Law Buzzer

Posts Tagged ‘Lawyers’

From the largest national firms to the solo practitioner, these days everyone has a website. Unfortunately, not everyone has a truly business development-driven website. Forget for a moment the world of technology…we challenge firms to use their online presence as more than just a showplace and focus on the words, the message and the BRANDING that can stimulate business development. Sure, visitors may be impressed with your tech-savvy but what makes them stay and read is good, clear, interesting content that reinforces your points of differentiation.

Websites are truly one of the easiest ways to give potential clients (and others) a good picture of who you are and what you do and have the added bonus of being easily updated on a moment’s notice. It is the only vehicle that can present up-to-the-minute information about what’s happening within your firm. Don’t let your site get carried away with the bells and whistles of technology… let it be driven by your brand message. Here are our top tips for making content the star of your site…

Stay True To Your Brand Nothing is more of a disconnect than a firm website that takes on an entirely new visual identity. Your site should reflect your firm, from the brochures and advertising to the overall personality (the lawyers, the office, the practice focus)—websites aren’t the time to try something new. Stay true to your tone, your color scheme, and your voice and remember: Repetition, Repetition, Repetition.

Be Clear About What You Do I can’t tell you how many law firm websites I’ve visited where it took me a few minutes to understand what they specialize in. Take the time to have a clear logo, full firm name and brief synopsis of what you do on the home page. Also be sure that your navigation bar is well organized and easily visible.

Be Concise But Informative Your firm website is a great place to expand on information you may have left out of other marketing materials, but be sure to edit yourself. Few people are looking to read pages of information so make use of graphic elements like pullout quotes, big words and powerful statements to get your brand message across. If you must go longer than two or three paragraphs consider using subheads between them to better organize the information. This will allow readers to scan the page and still understand your points of differentiation. Hook readers with a strong opening statement and make use of a “more” link for those who want to read on.

Make It Easy To Find You Don’t make potential clients (or even journalists and referral sources) search all over to find your contact information. Have a clear “Contact Us” button with all of the relevant information… including a phone number! In fact, we often advise clients to list their phone number on every page. For firms looking for publicity, you may consider a “newsroom” page listing contact information for your marketing director (or managing partner) as well as recent firm news and mentions.

Be Client-Friendly Think like the client. What would you like to know? That means keeping attorney bios clearly organized and easy-to-read; practice area descriptions free from legalese; and (once again) contact information clearly labeled and thorough. You might also consider adding a specific contact person for each practice area to allow clients instant access to the people they need. For firms in large cities it’s never a bad idea to include a map (or link to one) showing where your office is located as well as information on parking or other general tips.

Update Your Site Often Be honest when planning your site. If your firm events occur only once a year…don’t put up an events page. If you’re not able to keep up with blog posts… don’t add a blog. Be aware of what’s online and make the necessary adjustments—especially when it comes to personnel. Encourage attorneys to update their bios to include a new focus, new notable cases or new recognitions.

When it comes to your site the easiest way to ensure it’s kept on track is to designate one person to oversee all content—ask around the office, you may find an assistant or associate with a tech background or interest who will give the site the attention it needs. Another tool is to employ Google Analytics. Simple to set up, this service will let you see where your visitors are coming from and help you tailor your content to make the most of their time there. Whether you have 30 visitors or 30,000, in the end, taking 10 or 15 minutes a week (or even a month) to evaluate and update your firm website can make all the difference in the world.

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You don’t want just any Albuquerque law firm to handle your personal injury case. It’s important with something that could impact your life, your future health, and your ability to provide for your family that you place your trust in hands that have the experience and skill to handle your case and see it through to the end.

Don’t be swayed by the biggest ad in the phone book or the slickest advertisement on television. Do the following things to help you find the law firm that is best suited to handle your personal injury claim.

Do a little investigating of your own. A law firm with multiple attorneys and a good deal of experience will enable you to benefit from the collective pool of education and experience that each attorney represents. This means that you have more people working to win your case and get you the compensation for your injuries that will help you pay medical costs, rehabilitation expenses, and make up for lost wages now and in the future as the result of your injuries.

Find out how many lawyers the firm has, what specialties are represented by the firm, and what kind of record they have when it comes to winning cases that go to trial and/or receiving settlements for their clients. You want an Albuquerque law firm with a winning track record.

Make your own “Fab Five” list and schedule a consultation with each of the firms on your list. This allows you to compare them against one another to see which one is a better fit for you. Interview the attorney who will be handling your case and see if you feel confident he or she will fight hardest for you. That is the most important thing to look for when finding an Albuquerque law firm for your personal injury case.

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Lawyers who want to market their firm could learn a lot from journalists about how to make the most of one basic news item.

Most journalists find themselves writing the same story over and over again because when there’s very little around that’s genuinely new, the media has to find new angles on old stories to fill their papers and bulletins.

That’s why so many of the stories you see in the media are merely variations on a theme that has been explored many times before. Solicitors who want to give their law firm marketing an extra push can use the same approach.

They should be able to get several bursts of publicity from the same story if they play their cards right.

Three times for emphasis

One good way for solicitors to get publicity is by commenting on changes in the law. To get the most out of the story, however, you should aim to tell us about it at least three times – preferably more than that.

The format for this is very simple:

tell us what’s going to happen with this new change in the law;
tell us again when it’s happening; and
tell us yet again when it’s happened.

The drill

This is how it works in practice.

As soon as you hear of a proposed change in the law, whether in draft legislation or a government statement, fire off a press release to your local media warning what will happen should such a proposal come into force. It doesn’t matter whether you are for or against the proposal. As long as you can argue that it will affect the public one way or the other then the media are likely be interested.
Then in the week that it’s due to come into force, you will have another chance to market your law firm by sending off another press release updating your views. It doesn’t matter if your views haven’t changed. You can say the same things again and still get coverage because, by now, several months will have passed and the fact that the law is coming into force makes it news again.
Then, a few months later, you fire off yet another press release saying what effect this new law is actually having now it’s a reality. You might argue that it has been a failure and should be scrapped immediately. Or you might say it’s been a triumph and more people should come forward to your firm to get the full benefit of what it has to offer.

It gives you three bites at the same cherry, but in fact there will probably be far more opportunities than that if you exploit other landmarks in a bill’s passage such as first and second readings, amendments and so on.

Don’t worry about saying more or less the same thing several times with just a few modifications. Journalists have been doing that for years as a way of meeting deadlines and filling column inches. It has never bothered them and neither should it worry anyone wanting to market their law firm.

Pune, India, 19 May 2009

Although legal services outsourcing has garnered a lot of media attention, there still is a sizeable proportion of the legal community that has not considered outsourcing legal services to lower cost destinations.

Offshoring of legal services to India began way back in 1995 when law firm Bickel & Brewer opened a captive facility in India. The legal services outsourcing industry started to attract significant attention only around 2005. In a matter of just a few years, the industry has grown to reach $225 million in revenues in 2008. However, this is only a very small portion (<5%) of the addressable market. According to the recent survey results, there is a low perceived benefit of outsourcing legal services amongst law firms and (if not addressed) this is likely to stunt the growth of the LPO industry.

Most of the law firms are relatively new in terms of their offshoring initiatives and have not integrated offshoring in their overall strategy. A large number of law firms, irrespective of their size, are apprehensive about sending their legal work to another country. While this does result from lawyers not being convinced about the benefits of offshoring, they also indicate concerns such as data security, client confidentiality and quality of work delivered.

Cost reduction was rated as the primary driver for offshoring legal services. Other significant drivers include client pressure to cut costs by offshoring, increasing workload, time differences and competitors’ decisions to offshore. According to Neeraja Kandala, lead analyst – Legal Services, “There seems to be some awareness about the benefits of offshoring, especially amongst those who offshore. However, for the majority, the drivers do not seem to be strong enough. Obviously, the benefits do not appear to be substantial to help over-ride their concerns.”

Data security and quality of work delivered emerged as the key concerns for law firms. Given the confidential nature of legal documents, it is understandable that law firms have apprehensions on the security aspect.

While several leading and experienced offshore legal service providers take adequate precautions to ensure that there is no data theft, this needs to be communicated to the law firms in a more convincing manner. Further, service providers need to gain the confidence of buyers that a satisfactory end product will be delivered. According to Arun Jethmalani, CEO, ValueNotes, “This is the challenge for the provider community as a whole, but inconsistency in quality between the good and not-so-good providers will remain a problem until sufficient maturity is achieved – both by buyers and sellers.”

The ValueNotes report: “Legal Services Outsourcing: What do Law Firms Think?” provides an understanding of the offshoring awareness, drivers and concerns of US and UK based law firms. The survey throws light on the perceptions towards the associated risks and rewards of outsourcing legal services to low cost destinations.

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If we want to hire lawyer, then it will be better if we have a good understanding about the type of lawyers available, so we can decide which lawyer type that suits us the most. Understanding the type of lawyer is so important because it can determine the result that we will get if we are facing a law problem. Here are some of them. The first lawyer type is administrative lawyer. This lawyer will help us on the city administration and judicial system, so it will be better to choose one that has an education on the government law.

The second type of lawyer is car accident lawyer. We can ask their help if the insurance company is unable to support us or we feel that there is an injustice occurring. The third lawyer that we can find on law firm is civil lawyer. This lawyer helps us on any of our problems like property problem. Fourth is corporate lawyer that help our company in dealing with law problems like administration or sue to our company.

The fifth type is credit lawyer that will help us on handling our credit problem and even help us to reduce our credit rate. Divorce lawyer is the sixth type; the lawyer will help us to get our right on the divorce process. We can find many lawyers Mississauga and we have to be so selective.

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Finding a law firm in Washington is just about as easy as finding a museum, monument, or lobbyist. This is not surprising seeing as how it is the political center of the most powerful nation in the world. The large number of Washington law firms, however, can make it difficult for people to decide which one they should hire for legal advice and services.

Choosing Washington Law Firms that Suit Your Needs

The first thing that you need to realize before hiring any of the Washington law firms is that firms usually have many attorneys that specialize in specific areas of the law. You will therefore need to find a law firm that can give you the experienced legal services that are directly related to your situation.

For instance, if you have recently written a book, then you might want to consider the Washington law firms that focus on copyright laws. If you need defense in a court-martial trial, then you will want to find Washington law firms that have attorneys experienced with JAG so that they understand how military laws apply to you.

There are many different types of issues that Washington law firms might focus on, so be sure to get the information that will help you pick one with the experience you need.

Choosing Full-Service Washington Law Firms

Court trials might make headlines, but most legal work takes place behind the scenes. In fact, most lawyers rarely, if ever, go to trial. That does not mean, however, that you should feel comfortable hiring a law firm that does not have significant experience in front of a judge and jury.

Choosing full-service Washington law firms means looking for firms that hire professional attorneys with a wide range of skills. Some of them should focus on filling out and filing legal forms, giving legal advice on subjects that relate to you, or defending clients in front of a judge.

When you hire Washington law firms that can give you all of the legal services that you might need, you get the chance to choose the options that are best for you.

Choosing Washington Law Firms with Professional Reputations

Before you hire any of the Washington law firms, you should ask them to give you references so you can talk to their other clients about the level of professionalism that they got from the attorneys. You should always hire Washington law firms with professional reputations because they are usually the most reliable options.

While you need information about how successful the Washington law firms have been in court, it is equally important to learn about the options that they give their clients so that they can make the best decision rather than immediately going to court to boost their firm’s statistics. You should be able to determine how reliable the Washington law firms are when you talk to their other clients about he legal services and advice that they have gotten from the attorneys in the recent past.

For more information about trademark application and provisional patent application visit Aplegal.com.

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Choosing a Law School can be a difficult decision.  Besides the obvious things such as ranking, expense, location and reputation many potential law students are interested to know what famous attorneys came from the schools they are thinking of attending.  Yet, unless someone does independent research on numerous institutions or wants to research the backgrounds of a particular attorney they are a fan of there is no real good resource that provides such information.  To remedy this, I thought I’d pick out a handful of my favorite attorneys and list where they got their Juris Doctors from.

My personal favorite attorney has to be former California Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi of ‘The Manson Murders’ fame.  Mr. Bugliosi was able to convict Charles Manson despite the fact that Manson never was actually at the crime scene and committed his crime by brainwashing and planning the Tate/La Bianca murders from afar.  He has since gone on to be an internationally acclaimed writer beginning with the legendary ‘Helter Skelter’ and including the more recent ‘Outrage’ and ‘The prosecution of George W. Bush For Murder’.  Vincent Bugliosi attended UCLA Law School and graduated in 1964.

Next up is the famous ‘country’ lawyer and tv commentator, Gerry Spence.  Mr. Spence is well known as a commentator during the OJ Simpson trials and has the distinction of having never lost a case in 40 years.  He attended the University of Wyoming Law School gaining his degree in 1952.  He is known for pioneering the ‘Matlock’ style of ‘narrative’ lawyering.  He uses stories, allegories, metaphors and carefully crafted emotional hooks to convince a jury of his convictions.

No list would be complete without Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School.  Besides his role in the OJ trial, Mr. Dershowitz has obtained a reputation as a great civil liberties lawyer.  He graduated first in his class at Yale Law School and was Editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal.  He has one of the most prestigious client lists of any attorney including such notables as Michael Milken, Leona Helmsley, Mike Tyson, Penthouse, Patricia Hearst, John Landis and even fellow attorneys F. Lee Bailey(Boston University Law School 1960) and William Kunstler(Columbia Law School).

Speaking of the OJ Simpson trial, Johnnie Cochran attended Loyola University School of Law in Los Angeles as did the fiery tv and radio commentator Gloria Allred.  Barry Scheck of the ‘Innocence Project’ at Cardozo Law School got his degree at UC Berkeley School of Law.  Robert Shapiro, OJ’s lawyer through much of the early stages of the trial attended UCLA Law School.  On the other side of the court, Marcia Clark attended Southwestern University School of Law and Christopher Darden attended the University of California, Hastings College of The Law.  Finally on the other side of the bench, judge Lance Ito obtained his law degree from UC Berkeley (1975).

Finally, I thought I’d throw in some of my own personal favorites mostly based on their accomplishments and personality.  I’m a big fan of the radio host Larry Elder and Larry got his JD from the University of Michigan School of Law in 1977.  His sometime rival on KABC radio is civil rights attorney Leo Terrel who attended UCLA School of Law.  Since Larry’s been off the air I’ve become a fan of Mark Levin who got his JD from Temple University.  Mark has achieved tremendous success over the past two years and most recently authored his best selling book ‘Liberty and Tyranny’. 

While there are many great law schools, sometimes a look at their most prominent alumni can give an idea of the style of law and particular strengths and character of the school.  For more great articles and insight on Law School please visit www.TopTenLawSchools.com.

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“Why should I bust a gut, I’m not a legal partner
so I ain’t gonna earn more out of doing this!”

That’s something you hear in all firms.

It made me think of the “up or out” system within law firms.
If you are good enough you make partner and share in the success.
If not, you’re part of the “rest”.

At least that’s how it seems to many people that work as lawyers.
If there’s a “them and us” culture in your firm it means that people are not co-operating.
It’s more likely that they are competing.

Many people assume wrongly that competition brings out the best in people.
And the Darwinian “survival of the fittest” is often
used as a scientific justification of this type of approach.

But does competition really help your law firm internally?

When someone wins – someone loses. And 99% of people have been taught they
if they are not winners they are losers.

And if you lose how does it affect you and your staff?

If the answer is negatively then you are duty bound to find an alternative.
And that is co-operation. Co-operation is win/win.

It’s coaching staff so that you can transfer knowledge
It’s finding best practise and disseminating it,
It’s scheduling work so that everyone gets interesting things to work on.
It’s not having favourites
It’s saying someone is different not better,
It’s helping not hindering.

Think about how Amazon allows co-operation between store owners and buyers.

Or how Linux allows programmers to co-operate on open source software.

Or how Betfair lets punters bet against each other.

There’s an old football saying that there is no i in team.

So if you aren’t referring internally, working with business as partners
or simply taking the time to help each other
then you are probably over-competing.

Try a bit of un-learning.
Try a bit more co-operation in your law firm.

Put on your next management meeting the words…
How Can We Co-operate More In Our Firm

And Externally With Partners To Make Our Business Win Win?
And make sure you invite all staff to contribute with
their ideas as to how you can market your solicitors firm better.

PS It is not the case that Darwin coined the term “survival of the fittest”.
When you think about it, his theories demonstrated that by co-operating
in distinct niches animals had the best chance of surviving.
It was the exploitation of these niches that was observed.
What niches can you law firm thrive in?

Please visit my legal marketing website at http://www.GreatLegalMarketing.co.uk