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I’ve been spending some time re-working my client-focused biography of late with the help of Julie Fleming’s The Reluctant Rainmaker. She has a nice ‘how-to’ checklist where she suggests the following format:

• Photograph
• Areas of Practice
• Narrative
• Separate Section (representative matters, bar admissions, articles written, speeches, bar/industry/community organization memberships)

I find myself with a number of regular speaking engagements currently to groups that are filled with client and referral source prospects (generally non-lawyers) and wanted to be very intentional about expressing specifically what I do better. I also want a sharper biography for inclusion in our initial client meeting folder. I posted my revamped biography here and it’s generally the same on our Website. Thoughts?

Previously I had always used what is now pretty much the narrative section with 2 written paragraphs. I hope the ‘Practice Area’ and ‘Representative Matters’ bullet points serve to very specifically define for client prospects exactly the sorts of things I help clients with and mention some very good results I have accomplished for clients over the years. Not sure if the typical client cares about ‘Publications, Presentations’ though I’d think it might add a little heft to my biography.

I saw two spot-on marketing posts over at the You’re the Boss blog…a great variety of small business posting by various small business owners over there, Must Read! Here are the 2 posts:

Trying to Connect With Customers? Tell a Story. Here’s a blurb from the piece:

When a company highlights its story, it soon realizes its power. If consumers like a company’s story, they are often willing to give its product or service a try. If they also like the product or service, they will move easily from brand consumer to brand champion.

I love a good company story and yet have been slow in telling my story with my Firm. I actually do it more effectively on the blog. There are way too many generic lawyers out there and sadly to a large degree I’ve been one of them over the last 5ish years, to my business’s detriment. Everyone one has a story, so why not tell it? I was just out in the Quad Cities area  a couple weeks back and visited the John Deere Pavilion and have John’s “story” top-of-mind for the next time I’m in the market to purchase a tractor.

Have You Tried Marketing With Online Video?

Here’s the Times’ more thorough small business guide to marketing with online video. Funny how the piece talks about a ceiling tile company that produces an “Ask the Ceiling Tile Guy” video spots…sounds riveting no? Couldn’t you do an “Ask the Lawyer” segment to drive your legal business? With decent video quality now virtually ubiquitous in the higher-end smartphones and the Flip and its progeny plus built-in cameras in computers almost everyone already has the technology to accomplish decent video quality.

I’ve been incorporating videos into our bi-monthly Constant Contact e-mail newsletter that goes out to several hundred of our clients/former clients/referral services. Actually CC just improved how we can integrate video via a video thumbnail inside the newsletter instead of merely a link so we’ll see how that impacts this months “opens” and views of our video. This was the video I did last month. Honestly, I like speaking to the camera and it actually feels like less work than writing.

Is it bad for either/both a lawyer or his client when the lawyer undertakes a LOT of paid advertising to the general public?

I’m NOT talking about advertising/communicating/marketing to your clientele/former clientele/referral sources, i.e. the people who already know you. In my opinion that is the most cost-effective advertising you can do and should be the crux of your marketing focus. Obviously keeping it short of being a bother, there must be an intentional plan to keep your firm at the top of these peoples (clientele/former clientele/referral sources) minds. No trouble with that advertising at all.

I think the trouble can arise with too much general public advertising, meaning paid newspaper/television/radio/billboard/Web advertising. The obvious downside is the general cost/return ratio. The only general public advertising I’ve ever done was some 5 years ago in Chicagoland Senior News. My recollection is we placed a small monthly ad pitching our elder law practice for some 6 months and paid some $70 monthly (comparatively we spend some $15 monthly for our current e-mail newsletter software). We got one call from it.

Other potential downsides I’ve been seeing more and more are the unintended consequences of poor customer service, bad lawyering, and a lack of client loyalty. The major point being:  If you’re doing a ton of general public advertising and the phone is constantly ringing for potential new clients then there’s a tendency to focus less on the quality provided to the “old” clients. Of course this doesn’t have to occur but it sure seems like it does quite often. There are a handful of domestic relations law firms I interact with quite often who are big paid advertisers and I must say that many of these firms are just appalling in their antics. Why? I don’t know but it sure seems like the pattern is, advertise a ton/get the phone ringing/get the big retainer paid/”churn” through the retainer/withdraw/repeat.

That’s the trouble with too much advertising for lawyer/client alike, bad lawyering.

Here’s an interesting piece about a gentleman being charged with impersonating an attorney. This line made me cringe/chuckle a bit:

Martinez said she was victimized too, paying Gardner $4,000 to represent her husband in a Will County case. She said Gardner always told her husband to go to court alone and report back. A judge eventually entered a ruling against her husband after Gardner’s repeated absences, she said.

Do you have a specific “follow-up” system or process within your law firm?

You should because it can be oh so simple and yield wonderful customer service benefits + put dollars-in-your-pocket.

My first lawyer boss instilled this follow-up mindset in me and to a great extent it has stuck with me. Very simply the idea is to be constantly thinking about what’s next or what’s the next step that needs to be taken with regards to a client matter and then to have some tickler type system in place that reminds you or organizes yourself to actually DO what’s next. In my office it’s just a little box of dated follow-up notecards that I or an assistant looks at daily to see if there are follow-ups due on a particular day. Because a lot of what you’re doing as a lawyer is communicating with other attorneys or employers or potential clients asking them to do something and you need to FOLLOW-UP on those requests and/or verify that the requested action has been taken. So the 2nd or follow-up step becomes a nice customer service touch to be able to verify to a client that the letter you sent somewhere was received and such-and-such is now being done. Or, oftentimes at the 2nd/follow-up step something that should have been done hasn’t been done and then it’s time to put the lawyer pants on and ratchet things up a notch which often means MORE LEGAL WORK!

For example, these are 3 follow-up cards currently in my follow-up box…

• Follow-up regarding client X’s notice to withhold income for child support. We got this gentleman’s child support lowered recently but then needed to forward the order/notice to withhold to his employer so the amount being withheld gets lowered. This likely won’t lead to more work on this case but it’s sure nice to be able to verify that this employer has gotten the notice and has formally reduced the child support withholding.
• Follow-up regarding legal discovery. Had a case in court last week and the opposing party has been slow in turning-over some financial documentation so an order was entered giving him 14-days to comply with the discovery request. Now this might turn into more work if I’m on top of things…call the opposing lawyer, 201k letter, motion to compel. I don’t want it to go that route but good follow-up is good customer service.
• Follow-up regarding unallocated support expiration. Unallocated support is merged child support and alimony for those of you outside family law land. One of my client’s obligations to pay unallocated support concludes in a few months. I want to make sure he knows this so he doesn’t overpay and he should petition the court to lower this because it’s being withheld from his paychecks. And he may want to pay me to do that petitioning which is good for the lawyer.

Seriously, when you do nearly anything substantive as a lawyer it’s rarely a single act…it’s usually an action intended to bring about a reaction.

I receive these Illinois Supreme Court Rule updates via e-mail and was a tad intrigued by this amended Rule 58 when I got it yesterday. And it got a lot of coverage today so I thought I’d take a closer look. From the Court’s press release:

• The Illinois Supreme Court has announced the implementation of a mandatory judicial evaluation program for all Circuit and Associate judges in the state as the final part of a series of initiatives to improve public confidence in Illinois courts…
  
• The results will be confidential, shared only between the judge and a facilitator, also a judge or retired judge who has been specifically trained in the process.

My initial reaction was two-fold:  First, what about the whole appellate level, and, second, how ’bout some public disclosure? Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait for a leak. But it seems like a step in the right direction. I wonder if the previous voluntary evaluation program had been utilized at all. Here & here is other media coverage.