Virtual Law Practice

Category: Online Marketing

  • Online Legal Services Gets a Boost from ABA & Rocket Lawyer Partnership

    connectedI was thrilled to hear the news today from the Wall Street Journal Law Blog that the ABA announced its partnership with Rocket Lawyer on a pilot project to help match up ABA members with online clients.

    I’ve been researching and writing about lawyer collaboration with branded networks like Rocket Lawyer for the past couple of years with a focus on ethics issues and best practices. I wrote a book about the best practices for lawyers who wanted to work with these companies and make connections with clients through them. I think this partnership integrates wonderfully with virtual law practice and unbundling of legal services. However, I didn’t see this announcement coming because of the resistance I’ve heard from state bars for the past several years to any form of online delivery, even completely lawyer-owned and controlled, that might threaten the traditional lawyer business model. This announcement is huge because it steps back from the usual protectionist stance of the ABA and looks at what the public is asking for from the profession and at what lawyers need in order to connect with them. It is an acknowledgement from the ABA that consumers are going online looking for legal services and that not having licensed lawyers on board with the public’s need for online legal services puts both the lawyer and the public at a disadvantage.

    One of the key themes that came out of the Legal Services Corporation’s Tech Summit Report was the need for mobile access. Rocket Lawyer has developed a mobile app as a part of its online services offerings. Getting lawyers used to using mobile apps and online tools is going to increase the profession’s ability to provide greater access to legal services, especially in rural areas. It’s also going to lead to greater acceptance and use of unbundling as a legal service delivery model. It will be interesting to see how these pilot projects role out. Here is a link to my free ebook with best practices for collaboration by lawyers and companies like Rocket Lawyer.

  • Regulating Lawyer Online Advertising? Welcome to the Party.

    As many of my readers know, I have strong opinions about the regulation of lawyer advertising and it goes back to the unfounded assumptions about consumers that the advertising rules were originally built upon, and the fact that they have not been updated much since then to account for online methods of advertising and the way the public actually finds lawyers online.

    I’m preparing for a panel presentation at the Univ. of San Francisco where we will be discussing lawyer advertising and regulation. The event is entitled Legal Ethics in the 21st Century: Technology, Speech, and Money. I‘m going back through some of my materials on this topic. Below is a sidebar from my book about lawyer online advertising. With the Florida Bar going crazy with restrictions on lawyer blogs, it’s time to start pushing this matter forward starting with education about the marketplace for legal services.  In the meantime, people looking for access to lawyers who are the right match for their legal needs are still out there looking for help and they don’t really care about First Amendment or lawyer protectionist arguments. (#A2J)

    internet-marketing-abcRestructuring Lawyer Marketing Vocabulary to Adapt to eCommerce

    A 2010 BIA/Kelsey report found that 97 percent of all consumers use online methods of researching and selecting services in their local area.  Even those law firms that claim their practice is “only local-based” or that they meet with all their clients in-person, in the office and at the courthouse, have no excuse to continue to ignore the Internet as a marketing tool. Online marketing methods are impacting all law firms. Below are some suggestions for redefining the legal profession’s marketing vocabulary.

    • The term “market” should not be used as a verb, but as a noun. Marketing is not something a lawyer does “to” or “at” prospective clients. A market is a place where individuals come together to discuss common interests and to create relationships based on supply and demand. The focus in lawyer marketing should be on engagement and conversation.
    • Separate the concepts of the lawyer’s “duty” to the public in advertising from “etiquette” or not being “tacky” in advertising online. Lacking good taste is subjective. Being misleading or false is another matter.  Lawyer regulations should not attempt to dictate taste.
    • The Internet is not a tool; it is a place. We don’t do things through it or on it; we do them “in” it.  Welcome to the party.
    • Commercialism and professionalism: these two concepts do not have to be at odds with each other. Does maintaining an attitude of sitting up on a high-horse of education and presumed privilege hinder the ability to interact with the average client? Of course it does. Intimidation may be useful in the courtroom or during negotiations, but it should not completely define the professional image of lawyers. The legal profession should refocus on the respect, trust, and expertise that falls under professionally rendered services, but present it in a way that is not condescending or intimidating to the average American citizen. Movies and television shows with negative or hostile images of lawyers will be difficult to supplant, but if lawyers start engaging more in open, online dialogue with the public, this can change.
    • Customer service is a concept most law firms do not think about, but it is a basic best practice for business owners in every industry. There are online methods of providing consumer service. For example, sending a simple “thank you for being a client” email  or providing free, basic legal education and content on a firm website or in an online marketing tool. These provide a platform for delivery of educational legal material. Content controls the Internet. Sharing is both good online consumer service and a method of starting conversations with prospective clients and other lawyers.
    • Lawyers should not rely too strongly on the term “consumer” when thinking about marketing strategies for client development. Consumption implies a swallowing up of something in return for monetary value. We do not want our clients consuming legal services because in many cases the relationship between the attorney and client is what is so valuable to them and what makes our work meaningful beyond the financial rewards. Let’s remember they are our clients, but balance this with the knowledge that they are also our customers which implies another level of care beyond the attorney/client privilege; one that includes their satisfaction with our work and their overall experience with the delivery of legal services and the legal profession.

  • Five Tips for Lawyers Purchasing Online Lead Gen Services

    Lead-Generation-ROIFive Tips for Lawyers Purchasing Online Lead Generation Services

    1.   Find out how much traffic the branded network’s site generates. Check with a company like Quantcast, which provides an estimate of the traffic generated to a single website.

    2.   Find out where the company pulls in the leads. An unscrupulous company might be purchasing low-quality leads to funnel to their lawyer network.

    3.  Find out how the service operates. For example, does it focus on generating the traffic by purchasing Google AdWords? What is the strategy for generating leads to push to the lawyer network? The cost of the service to your firm is going to depend on its costs to generate the leads to forward to you.

    4.   Note how tailored the lead generation service is to your specific practice area and jurisdiction. Some companies may restrict their own marketing to particular states or regions to generate leads for the areas where they have the most lawyer members in their network.

    • If the service is attempting to generate leads from landing pages that are too broad, this is going to mean fewer warm leads for you.
    • Are you in a jurisdiction where the company has focused its marketing to the public, or will you be one of only a handful of lawyers in your jurisdiction using the service?

    5.   Do a cost/benefit analysis based on the return you would get from each lead and how much the company is charging for leads.

    • If the service is performance based, then find out if you must pay for leads even if they are not warm leads or if you are unable to convert a lead to a paying client. Most performance-based services will define a qualifying lead as any individual sent to you with a legal need that you have told the company you will handle.
    • Factor in the amount that you would charge that client for services and make sure the cost to acquire the client in the first place is the most effective use of that money.
    • Some companies with these services offer lead monitoring and tracking tools as well as other forms of support to help the lawyer with lead conversion.

    What Is Online Lawyer Lead Generation? (more…)

  • Video: ReInvent Law Presentation

    This is the video of my “ignite-style” presentation at the ReInvent Law Conference in Silicon Valley a couple months ago. I’m speaking at a super fast pace about branded networks, lawyer advertising, and online delivery of legal services.

    Stephanie Kimbro – Consumer Law Revolution from ReInvent Law Channel on Vimeo.

  • Online Legal Marketplace Book Release

    Consumer_Law_Revolution_Cover_ONLY (2)My new book about the online legal marketplace, Consumer Law Revolution, was released today from the publisher and pre-orders should be shipping this week.

    I’m excited to share this book with the legal profession. It dives into an area that is growing in practice and where we don’t have clear, established best practices to guide us. The online legal marketplace naturally involves technology and the unbundling of legal services, but also new forms of online lawyer advertising and collaboration with non-lawyer legal service companies that provide online marketing tools and platforms for lawyers to connect with consumers.

    As with most of the work I do, part of my motivation for writing this book was because growth of the online legal marketplace increases access to justice by providing the public with alternative methods of receiving assistance and of matching them up with the lawyer or self-help service that will be best for them. By alternatives, I mean that more individuals will be able to find a legal service that they can afford to pay and which are delivered in a manner that they are able to receive it without financial or physical hardship.

    The book covers a lot of online marketing basics but also provides case studies of many of the legal technology startups that are coming on the scene to disrupt the delivery of legal services. Lawyers need to be a part of this disruption. For most of these case studies, I joined up as a lawyer and as a prospective client to see how the process worked from both sides. I hope the readers will find this review and my analysis useful in making selections about which branded networks to join. There are checklists and suggested best practices as well as evaluation of the potential ethics issues that may arise.

    I look forward to the conversations and debates this book will generate. I did not mince words in criticizing the outdated lawyer advertising rules and questioned the lack of data behind many of the assumptions that are behind those rules. If there are answers to my questions or reasons my proposals would not be feasible, that’s great. If there are none, then I hope this book sparks some reform or clarification or something useful to further the progress of our profession’s ability to stay relevant and adapt effectively to the changes in the legal marketplace. Thanks to everyone who supported my research and writing for this book.

    Here’s the official marketing copy for the book from the ABA LPM:  (more…)

  • Virginia State Bar Publishes Virtual Law Office Ethics Opinion

    virginiaThe Virginia State Bar has published Legal Ethics Opinion 1872 on virtual law offices and the use of temporary office space on March 29, 2013.

    The ethics opinion acknowledges that virtual law offices and temporary or leased office spaces do not always go together, but it addresses both from the standpoint of ethics issues, such as providing contact information in marketing, supervision of lawyers and nonlawyers in the firm, confidentiality of the tech and competency using it to work with clients online. The opinion also acknowledges that these ethics issues are the same that come up with traditional firms just in a different context and should be treated as such – a message I’ve been preaching for years.

    Perhaps because of the Virginia Disciplinary Matter that came up last year regarding the lawyer who was disciplined for violating lawyer advertising rules in marketing his virtual law firm, this new opinion mentions that the lawyer can’t list temporary office space in advertising a virtual law office to make the firm look like it is larger or has more resources than it actually does. It seems the easiest thing to comply with this would be to put “by appointment only” next to any contact address where you have temporary office space and want items mailed there but don’t actually work from that location on a regular basis. The opinion doesn’t say this, but that’s my take and also what the NC Bar put it its opinion on that topic last year.

    As usual, the big key to complying with lawyer advertising rules comes down to being transparent in your business practices. This is something lawyers should be doing anyway as business owners even if the RPC weren’t there. Being false or misleading to clients about your ability to provide services to them isn’t going to win you loyal clients and referrals in the long run anyway. There’s another reason we should teach marketing and practical business skills to law students. We wouldn’t end up with practitioners who think acting like unscrupulous, hit ’em over the head, insincere sales people is going to help with long-term client development. That’s a rant for another day.

    The new Virginia State Bar Ethics Opinion touches very generally on the basics to watch out for when operating a virtual law office. This is a good thing because I suspect in the next five to ten years all law firms will have some form of online delivery component even for their full-service, in-person clients and more will want to cut costs by using temporary office space. [HT to Niki Black for bringing this opinion to my attention.]

  • Slides from ReInventLaw Conference

    This past Friday, I gave a presentation at the ReInvent Law conference in Silicon Valley. Rachel Zahorsky of the ABA Journal wrote about the event here and the American Lawyer wrote about it here. There were 500+ attendees registered and some really interesting speakers. The focus of my talk was about the subject of my new book: lawyers, especially solos and small firms, should learn to collaborate with branded networks and where we are at this stage in that process. I believe a video of my presentation will be made available at some point online which will probably make way more sense than these slides do alone.

    Overall, there was a lot of energy at this conference and more than a few calls to action, perhaps directed at some of the many legal tech companies and startups in the room.

  • Attorney @ Work: The Next Lawyering Frontier

    talking fingersIn case you missed reading it on the Attorney at Work blog, here is a link to my interview for them. I’ve gotten a huge response from this article in the form of emails from lawyers across the country so something in it must have struck a cord.

    As the article says, I’ll be speaking at the Lawyernomics 2013 conference in Las Vegas on April 27 on “The Consumer Law Revolution: Lawyer Collaboration with Branded Networks.”  More on that later.Here is part of the Attorney at Work interview:

    The greatest opportunities for today’s lawyers are online. This is where the conversation about legal services is happening for the public, whether lawyers are present or not. It’s not just personal legal services that we are talking about. Companies and corporate clients are online, listening and engaging with their customers. Lawyers who understand and stay constantly up to date with the technology and the different opportunities to engage in online conversation are going to continue to grow and succeed. This is not only for client development. Lawyers need to know how their clients communicate and operate their businesses. The lawyer who does not understand online engagement is not going to be the best lawyer for a company whose customers are all engaging with the company online, whether wanted or not.

  • Click and Mortar Legal Services for the Public Open in CA

    LegalForce1A new hybrid of legal service delivery has launched this week with the opening of the LegalForce storefront in Palo Alto. The delivery model combines online services with the customer service of a traditional store front operation complete with a network of lawyers who charge a flat rate of $45 for 15 minutes of legal advice.

    Raj Abyhanker, the lawyer who created the Trademarkia Enterprise, is responsible for this new innovation in legal service delivery. The LegalForce website provides personal online legal services in a self-help manner. The store front offers access to go online and purchase these services and also sells mobile devices, such as tablets, and legal self-help books. Employees of the store, called concierges, are there to assist customers as needed but do not provide legal advice. Customers may book appointments with lawyers online prior to meeting them in the store.

    The company plans to cultivate relationships with law firms and lawyers so that the store front may be used as a meeting place for lawyers and prospective clients. The store may also be used as a way for community legal education sessions to be offered. This type of collaboration between practitioners, the community, and companies providing legal services online (and now in hybrid form) is only the beginning as I’ve suggested in past posts.

    Richard Granat, who was present for the store’s launch this week, has written his first impressions on his blog and explains the value of this “click and mortar” strategy both for the public and the legal profession. [Many thanks to Richard for sharing the pictures with me as well as the overview of this model. I was unable to make it to the launch of the storefront, but plan to make it out there for a quick tour in March.]

    LegalForce2This concept will appeal to the DIY client. It combines elements of unbundling and virtual law practice with more traditional face-time with a lawyer and the in-person customer services of a small business venue. I see two potential benefits to this model: 1) it could increase access to legal services and basic legal education for the public in a local community; and 2) it could provide lawyers with another way to offer services which could be used for client development and as part of their online and offline marketing strategies.

    The company hopes to expand its branded network of lawyers outside of CA and into other states in the future. I am looking forward to seeing how their network grows and plan on including a case study of their business model in my upcoming book providing guidance on ethics issues and best practices for lawyers who want to join up with branded networks such as LegalForce as part of their online marketing strategy.

  • Consumer Law Revolution Ebook

    ConsumerLawEbookCoverI’ve created a new page on this blog for my new ebook: Consumer Law Revolution.

    This ebook is the precursor to my full book that should be published by the ABA LPM sometime later this year. The ebook provides an introduction to the concept of branded networks and online marketing tools for lawyers.

    For the book, I researched almost all of the legal tech startups and branded networks from both the lawyer and consumer perspective. These case studies are in the full book as are all of the important ethics issues surrounding lawyer collaboration with these companies to engage with and provide legal services to the public.

    I wanted to make the best practices portion of this material free and available to practitioners because I don’t know of any other resources out there like this and it’s needed. As most of you know by now from my writing, I believe that the legal profession should find ways to collaborate with companies providing legal services online. It will be a significant way to increase access to justice for certain legal services. Not for all services, not for all clients, and not for all lawyers – see my book on unbundling or that ebook for reasons why not. However, it will be significant for large segments of the public needing basic legal services and may lead to other forms of collaboration and innovation in the delivery of legal services that could expand access in ways we can’t see right now.

    For those who are venturing into this area of lawyer advertising/delivering legal services online in their law practice, this ebook and the full book to come should be a helpful guide.

    As always, I welcome feedback.

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