With the rise of social media, lawyers have of course gotten into the fray, starting Facebook fan pages for their law firms, professional profiles on LinkedIn and personal social media accounts. Attorneys have to be extra careful to use social media in a way that won’t expose them to ethics complaints.
Getting more business and meeting potential new clients are constantly on lawyers’ minds. But in chasing new business, too many lawyers overlook their best possible source of referrals: former clients. Marketing initiatives intended to help to meet new people are important, but lawyers also need systems in place to stay in touch with former clients who already know the lawyer, have experienced the lawyer’s service and have paid for it.
Whether you have the kind of law practice which lends itself to repeat business or not, it makes sense to stay in touch with former clients on a consistent basis. Even if your former clients are not likely to need your services again, statistics show that repeat clients spend more and refer more. But if you’re not on their radar, they might not remember to refer to you.
When opening a solo practice, attorneys usually make two big mistakes.
One, because they are new to running a business, they minimize expenses without considering the upside of certain “unnecessary” expenses.
Two, they are so desperate for clients that they take any client and any case that walks in the door.
But the hidden costs of problem client can easily negate their fee. The sooner you understand that concept, the better.
A recent article on FindLaw.com called Five Ways Attorneys Waste Money claimed that attorneys can cut clients’ costs by avoiding needless motions, staffing cases leanly, focusing on the important issues, avoiding petty spats with the opposition, and being smart about when to settle.
But the article ignored the most important way attorneys can save money for their firms and clients: by learning how to write in plain English.
Most attorneys don’t believe that writing style matters. They might concede that writing in plain English can be aesthetically pleasing to the reader; but they also say that it’s not worth the time to learn how to do it because there’s no evidence that writing in plain English saves time or money.
But these attorneys ignore what legal-writing experts have taught — and what the empirical evidence has shown — for more than 50 years: that plain English saves time and money by increasing the ability of readers to understand and retain what they have read. Keep Reading ⇒
One of the most challenging aspects about running a solo practice is that you are responsible for client intake.
Overall, I’ve found that answering my own phone and responding to potential client e-mails is a great way to find potential cases and build strong client relationships.
In Minnesota, however, it’s cold season, which means I have to play the role of triage nurse. Here are couple of ways to handle sick clients while maintaining strong client relationships.
I’m frequently asked how much time and money should attorneys spend on marketing. Like a true lawyer, I reply that “it depends.” There is no magic percentage of revenue or billable hours to be allocated to business development activities. The answer to this question will vary by practice area, geographic location and budget.
But when asked about the two most important marketing tools for attorneys, my answer is rarely “it depends.” The answer is your networking efforts and your website. No matter how much time and money a lawyer decides to spend, spend it in these two areas.
It is the rare lawyer who is familiar with all the intricacies of legal marketing ethics rules. Most of them, however, seem to know that they must take care when using the word “specialize.” At the same time, most of these attorneys have no idea why. Continue reading this post to discover the answer.
When my partner and I first signed up with Ruby Receptionists, we had a problem: 2% of our clients were eating up more than 30% of our monthly minutes. The calls were never urgent, these folks just called a lot. Our first solution, as I explained here, was to use RingCentral. RingCentral is a third party call routing service. But for some reason, it doesn’t play well with Google Voice. We set up filters for certain people to go to Ruby, and others to go right to voicemail. It ended up sending almost everyone to voicemail. Obviously a flawed solution. Then, with the help of the ladies at Ruby, we realized that Google Voice can do this internally.
Most of us walk around all day believing that everything we do, experience, think, feel, and worry about gets stored away in our memory, and that memory is an extraordinarily important part of the individual mind.
In fact, there’s a real distinction between two very separate memories, and minds, at work inside that one lovely brain of yours. Understanding the difference betweeen the two, and how they work together, can make you a more effective and happier lawyer and person.
I recently received a call from a former lawyer-coaching client of mine seeking marketing ethics advice. He’s a solo practitioner and plans to relocate to a new office building. In the new location, he will office share with two other solos. His question: What kind a signage is appropriate when three solos are sharing one office at the same address?
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