All Our Tips
5 Tips on Marketing for Law Firms (Video)
The world of marketing remains a bit of a mystery for many legal professionals. We know enough about it that many of us become do-it-ourselfers for our websites, blogs and even our branding.
Nonetheless, there is much we can learn from true marketing professionals.
To that end, I have the pleasure today of introducing the first in a series of videos on Marketing for Lawyers and Legal Professionals I’ve done with Sandra Bekhor of Bekhor Management and Toronto Marketing Blog. Sandra’s firm provides marketing and practice management services nationwide to lawyers and other professional practitioners.
In this installment, Sandra discusses marketing for lawyers and provides 5 tips on taking your firm’s marketing endeavours to the next level:
Here are Sandra’s key tips from the video:
1. Track where your client enquiries are coming from.
- Generate data on what’s working for your firm today by asking your intake staff to ask new clients how they became aware of your firm and by including a question on your intake questionnaire that asks this same question. And, of course, remember to thank your referral sources.
2. Analyze your marketing budget (and spend wisely)
- Be aware of how much you are investing in each of your marketing initiatives over the course of the year, and determine which of those initiatives are delivering a good return. If an initiative isn’t working, discontinue it. If you are seeing success, consider how to extend and build on that success.
3. Decide what you want your marketing to generate for you, and use marketing to shape the practice you intend to build.
- Consider the “80/ 20 rule:” 20% of your practice drives 80% of revenue. Decide what you want more of, and direct your marketing efforts toward those outcomes. Develop a sense of who your “ideal” target client is, and target those clients.
- This applies to each individual lawyer. Take a look at your practice – the kind of work you are doing and the kind of work you’d like to be doing. Focus your marketing efforts on reshaping your practice to align with your professional aspirations and goals.
4. Develop a plan
- After analyzing what has already been working, deciding where you want to get to and establishing your budget, you will have compiled much necessary information to feed and direct your law firm’s marketing plan.
- While there are many steps to getting there, ultimately your marketing plan is an action plan. It tells you what projects you should be working on – develop a logo or tagline, expand your engagement on social media, arrange speaking engagements, or update your website, as examples.
- It will likely include marketing activity that the entire firm will participate in, as well as personal level activities that are customized to each lawyer’s strengths and interests.
- If a stated goal is to open x new files in a preferred area of practice or to drive y dollars in revenue by end of year, your plan will also help you determine how many of these marketing activities will need to happen (and at what frequency they must happen) to make your goals a reality.
5. Implement your plan before the ink dries
In fact, start implementing even before you finish the plan.
6. Bonus Tip (from me): Involve Marketing Professionals
- Marketing professionals bring objectivity, understanding of the marketplace and an assortment of strategic and creative skills to any law firm marketing initiative.
- But perhaps most importantly, marketing professionals can help law firms to identify and clearly articulate their authentic identities and strengths. They then can work with us to translate these articulated strengths into marketing initiatives aimed at building the kinds of practices we all genuinely aspire toward.
It’s not quite as simple as “if you build it they will come,” perhaps.
But if you build it and market it appropriately and professionally – and your firm delivers the quality of service it promises to deliver – you are likely to have a very successful career in the practice of law.
For the professional practice of today, I’d suggest, marketing has become one of the necessary – and unavoidable – components of such success.
Garry J. Wise, Toronto (@wiselaw on Twitter)
Understand What You Are Asking For
I am having a wonderful time in Maui this week with my family. Today’s Tip is inspired by my Aunt Betty who reminded me that it is important that OTHER PEOPLE know what you are asking for.
You may know that the Hawaiian language uses fewer letters than English. I confess to being completely baffled by local pronunciation. Betty, on the other hand has visited this beautiful part of the world several times, and has mastered the phonetic discrepancies that twist my tongue.
This is the root of it:
a is always ahhhh
e is the long A
i is eee
o is oh
u is oooo
When asking for directions to somewhere, you don’t want to be misunderstood and sent to the wrong town.
Just like legal research! If you don’t understand what you are looking for, you will ask databases (or partners) for search results that don’t match what you really need.
Today’s second tip, don’t get so excited by seeing fishes in nature that you swim on your back while snorkeling.
What Are You Going to Do in Your Retirement?
♫ Look at that sky, life’s begun
Nights are warm and the days are young
Come get up my baby
Golden years, gold, whop whop whop
Golden years, gold, whop whop whop…♫
Lyrics, Music and recorded by David Bowie.
So many articles on retirement all deal with the issue of finances and how to plan so you are not caught off guard on the money side. Since that aspect has been explored in detail, this article is going to take us in a totally different direction. As lawyers, we get so much of our personal identity from simply being lawyers that the idea of hanging up our robes and walking out the office wearing the title “Retired Lawyer” causes us panic and a sense of dread. Just *what* would we do with all that….time?
Furthermore there is the fact that as a lawyer, you are accustomed to spending large amounts of time at the office. After retirement, you are now faced with spending the rest of your life with someone that you may have only been seeing on a limited basis for the last while. You now need to start living life together and not in parallel.
Not surprisingly, according to A Satisfying Retirement Blog “[F]or married people over 50, the divorce rate has more than doubled in the last 20 years. Some lawyers report up to 25% of their clients are men and women over 65.”
Accordingly, I think that a good place to start is by asking ourselves “What is the vision that we (you and your spouse or loved one) have for our retirement?” Do you see lots of travel ahead? Spending time with family and grandchildren? Playing sports and being active? Getting to know one another…again?
Another aspect to think about (and sorry for the dark undertones): What would you want people to say at your funeral about you? Have you spent time on the activities for which you wish to be remembered? Now is the best time to start working on the legacy that you wish to leave.
Start a list of all the things that you (and your spouse or loved one) would like to do with the rest of your lives together. Use that to start a conversation on how to plan to check off as many of these as you can together. It is much better knowing that both of you are working in the right direction than to find yourselves at cross-purposes and disappointed about the turn of events in your ‘golden years’.
Retirement can have a very stressful effect on a relationship and when you add in possible health-related issues related to aging and the diminishment of income, you can see that you have the potential for a perfect storm. Like most challenges, dialogue and preparation can help you deal with complications if, and when, they arise. You want to craft a life together that meets each partner’s physical, emotional and other needs and that allows you to take each partner’s feelings, desires and dreams into account.
The other factor to consider is the activities that you plan on enjoying in retirement. You don’t just start doing them on day 1. You need to ease into them by taking the time ..now..to build a base and look forward to getting better at them in retirement. Whether it is golf, tennis, playing a musical instrument, pursuing photography, travel – you need to start enjoying them while you are working in order to really get the benefits of them in retirement. After all you don’t want to look forward to playing the guitar only to find out that your hands are just not working the way you wished at this point in your life.
You also need to establish boundaries – there are still activities that you will want to enjoy with a group of friends that may not include your spouse….and visa versa. Respecting that each of you need and desire this ‘apart’ time makes the situations more bearable when one person goes off to have lunch with the girls or a golf game with the guys.
One final issue for this column (but certainly not the final issue you will face in retirement) is the readjustment of tasks around the home. If one spouse has been working full-time and the other perhaps has been taking a bigger share of the home chores to accommodate, this allotment of chores needs to be adjusted after retirement. Set up ‘blue jobs’ and ‘pink jobs’ (our designation around our home) with expectations of how and when these will be done. To keep the magic happening, if you are the one who does the ‘blue’ jobs, do a pink job occasionally in addition. Believe me, it will be noticed..and appreciated in your golden years. Of further note, “blue” and “pink” jobs depend on your individual circumstance, background and understandings. The underlying understanding is that we support our spouse in whatever ways we can when we are looking up at the sky and saying life has begun.
–David J. Bilinsky, Vancouver, BC.
Where Is Your Content Going
You spend good time and brain power creating a beautiful research work product. Then what happens?
Today’s Tip: think about where your words go.
Today’s Tip is brought to you by the office of my Outlook Junk Folder in conjunction with my Spam filter and my email rules. These offices are not hungry for YOUR content. With the extra efforts being made by organizations to comply with CASL, items are being scooped into spam quarantines that are not really spam.
This legal research tip is intended for readers as well as writers. Best of luck.
Use Skype to Strengthen Lawyer-Client Rapport
It crept up on us slowly, but Skype has become an indispensable technology in the modern law firm’s toolbox.
A bit of historical context will set the stage:
Launched in 2003, Skype was one of the first mass market freely available forms of internet video conferencing. It took advantage of early developments in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology to allow users to communicate with each other using their microphones and webcams. Previously video conferencing had been prohibitively expensive for the general public and was largely only used by companies. The burgeoning popularity of broadband over the last few years has led to an increase in the use of a constantly improving VoIP and a surge in the popularity of Skype. Microsoft purchased Skype in 2011 for $8.5 billion, together with its database of some 600 million users.
The Skype-call has become a routine entry in my calendar over the last year or so. In fact, it is an increasingly-rare week that does not have at least one Skype meeting booked with an out-of-town client.
The videoconference via Skype offers many obvious advantages over the traditional voice call.
The opportunity for an eyeball-to-eyeball connection facilitates a much deeper rapport between lawyer and client, and in the process, helps build and strengthen the trust that is the necessary foundation of the lawyer-client relationship. This is especially important where distance or disability make face-to-face meetings rare or impractical.
Perhaps there is something to be said from the client’s perspective for the opportunity to speak to one’s lawyer from the familiar surroundings of one’s own home or office. A Skype call allows for professional communications in a context that is a bit more relaxed, convenient and comfortable for the client than a hectic law office. That lends itself to the better and more natural dialogue that typically emerges.
There is probably a simple explanation for the increasing frequency of the virtual meeting via Skype in my office – we made a concerted effort to offer this option to our out-of-town clients. Once they were made aware of the availability of virtual meetings, they embraced it, almost unanimously.
Connection glitches can still be an occasional, but generally manageable issue, however. It’s not perfect, but Skype is very good.
As is always the case with new technologies, the legal profession’s opt-in to virtual videoconferencing will occur somewhat later than the rest of the planet’s. The corporate world has utilized videoconferencing to reduce travel costs and maximize efficiencies . In the same timeframe, telemedicine has revolutionized medical care in remote locations, using videoconferencing technologies to diagnose, deliver treatment and even perform complex surgeries. Even our family courts have been considering Skype’s place in parental custody and access applications since at least 2006.
Our clients are already on Skype, connecting regularly with friends and family worldwide. It makes good sense, therefore, that they are increasingly ready to meet virtually with their lawyers and other professionals, using a technology that is already familiar to them, from the comfort of their own surroundings.
Skype, and videoconferencing generally, is truly is the “next best thing to being there.” While it doesn’t replace direct human interaction, it comes close – much closer than the phone call does or can, I’d suggest. Adding to the convenience, free mobile versions of Skype allow lawyers and clients alike to connect with smartphones from anywhere.
Ultimately, it’s hard not to foresee the videoconference eventually replacing the typical office visit with most clients on an increasingly frequent basis. The opportunity to avoid parking costs, traffic snarls, scheduling difficulties and wait times might ultimately become too attractive an option for our marketplace to turn down.
So here is today’s tip: Offer your clients the option of video meetings with you via Skype. They are probably already using this technology, and may jump at the opportunity to meet virtually with you, too.
– Garry J. Wise, Toronto (@wiselaw on Twitter)
Delegating Legal Research
Today’s Tip was inspired by John DiGilio who edits the Pinhawk Librarian News Digest. John noted a post at RIPS Law Librarian Blog titled The Art of Delegating. The post has great food for thought for anyone sharing work.
Let me start here: I hate the phrase ‘pushing work down’ – it does not reflect the benefit of sharing work with the delegate. The benefits of personally contributing to a team effort, cross training for broader niche expertise among a group and balancing workflows are well covered in the post.
Now to the tip part. When delegating legal research tasks, remember to:
- share the facts that lead to the question (or tell someone where they can find the story of the file)
- relay expectations, including:
- time lines
- search cost restrictions
- volume of answer required (i.e. do you want a search from Magna Carta forward or the last 6 months of case law)
- explain what you already know OR do not want them to spend time on
- clarify how you are going to use the research output(send to a judge may mean different language/citation style than send to a client)
- be specific about format requirements (a hyperlink to a CanLII case or a Word version of a case with highlighting for colour printing and binding to file with the court)
- if you want the research to be approached using a specific path, make that clear
- seek confirmation that instructions are understood and follow up
Remember that with delegating, the more information you give, the better the result you will receive. Don’t forget to ask for and give feedback. That will make your next task sharing moment even better.
USB Logo Helps When Plugging in USB Cord
The Universal Serial Bus or USB cable has become the universal standard for charging and connecting electronic devices. USB cable connectors come in a variety of shapes and they can fit very snugly or 
offer very little resistance when you plug them in. Getting the right orientation can sometimes be a challenge, and forcing them in the wrong orientation will damage the connectors. Here is a little tip to help you get it right: look for the USB trident logo, it indicates which side of the connector should face up when you are plugging things in.
When the Going Gets Tough..the Tough Go for a Walk
♫ Walking in Memphis
I was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel? ♫
Lyrics and music by Marc Cohen.
The New York Times on Wednesday Jan 21 published an article “The Benefits of a Lunch Hour Walk” by Gretchen Reynolds. It has important implications for those feeling stressed, out of shape and suffering from a less-than-optimal mood. She states:
“A new study finds that even gentle lunchtime strolls can perceptibly — and immediately — buoy people’s moods and ability to handle stress at work.”
What is different about this study is that it doesn’t focus on long term results – it looks at the short term results of walking just 30 mins at lunch.
This study was published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports and involved researchers at the University of Birmingham and other universities.
According to the abstract of the study:
“During the intervention period, participants partook in three weekly 30-min lunchtime group-led walks for 10 weeks. They completed twice daily affective reports at work (morning and afternoon) using mobile phones on two randomly chosen days per week.”
This is not getting out and running 6 miles at noon. It is simply walking – getting out of the office, hitting the sidewalks and taking in some (hopefully) fresher air, sunshine and conversation.
What did they find?
“Lunchtime walks improved enthusiasm, relaxation, and nervousness at work, although the pattern of results differed depending on whether between-group or within-person analyses were conducted. The intervention was effective in changing some affective states and may have broader implications for public health and workplace performance.”
Gretchen Reynolds stated:
“To allow them to assess people’s moods, the scientists helped their volunteers to set up a specialized app on their phones that included a list of questions about their emotions. The questions were designed to measure the volunteers’ feelings, at that moment, about stress, tension, enthusiasm, workload, motivation, physical fatigue and other issues related to how they were feeling about life and work at that immediate time.”
And what did they find from those who went for a walk?
“On the afternoons after a lunchtime stroll, walkers said they felt considerably more enthusiastic, less tense, and generally more relaxed and able to cope than on afternoons when they hadn’t walked and even compared with their own moods from a morning before a walk.”
All the volunteers showed gains in their aerobic fitness from the exercise. Unfortunately many could not continue with their exercise as they felt pressured by management to work through their lunch. Just a suggestion, but when it comes to improving people’s performance at work, perhaps management needs to take a walk…
Print Legislation Remains Valuable
During a dinner table discussion of paper less practices recently, a friend praised the value of print legislation. He practices tax litigation, and I was questioning him about the various eBook versions of available in that area. He reminded me that the speed of cross referencing several sections is enhanced with the finger in book method as opposed to the click and return, especially when you have multiple sections referring to one another.
When I think about using legislation to answer a legal research question an the pattern that I used most frequently, I have to agree.
For the answer to a legislation question print often wins the day. Finding the first thread may be faster with a word search, and for sharing, electronic is clearly out front. In the race for meaning though, print is still frequently first over the finish line.
Let the debate begin.
Go to Airplane Mode or Power Down to Charge Your Device More Quickly
We’ve all been there: Waiting for an urgent email, text or call while watching the red battery warning light flash as you are running from one place to another. Dimming the screen and closing open apps will keep your device alive a bit longer, but often it won’t be enough. 
In this situation, you end up looking for a place to get a quick charge– but as you are in a rush, you don’t have a lot of time to let your device charge-up. Here are two options that will allow it to charge more quickly:
- Close all open apps and put it in airplane mode. This turns all the device’s radios off, allowing the power that would normally run the radios to go to charging the device.
- You can also turn it off completely, allowing all incoming power to go to charging the device’s battery.
Of course, you won’t receive any messages or calls while you are in airplane mode or when your device is turned off, but your device’s battery will charge noticeably faster. Either of these tricks will get you off and running with more of a charge in your battery. Nice to know the next time you are in a rush and that red battery light starts flashing.
