Many professionals are urged to write as a method of marketing.
Publishing can be an important boost to one’s status and credibility. This is an outstanding method of demonstrating your expertise.
There are many examples of this in the legal profession. Today’s LA Daily Journal highlights one such example. In an article entitled “The Book Stops Here: Treatises Identify Firm,” the law firm of Miller Starr Regalia, a northern California real estate law firm, is featured. Their seminal work, the highly regarded Miller Starr California Real Estate Book, is known far and wide, even outside California boundaries. Since its first publication in 1965, the book has grown to 12 volumes and is highly regarded as an encyclopedia of California real estate law.
Not only does the firm receive a respectable revenue flow, more important benefits result. One is greater respect for all of its attorneys in the court room. After all, if your firm is the leading authority on the law and is cited by courts in making their decisions, you start with an advantage over your adversary. Also, clients want to be represented by the leading authority. Thus, their revenue is greater than it would otherwise be.
Think about what your expertise is, who your target market is and how you might best reach your market. Publishing is only one approach.
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This was the title of a program offered today by the Los Angeles chapter of Legal Marketing Association, with panelists Susan Hackett, General Counsel of the Association of Corporate Counsel, and Michael Roster, former chairman of ACC, General Counsel of several major corporations, and managing partner of a major law firm.
ACC, at its annual meeting in Seattle, WA in October 2008 intends to roll out an effort to relate law firm billings to client perceptions of value. To some degree, the panelists suggest that they seek to roll back the clock 40 years, when there was a “professionalism” about billing, a stronger and more effective bridge of communication between the client and its relationship partner at t he law firm and less emphasis on increased profits per partner. ACC is not quite sure how they intend to get there nor what the “it” will look like. But, the discussions with stakeholders has begun. And the ride promises to be interesting, to say the least.
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Ed Poll was interviewed by Rob La Gatta of LexBlog.
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According to a recent study by Altman Weil, Inc., the closer to retirement a lawyer gets, the more likely he/she is to oppose mandatory retirement ages. Interviews with a number of aging lawyers suggests that they don’t want to retire, but they do want to work only part-time and they no longer (if they ever did) want to be responsible for rainmaking.
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Q: Ed, can Outsourcing really make a firm more productive and profitable?
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Q: Ed, do you have any fresh ideas about how I can market my law business?
A: There is no better way to establish effective prospect relationships than by establishing a presence for your firm or your practice at industry trade shows and association meetings. By properly researching and targeting your audience, you can meet more prospects in one day than you might otherwise meet in months. And by physically being present at these meetings of potential clients, you demonstrate that you know their business, understand their concerns, and are serious about offering solutions.
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“J. A. Barnes in the 1950s defined a social network as ‘an association of people drawn together by family, work or hobby.’ In the digital age, social networking websites amplify opportunities to associate and grow our social (personal and/or professional) capital.” (more…)
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After I posted my Q & A about lawyers blogging, I received a copy of the ABA’s Law Practice Today with its lead article being a well-written piece by Greg Siskind on lawyers and blogging.
Another article in this edition concerns the changing landscape of the legal profession and outsourcing, written by me.
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Q:
Ed, you’re an avid blogger—I read LawBiz® Blog all the time. I’ve even contemplated starting my own blog. What could blogging do for my private law practice? (more…)
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In October, managing partners from across the country gathered at the Canadian Bar Association’s third annual high level conference created to focus specifically on their issues. They came together in Montreal to exchange ideas and discuss best practices. The Lawyers Weekly wrote about the conference and, particularly, my remarks.
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