Law Firm Marketing Consultant : 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

I just found the website of artist Richard Stergulz, who will create funny custom drawings featuring lawyers at www.yournameherecartoons.com.  You choose the person’s name (or law firm name) to be inserted into the cartoon caption.

A small cartoon unframed is $75, and the largest cartoon framed is $350. (Note: I get no compensation out of this, I just think it's a fun website).

My personal favorite is the "Mt. Rushmore" cartoon.  There are also cartoons with giant bulldogs, enormous cats and a jury holding up cards that say "10" in front of the smiling lawyer in the courtroom.  Take a look at the site and let me know which cartoon is your favorite.

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From "goofs, glitches, gotchas" on the inside back cover of Consumer Reportes:

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From the Collateral Damage blog:

• Ford features “Space Oddity” — a song about astronaut suicide — in new car campaign.
• Framingham State College  uses the word blah 137 times in a 312-word fundraising letter.
• Disney (multiple entries): Bans kids from DisneyWorld restaurant; Changes “It’s A Small World” to “A Salute to All Nations, But Mostly America”; and Sells “High School Musical” panties for tween girls with the phrase “Dive In” on them.
• Woolworths (UK) launches Lolita brand of beds for young girl
• JetBlue lives up to Southwest’s parody ad by charging for pillows.
• Russia uses smiling kids in tourism ad for war zone
• Residents of Lesbos sue those other lesbians over brand name
• Motrin gets headache from viral moms video
• Butcher’s ads feature “Meat Products, Fresh Service” on naked woman
• Hershey asks if you’ve found Mr. Goodbar

Special Jury Awards

Co-Branding That Shouldn’t Have Been

• Windows Vista toilet paper
• The Muppets appear on DVD for Law & Order: SVU
  
• Barbie® Rice Krispies® Treats
• P&G starts hip-hop record label (Bounce® and Beyonce? Jay Z and Oral B®? 50 Cent and Febreze®? Snoop Dogg and Eukanuba®? Ghostface Killah and Ghost®? Lil Wayne & Pampers®?)

The Alpha & Omega of Over-reaching

• God’s chosen racing team loses at the Indy 500
• “Pope’s Cologne Provides Solace to Grieving Widow”
• “Can Batman Teach Spiritual Truth?”
• Email service lets you taunt friends after The Rapture
• McDonalds compares Ray Kroc to Martin Luther King Jr.

Product Failure

• LifeLock ID protection service fails to protect CEO’s identity
• Anti-shark device found to attract sharks

The Penguins Of Irony “Oh NO You Din’t” Awards

• Publisher says bankruptcy puts magazine chain in “a position poised for wonderful growth
• WaMu continues to send credit card offers after going out of business

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Here are some samples:

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Audra Callanan has done it again. Following in her tradition of creating Mad magazine holiday cards and prescription-style candy pills to comprehend a Boston accent, she convinced her firm to send out wicked funny Thanksgiving cards featuring Abraham Lincoln holding a chunk of pumpkin pie on a gigantic fork.  Kudos to Audra, the Marketing Director of Hamilton Brook Smith & Reynolds in Concord, MA, for using humor and creativity to break out from the clutter of holiday greeting cards.

The firm engaged C.F. Payne, who has been called America's best-known contemporary illustrator, to create the jocular knockoff of Grant Wood's famous 1930 painting, "American Gothic."  HBS&R has 50 attorneys, patent agents and technology specialists who represent independent inventors, start-up companies and Fortune 500 companies, as well as academic and research institutions.  The firm is fully equipped with a sense of humor, a refreshing quality in these hard times.

How much of the symbolism can you figure out? Can you identity of the lamb-holding wife, comprehend the meaning of the house address "9" (right above the giant piece of pie), or know why a goggle-eyed Abe Lincoln is in the picture? What is the meaning of the giant windmills on the hills? Where is the firm logo?

For the answers, visit the LawMarketing Portal at http://www.lawmarketing.com/pages/articles.asp?Action=Article&ArticleCategoryID=58&ArticleID=830

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There's some buzz about a new client-lawyer matching service called "WhoCanISue.com." Some have called it a terrible idea that brings disrepute upon the profession, on the other hand, others say it borders on barratry, which is the unethical stirring up of quarrels and lawsuits.

My viewpoint of WhoCanISue.com is summed up by a hilarious video on YouTube that satirizes bad lawyer advertising, brought to you by the fictional law firm of Swindel & Scheister.  "We will sue everybody," says the ad, if you've ever been misunderstood, stung by a bee or annoyed by pop-up advertisements.

As somber music plays, the actors wear dress shirts, ties -- and shorts. Their buzz haircuts are right out of middle school, and one guy could sure use a shave.  But the mock-u-tisement says you can call them at 1-800-We-Will-Sue. 

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Quote from a dissent by Chief Justice Roberts in a Supreme Court decision issued June 23:

The absence of any right to the substantive recovery means that respondents cannot benefit from the judgment they seek and thus lack Article III standing. "When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose." Bob Dylan, "Like A Rolling Stone," on Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia Records, 1965).

The coolness of quoting Dylan is dissipated when you realize that Roberts -- like an English teach school marm -- tidied up what Dylan actually sang: “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.”

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Kudos to Frank Lopez, marketing director of 130-lawyer Hanson Bridgett in San Francisco, the firm put up a delightful video,  "The World Accordion to Hanson Bridgett."

Using music it demonstrate the firm's diversity, showing that people of all sorts of ethnic backgrounds cab play wonderfully together.

(I'm playing the video for the 7th time -- being part German, I love the oom-pah music, the Zydeco beat and the Hispanic enthusiasm.)

The brilliant move is part of a "new look" and new tagline -- "inspired" -- including a video of managing partner Andrew Giacomini  leading an accordion band through the streets of San Francisco.

"Want to see a law-firm managing partner walk down Market Street in Lederhosen and knee-highs, banging a bass drum to accordion music? Check out this YouTube link: http://inspired.hansonbridgett.com/," a firm announcement states.

"The Northern California firm formerly known as Hanson, Bridgett, Vlahos, Marcus & Rudy LLP again employs a progressive campaign to differentiate itself from the competition. This time the firm harnessed the power of the Internet and popularity of social networking to spread its new look and feel by "word of mouse."

"We examined the viral video medium and quickly recognized it was a great way to reach a new generation of people," Giacomini said. He in particular desires pervasive distribution of the video because "I want people all over the world to see me in Lederhosen."

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Here's a joke book for lawyers written by Giovanni Diviacchi, and "independent entertainment professional" in the Washington D.C. Metro Area: humor by lawyers about pain-in-the-neck clients.

It's a 38-page book you can get on Amazon.com for $9 at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805970398/ref=dp_bib_1

Here's a review from Amazon: "This short book serves as an excellent training guide for the all too serious novice lawyer about to embark on the real world of client-lawyer relationships. With a keen eye toward the peculiar personalities that afflict the human species and the blatantly outrageous behaviors that defy reason, Diviacchi reveals a bit too much of what may truly go on in the mind of the client and the daily world of the lawyer. The tales/jokes in this book will lighten up any stuffy dinner party."

And another: "I'm buying this book for all my friends in Law School and those already in the legal profession. It's refreshing to see the humor from the Attorney's perspective, since we always seem to be the butt of the jokes. It's one funny book!"

Giovanni's day job is being a Senior Business Analyst at Fannie Mae, but he's also standup comic who appears with the name Slimm Slappy.  He says the book has been awarded been awarded the prestigious The Stephen T. Colbert Award For The Literary Excellence, which is good enough for me.

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Inside Counsel magazine is giving its readers a chance to rate law firms on 8 factors, such as "quality of service" and "responsiveness." There are dozens of firms to choose from, and if your firm is not on the list -- you can yourself to it.  It's like voting for your favorite restaurant or TV show.

Editor-in-chief Robert Vosper asserts that only registered users who are in-house counsel can rank a firm.  However, It took me only 60 seconds to register and vote.  I am the corporate executive who selects the lawyers for one of several corporations I operate, so I am the VP and General Counsel.  I added one of my favorite client law firms to the list and gave it top rankings in value of service, quality of service, client/customer service, billing accuracy, adherence to budget, willingness to negotiate fees, value-added services and breadth of services.

I suppose some nasty person could pick out their competitors and give them low rankings. But people wouldn't do nasty things on the Web, would they?

The mag used to be called Corporate Legal Times and you can get a free subscription to Inside Counsel by clicking here. As of this moment, the top firms for value of service are:

1. O'Melveny & Myers
2. Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue
3. Seyfarth Shaw 

For quality of service the top three are:

1. Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue
2. Perkins Coie
3. Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal

Ironically, Vosper says in the "From the Editor" column in the January 2008 issue, "I've always found this whole ranking thing to be a bit unsavory.  Many of these lists are either pay-to-play or are based on data supplied by the law firms themselves."   [ I couldn't agree more.]

He goes on: "Few, if any, of these lists are helpful to in-house counsel.  Why is it important , for instance, that a firm is ranked among the top 100 grossing firms in the country (other than the fact these firms should be more willing do reduce their rates)?  And can you really trust that the data submitted by these firms is accurate?"  [You said it buddy!]

Then he totally blows it by saying, "With that in mind, we devised a law firm ranking that can't be gamed and is actually useful.  We are calling it the IC-I list."  [Sorry, you lost me.  Didn't you just say these phony-baloney rankings are "unsavory"?]

So tell your clients, consultants, marketers and buddies to register and vote for you. Call up a friend at another law firm and agree to vote for each other.  The results will be published in October.  Maybe then the publishers will start to give up on these silly rankings.

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