Law Practice magazine "History Of Law Firm Marketing" article

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THE BUSINESS OF PRACTICING LAW OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2005 VOLUME 31 NUMBER 7

How to Practice Feel-Good Rainmaking Marketing Salary Survey Stats Rebounding from Marketing Mistakes Is Marketing a Laughing Matter?

Legal Marketing’s Long Strange Journey. Personal Lessons.

MARKETING THEN & NOW

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“First, Let’s Sell All the Lawyers”

Long Strange JourneyA Personal View of LEGAL MARKETING’S

By Ross Fishman

Up from Disbarment: Out of theGate Post-BatesThe Bates decision led to the first bigwave of mostly consumer-orientedlegal advertising. Personal injurylawyers grabbed hold of the opportu-nity with both hands, and the “sincerelawyer holding a gavel and standing infront of a bookcase” ad was born.Entrepreneurs started snapping uplaw-oriented 800 numbers, and YellowPages advertising exploded for con-sumer practices. Sales of cheesy clipartflags, eagles and ionic columns grew.No street-side billboard or bus benchwas safe.

Then, in the very-late ’70s, a coupleof thoughtful firms gingerly startedputting in writing what they actuallydid, producing the first law firmbrochures—black-and-white, all text,single-spaced, really dull. But theyshowed that at least a few firms weretrying to think about what marketingmight mean.

By 1985, roughly a dozen large law firms had hired their own in-house marketers, and together theyformed the awkwardly namedNational Association of Law FirmMarketing Administrators, or

NALFMA (later happily renamed the Legal Marketing Association).The genteel profession of law wasbecoming a business.

That same year, The AmericanLawyer published the salaries of big-firm lawyers. The figures sent shock-waves across the profession, as lawyersmigrated to the money, increasing thecompetition among and within firms.The firms saw they needed an advan-tage, a way to connect to clients andattract more prospects.

Public relations became king, asfirms hired publicists to get their namesin the paper, any paper, on any subject.It wasn’t strategic, but PR firms discov-ered that lawyers loved seeing theirnames in print—almost as much asthey hated seeing their competitors’names there. Sales of annual PR retain-ers skyrocketed.

And brochures came into vogue ona wider scale. The standard: 24 pages ofdense, detailed, single-spaced ponder-ous prose; no pictures; covers bearingthe firm’s name alone. Yep, still reallydull. You had your choice of any coloras long as it was black. Neither clientsnor the firm’s own lawyers could readthese mind-numbing abominations.

October/November 2005 Law Practice 31

Poor John Bates. All hewanted to do was providelegal services to the indi-gent—those who weren’tquite poor enough to

qualify for free Legal Aid attorneys.But he found that he couldn’t make aliving simply through referrals. Heneeded high volume. Which meantadvertising. Which probably meantgetting disbarred. So when he and hispartner Van O’Steen advertised theirprice list, they simultaneously hired alawyer of their own.

Sure enough, they got clients—anddisbarred.

Fortunately, and famously, theirultimate appeal to the U.S. SupremeCourt made it possible for lawyers tomarket their services. At last, lawyerscould stop wondering whether simplyhaving a business card would causethem to lose their licenses. No, really,it was that bad.

It’s been nearly 30 years since theSupreme Court decided the landmarkArizona v. Bates, and today selling theservices of lawyers and law firms is asophisticated and widespread disci-pline. Witness the fact that the interna-tional Legal Marketing Associationcelebrates its 20th anniversary this yearat more than 2,500-members strong.

I’ve watched the discipline evolvefrom primitive to professional, havingleft litigation for the brave new world oflaw firm marketing more than 15 yearsago. It’s been quite a ride, in terms ofmessages, media and more. By sharingsome of my own dim recollections andobservations, I hope to provide somecontext for how far legal marketing hascome, where we are today—and wherewe might be heading. I’m a little hazyon some parts … I wasn’t intending tochronicle the history, so I didn’t takenotes. But this is how I personallyremember it and, in turn, what I seehappening today and tomorrow.

Legal Services Marketing Timeline19 7 7 19 7 7 19 8 4Here’s a quick-

shot review of just a few of the many highlights thathave markedthe still-ongoing evolu-tion of legal marketing.

The U.S. SupremeCourt, in Bates v. State Bar ofArizona, reversesthe Arizona Sup-reme Court in a 5-4 decision on thequestion, “Did theArizona rule, whichrestricted legaladvertising, violatethe freedom ofspeech of Batesand his firm as guar-anteed by the Firstand FourteenthAmendments?”

The ABA LawPracticeManagementSection (thencalled theEconomics of Law PracticeSection) publishesthe first edition ofJay Foonberg’sHow to Start &Build a LawPractice.

Market researchbriefly takes cen-ter stage with anAmerican Lawyercover story aboutDenver firmGorsuch Kirgis’smarketing pro-gram, which wasbuilt on researchby MIICORP, thenthe only marketresearch firm specializing in lawfirm work.

Strawn hired its public relations con-sultant, Loren A. Wittner, to be thenation’s first full-time marketing part-ner, creating national news as theplaying field tilted. Wittner hired ahalf-dozen in-house marketers, includ-ing me, thereby creating perhaps thefirst law firm marketing “department.”

NALFMA had around 300members at this point. Wittner and Ibecame co-chairs of the ABA’s nationalMarketing Legal Services Committee.We were also the only members.Membership soon doubled in size, tofour, then doubled again, to eight.

Corporate firms gingerly started toadvertise, using text-only “we’re pleasedto announce” ads called “tombstones,”designed like typewritten weddinginvitations. At Winston & Strawn, wemerged with a Washington, D.C., firmand, following numerous tense market-ing committee meetings, we successfullyremoved the words “pleased toannounce” from our merger announce-ment ad—simply naming the firms andusing the word “merger” betweenthem—just to be a little different.Internally, it was seen as a huge risk:How would people know that youwere happy about the merger if youdidn’t tell them? Nonetheless, the ad

But when the firm down the street hadone, its competitors wanted one, too.

Then came equally tediousnewsletters, full of legal jargon and casecitations. The target audience—busyexecutives—wouldn’t touch them, butfirms kept churning them out, orderingoverworked associates to rewrite recentmemos into lengthy articles.

“Marketing strategy” back thentypically meant “let’s see what everyoneelse is doing, and do that, too.” Me-toomarketing. Lawyers didn’t know how to market legal services but figured that their competitors did, so they just copied the flaccid competition.Decisions and revisions were made inlarge committees, in which every lawyerhad complete veto power over everyplan, proposal and period. The lowest-common denominator prevailed, as themost conservative lawyers volunteeredfor marketing committee duties, tomake sure the image and integrity ofthe firm wasn’t sullied and nothing wastried that might actually work.

Change was inevitable.

At the First Turn: Picking Up thePace (But Still a Bumpy Ride)Fittingly, change came as we enteredthe next decade. In 1990, Winston &

32 October/November 2005 Law Practice

won national awards for creative lawfirm advertising. Boy, those were thedays. The innovation bar was so lowyou could practically trip over it.

Soon after, Howrey & Simonlaunched the profession’s first image-advertising campaign, the brilliant“Human Side of Genius” series. Andmiraculously, it worked, helpingexpand the firm’s reputation beyondantitrust litigation. Still no pictures,but it showed actual creativity. A high-quality corporate firm advertised andneither the firm nor the legal profes-sion imploded. In fact, clients andprospects noticed and approved, andthe firm grew, prospered and diversi-fied its practice. Other progressive firms took careful notice.

But progress comes in fits andturns. Back then, I recall one of ourbranch office partners insisted on usingTimes Roman for his correspondenceinstead of Courier, the standard fontused by the nation’s typewriters. Hischoice created a complete furor. TimesRoman? But lawyers should useCourier! Yeah, the transition to com-puters was hard on everyone. Whenour marketing department requisi-tioned an inexpensive color printer, wewere informed that law firms don’t

“F I RST, LET’S S E LL ALL TH E LAWYE RS”

Legal Services Marketing Timeline19 8 4 19 8 5 19 87

McGuire Woods &Battle’s black-and-white all-textbrochure gets thenation’s attention inBusinessWeekand The New York Times.

Gray Carey’sJustine Jeffreyorganizes a meet-ing of 25 law firmmarketing directorsin San Francisco. The gathering

19 8 4

Van NostrandReinhold publishesRobert W.Denney’s How toMarket LegalServices.

ultimately results in the 1985 forma-tion of the Legal MarketingAssociation (thencalled the NationalAssociation of LawFirm MarketingAdministrators) inSan Diego, whereSally Schmidt was elected theorganization’s firstpresident.

Holland & Hartspices up a staidbrochure with asurprising full-colorcartoon fold-outmap of the firm’sRocky Mountainregion. Color startsto appear in lawfirm brochures.

19 9 0

Winston & Strawnhires its public rela-tions consultant,Loren A. Wittner, tobe the nation’s firstfull-time marketingpartner.

19 9 1

Corporate law firmadvertising beginsin earnest withHowrey & Simon’sgroundbreaking“Human Side ofGenius” nationalcampaign.

0“We’re tough!”

BOXING GLOVES

0“We’re, uh, lawyers!”

COLUMNS


need color. At that time, sadly, theywere probably right.

That changed over the next fiveyears, fortunately, as firms began mar-keting in earnest with some new tactics:

3 Others started to follow the earlyadopters and logos started to have adash of color.

3 The first new-hire announce-

ment ad to actually use the lawyer’sphoto was published about 1995,by Schiff Hardin & Waite. It gainedattention for the headshot (eventhough the design tragically lookedlike an obituary).

3 Some brochures and newslettersbecame more readable. Somewhat.

3 Bill Flannery’s business offering

“sales” training (gasp) to big firms took off. Suddenly lawyers saw that itbrought in business.

3 Smaller firms, with streamlineddecision-making processes and greater risk-taking abilities, took largercalculated risks and won more business.

3 Firms started targeting theirmaterials, creating tailored, well-researched new-business proposals foreach new opportunity. They formedclient teams and videotaped theirpresentation rehearsals. And the firmswith the best strategy and materialsstarted to win disproportionately high numbers of these competitive “beauty contests.”

Meantime, back at Winston &Strawn, to pitch the business for MajorLeague Baseball, we put our lawyers onbaseball cards and had them autographbaseballs for the team owners. Thesebecame so popular that we had toreorder. The recipients started showingthem to their other private firmlawyers, proclaiming, “This is how a lawfirm should market!” Clearly, the clientswere ready to accept creative marketingefforts long before most lawyers werewilling to offer it.

Five more years passed. Ads werenext. Corporate Legal Times created aplatform targeting in-house lawyers,

0“We have good ideas!”

LIGHT BULBS

0“We think strategically!”

CHESSBOARDS

0“We’re your partner!”

HANDSHAKES

0“We did a deal inToronto once!”

GLOBES

The Unfortunate Era of the Truly Trite

19 9 2

The ABA LPMSection launchesABA WomenRainmakers, dedicated to providing market-ing education and networking opportunities.

19 9 5

Coffield Ungaretti& Harris launchesits “Written ServiceGuarantee” campaign.

19 9 6

Red StreetConsulting (other-wise known as ErikHeels and RickKlau) launchesannual onlinereviews of law firm Web sites,grading them forappearance andfunctionality.

1997

Sales training,blogging and pod-casting are amongthe new hot-buttonmarketing territo-ries for lawyers.

—Timeline prepared by Merrilyn Astin

Tarlton

2005

The ABA LawPracticeManagementSection publishesthe first edition of The Lawyer’sGuide toMarketing on the Internet.

2001

Larry Bodine formalizes theLawMarketingListserv. Even managing partnerstap into daily con-versations among“a bunch of reallysmart legal market-ing directors tryingto devise newways to differenti-ate their firms in a crowded marketplace.”

gave away cute stuffed termites wearingBugLaw.com T-shirts. Marketing theBug Lawyers? Like shooting fish in abarrel or bugs in a … whatever. Theinternational publicity generated bothsizable firm revenue and demand forsimilar industry-based campaigns.

Corporate clients, having realizedthat they had the buying power, startedflexing their muscles, causing law firmsto look for new ways to offer morevalue. Differentiation became increas-ingly important. And firms startedusing those ideas as the foundation oftheir new collateral materials. Sadly, thatmessage was rarely displayed in firms’first-generation Web sites, which typi-cally used photos of the firm’s:3 Office building (“We work in a building!”)3 Lobby (“We have couches!”) 3 Local city skyline (“We … oh,never mind.”)

Since then, the competition for cor-porate mindshare has led to firms usingeverything from Orrick’s proprietaryviral computer games to one firm’s realistic-looking hand-grenade mailers.(Okay, they probably should have recon-


and its aggressive sales staff convincedfirms to advertise with them. And firmsgradually did, in greater numbers. Theearly ads were awful—every firm was“big,”“smart,”“smart and big” or “bigand smart” (cf. www.smartbiggar.com).But every tiny innovation was emulatedand improved on again by yet anotherprogressive competitor.

As the ads improved, willing firmssaw more examples down the street tocopy or another bar to step lightly over.Marketing committees still retained fullcontrol over the advertising images andmessages, and thus began the unfortu-nate era of the truly trite:3 Light bulbs (“We have good ideas!”)3 Chessboards (“We think strategically!”)3 Handshakes (“We’re your partner!”)3 Boxing gloves (“We’re tough!”)3 Globes (“We’re global!” or “We did adeal in Toronto once!”) 3 Columns (“We’re, uh, lawyers!”) 3 Running up courthouse steps(“We’re late!”)

Many ads contained two, three ormore (the trifecta) of these icons.Translation: “Our tough lawyers havestrategic, partner-y ideas all over the place!”

Then, boom, Womble Carlyleturned a single ad with a cute bulldoginto a nationally renowned marketingmascot, and other prominent firmstook serious notice.

The gloves slowly came off.

On the Next Leg: Different? Who? You?By the latter half of the ’90s, as com-petition for corporate clients stiffenedand firms needed to convey theirworth, marketing’s focus became differentiation.

By that time, I’d accepted a job atCoffield Ungaretti & Harris as thenation’s second marketing partner. In1995-96, we offered the first “Written

Service Guarantee” and nearly doubledthe firm’s revenue. We implemented the same message using both publicrelations and advertising. And ourbrochure matched the mugs! The cam-paign generated enormous positivepublicity in the legal and businesspress, and law firms saw that you coulduse a multifaceted marketing campaignto implement an actual strategy. Wewon all the marketing awards that year(which might sound like I’m bragging,but see the “low bar” comments above).

I left Coffield Ungaretti & Harris tomake a consulting career of helpingother firms differentiate themselvesand, in 1997, through the first promi-nent industry-based marketing pro-gram, helped Alabama’s 10-lawyerCrosslin Slaten & O’Connor becomeThe Bug Lawyers. The program fea-tured “Some lawyers don’t know theirants from a hole in the ground” ads,along with a BugLaw.com Web site(sadly, currently offline), complete withcrawling termites and downloadablechecklists and animated cursors of bugschewing away at the firm’s logo. Ourpest control-industry tradeshow booth

Your Silver BulletFocus, Focus, Focus

A t its core, marketing is simple.Identify the people most likely tohire you for the work you want to

do, then develop close relationships withthem to help them achieve their goals.

One-shot marketing activities do notcreate close relationships. And undiffer-entiated, Jack-of-All-Trade lawyers whomarket to everyone invariably mustcharge low rates. But if you have—or candevelop—expertise in a particular field, goto the trade associations and show themthat you have this expertise, you’ll beswamped for business.

Direct all your marketing effortstoward the target group. Find an appro-priately small pond, well-stocked withclients, and work hard to become a big,

highly visible fish. For lawyers, that typeof narrow focus is the only silver bulletthat exists.

The more focused your target, theeasier it is to be successful faster. If yourgoal is to be the best divorce or familylawyer in town, forget it—that’s too broadand generic. Too many others are com-peting for that same turf and there’s likelya number of others who have been therefor decades. Try developing a uniquepractice focusing on representing onlymen, or only women. Or perhaps you canbuild a specialty practice representinggay couples, or the elderly, or secondmarriages. Whatever it is, become thego-to expert for something.


sidered that last one. By definition, greatmarketing doesn’t cause clients to evacu-ate their buildings.)

Oh, and along the way, “branding”became a buzzword, then a noxiousfad. Although it remains a powerfulstrategy, it’s now called differentiationor positioning.

Today international law firms aremarketing as innovatively and aggres-sively as our corporate clients, using thefull range of tools. Think global clientteams, lead-generation professionals,client extranets, direct mail, secund-ment and Internet micro-sites.

And those advertisements thatBates and O’Steen suffered for? The cor-porate counsel-targeting magazines arenow so choked with vibrantly coloredadvertisements that desperate firms willdo almost anything to get noticed. Theirads use eye-popping photos of yellowrubber duckies, wacky doggies wearingturtlenecks and cute widdle wide-eyedbabies. Some implement a well-definedstrategy, but most seem simply to besaying, “Look at me! Look at me!” (If Isaw an ad next month showing a nakedfounding partner named Ralph, Iwouldn’t flinch. I might ralph, but Iwouldn’t flinch.) Lawyers surfing, kiss-ing, climbing up or rappelling down

mountains. The sky’s become the limitin advertising.

But look at any collection of lawyermarketing and you’ll still see plenty ofglobes, gavels, handshakes and columns.Some things just don’t change.

But on the other hand, plenty ofthings do.

Beyond Brochures: What theInnovators Are Doing TodayUnlike passé clipart images, all the oldfundamentals of marketing still work.The best of the current generation is

just putting them to use in differentand much, much better ways. Let’stake a look.

3 Printed brochures. The firmbrochure has ceded agonizing practice-area details to the Web site. Today’sbrochure is a shorter image piece—a medium for the firm’s message. Itsintriguing cover compels you to open it,and the style, graphics and tightly written text demonstrate the firm’sunique differentiation.

Litigation boutique Segal


Segal McCambridge Singer & Mahoney

7

And it’s our job to help herAnd it’s our job to help herunderstand the epidemio-understand the epidemio-logical distinctions betweenlogical distinctions betweenmild tricuspid valvular mild tricuspid valvularregurgitation, endothelializedregurgitation, endothelializedforeign matter, and bacterialforeign matter, and bacterialendocarditis.endocarditis.

TThishis jjuurroror thinksthinks“Myri“Myriaad”d” wwasas aa ggirlirlffrroomm hheerr ffoouurrth-th-ggrradeade ccllaass.ss.

0SegalMcCambridgeSinger & Mahoney,on its Web site(www.smsm.com)and in other mater-ials, uses humor toconvey that the firmcuts through thearcane jargon oftort litigation so thepeople in the jurybox can understandthe facts at issue.

McCambridge Singer & Mahoney, forexample, defends insurance companiesin complex mass tort class actionsinvolving difficult issues of law, medi-cine, biology and science. The firm’s“We make the complex simple” mes-sage resonates with its sophisticatedclients, who know they must tell a com-pelling story in a way that an averagejuror would find persuasive. Thehumor the firm employs to drive homeits message in its ads is echoed in itsbrochure and on its Web site, too.

3 Newsletters. Firm newsletters arestill useful ways of staying in touchwith sizable numbers of clients andprospects, but lengthy stories detailingthe firm’s proud internal accomplish-ments? Not so much of those anymore.The newsletters now are shorter, moretimely and focused on useful tips.They’re designed and written in aneasy-to-read style, with pieces like “TopTen Tips for [Doing SomethingUseful],” or “Five New Ways to Avoid[Some Disaster],” or other how-tos tohelp readers do their jobs better, savemoney or stay out of trouble.

They go by both snail-mail and e-mail, to ensure that readers get theproduct in the format they want. Andthey are “periodic,” with “alerts” sent totake advantage of urgent occurrences.

3 Relationship marketing. Studiesshow that it takes between 7 and 20 per-sonal meetings to get from first contactto new business. And that’s in additionto all the “broadcast” marketing activi-ties like advertising, articles, Web sites,speeches and the like. Think of all thateffort and you’re forced to answer theBig Question: Who are you targeting?“Well, Ross, I’m a general commerciallitigator, and I have a national practice.”(C’mon, does every litigator have a“national practice”?) Okay, so you’reselling a general service to 270 millionpeople. And you have to see them 7 to20 times each. Then what are you doingreading this magazine? You have net-working to do! Get out there! Shoo!

But seriously, for all the innovativemarketing tools and strategies, lawremains a profession built on close,trusted, personal relationships. Andthat point is so important it’s been dif-ferentiated (that word again) as a side-bar. Read it on page 34—now.

3 Tag lines. These short slogans arepopular and, done well, help your target

audience understand more about you—how you’re different from other firms.The language describes the firm’suniqueness, not its “hands-on, value-added, business-oriented record ofachievement.” Colorado’s Orten &Hindman, for example, exclusively rep-resents community and homeownersassociations, and its “Strength inAssociation” tag line makes that pointwith a clever double entendre. Chicago’sChildress Duffy Goldblatt, a small firmthat specializes in suing insurance com-panies that fail to pay insureds’ claimsfollowing disasters, uses “YourInsurance Against Insurance.”

These slogans are intriguing.They’re different. They’re icebreakers.And they’re a heckuva lot better thaninsipid things like “Committed toClient Service” or “When ResultsMatter.” (Tell me, when don’t results

matter? “This isn’timportant, but Ithink I’ll call alawyer anyway”?)

Laner Muchin,a midsize labor andemployment firmin Chicago, touts its incredible respon-siveness and vows to return every clientcall in two hours or less. Its tag line?“Two hours. Period.” Those wordsquickly tell how the firm differs from itsequally skilled competitors. And thetwo-hour strategy, as a stylized clock, isdesigned into the firm’s logo, too.

Effective tag lines can even extendto law school and lateral recruiting.Levenfeld Pearlstein, an aggressivetransactional firm, is advertising andsending direct mail to targeted lateralcandidates showing them as robots,cogs or sheep inside their current firms

0Childress DuffyGoldblatt ads make the point that the firm servesas its clients’ David againstGoliath insurance companies.



and as exhilarated high-divers atLevenfeld Pearlstein. This is not yourgrandfather’s law firm.

3 Industry-based marketing. It works.Lawyers do extremely well by identify-ing an industry group they enjoy serv-ing and becoming the go-to lawyer forthat group.

Noland Hamerly Etienne & Hoss isa 20-lawyer firm that works in the heartof central California’s agriculture belt.Together, the lawyers had marketedthemselves as a general practice firm,but we convinced them that the biggestroom for profitable growth in theircommunity was the region’s dominantagriculture industry. The firm’s agricul-ture practice became “The LettuceLawyers,” with a subtly modified logo inwhich the ampersand sprouts leaves andgrows. Plus, the practice group givesaway logo’d seed packets as business

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How valued do you feel at your current firm?

0LevenfeldPearlstein targetslaw school and lateral recruits witha series of ads showing that they’llbe challenged and exhilarated atthe firm—not treated like cog-in-the-wheel commodities.


cards and logo’d leather work glovesand bib overalls instead of coffee mugs.

Another interesting example isNew Orleans’ Gordon, Arata,McCollam, Duplantis & Eagan, ahighly skilled firm of nice lawyers withdominant practices in litigation andbig oil and gas. Our research showedthat the firm’s clients actually enjoyedworking with the lawyers, even forhigh-stakes litigation. Thus, the firm’stag line is now “Lawyers You Want toKnow,” a double entendre conveyingthe lawyers’ technical skills and genialpersonalities. The firmwide ads showhow much clients like the lawyers, andthe oil and gas ads show how well thelawyers understand the industry.

3Web sites. Nearly every firm has oneby now, and some firms have morethan one for different purposes. Thebest ones stand for something andshow why the firm is unique. TheSarasota, Florida, firm Williams Parker

0To help attractlocal lawyers to itsnew Atlanta office,Florida’s CarltonFields cleverly combines clichésof both states intoa visually powerfulseries of ads.

0Gordon, Aratafocuses in on thedouble messagethat its lawyers arebeloved by clientsand highly skilled inthe mechanics ofthe firm’s oil andgas practice.



markets trust, safety and security—agood background message for its trustand estate practice, as well as real estate.

Including your message is key.What not to include? I’ve said it before,and I’ll say it again. No columns, com-passes, currency, gavels or globes,beakers or briefcases. Not in youradvertisements, not in your brochures,and not on your Web site, please! Noone shaking hands or sprinting upcourthouse steps. Instead, look at theexamples in this article. People andimages that center on the focused, dif-ferentiating message. That’s what winsshare of mind.

Off to the Unbeaten Trail: What’s NextCrystal balls don’t work well. In theworking lifetime of many of us, tech-nology that was unimaginable at thetime of the Bates decision has trans-

formed how marketers think as muchas what they do. I can’t even guess 10years down the road. But three years?Okay, I’ll inch out onto the limb.

Blogs, those easily updated andparticipatory Web sites, are the bestmarketing tool since sliced bread—atleast according to some seeminglyknowledgeable pundits. I suspect theywill end up like Web sites—wildlyeffective for the early adopters, a gener-ally useful tool for everyone else.

Podcasting may be the next greatthing, although I’m still not sure exactlywhat it is. But look for it to becomevery popular, especially among serviceproviders who don’t know what it iseither but will want to sell it to you.

Seminars and conferences will stillwork, but they will become smaller andmore targeted (a 10- or 20-person roll-up-your-sleeves breakfast briefing).They will also migrate more and more

do that, remove your butt from youroffice chair.

And predatory pitches, in whichfirms strategically decide whom theywant to represent and then find a wayto steal that client away from a com-petitor, will enjoy significant success. Akey part of this is communication andpresentation skills training, teachinglawyers both to improve their presen-tation style and learn to form closerrelationships more quickly.

What else do I see? The possibili-ties are endless. The one thing I knowfor sure is that we’ve only begun.Lettuce Law? Two-hour return-callguarantees? Oil-rigging lawyers?

John Bates, now a client of mine,bless his heart, is still smiling. LP

Ross Fishman ([email protected]) is Chief Exceleration Officer of Ross FishmanMarketing, Inc., based in Highland Park, IL, (847) 432-3546.

to the Internet, as Webinars that saveon time and money for everybody.

Market research will gain inacceptance, but most law firms havethe budget to either do something ormeasure something—not both. Oneexception is megafirm O’Melveny &Myers, which just hired Mark T.Greene, Ph.D., a nationally knownmarket researcher.

Business development will supple-ment the historic marketing com-munications efforts. “Biz dev” is aeuphemism for sales, in the client-specific way that accounting firms havelong marketed. Generating leads,measuring ROI, strategically targetingspecific clients for acquisition, the fullrange of sales efforts. This is tangibleand meaningful. Cross-selling—whichis vague, threatening, overwhelmingly,unsuccessful—is not meaningful.Neither, for the most part, are clientservice teams, although everybody saysthey want them.

Shorter names will be the rule atmore firms, fragile partner egos not-withstanding. In savvier firms the cleartrend is to emphasize the colloquialstreet name—the one clients andprospects know. Think of “Skadden” or“Skadden Arps” instead of “SkaddenArps Slate Meagher & Flom,” which thepoor receptionist would traditionallypronounce “Skadnarpslameagrunflom.”Need more proof? Go to www.smrl.comand pretend you’re the receptionist.

Marketing training will heat up.Bringing in business is innate for afirm’s internal sales force, those we callrainmakers. But for others, it’s a teach-able skill. Indiana-based Barnes &Thornburg just completed marketingtraining for lawyers in all eight offices.Simple things like how to network andwork a room are hot topics, summa-rized most basically as “shut up and lis-ten, for a change.” And once you can

0The “LettuceLawyers” at NolandHamerly speaksavvily to their agricultural clientswith this play onGrant Woods’ classic “AmericanGothic.” See howthe ampersand inthe practice’s logosprouts leaves.


Law Practice magazine "History Of Law Firm Marketing" article

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