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My Avvo Talk: 6 Start-Up Tech Trends That Start-Up Lawyers Need to Connect With Clients

Carolyn Elefant — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:57:54 +0000

Six Start-Up Technology Trends That Start Up Lawyers Can Use

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I’ve uploaded my slide deck from my talk at Avvocating Avvo presentation (with some glitches in the translation) – and you can see my slides (hopefully in better format) and those by the other speakers at Avvo’s Lawyer-nomics Blog. Videos will go up over the next few weeks as well.

Unlike many speakers who do the same drill over and over, I like to shake things up with new content. Keeps things interesting, but the challenge is to come up with new content , create the presentation in timely fashion and leave enough time to practice since you can’t just deliver on auto-pilot. All things considered, I think my talk went well and now that I have the material, I’m interested in other opportunities to present the material.

But at least, let me summarize my key points here. As I’ve said many times, I’m not a marketer. I don’t want someone telling me, nor do I want to tell others, what to do; I’m more interested in why certain techniques work. So in reflecting on many of the ways that I find clients, I realized that they are — not surprisingly — consistent with many of the trends we see in the techno-start-up world. And so, I described six tech trends that apply to lawyer marketing which is, honestly, TMI for a 50 minute talk, but what the heck – I’m a fast talker!

You’ll have to watch my opening (which involves a power strip) on video. But my presentation begins with a brief history of the web and how we’ve gone from the days where eyeballs and traffic mattered to web 2.0, characterized by customization, content and connection. That transition away from the static web, to one based on social media and mobile apps is important to understand to create and maintain an effective online presence.

Briefly the six trends, and examples are:

Search to Discovery Pinterest, of course, is the example of the increased desire to discover rather than search online. I’ve written about that topic before and expanded on it in my presentation, discussing ways to be discovered (ebooks and yes, ratings systems).

App-ification of Law Practice OK, so I know that I didn’t originate the concept of niche practice. But it’s one I’ve been discussing for years and now every solo guru is following suit. Since I hate to be part of the crowd, I’ve re-branded the niche as the app-ification of law practice. After all, what are apps – a program that does one thing really well, just like a niche lawyer. The limitations of apps aren’t deterring consumers from buying them; in fact, they’re loving the flexibility of being able to pick and choose a suite of tools. So consumers are accustomed to lawyers who can be an ideal fit and don’t mind going to several different shops to meet their needs.

Affiliated distribution/integration and FB Connect These days, you can sign up for the NYT for Facebook, or log in with Google to comment on blogs. The integration benefits both parties in the transaction – FB or Google become even more ubiquitous while other businesses can tap into those superstars’ pre-made community and tools. Yet in law, we hardly ever see solos of different practice areas co-marketing or even more rare, lawyers and non-lawyers teaming up. One of my most productive relationships has been my work with area lobbyists; we frequently team up on projects (no, we don’t split fees) or refer cases back and forth.

Freemium I’ve done a talk on this entire topic – essentially, the premise is that consumers are accustomed to services of great value, like Google, FB, Youtube et. al. being available for nothing. So how do you explain that lawyers need to get paid? My view is that you give away even more. Not saying to offer free consults (lawyers are so unimaginative that’s the only thing they can think of that might be free) – but free forms (that are already available online) and free educational content so that prospects will be ready to pay once they need you.

Innovator’s Dilemma I’ve blogged about this topic before. The theory is that big companies won’t spend money to defend undesirable pieces of their turf and instead, will easily cede them to disruptors. Over time, disruptors can take away an incumbents’ business piece by piece. Legal Zoom is a great example in our profession; LZ took the cheapskate or financially strapped clients that lawyers never wanted and built a multi-million dollar empire which they’re now using to pay for lawyers to give advice on some matters. The lesson: don’t take on incumbents directly, instead mine the scrap heap for treasure.

Back to the Future When Instagram hit it big, observers wondered why. Was it that Polaroid was a behemoth or Instagram was fun and allowed customization – or was it just a fluke? All of these points have merit, but to me, Instagram appeals because it evokes a sense of nostalgia – the faded worn pictures connect us to our past and each other. And that’s what we want desperately from the web – to connect, to discover, to pick and choose and build communities. If we look at the web as a brute force, where all that matters is SEO and numbers and eyeballs, we miss out on what the web can be. And if we look at our clients as keyword strings and targets and prospects and not real people with real problems, we miss a chance to become the trusted advisors that we lawyers have been in the past.

If you like this presentation and are interested in hearing it live, or others like it, please contact me at carolyn.elefant@gmail.com for more information about my speaking and other programs.

Do You Want to Be Discovered or Found Online?

Carolyn Elefant — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:07:41 +0000

Columbus discovered America. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. Lana Turner , like other great movie stars of the day, was discovered drinking a coke at a soda fountain. We all enjoy discovering that terrific little cafe on the backstreets of Brooklyn or Washington D.C. or London or wherever else we happen to be traveling.

By contrast, here’s some examples of things we typically found. A few years ago, I found a rusty Razor scooter left behind in the neighborhood playground. We’ve all found spare change in the crevices of a sofa. The police find weapons or drugs in car trunks during (frequently illegal) traffic stops. On long drives, we’ve all shifted uncomfortably until we can find a McDonalds or a gas station for a pee break.

As these examples show, discovery is about uncovering and introducing something of value that no one’s ever seen before. Much of what is found, on the other hand is already known (this is the case with lost children or pets) and often (the exception being children and pets) isn’t worth much, has been abandoned or is illegal. With that being the case, why is it that so many lawyers are so avid to be found online, while few strive to be discovered?

Last November, in a seminal article at Tech Crunch, Semil Shah argued that the web has shifted from search to discovery. Shah invoked Pinterest as an example, attributing its exploding popularity to its ability to capture consumers at the discovery part of their purchase – when they don’t yet know what they want (i.e., red shoes or green handbag) – rather than at the search-oriented end of the funnel — where they are already directed and self-limited (e.g., I need to find a briefcase for work).

In my view, though, Pinterest is much more than just about numbers and traffic, and the ability to capture more users before they narrow their search. Pinterest captivates because it gives users the ability to trade and share the web’s best-kept secrets. After all, in a world where you can find a Big Mac in the middle of Paris, we value what’s unique and bespoke; that which we discover, rather than find.

So what’s this got to do with lawyers? Plenty. Lawyers are so obsessed with SEO, with being found, that they don’t even stop to think whether a strategy of being found is desirable. In the UK, the new Legal Services Act has facilitated the rise of the McLaw firm, franchised firms operating under a uniform name – making lawyers easy to find. But is find-ability what consumers want in a lawyer? Or do they want a lawyer whom they’ve heard about only through friends who’s not just predictably solid (like a fast food meal), but who’s going to knock their opponents’ socks off.

There’s another aspect of the Pinterest-ization of search that bears noting. Pinterest’s dominant demographic is women. After all, the process of discovery comes as second nature to women. Not to be sexist, but women’s obsession with discovery explains why many women enjoy planning weddings and are relegated to finding pediatricians and nannies when babies are born and aren’t dominant in the SEO world, which is about brute-number crunching rather than the zen of discovery. Understanding how women’s minds and processes work is critical though, because studies also show that women are primarily responsible for important household decisions. So if lawyers are interested in targeting the decision-maker for matters like estate planning or family business incorporation, they should build marketing campaigns that appeal to women’s sense of discovery.

So what can lawyers do to be discovered, not found? Put out quality materials online that consumers pass along to each other (like my Landowners’ Rights ebook). Show up at places where you’ll run into your target clients whether it’s trade shows or PTA meetings or zoning board hearings. Leave your clients something to pass on to others – pens or totes or other kinds of swag that stimulate conversation and lead others to ask “Hey, where’d you get that? What was that lawyer like?” Take all the cash that you spend on SEO and create something of value for potential clients.

You can have the first page of Google and all the garbage phone calls that come with it. I’d rather be the web’s best kept secret, on the cusp of discovery by grateful clients who will rave about me to everyone they know.

The Single Secret to Solo Success: The Scrap Heap Strategy

Carolyn Elefant — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:41:46 +0000

Call it the twitter-ization of going solo, but these days, I’m most often asked about the one thing that guarantees success as a solo. It’s an impossible question of course, since there isn’t any silver bullet — but if I had to settle on the one strategy common to successful solos across generations, regions and practice areas it would be mining the scrap heap.

Of course, my observation is nothing new. Turning garbage into gold is something solos have done instinctively forever. Over the years, I’ve blogged about several solos or solo spirited lawyers who’ve adopted this strategy, from Joe Flom (who built an empire on rough-and-tumble M&A cases, which were a dog at the time he took them on) Mike Lee, a young Philadelphia lawyer who co-founded a non-profit clinic focusing on criminal expungements. Not to brag, but I’m the queen of the junkyard myself in my own practice area, where I started representing ocean energy developers in the early 1990s when no other law firms would give them the time of day.

But until I came across this piece, The Innovators’ Dilemma, I never fully understood why the scrap heap strategy works so well. After all, you’d think that once a solo or start-up mines a new area, its potential would either tap up – or other, larger competitors would jump into the fray and run the solos or start ups out of town.

But in reality, there’s a more complicated dynamic at play, related to the psychology of the incumbent. As Innovators’ Dilemma describes (in the context of tech start ups), typically, a new tech start up will enter a market with its sights on a small part of the incumbents’ business, “usually the one in which the margins are very low:

By targeting an area that it never wanted, an incumbent then “decides not to compete in this business anymore because they don’t want to invest in defending their least profitable business and/or are afraid of cannibalizing their main business. As a result, the new entrant is then able to capture a significant market share in that specific segment.

But that’s not the end of the story. As the article continues,

What happens next is funny. After it captures the low end of the market, the entrant moves upstream to the next part of the business. Again, the incumbent is reluctant to compete in that segment which is now its newest least profitable segment. The entrant then captures a significant market share in this second segment.

What also happens, at least with regard to law firms is that by gaining a leg up in ancillary or undesirable markets, many solos are able to gain broader market share. For example, those ocean energy companies that I started representing when no one wanted them also gave me a leg up in the broader renewables industry as well – which allows me to draw more general business. Likewise, gaining a toehold in a narrow niche also helps expand one’s influence in broader markets.
So what are some tips for taking advantage of the scrap heap strategy. I’ll just quote the takeaways from the innovator’s dilemma, which says it best:

1. Understand what is the source of your disruption. Is it a new product or a new way to distribute an existing product? This will help you understand whether you are really disrupting the market or just building an incremental product.
2. Pay attention to opportunities in new distribution channels. Zynga’s biggest innovation was taking advantage of Facebook as its distribution channel before the traditional gaming companies could say “Mark Zuckerberg”.
3. Start by marketing to the group of customers for which the incumbent in your industry has the lowest margin or the lowest interest to defend. Don’t go head to head on their most important customers. They will crush you.
4. Remember these lessons when you are at the top.

Does Your Marketing Consultant Have Skin In the Game?

Carolyn Elefant — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:17:46 +0000

Accountability is today’s latest buzzword, a commodity in high demand in the legal community. Whether it’s large firm clients exploring alternative billing that would create a nexus between price and value, or exploring ways to make legal education more useful or simply making legal fees more transparent for consumers, both law students and clients want to make sure that they’re getting their money’s worth.

And not a moment too soon. For too long, both law schools and lawyers alike have avoided accountability for high rates, shrugging off any questions about value with a smug remark like “that’s how much it costs,” rather than tying performance to fees, or at least explaining to clients what they’re getting in return for dollars paid for legal services.

Yet, there’s one sector of the legal community that hasn’t taken the accountability hit: legal marketers and consultants. At a time when law schools are roundly (and deservedly) criticized for the impact of high tuition on the price of legal services and access to law, few have taken aim at the providers of high priced marketing schemes like Findlaw (with unconscionably priced websites and a Hotel California-like contract that you can never leave), Legal Match (again, high prices and questionable returns according to feedback on the Solosez list) and dozens of others (post ‘em in the comments) — pricing experts, marketing consultants, coaches, and many others that bilk desperate lawyers of thousands of dollars without delivering the goods.

Most consultants and coaches shift the responsibility, explaining that their results are only as good as the clients’ effort. And while that’s true to a degree, presumably a skilled coach or consultant will figure out ways to motivate a client to act – or be honest enough to tell them that the relationship isn’t working and end the relationship. Likewise, a reputable SEO company should probably take a look at your website and make sure that it has sufficient curb appeal to motivate potential clients to call, instead of simply taking a check for $1000 a month to send visitors to a site that is so ugly and unprofessional that visitors will flee once they’ve arrived. Some companies don’t even bother to offer constructive suggestions or tailor their services for lawyers, and instead promote products and services that are deceptive and unethical or lacking transparency. Finally, there’s the bottom rung comprised of those providers who commit social media credential fraud or simply lie .

Unfortunately, many lawyers who have been duped by unscrupulous providers are too embarrassed to say anything publicly. And lots of these companies keep a tight leash on testimonials, carefully cultivating rave (and often, reciprocal) reviews from affiliate providers without disclosing the relationship. Of course, for all of the over-priced, high-end, take-no-responsibility consultants, there are others who price reasonably and care about the success, sanity and integrity of their clients. Yet, because they’re honest about they can deliver, their marketing pitch doesn’t appeal as much as one that promises clients out of thin air or a seven figure practice overnight.

Ultimately, what’s worst about these high costs of consulting and SEO and internet marketing is that at the end of the day, it’s our clients who bear the costs. Just as many argue that the high price of law school is driving up the cost of legal services, so too, the added cost of SEO and marketing forces lawyers to charge more as well. Meanwhile, those lawyers who can’t afford to pay for these marketing and coaching services and have been lead to believe that there aren’t any alternatives (of course, there are many), either pay for something they can’t afford and go out of business — or do nothing but wait for the phone to ring and wind up going out of business.

I’m not suggesting that marketers and consultants and vendors aren’t entitled to make any money off their expertise. But if they choose to target lawyers and do business in the legal industry industry, don’t they have an obligation to take into account the impact of the costs of their services on access to law? We lawyers have an obligation to ensure access to law – and while we’re certainly not required to lower our rates or limit our profits, our professional rules encourage activities such as pro bono or providing mentorship and training to young lawyers. Many lawyers fulfill these obligations at some point in their career, giving back to a profession that has enabled them to do well. But you don’t see many consultants and marketers and vendors working for free or giving back to the profession, unless it’s to offer a free webinar to build up a spam list.

The bottom line is that legal marketers and consultants and gurus should walk the walk. If they believe that lawyers need to improve our transparency and client service skills and accountability, then shouldn’t they do the same? And if they are helping lawyers with their business and earning money off of that, don’t they, like lawyers, also have an obligation to give back and consider the impact of their high-priced services on overall access to law? What do you think?

If you’ve had a bad experience with a marketer or consultant – whether they charge $3999 or $39 for the product or service, please feel free to post anonymously in the comments or drop me an email at elefant@myshingle.com.

End of Year Idea Exchange: A $10.77 Marketing Tip

Carolyn Elefant — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:03:14 +0000

This past year, I spent quite a bit of time in crowded hearing rooms and conference auditoriums filled with suits, ipads, smartphones and laptops – but few electrical outlets. To recharge a device, you’d have to wait for an outlet to open up. And even if that happened, there was no guarantee that the outlet would be within the vicinity of your seat — which meant that you’d need to leave your equipment under someone’s chair to plug in and hope that no one would steal it.

I was somewhat annoyed that the facilities where I was spending so much time hadn’t been upgraded to add more outlets. At the same time, as a latecomer to these sorts of events, I was equally annoyed that in within these enormous rooms full of supposedly smart people, none of these geniuses even tried to come up with a better alternative. So after one or two plug-less experiences, I remembered my power strip and electric extension cord that I typically bring with me on trips and decided to just keep it up in my computer bag even if I was just staying local. Since then, whenever I find myself in a similar situation, I’ll plug int the extension cord, run the power strip to a central location and voila – whereas previously, only two people could huddle around the outlet, now five or six could conveniently share.

So what’s all of this got to do with marketing? Plenty. Because my power strip and extension cord allow me to make connections with my connection! Whenever I plug in, at least one or two colleagues will gratefully thank me for sharing or alternatively, will compliment me on my preparedness. Not only does a power strip let me stand out in an otherwise anonymous meeting room, but it also serves as an ice breaker to open up conversations. At some point when I remember to do so, I’d like to put my business card in a luggage tag and attach it to the extension cord for added visibility (I would also love to give away branded power strips, but I haven’t been able to find any). But even without this added extra, my $10.77 investment has proven itself a powerful (!) marketing tool.

What’s your favorite cheap marketing trick? Please share your suggestions in the comments below.

Unleash Your Inner Scholar: Why Solos Should Write A Law Review Article

Carolyn Elefant — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:21:12 +0000

Seems that ATL Editor David Lat is concealing a dirty little secret underneath his robes. As you know, by day, David toils as a mild-mannered blogger exposing the secrets of, and dishing out biting commentary on AmLaw 100 firms. But after hours, he busts out his secret inner scholar and transforms into a veritable Volokh, authoring real published scholarly articles like this one or this one that have more words than readers.

While I have no idea what compels David Lat to dabble in legal scholarship (perhaps it’s that same cleansing instinct that drives people to crave salad after a long junk food binge), writing law review articles makes sense for solos, particularly those who compete with large law firms or generate business from referrals from attorneys or judges. I fully recognize that the advice to write a law review article seems counter-intuitive at a time of declining journal circulation not to mention diminished attention spans. Even so, allow me to make my case for the law review article in the most un-scholarly way possible: the top ten (or in this case, the top eight) list.

1. An endless source of content : You’ve heard the saying that content is king; the only food source that will sate the ever ravenous search engines. At 12,000 words or more, packed with footnotes and case citations, law review articles offer an everlasting gobstopper of content for blogs, online publications and document archive platforms.

For starters, you can upload the article to your law firm website, as I did at my site with my recent law review article, The Power of Social Media: Legal Issues and Best Practices for Utilities Engaging Social Media. To further enhance your article’s online visibility, you can also post it at document archiving sites like Scribd, Docstoc, and tag your article with keywords that users might use in searching for information on the topic. If you’re more interested in putting your article in front of other lawyers and corporate counsel, post it on JD Supra, which will mention your article in one of its regular press releases, and also post it as part of theLegal Updates on LinkedIn.

But wait – there’s more! Because most law review articles are so ginormous, you can hack ‘em up into dozens of bite sized pieces that can be distributed around the internet. For articles of interest to corporate counsel, consider submitting a shortened version of your article to Lexology, a web-based service that delivers legal analysis to corporate law departments. Other article publication options include trade association newsletters (often published online), one of law.com’s many publications, Huffington Post or e-zine.

If you prefer to build content on your own site, you can re-purpose a law review article as a series of blog posts. And if your article concerns a topic that’s in flux – for example, an appellate decision pending Supreme Court review or an emerging area of law like online defamation or social media in employment law – you can produce a series of “pocket parts” (as I’ve done here) to continue to update readers about on-going developments.

2. An excuse to toot your own horn Lawyers will issue press releases on just about anything, from the importance of avoiding drinking and driving on New Year’s Eve to announcing availability to comment on a case (As an aside, search the term “lawyer” here for the sublime to the ridiculous in lawyer press releases). But publication of a law review article, particularly one on a current topic or in a prominent publication could potentially justify a Press Release. If a press release is too much, you can still announce your article on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and other social media channels.

3. Repurpose work product : In some of your cases, you may have an opportunity to brief a current issue where the circuits are split or even make precedent on an important issue. Rather than let all of that good research go to waste, you can quickly recycle the material into a law review article – and hire a law clerk or contract lawyer (see point #5 , below) for supplementary research or citations. Bear in mind that if you decide to write about research that you previously performed for a client, you should avoid commenting on any confidential issues unique to your client’s case, writing about a case that’s still ongoing or taking a position adverse to the one that you publicly advocated for your client.

4. Collaborate with a potential referral source or client If you’re a new lawyer eager to impress an experienced colleague in the hopes of attracting referrals, or angling to lure corporate business, use a law review article as a way to collaborate. It’s a technique that worked for Mark Hermann while he as at a firm, and one that he recommends now that he’s in-house. Co-authoring an article provides a tangible benefit to your prospect and gives them an opportunity to have a first hand look at your work product.

If you choose the co-authorship approach, though, you’ll have to take the initiative and follow through on getting the article done. While some co-authors will happily shoulder their share of work and dutifully meet deadlines, others will expect a free ride. So be prepared to draft the bulk of the article, play taskmaster to ensure that your co-author provides timely feedback, and submit the article for publication. The co-authorship process can be aggravating, but when your co-authors will be beholden to you forever once they see their name in a byline.

5. Help out an unemployed law student, new grads or contract lawyer Even if you’ve already preliminarily fleshed out a topic, a law review article will still require research assistance in the form of literature searches, cite checking and footnoting. Many of these tasks are well suited for law students, new unemployed graduates or junior contract lawyers. For a few hundred dollars, you can finalize your research without losing work time and help out a law student or another lawyer with a little bit of cash, research experience and a print acknowledgment to add to their resume.

6. Impress those big law colleagues OK, I know that many of you solos don’t give a hoot about what big firm lawyers think of you. And if you don’t get any business from large firm lawyers, that’s fair enough. But for many lawyers, particularly those who either leave big law to strike out on their own or otherwise work along side large firms, big law attorneys can serve as a lucrative source of small case or conflicts referrals. But even if large firm lawyers know you via an introduction from another colleague or a bar event, they may not end cases your way without some assurance that you’re capable of handling them. In these cases, the law review article can help vouch for your competence.

7. Change and influence the law Granted, with blogs and social media offering a platform for exchange of and exposure to ideas, law review articles carry less weight than they did years ago when this article that I authored served as the basis for legislative change a few years later. Still, many judges still look to law review articles to support judicial opinions that set new precedent so if you feel strongly about an area of the law that should be changed, a law review article offers that possibility.

8. Escape that inferiority complex Instead of constantly comparing yourself to “law reviewers” – either by boasting about how you’re so great while they’re slaving away as drones at big law, or claiming that they’re a bunch of snot-nosed, self-entitled losers, just write a damn law review article and cure yourself of the green-eyed monster once and for all. You’ll see that writing an article is basically the same thing as writing a brief, something you do everyday and that getting it published is even easier since journals are so desperate for content that they’ll print anything with lots of footnotes (most law professors, it seems would rather blog).

So come on – you’ve already tried the pricey directories, the expensive marketing gurus and for-fee SEO. What do you have to lose by taking a walk on the wild side and letting your inner scholar hang out?

FREE Recording – Cold Calls for Lawyers!

Carolyn Elefant — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:09:56 +0000

As my regular readers may know, I’m one of the few lawyers who actively recommends cold calling as a tool for finding overflow work and referrals or simply setting up introductory meetings or lunch dates with attorneys and other professionals within the community. I’ve written two pieces about cold calling, Pick Up the Phone and Make Yourself a Better Lawyer (ABA Law Practice Today July 2003) and Why Cold Calling is A Hot Idea (2009). [Important caveat - My endorsement of cold calling is limited to calls to other lawyers, colleagues and professionals and does not extend to calls soliciting business from consumer clients which is unethical in most, if not all, jurisdictions]

Yet for all the praise I’ve given the cold call, I’ve never offered a substantial nuts-and-bolts explanation of how to execute cold calls – for two reasons. First, though I’ve made cold calls myself with decent results, I don’t consider myself an authority on the subject. And while I’ve hunted for resources such as books or articles to better educate myself and my readers, I found most of the materials way too over-the-top salesy or pushy to recommend to other lawyers.

So it was a matter of sheer luck when I became acquainted with Thomas Alascio , an executive recruiter in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. For about four months this past spring and summer, Tom and I shared an office space in Bethesda, Maryland and because the space was cubicle-like in nature, I occasionally overheard Tom contacting prospective employers or employees. Tom was both affable and professional on the phone that he seemed like an ideal person to teach the how to’s of cold calling.

So I contacted Tom agreed and the result is a 40 minute conversation where we discussed the following topics: (after the jump)

–What are the benefits of cold calling?

–What are some strategies for overcoming fear of rejection?

–What are some organizational tips for gathering and organizing contacts
[Teaser - Tom offered some outstanding recommendations for working LinkedIn contacts and using Zoho's free CRM (customer relationships manager) for tracking calls]

–How do you get around gatekeepers like a secretary or assistant?

–What’s the most important information to convey in the opening minute of the call?

–How do you respond when a firm says it doesn’t have any overflow work or referrals?

–What are some tips for using a cold call as a way to set up a meeting or lunch date with a lawyer in the community?

To access the call, simply click HERE and enter your MyShingle password – or if you haven’t registered for the site, do so here – you’ll get the password immediately and can enter it to unlock the call. In a few days, I’ll also publish the written transcript if you prefer writing to audio.

Invest in This…Or That?

Carolyn Elefant — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:56:32 +0000

You’ve heard the pitch; we all have. For just $10,000 — less than $1000 per month — you’ll get a specially designed, SEO-optimized, social-media enhanced website — and a couple of pay-per-leads as a bonus. Can’t afford it or don’t want to spend that much? No worries, the salesman assures you – and then, the kicker:

Remember, if you get just one new client out of the program, then it pays for itself.

So you start running the numbers in your head and think – hey, maybe this guy is right. If I get a $10,000 matter – just one divorce or slip-and-fall or drug case, I’ll make my money back. And if I pull in two matters, I’m ahead of the game. Sounds tempting…not!

For starters, there’s the risk that your investment won’t produce. Attracting clients isn’t simply about SEO and getting to the first page of Google. If you’re marketing online, you need a website that’s sufficiently inviting to draw visitors back and persuade them to call or schedule an appointment. And once you’ve gotten prospective clients into your office, you need to educate them not about only about why they need to hire you, but also why you charge the rates that you do. Most experienced lawyers move through this process rather seamlessly but starting out, each stage may require some fine-tuning before you get the results you want.

But spending $10,000 on an SEO-enhanced website isn’t necessarily a good idea even if it’s a sure thing that you’ll earn $10,000 — or 100 percent return on your investment — by the end of the contract term. Because unless you have unlimited resources, tying up all of your cash for the possibility of a one to one return means that you’ll forego the chance to experiment with a variety of marketing options which collectively may generate two or three times the return at less risk.

This “eat this or that” photo illustrates my point by analogy. In the photo you can drink the 700 calorie shake, promising yourself that you won’t eat anything the rest of the day to compensate for the calories. Or, you can spread those calories around and get more bang for your caloric buck, while decreasing the chance that you’ll binge later in the day.

You can choose to tie up $10,000 and hope that it will convert into at least as much revenue. Or you can invest it in a portfolio of marketing options where you’ll have many more opportunities for success. For an even smaller budget, you can hire a developer from elance or odesk or a local college to design a nice looking website and blog. To capture contacts, you can, on that same budget, write a short ebook and engage a professional to assist with the design – and make it available for download at your site. You’ll even have enough to create a few basic web tutorials – and hire a law student or college graduate for 20 hours a month who can assist with marketing efforts by researching blog posts, keeping your social media profiles current or identifying events that you can attend to network with other lawyers.

So the next time a salesperson calls with empty promises of how you’ll make your money back on their service, why not ask if they’ll accept payment after you’ve recovered your initial investment. If they’re not willing to take a risk on their service, why should you?

Your Realization Rates May Make You Realize That Flat Fees Often Make More “Cents”

Carolyn Elefant — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:04:58 +0000

As a solo or small firm lawyer, you’ve probably heard the term “involuntary pro bono.” That’s what happens when you sign up to take a case, collect a retainer, exceed the retainer and the client stops paying the bill on the eve of trial when it’s too late to pull out.
Well, turns out that big law has the same problem, different name. As bloggers Tom Kane and Patrick Lamb discuss, large firm realization rates have dropped to an all time low, with big firms collecting just 85.4 percent of revenues billed. As Allison Shields astutely observes:

When lawyers write off or write down their fees – or when clients pay only a portion of the lawyer’s bill, aren’t both lawyer and client saying that the hourly fee really doesn’t mean anything, and that there is a particular (fixed) fee that is ‘fair’ for the work?

Ironically, the reason that lawyers resist flat fees is because they’re afraid that they’ll be shortchanged – for example, that they’ll charge $10,000 for a matter that ultimately takes thousands of hours. And while that’s a risk, so too is the possibility that clients won’t pay their bills in spite of the best precautions . And while some clients simply won’t pay because they’re cheap, others run out of money because their lawyer never offered an honest evaluation at the outset of how much the case might cost.

Somewhat counter-intuitively, flat fees give lawyers more control – not so much over the duration of a case, but rather, over the amount of work that the lawyer will perform. Let’s say for example, that a lawyer agrees to represent a client in a divorce proceeding. The lawyer could assess a fee that would specify that it covers the hearing and up to three contested disputes that might arise in the course of the case. If the opposing counsel (or your own client for that matter) decide to pursue a scorched earth policy and litigate every single discovery response or issue arising under the separation agreement, that activity would fall outside the scope of the fee arrangement and would cost extra. By contrast, if the matter is resolved with just one hearing, the lawyer would come out ahead. And if the matter involves three hearings, the lawyer will at least recover a fee that he or she was willing to accept under the agreement.

Now, imagine how this scenario would play out without deliverables and price specified up front. The lawyer would (in many instances at the client’s direction, no less!) file five or six motions, the client would run out of cash after the fourth and the lawyer would be stuck. Or, the lawyer would file a third motion but the client didn’t realize at the beginning that the case would involve so much time and still runs out of money. Or – even in a best case scenario where a client can keep pace with payments, the lawyer would find himself nagging the client on a monthly basis to replenish the retainer.

I’m not suggesting that flat fees work for all cases because they don’t (one of my colleagues who handles complex and unpredictable litigation matters experimented with phase fee billing with mixed results). In my own case, I’ve had problems with fixed fees where I’ve quoted a certain rate and but then outsource work to a freelancer or paralegal who works hourly and whose rates don’t necessarily align with my budget. Still over all, I favor the flat fee as do my clients because it gives them certainty while it forces me to puzzle through the intricacies of a case at the beginning so that the case funs more smoothly.

For those of you who have written off the idea of flat fees, take a look at your realization rate. You may just realize that you won’t fare any worse – and at times, may come out ahead – with a flat fee rather than hourly billing.

What’s your experience with flat fees and hourly billing? In particular, I’d be interested in hearing how solo/small firm realization rates compare to the 85.4% rate reported by larger firms. Please post comments below

Pay for the Product, Legal Service is Free or Pay for the Legal Service, Product is Free?

Carolyn Elefant — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:56:35 +0000

In my last post, I discussed different types of freebies that lawyers offer as incentives to encourage existing clients to send or refer more work. But lawyers — and quasi-legal providers like Legal Zoom — are also using free to generate new clients.

Many lawyers – from solos to behemoth firms – are giving away forms and templates free in the hopes of selling their services. As I posted here, large firms are offering small business toolkits replete with forms and term sheet generators at no charge. The firms figure that most start-ups aren’t going to be able to afford any law firm, much less a mega-firm. So rather than offer service for free, which can be a costly proposition, the firm makes available high quality forms which don’t cost anything to replicate once they’re developed. Clients who use these forms are more likely to seek out the firms’ assistance when they’re ready to hire. And because those clients bring forms that the firm prepared, the firm can help them more efficiently than if it had to revise someone else’s DIY product.

Of course, it’s not just mega-firms that give away forms; many solos offer forms free as well. Sam Glover makes free debt collection defense and FDCPA forms available on his Caveat Emptor blog while my free e-book on Landowners’ Rights In a FERC Pipeline Certificate Proceeding includes several sample interventions that landowners can copy and file at FERC. Making forms available not only increases the likelihood that landowners will hire me when they reach a critical point in the process, but it also ensures that when they come to me they’ve preserved their rights so that I can actually aid them effectively.

There’s nothing to lose in making forms available for free. For starters, as the cost of production approaches zero, consumers will be able to find forms free at any site – so it might as well be yours. Six months after I published my Landowner Guide, FERC (to its credit) has made available some fairly detailed sample interventions as well. Moreover, many of the consumers who seek out free forms either because (1) they have no intention of hiring a lawyer in which case you won’t get the work anyway or (2) they want to learn more about what is involved in the process, and will hire a lawyer if a form is too complicated to manage on their own.

On the flip side, Legal Zoom is taking the opposite approach to free. With Legal Zoom, consumers pay for the form (and assistance filling it in) – but for some of the LZ services such as wills, a lawyer’s assistance is included for free (well, for an extra ten bucks along with other upgraded services). So basically, LZ customers pay for the product and get the service free.

It’s always been easy to write off clients who go to Legal Zoom, since most likely they were never willing to pay for attorney services anyway. But now that LZ is giving away legal service, some of the clients who may have been willing to pay a lawyer even if it posed some financial hardship will look to Legal Zoom instead.

As I see it, lawyers have two choices. First, lawyers can simply refuse to compete with free by mastering their practice area so as to capture the market for the kinds of bespoke, tailored services that simply can’t be provided at no charge (just as a specialized, solo bankruptcy lawyer snatched a plum matter from a big firm working largely pro bono). Otherwise, lawyers need to accept that they’re going to have to give something away to compete with Legal Zoom or with other lawyers who are doing the same. Lawyers don’t necessarily have to give away forms free – they can offer free consultations to discuss options with clients; maybe even agree to review, for free, DIY documents and make recommended changes (for which clients will need to pay). Lawyers can even develop high quality forms and give away the service – for example, answering questions – as part of the package.
But at the end of the day, lawyers who don’t have a bespoke option on their menu need to, every once in a while, offer a free lunch. To paraphrase New Hampshire’s state motto, in world where clients are accustomed to powerful tools like Google Voice and dropbox and Gmail all at no choice, lawyers just may have to give free [legal services] or die.