalizing on high-growth industries.”

Among the stand-out firm performers, for better or worse, were:

   - Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, whose profits per partner leaped 36.5% due to a contingency class action payment in a Native American royalties rights case.

   - Bracewell & Giuliani, which scored the group’s largest profits per partner increase, 42.2%, based on high demand from their energy industry client list.

   - Immigration-focused Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, which rose 16 ranks to number 86, its first-ever appearance on the Am Law 100.

   - Barnes & Thornburg, Chadbourne & Parke, Cozen O’Connor and Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker fell out of the Am Law 100. Chadbourne was a 26-year veteran.

On his website, Mitch Jackson treats us with an analogy in the form of a five course dinner.  He shows how successfully negotiating and closing a deal is very similar to selecting and timing the courses of an important dinner party.

Mitch gets his point across with vivid imagery that will have your mouth watering and your stomach growling and maybe even the itch to go close that deal that has eluded you for months. Click here to read the full article.

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Closing a deal is a very similar experience. Go about things the right way and the negotiation will flow naturally and the deal will be one to remember. Skip a course or two and the other person just might get up and leave the communication table before the evening is over.

Start with the setting

You don’t serve a 5 course dinner on the lids of garbage cans in an alley behind the restaurant. Along those same lines, don’t try to negotiate an important deal over day old coffee in the parking lot of Wal-Mart while wearing a stained t-shirt.

Make sure that you’ve thought things through and have properly set your communication table—the place you’ll be serving your verbal meal– in a suitable fashion and location. Have your ducks in a row and remember to place your napkin in your lap, serve from the left, and clear from the right. Do what needs to be done to help ensure your surroundings are conducive to a meaningful discussion and presentation.

Now for the first course…

Start with something memorable. Tonight, we’ll be starting with essence of butternut squash, presented with a seared sea scallop, chive oil and young seedlings. Is your mouth starting to water? Mine is!

After a bit of small talk and building rapport, get immediate focus and attention by raising the problem or issue during the first course. 

Tip- Talk about the problem.

The second course

For your second course, we’ll be serving pan seared lump crab cake, presented with fire roasted corn and cilantro relish smoked chipotle aioli and butter poached leeks. While you enjoy this course and start to get in the mood for the main entre, spend some quality time talking in more detail about it the problem or issue. Discuss what bad things will happen if changes are not made. What are the short and long-term consequences of action or inaction? What will happen if things don’t get resolved and continue to drag on day after day and even year after year?

Tip- Discuss the short and long-term impact of the problem.

The third course

What better than to follow the crab cakes with a dish of roasted beet carpaccio, presented with seared goat cheese, beet syrup, aged balsamic reduction and mache greens. Do this correctly and your guest is already interested in what the next course will be.

You’ve got his attention. He knows why he’s sitting at the table and understands that action is needed or things will just get worse. Now is the time to show your guest how your idea will solve his problems. Working your way from the outside in, your utensils should include specific examples, metaphors and stories.

Tip- For the first time, reveal your specific solution to the specific problem of your guest.

The fourth course

Now that you’ve shared your solutions in the third course, knock your guest right off his chair with a fourth course consisting of something a bit more substantial. Let’s go with grilled fillet of beef, presented with caramelized shallot/red wine reduction, crisp truffle scented potato rosti, white asparagus and morel mushrooms. It might also be time to order another bottle of wine.

This course is all about substance and value. Show the other person exactly how your suggested solution will benefit him. Understanding that facts tell but stories sell, use the right utensils (words, pictures, testimonials, videos…) to continue showing your dinner guest how your product, service or idea will benefit and help him. Communicating and share major value and specific benefits, through stories and examples, are what the fourth course is all about.

Tip- Communicate the major benefits of your solution to your dinner guest.

The fifth and most important course

Click here to find out what is served for dessert!

Stephen Fairley offers a way to beat embarrassment you may feel when asking for referrals.

We know that many attorneys build a good portion of their practices on referrals – yet, why is it so many feel embarrassed to ask for a referral?

Stephen Fairley shares with us the #1 secret to boosting client referrals and retention in this blog post that can found on the Rainmaker Blog.

When it comes to communicating with clients, listening is often more important than talking. It is by listening that you learn what clients want, and then you can give it to them. Which makes for more referrals and better client retention.

Once again, The Rainmaker Blog publishes a compelling post. Many times you will have window shoppers on your website, read below for 8 ways to turn those browsers into buyers.

1. Position your firm as a specialist. When people search for attorneys online they have a specific problem (DUI, personal injury, etc) and they are searching for specific answers. If your firm has more than one practice area, the best practice is to have more than one website, especially if they have a very different clientele.

2. Offer free, educational information. Only a small percentage of website visitors are ready to commit to a consultation the first time they visit your website. Providing visitors with educational materials to help them make the best decision is a tried and true technique in Internet marketing. If you are an estate planning attorney, give them a free report on the "Top 10 Questions to Ask Before You Hire an Estate Planning Attorney."

3. Use fitting photos. Almost every legal website makes the mistake of using the same photo of the scales of justice or the courthouse steps. Be sure the pictures on your website are congruent with your message and your perfect client.

4. Give visitors easy ways to connect with you. I'm still astounded at how difficult many websites make it just to find their phone number or an email address that goes directly to an individual versus a "faceless entity." Make it easy for prospects to find all your contact information, even on their cell phone.

5. Create a mobile friendly site. Last year smart phones outsold computers! With slower speeds, smaller screens, the need for more immediate information, and the potential desire to easily call your office directly from their cell, a mobile version of your website is no longer a nicety, it is a necessity!

6. Tell visitors what the next steps are. If you want them to download your free report or call your office for a free consultation, tell them!

7. Use video clips on your website. Video is a proven converter. It gives visitors a way to see you as a real person, to hear in your own words how you can help them, and how you are distinct in your approach.

8. Provide a clear and compelling reason why you are different from your competitors. Online buyers of legal services visit an average of 5 websites prior to moving into the decision making phase. Explain to them in an easy to understand manner how your firm is different from others.

In this guest article,  Jason Winmill of Argopoint offers suggestions for outside counsel when firm selection processes and negotiations involve the procurement function.

Many corporations are starting to involve internal procurement groups in the process to select outside counsel. Unfortunately, some outside attorneys haven’t adapted to this development. Lost opportunities and frustrated outside counsel can result.

Suggestions for Outside Counsel to Work More Effectively with Corporate Procurement:

• Understand and Follow Procurement’s Process: The procurement function, at its best, strives to run a fair process. In some situations, outside counsel will accidently or deliberately try to thwart the procurement process (e.g., performing “end runs” to senior management). In my experience, this proves detrimental, and can disadvantage firms. Learn the “rules” and follow them in detail and in spirit; this is generally the best policy.
• Educate Procurement Where Possible: Procurement professionals are not all-knowing experts on all legal services, or your firm. There is often an opportunity to educate procurement. When possible, be generous with your time to help procurement achieve greater understanding of your firm and value.
• Ask Questions: Outside counsel often direct all their inquires during the selection process to in-house counsel.  However procurement objectives can differ. Therefore, I recommend asking procurement questions regarding their specific priorities (e.g., transparency) and respond accordingly. 
  
• Procurement Professionals are People too: To be sure, there are heavy-handed procurement professionals that give the function a bad name. Remember, just like lawyers, procurement professionals are often stereotyped. A focus on the personal dimension, when appropriate, can be an advantage.

Law firms that understand how to work with procurement can gain a competitive advantage.

To learn how procurement is working with legal departments at Fortune 500 companies, here is the full article on legal procurement.

My colleague at The Rainmaker Blog, Stephen Fairley, offers 5 ways to get more clients this year. Here they are:

1. Make marketing your priority. The primary objective of your business is the marketing of your professional services; your secondary objective is then the delivery of those services. Most attorneys have it backwards.

Simply because you may deliver excellent service and provide enormous value, clients do not automatically knock your doors down.

The key to building a long term, solid practice is the quality and consistency of your marketing much more than the actual delivery of your services. Working on your business is much more important than working in your business.

2. Choose positioning over prospecting. Positioning is building up your reputation so that prospects come to you. Those who position themselves correctly can pick and choose clients, whereas prospectors hustle and struggle to get clients.  Start positioning yourself as the "go-to" person for legal solutions by sharing your valuable knowledge, expertise, and education with prospects.

3. Use education-based marketing to attract new clients. This is the process used by industry leading service professionals to attract and enroll highly qualified prospects by giving them what they want, not by selling or promoting.

The key is to look for opportunities to create and give your information away, which in turn will position you as the expert. As a result, you will create a powerful magnet to pull clients to you.

4. Design, create and give away information products to generate leads. Many highly successful attorneys are avid writers and producers of information products. In terms of positioning, creating an information product will attract highly qualified prospects that view you as an expert in your field, and as a result, will pay top dollar to work with you.

5. Become a specialist, not a generalist. This is a big one. Highly successful attorneys are specialists at one thing. When people think of that one thing, the specialist comes to mind. Prospects who want that one thing will pay top dollar for the specialist.

Read his article at The Rainmaker Blog.

Manish Bhargava's article, "How Live Chat Turns Law Firm Website Visitors into Potential Clients," teaches us how to transform those visitors into clients.

To generate more clients for your law firm from your website, that site needs to attract visitors AND convince those visitors to contact you and request a consultation.

Let's say you're succeeding in driving visitors to your website with referral networks, a Google paid search (pay-per-click, or PPC) campaign, your search engine optimization program, a blog and other marketing techniques.

Congratulations!

But that is just half the battle.

What happens when after investing all that time and money to draw traffic to your website not enough visitors are calling or emailing to ask for a consultation? You have a "conversion" problem.

The solution: live chat.

Here's why:

1. Round-the-clock engagement.

Live chat operators can proactively engage your website visitors before they abandon by addressing their questions immediately, in real time, 24/7, 365 days a year.

Think about it: A potential client under stress, possibly upset and impatient, is searching your website but can't seem to find what they're looking for. Up pops a live chat window with an operator — not a software program, a professionally trained live operator — who answers questions about your firm.

Rather than abandoning and moving to another site, the visitor sticks around and is now engaged with your firm. Chat operators ask specific questions that are carefully placed in the transcript by you. The operator, after the chat session ends, forwards the information collected "as is" to you immediately, even after hours and on weekends.

Read the remainder of Manish Bhargava's article here.

When it comes to law firm marketing, it is truly a jungle out there! Mastering social media, SEO and Internet marketing strategies – and making sure your efforts align with legal marketing rules – can give even the most eager attorney pause.

• How to target market to get your ideal client
• Why your firm is not getting more referrals and how to change it
• How to select the right marketing tools that will work for your practice and personality
• Effective online and offline marketing strategies
• How to create a financial plan to fund your marketing budget
• The 5 critical components of a Marketing Action Plan (MAP)
• 4 ways to create a unique competitive advantage
• What is critical to have in place today’s hyper-competitive online focused marketplace