To avoid random acts of marketing and senseless spending, law firms, large and small, should develop and implement a solid marketing plan and budget as essential business planning tools -- a map to assure they arrive at their desired destination of profitable clients and a healthy practice.

To avoid random acts of marketing and senseless spending, law firms, large and small, should develop and implement a solid marketing plan and budget as essential business planning tools -- a map to assure they arrive at their desired destination of profitable clients and a healthy practice.

Ok, everybody talks about marketing, and markets, and how to reach them ' but has anyone stopped to define what a market really is?We all tend to take…

OK, somebody talked to the press, and leaked information that shouldn't have been leaked. That's three problems, not one. Primary, of course, is how we control the damage caused by the leak. Then we worry about who did it.

Professional survey and market research companies are generally pretty good. They use sophisticated modeling techniques and computerized formulae to tell us (with a margin of error of four or five points either way) who's going to win the next election and how high skirts are going to be next year. Highly scientific stuff ' but, unfortunately not always right. Which is why you have to take those surveys with a grain of salt.

Every so often, in a particular area of a professional practice, somebody gets the bright idea to give samples ' to give a half hour of free advice as a way to entice a prospective client to ask for more. Two questions arise. Is it ethical? Is it good marketing?

At last, the perfect law firm ad campaign. Well, pretty much perfect. Ogletree Deakins, a 39-office, Atlanta-based law firm has been running an ad campaign that embodies every principle of good law firm advertising.

Big companies, including law firms, sometimes go into bankruptcy. It happens a lot. But when it's a major law firm, like Dewey LeBoeuf, the reasons for its demise can give us some clues about the future of all law firms.