A founding partner of one of L.A.'s few remaining litigation boutiques has jumped to Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton's Century City office. Entertainment litigator James Curry took his name off the door of White O'Connor Curry, a Century City firm that spun off of what is now Christensen, Glaser, Fink, Jacobs, Weil & Shapiro in an acrimonious split more than a decade ago.
Most people don't seek a lawyer until they need one. If they are buying real estate, suing someone, or have been arrested, then they need a lawyer fast. And when these prospects need a client fast, they turn to the Internet to find one. To get your share of these motivated prospects and turn them into clients, you will need to develop a comprehensive Search-Engine Marketing ('SEM') strategy. An effective SEM campaign ' combined with local search engines ' can reach new clients you're seeking and help you further develop new content for your site that keeps them coming back.
There is no question that online video has become one of the hottest mediums on the Web. For example, a recent Accustream iMedia study found that user-generated video captured 22 billion page views in 2007. Importantly, the interest in online video is not limited to young viewers, but is also shared by a significant and growing audience of older, more educated, and more affluent viewers.
One of the major mistakes the authors see attorneys and law firms make when they pitch business is that they spend too much time outlining their experience and what they can do for their client (the pitch), and they don't spend enough time asking their potential client what is important to them when hiring an attorney.
So the question arises, how do attorneys when giving speeches and business presentations connect with their audience without losing themselves in legal-speak? Here are the answers.
Statements like, 'We pride ourselves on delivering outstanding levels of client service' sound great. They are the Pavlovian pablum we whip out when we meet new clients, promote ourselves on our Web sites, write the openings of our RFPs, and attract laterals. The problem is, they're just not true.
LAW FIRM MERGERS - THE ROLLOUT is the final chapter in maximizing the input of marketing leadership. Tell your business targets what they actually need and want to hear. Don't wait until after the merger to think about the similarities and differences in the marketing cultures of the two firms. They are as potentially decisive to business development as your respective financials are to the individual partners.…
LAW FIRM MERGERS - SHOWING ALL is the third chapter on law firm mergers and the importance of early involvement of marketing leadership. The next question is: How do you show - not tell- the marketplace that your intellectul and professional platform is indeed broader and deeper? New subspecializations can be defined and marketed. Articles on legal or client industry issues should be co-bylined by lawyers from both merging firms. Talk about mergers in general, using…
LAW FIRM MERGERS - WHO CARES? is the second in our series on law firm mergers and the importance of integrating the marketing leadership from both firms as early in the process as possible. Since clients and internal stakeholders will be the most impacted,how should a firm get more people to care? Well, what do people care about? While marketing in a merger situation is not conceptually unique, it is exponentially more complicated because now…
LAW FIRM MERGERS - WHO SHOULD CARE? - We begin a new series on why most underachieving law firm mergers share one fundamental deficiency. Over the next several columns I'll identify a checklist to be used by the negotiating partners and marketing leadership to deal with it. The failure is to work a practicable marketing strategy into the very soul of the merger - before it happens, while it happens and after it happens. Keep in…
