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Law Firm Marketing 101

In this tough environment, with major layoffs at most law firms, revenues and profits down, no major sign of things turning around, how does a law firm work hard to get new business? Well, through marketing of course. But do law firm partners really know what that means? Not sure if they get the stuff that I learned as a Marketing major at Wharton before law school. Here’s the thing. Until about 20 years ago lawyers could not advertise and “marketing” was considered taboo and unprofessional. Yet in reality lawyers did market. They did it by writing scholarly articles, being involved in bar association activities, community organizations and charities. Once the rules changed to enhance the ability to market, it took awhile but major law firms all have marketing staff, something unheard of just a few years ago.

Unfortunately, even though the marketing people are there, in many cases they are under-utilized. They create a nice website and nice brochure and accompany partners on speaking engagements. If you look at any 10 major law firms’ websites, in most cases you would not be able to tell them apart. This, gang, is not a marketing strategy. In business school they teach that marketing is the process of identifying an unmet need in the marketplace and designing products or services to satisfy that unmet need. Then you must distinguish yourself from your competitors in a manner that matters to clients and potential clients.

My little firm has a 5-page long and short term marketing strategy. Much of what I do in getting involved in conferences and so on flows from the strategy. The shorter-term strategy focuses on building the areas of practice for which we have become known. The longer-term focuses on broadening our reputation to other areas where we know we have strong capability but have not been as well known. In addition to practice areas, we focus on other unique aspects of our firm. We offer flat fees on transactional matters, which other firms are only now just starting to embrace. Clients love this. Also, we guarantee clients that we will return any phone call within four business hours. Not such a big deal, but it actually is to clients. Assuming you know what you’re doing and are a good lawyer, you still won’t get the business if you charge too much or are not accessible. There was an unmet need – focusing on these issues. Very few law firms boast of reasonable fees the way we do. And none that I am aware of guarantee the call back as we do. And it’s worked, not as a gimmick but as a strategy focusing on making the client happier.

So lawyers, do marketing the right way and you might get that extra market share in this sticky recession.