Virtual Law Practice

Category: 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.

  • Article in Legal IT Today: The Engagement Game

    I wrote an article about the use of games for legal services in the March issue of Legal IT Today, an online legal tech publication. You can read the full article starting on page 31 of the publication.

    A couple of quotes from the article:

    Most people seek out assistance only after they suspect they have a legal problem, but what if we could provide increased legal awareness to the public at large through educational games for legal services?

    Because of the psychology behind gaming that supports positive engagement, games could be used to educate the public
    as well as provide a way for the legal profession to jump into the larger online conversation around legal services.

  • 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…)

  • Podcast: How People Search for Lawyers: The Consumer Law Revolution

    Here is the podcast for an edition of The Digital Edge with Sharon Nelson and Jim Calloway where we discuss the subject of my new book, The Consumer Law Revolution: The Lawyer’s Guide to the Online Legal Marketplace.

  • 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 Presentation to Chicago Bar Association

    Today I gave a presentation which was live but also webcast for the Chicago Bar Association. Here are the slides from that talk. I’ve started just using graphics on slides so I’m not sure how useful these will be to anyone without the context, but here they are anyway!

     

     

  • New York Publishes New Ethics Opinion – Had a Pow-Wow with NJ?

    NYThe NY State Bar Association Committee on Professional Ethics has published a new ethics Opinion 964 on April 4, 2013 that affects virtual law offices. (HT to Niki Black for bringing it to my attention.)

    The opinion is more related to lawyer advertising than virtual law offices, but it affects advertising for virtual, traditional and hybrid delivery models. The opinion was prompted by an inquiry from a lawyer who delivers immigration law services primarily online. Like many lawyers with virtual law offices, the lawyer rarely meets with clients in person and communicates using video conferencing and other digital methods of communication. Working from home, the opinion explains that the lawyer did not want to have clients coming to her home office. Accordingly, she preferred to use a PO Box or other mailbox service than providing her home address.

    We have seen this question in other states. NC’s proposed ethics opinion on the use of leased time-shared office addresses ran through a similar scenario and inquiry. Virginia’s recent disciplinary case with a lawyer who claimed to have a state-wide virtual law firm in his misleading advertising also raised the issue. So how did NY decide to respond? Hint: I think they had a BYOB pow-wow with the NJ ethics folks.

    (more…)

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