Is the Internet a good place to research critical issues? You bet, especially if you have the right guide.
The latest update of Sabrina Pacifici’s Competitive Intelligence Guide is available at LLRX.com. It is a leading pathfinder for those interested in finding and using the best Internet factual and legal resources. In the here-today-gone-tomorrow Internet universe, Pacifici’s reliability is a welcome anchor of insight and stability. Thanks for maintaining this invaluable resource.
I greatly enjoyed interviewing Carole Levitt as the first installment in our “Mover and Shaker” profile series. The review is available at LLRX.com. Carole’s contributions in the form of many books and innumerable CLE programs have made her a central figure in teaching lawyers how to use the Internet, and she was a great way to start off this series.
Here’s a draft article I’m working on for intended publication at LLRX.com in July. The issues we dealt with on the eLawyering Task Force concerning the use of technology to better provide legal services to consumers have continuing relevance. I welcome reactions/suggestions from entrepreneurs who are still struggling today with similar issues in the fields of AI and other cutting edge technologies. I’d love to include quotes from those on the current front lines:
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Sometimes you have to know where you’ve been to understand where you are.
The American Bar Association’s now-defunct e-Lawyering Task Force is dead, but not forgotten. The purpose of the Task Force was to smooth the way for lawyer entrepreneurs to better use the Internet to provide legal services to consumers. Several factors, including the success of Jack Newton’s book The Client-Centered Law Firm, are drawing new attention to the Task Force’s goals. Marc Lauritsen, Kat Moon and Dennis Kennedy Twitter discussed the Task Force’s results (or lack of results) on Twitter:
Note to Cat Moon: I was a rebel and I was allowed to be on the committee. It didn’t work out all that well.
I was a member of the ABA’s e-lawyering Task Force from around 2000 to about 2003. My experience may have some relevance. Sometimes you have to know what happened, good or bad, to steer a better course in the future. Continue Reading DRAFT Article–The ABA’s eLawyering Project: Lessons Learned
This morning’s edition of Attorney at Work features my review of Ann Long’s new book “A Short & Happy Guide to Advanced Legal Research.” It’s a pleasure to draw attention to such a fine book. I’ll be discussing some of Professor Long’s ideas here in future posts.
Matt Timko, our newest NewIdeasLegalTech.com contributor has lots of good ideas on time management. There is another way lawyers can improve their effectiveness:
Take care of their own fitness needs first. The book The Best Lawyer You Can Be: A Guide to Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Wellness, edited by Stewart Levine, addresses this important topic. The Digital Edge podcast has an interview with Levine.
Are lawyers who take care of themselves being selfish? Hardly.
Levine’s book contains a perfect metaphor: As airline stewards warn, if there is a loss of cabin pressure, passengers should first put on their own air masks. This is essential, since otherwise they won’t be able to assist other passengers. In the legal context, self-care enables lawyers to assist their clients, colleagues and family members.
Anne-Marie Rabago, former Director of the State Bar of Texas’s Law Practice Management Program, currently heading up Modern Juris, suggests that maintaining an appropriate level of physical fitness is a critical component of lawyer self-care. A few examples:
How about Jer? For the past few years I’ve worked out a minimum of seven hours a week, mostly fast walking, supplemented by three hard exercise bike workouts to raise heart rate to training level.
Am I wasting seven hours a week I could be working? Actually, it’s the time I spend working out that makes me more productive, as well as doing fun things like hiking Fox Hollow Trail in Shenandoah National Park.
What are you doing to maintain your health and physical fitness?
When I first began working primarily from home in March of 2020 due to COVID 19, I felt confident that this would be the start of the most efficient year of my life. I would have no commute, I would be able to schedule meetings (rather than have “drop-ins”), and I would have more comfort working from home and my personal workspace. Soon I realized, much to my chagrin, that my focus on a “lighter commute” missed the forest for the rees: working from home is working in a den of time thieves! Continue Reading Tech Tools for Improving Time Management
Conrad Saam’s Own the Map: Marketing Your Law Firm’s Address (ABA 2020) is an intriguing new book that will cause many lawyers to think about marketing in new—and better—ways. Many, especially lawyer marketing service vendors, will find Saam’s ideas controversial.
Saam’s primary thesis is that most lawyers should concentrate appealing to potential clients near the lawyer’s location. He develops this thesis convincingly but many will find his sometimes stunningly useful ideas about other aspects of lawyer marketing, like evaluating marketing efforts, even more valuable.
Mr. Saam has an impressive background in technical and practical aspects of law firm marketing. After a prominent role with Avvo he founded the marketing-for-lawyers business Mockingbird. He authors a blog on marketing topics. With Gyi Tsakalakis, he hosts the lively Lunch Hour Legal Marketing podcast.
Own the Map is a serious book for serious people. The first signs of this are in Chapter 1, on the subject of evaluating law firm marketing success. It is not just the first chapter, it is the longest, weighing in at 36 pages.
Many SEO vendors would rather ignore the key issue: What are you getting for your money? If you don’t keep score accurately how do you know whether you are winning or losing?
Saam’s emphasis on the bottom line is welcome in a market where many Search Engine Optimization (SEO) vendors pitch the idea that if you pay them enough money they’ll guarantee your firm will be in the first ten results, or (for even more money) will appear first for searches on a search request for a few cherry-picked phrases. This goal is fool’s gold for several reasons, including the phenomenon known as the “long tail.” This refers to the fact that more specific searches, like “attorney for child custody dispute with alcoholic husband,” “nursing home Covid-19 lawyer” or “non hodgkins lymphoma roundup tort liability” constitute the majority of searches.
Saam provides one golden tip: Don’t accept metrics generated by consultants using their favorite measuring sticks. Insist on results generated by the industry standard, Google Analytics, the most reliable and objective tool available.
Chapter 2 addresses the mysteries of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). “Organic search” refers to a search engine’s list of the websites most relevant to a particular search, unaffected by web pages artificially boosted to the top of the listing by advertising. While some of this material is unavoidably technical, Saam’s writing style conveys the ideas in a way even most lawyers without technical expertise will be able to understand and apply to their Internet marketing.
Saam’s analysis of “backlinks” is particularly valuable. Backlinks are probably the single most important factor Google uses in evaluating website quality. All a firm’s lawyers—not just the consultants you hire—need to understand the significance of backlinks in marketing.
Chapter 3, “Local Search,” deals with Saam’s favorite topic: How lawyers should deal with an environment where geography is destiny.
“Pizza near me.” “Honda repair near me.” “Ethan Allen near me.” Today’s consumers, especially those using smart phones, are used to using searches like “pizza near me.” Lawyers are not insulated from this trend. Searches like “personal injury lawyer near me” are popular. A survey by Search Engine Land showed that 82 percent of smart phone users perform “near me” searches.
Further, even if consumers don’t include the phrase “near me,” increasingly sophisticated search engines like Google can detect the potential client’s location and steer them toward local lawyers. This is particularly important since studies of Google (by far the most popular search engine) show that in 2017 show physical proximity was the most important criterion for nearly half of potential clients looking for lawyers. The number can only have increased since then. You may be the best DWI defense lawyer in your state but not many clients will be willing to drive 200 miles to hire you.
Chapter 4 deals with one of the most difficult and important topics: How can lawyers best use online advertising to raise their profile on the Internet? There are a bewildering number of alternatives. Avvo, Google Ads, Yelp, Ad Roll and others all beckon for your advertising dollars. Saam evaluates each and explains how well they suit the legal market. Some of his advice on tactical issues is quite controversial, including:
To his credit, Saam is not afraid to name names: Is Lawyers of Distinction better than Super Lawyers? Is Justia better than Martindale?
Chapter 5 deals with law firm websites. It explains technical issues like page loading speed, the best way to display your firm’s NAP (name, address and phone number) and mobile responsiveness (making a site look good on mobile phones and tablets as well as PCs) in a way that will make sense to lawyers who lack technical expertise. Again, Saam focuses on practical financial issues. He walks readers through the steps need to decide whether a website upgrade is likely to recoup the necessary investment.
Chapter 6 makes the most of its six pages, concisely addressing a hotly debated issue: Does use of social media make sense for lawyers? Saam’s answer is clear: “[I]n general, social media as a direct-to-consumer marketing channel for the legal industry is ineffectual.” He goes on to describe situations where the general rule may not apply and gives practical advice for those lawyers who want to explore the social media option.
The two-page Chapter 7 closes the book with some aspirational exhortations, including: “[N]ever let the marketing tail wag your law firm dog. Put differently, it’s much easier to market an amazing product than an average one.”
Weighing in at a svelte 121 pages, Own the Map has an unusually high good idea to page ratio. Siskind’s The Lawyer’s Guide to Marketing on the Internet was a bestseller for the ABA. It demonstrated that Internet marketing is not just possible, it is a necessity. I like to think that my book, The Complete Internet Handbook for Lawyers, contributed at least a little to lawyer understanding of this topic.
Own the Map is to these books as a Porsche is to a Yugo. It is by far the best current resource on this topic. Any lawyer interested in attracting more and better clients will find this book indispensable.
Own the Map is available from Amazon for $69.95 or direct from the publisher (discount for ABA members).
This review originally appeared at LLRX.com.
Kudos to the Virginia State Bar for their excellent online CLE conference, VSB Techshow 2021.
This series gets better and better every year. This year, organizers Chris Fortier, Sharon Nelson, and John Simek turned Covid 19 lemons into lemonade, taking advantage of increased popularity of online conferencing to bring in many nationally known experts who would never have flown to Richmond. A PDF copy of the program is available.
Missed the live version? You can register online to review the archived video presentations and handouts.
Up to 12 On-Demand CLE credits, including 3 Ethics, are available. This is a bargain at $50.
If you have any questions, please contact Paulette Davidson.
Conrad Saam writes in his new book Own the Map; Marketing Your Law Firm’s Address that “[I]n general, social media as a direct-to-consumer marketing channel for the legal industry is ineffectual.” He explains that this is primarily because social media marketing requires building personal relationships with potential clients. Most lawyers lack the time or skill to accomplish this.
Amy Griggs, a partner in Regan Zambri Long, PLLC, a Washington, DC based firm that is one of the best personal injury law firms in the country, understands the importance of personal relationships and applies this in her excellent LinkedIn feed. RZL Associate Emily Lagan is following in her footsteps.