Most legal marketers would agree it takes more than a brief article to dish the full meal deal on marketing your practice. Instead, I’ll offer you a few select appetizers to get you started.

Know who you are and who you aren’t

The goal of marketing your practice is to attract more of the kind of work that you want.

One important question I ask clients looking for marketing help is, “have you done any strategic planning?“ The typical answer is “not really, but we’ve talked about it.” Don’t feel bad if this applies to you. Practicing law is demanding enough without having to become proficient in another profession. Hiring marketing help is one solution, but even then your participation is required. You’re the expert on your practice and your clients, and your knowledge is critical to successfully marketing your business. Effective marketing requires time, patience, money, and a pragmatic attitude about what you can expect to achieve.

Regardless of marketing vehicle, the foundation of an effective campaign is clearly identifying what you do, how you do it, and for whom. These are some of the elements covered by a strategic plan and are the keys to helping the right kind of client find you.

You’ll need this information to create a brand positioning statement. A brand position does two things: it identifies who you are as a firm, and it differentiates you from your competitors. If you remember nothing else, remember this: generic firm descriptions: bad; what makes you different: good.

First, get clear about your firm and your goals. Lawyer coach and legal marketer Allison Wolf suggests considering the following: what do you do now? For whom? What do you want to do more of and for whom? What characteristics define your ideal client group? What skill sets do you need to attract their attention? What do you want to do less of? Who is your competition? Why should someone hire you instead of someone else?

Marketers often use a tool called a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis to get answers to these questions. This doesn’t have to be a painful or expensive exercise, and you can do it yourself. Identify the key people in your firm (lawyers and staff) and ask them to write a list of the firm’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats from their perspectives. It helps to identify a specific short-term goal (e.g., we want to get more work from clients who need real estate services), but it’s equally useful if you are trying to determine viable longer-term goals.

At a minimum, the results will confirm whether or not there is a cohesive internal perception of your firm and its position in the market. If different players have different perceptions, that’s an issue you should work to resolve. Why? Because what you say about your firm to your network, and what the people in your network pass on to their networks, is a marketing opportunity. With competing messages, potential clients can get confused. You want people to associate your firm with a clear message – you are competent in a defined area, you provide service in a unique way because of specified characteristics, and you can be trusted to help them resolve their legal problems. Broadcasting your unique message is the underlying function of branding your firm. Branding is essentially about trust, and competing messages create uncertainty and undermine trust.

If you all come up with the same lists, themes, and concerns, you’re on your way to developing a genuine brand positioning statement and revealing areas that need attention.

A brand position statement includes identifying your firm with specific practice areas and differentiating yourself from your competition in the minds of potential clients. This statement is the basis for your elevator speech. That’s the response you give when someone asks, “so, what do you do?” Focus on developing an authentic statement about what services you provide, how you do so, and for whom. Why does this matter? Because of the way people find lawyers.

How do clients find lawyers?

Put yourself in a client’s shoes. When they need a lawyer, most people will turn to their personal networks for a recommendation from someone they know and trust. The person on the elevator who asks what you do may not need your help at the time, but at some point they might have a legal issue or they might know someone who does. When that time comes, you want Mr. or Ms. Elevator to remember you.

If no-one in their personal network knows any lawyers or has any connections, then clients look to alternate sources of information, including traditional forms of marketing.

Bridging the gap

Selecting where to place your brand message depends on your target markets. There’s one common denominator for people seeking legal services: with the proliferation of computers and Internet access, the World Wide Web is an obvious platform for marketing your services.

People with a legal problem are typically anxious and want help quickly. A Google search allows them to narrow their choices to a list of lawyers who practice in the applicable area. Practically speaking, you should have at least a minimal web presence. You don’t need a huge budget to put up a web page containing basic information about what you do and how people can contact you – and the cost is significantly less than the a Yellow Pages ad. A web page also gives you the option to include an e-mail address – an additional point of client contact.

Some useful resources

Strategic planning or practice management questions? Look at David Bilinksy’s blog. Among other things, David is a senior practice management advisor with the Law Society of B.C. and the current editor of the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Magazine.

Looking for business development ideas? Visit Allison Wolf. Allison is a certified executive coach and experienced legal marketer who helps lawyers identify opportunities and convert them into new business. She’s also the current president of the Vancouver chapter of the Legal Marketing Association.

Want to get into Google’s good graces? Check out web marketing professionals like Stem Legal’s Steve Matthews. Steve has 12 years of in-house law firm experience combined with web savvy and an unbridled enthusiasm for blogging.

Need more professional development and knowledgeable advisors? The Legal Marketing Association provides education on building your brand and access to professional marketing help.

Marni MacLeod is the client services co-ordinator with Skunkworks Creative Group Inc., a boutique advertising and marketing agency based in Vancouver that caters to lawyers and the legal profession.

A distraught woman calls you from a shelter. She needs a lawyer. You're not available, so she talks to your receptionist. What is her initial impression of your firm?

New clients come in for a meeting with you. Your receptionist greets them, settles them down to wait, offers them coffee. They haven't seen a lawyer yet, but they have already developed an opinion of your firm. Is it positive or negative?

A lawyer calls from Toronto looking for an Alberta agent for a major piece of litigation. She got your firm's name off the Internet. She asks your receptionist which lawyer she should talk to. Even before she talks to a lawyer, does she sense she has made a good choice?

Marketers tell us several things about first impressions. Positive or negative impressions are formed within seconds. They are based on feelings, not reasons or objective observations. An initial impression is easily reinforced, but very hard to dislodge. A poor first impression can doom a relationship, irrespective of good performance, while a good one can preserve it through considerable adversity.

In a law office, the first and ongoing impressions of many clients are based on their interactions with your receptionist. A good receptionist is a key element in a law firm's success. Think about it: how many people base their mental picture of your firm primarily or even exclusively on their telephone interactions with your receptionist? How many clients see your receptionist as often as they see you? What impression does your receptionist make on people?

The qualities of a quality receptionist

The personality of your receptionist is critical. In a small law office, the receptionist should be warm without being effusive, interested without being intrusive, discreet without being offensive, efficient without being officious, and personable without being a personality.

Your receptionist's voice and manner should convey confidence, interest and warmth. A good receptionist knows how to smile over the phone and how to make calling your office a positive experience.

It may sound old-fashioned, but good grammar and good grooming are still important.

Good receptionists know how to make people feel welcome and comfortable while they wait.

Good receptionists are discreet; they are able to convey all sorts of important information on the phone in a quasi-public waiting room without disclosing inappropriate information to anyone who might overhear. They also take responsibility for ensuring that inappropriate conversations between staff don’t occur in the waiting area.

Good receptionists never show inappropriate knowledge of a client's affairs. If a client brings children into the office, the receptionist may ask about the kids the next time the client comes in, but not if the only way the receptionist could know about the children is by being privy to information given only to the lawyer.

Good receptionists get to know the voices and names of clients who call frequently. It flatters clients to be recognized, and sends the message that they matter to the firm.

Good receptionists project integrity. Clients know that if the receptionist says the lawyer is not there, the lawyer is not there. For the receptionist, the rule is simple: never lie! For the lawyer, it's equally simple: never ask the receptionist to lie!

Good receptionists maintain a degree of formality with clients consistent with the firm's culture and the clients' comfort levels.

Finally, good receptionists intuitively make sure the waiting area is always neat and presentable – and that the magazines are current!

Receptionists and stress

A receptionist needs to be able to remain calm when several phone lines are ringing, several calls are on hold, half the lawyers are holding calls, the rest are in meetings, the clients are getting restless in the waiting area, and couriers are coming and going in unpredictable waves. And, of course, the receptionist is expected to know where everyone is and what they are doing, without being told. At times, the stress gets worse, such as when the receptionist has to pacify an abusive, irate caller who doesn't care whose feelings get hurt, or deal with one of those confused, lost, and sometimes very frightening people who wander into our offices in the vague hope that the law can help them with problems that no-one can do anything about.

Receptionists face different stresses from legal secretaries and paralegals, so they need different personality traits. It's easy to make a mistake here. One firm I worked with viewed the receptionist as an entry-level position that could lead to other, “real” work. The position had low prestige and high turnover. The receptionist was the newest and least experienced staff member and seldom knew the lawyers, the clients, or the work of the firm.

When the firm surveyed its clients, it found that they were very critical about how the receptionist function was handled. The firm hired someone new, but still got negative feedback.

So it tried again, but this time removed the clerical work from the job description and increased the salary. Then it hired someone who wanted to be a receptionist, not a secretary. Now it gets rave reviews from clients who feel they have a law firm that cares about them.

The firm gave its receptionist the informal title, of “manager of first and lasting impressions.” It took a while, but it finally recognized the importance of the person who swings the gate open and welcomes the people in. Do you?

This article originally appeared on the Law Society of Alberta’s website. Reprinted with permission.

Introduction

You’ve somehow lost the details of the past few weeks of your billing records. You either wrote it on a piece of paper that you misplaced, or you stored it in your computer billing program, but the database has become corrupted and you have no backup (bad, bad boy! bad, bad girl!), or you just can’t remember what you worked on yesterday (or today, for that matter). How do you recover some record of what you did? If you don’t remember, you’ve lost many dollars worth of billings.

You can try to assemble a record of your work by looking at your files for documents that you’ve drafted. You could look at your office correspondence file – if you have one. But either of these solutions will most likely result in the loss of quite a few of your billable hours.

Or perhaps you’ve edited or deleted a document and now would like to see the prior version, but it’s no longer on your PC. Is there a way that you can recover the original?

Here’s a solution for both of these problems that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere else: Google Desktop’s timeline feature. What, you’re not jumping up and down on the floor in ecstatic joy? You’ve never even heard of this feature? Or where to get it?

Read on to become brilliant.

Read the full text.

Our firm has decided to move from St. John’s, N.L., to the nearby town of Paradise. This article tells the story of this move in the hope it may interest other firms considering relocation.

Firm history: Aylward, Chislett and Whitten is a three-member partnership which has been together for 16 years. Bruce Chislett, Marina Whitten and I have practised law together from the beginning of our respective careers. We share a general practice with an emphasis on litigation, including personal injury, family law, commercial, insurance and estate litigation. The solicitor side of our practice emphasizes commercial, residential and estates. The firm has three assistants. From its beginning until now, the law firm has operated from leased premises at the centre of downtown St. John’s.

Location issues: Downtown offers the advantage of being in the location that has been familiar to our current clients, a five-minute walk from the courts, most law firms and the law library, and a 10-minute walk of the best restaurants and bars. The disadvantages include severe restrictions on client parking, the increasing abundance of legal services relative to market size, and limited opportunities for firm growth. The advantages have outweighed the disadvantages and led to inertia in keeping things as they have always been.

Yet our business, like others, depends upon maximizing margins in both income and personal convenience. Significant change in itself can be a rejuvenating experience. For these reasons, we decided to move our business to Paradise. The decision rested on the pivotal consideration of if and when the right location became available. The opportunity ripened when the town of Paradise placed its town hall on the market. As of March 2008, this building will become our new location. The law firm will rent a single office space in the downtown area primarily for the purpose of having an office close to court.

Existing clients: Many of our clients will have a shorter distance to travel to our firm. For others, the convenience of our new parking lot will outweigh spending five minutes finding a metered parking spot, and then walking to and from our offices. If necessary, we can meet with clients at the downtown office. We anticipate a minimal loss of current clients, and thus no interim loss of cash flow or profit.

Market size potential: The new office building is at the heart of a young and growing community of 15,000. Our firm will be the largest firm serving the immediate area. Until now, the area has been served by two general practitioners operating in separate offices.

Marketing: The building we purchased, the former town hall, is a prestige location (Newfoundland’s single castle once stood on the site). There is a high curbside presence on the main thoroughfare. As building owners, we were in a position to seek other tenants who are most compatible with our practice. We expect to have a medical clinic and mortgage broker as our first tenants. Signage is within our discretion. Future development is within our control – our purchase included an additional 1.5 acres which is the only adjacent area which can be developed next to the pond.

Convenience and comfort: Our new building is near a highway network that is a 12-minute drive from downtown. Our downtown satellite office will preserve the convenience of being close to the courts. As building owners, we are comfortable spending a bit more on improvements than we would have been on leasehold improvements. The money spent increases the value of our own building and is not subject to the whims of a lease renewal. The space will be customized to our preferences. For example, frosted glass will be used on interior partitions to allow for natural light to radiate to the staff area of the office. The building is only the one that was permitted to be developed on a large pond which is circumscribed by a lovely walking trail.

Equity and value: Monthly payments are being made on our own building’s mortgage, not as rent to be applied against someone else’s mortgage. Built by a steel construction firm which specialized in buildings of its nature, our building was very well maintained. Given the growth in local population and business, we are confident we made a solid property investment. We do not risk the uncertainty of negotiations over renewing a lease.

Firm expansion: The building has a total of 7,500 sq. ft. Our firm has taken the second floor – first floor space is more readily leased. The office space our firm will occupy includes space for another lawyer, an articling student, and one more assistant. Two adjacent offices are leased on one-year terms, allowing for further expansion in the short term. Five hundred square feet of the main floor has been set aside for storage of closed files within the building. This file storage area can easily be moved to another building on the site.

Remaining together as a firm: The move will provide a major boost to the firm. At the same time, it affects each of us differently. While each of us has a general practice, we also have differences in our respective clientele, practice emphases, and lifestyle preferences. Only with time will we know how well these things will play out for each of us. Retaining the rental space downtown will make things easier for the partners who have a more litigation-based practice. When it becomes necessary (through retirement, death, or dissolution), market value for the building can be objectively determined. No outgoing partner will have a residual lease liability. These points have been a conscientious part of the entire process for each of us. We have committed to each other that when one or more of us leaves off the practice, it will be with a handshake.

Bruce Chislett was the partner who inspired the decision to move and has done most of the work to make it happen. It would be remiss to conclude without identifying him as the real author of this story.

I recently had the opportunity to attend the 2007 Pacific Legal Technology Conference in beautiful Vancouver, which was held immediately prior to the General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Conference's Fall Planning Session.

The quality of the legal tech conference was such that in virtually every time slot, were two or more sessions – each of which were of great interest to me. Like all other registrants, I had to make some tough choices.  

There were sessions on wireless technologies, web and marketing tips, the best equipment to purchase on a limited budget, working with Adobe Acrobat, document retention issues (from both a technological and an ethical perspective) online dispute resolution, voice recognition software, document and e-mail security, and more.

However, the most intriguing topic to me was the “the paperless office.” This is not just a pipe dream or a hope for the future – some Canadian firms have already implemented it. Many of us can remember when we bought our first computers: we were promised that the amount of paper our offices generated would be dramatically reduced. The reality was quite the opposite. Now, most of us have computer copies of almost everything, plus, for some reason, the usual paper copies – of exactly the same documents – on almost every file.

There are progressive firms out there who operate truly paperless offices. Obviously, some paper must be retained, such as clients' wills and powers of attorney. However, routine correspondence, pleadings, land titles documents, e-mails, faxes, and all other day-to-day paper can easily digitized and stored and then destroyed without the need for corresponding paper files in numerous filing cabinets that take up valuable office space.

For those who bravely wish to go down this beckoning path, it will no doubt be initially difficult to change your office culture to “think paperless.” Lawyers and support staff may be quite set in their ways, but will eventually have to conform. The results are worth it to those firms who have made the conversion. Staff are now actually working on files rather than filing them, organizing them, or simply spending time looking for file folders.

I was so impressed with the potential benefit of the paperless office to small firms and sole practitioners, that we are planning an online Continuing Legal Education session dealing with the subject on behalf of our Conference, tentatively scheduled for spring 2008. More details will follow once we receive all necessary approvals and a firm date and time have been set.

In the meantime, I am extremely pleased to report that our Conference has an excellent Executive and we are planning a very active year. There is no doubt that the GPSSC can help you with your practice. Accordingly, I would ask that all lawyers who work in smaller firms, who are sole practitioners or who simply run a general practice, join our Conference through their provincial Branch (which usually entails simply checking a box) or by contacting the CBA National Office.

If you have any trouble joining our Conference, please contact me by e-mail (bobmc@mts.net) and I will assist you in that regard.

The Law Society of British Columbia, on the recommendation of its Lawyer Education Task Force, developed the Small Firm Practice Course. The task force’s 2005 report found that more than 50 per cent of B.C. lawyers practice alone or in a small firm. “But as a group they are disproportionately faced with the pressures of geographic isolation, working alone or in small groups without ready access to colleagues in the profession, the demand to attend to law office management and administrative work, rising overheads and narrower profit margins.”

The Small Firm Practice course is designed for lawyers setting up a new practice and to assist sole or small firm lawyers with practice management and trust accounting skills. Offered via the Internet, the course is ideal for self-paced learning and takes six hours to complete. The course is mandatory for some lawyers, including lawyers practicing in certain defined small-firm settings after Jan. 1, 2007. The Law Society Rules set out that a small firm includes a firm with not more than four lawyers practicing law together. All other B.C. lawyers are encouraged to take the course on a voluntary basis. B.C. lawyers do not need to register for the course to access its very useful resources, such as the chat room which serves as a discussion forum allowing lawyers to share practice information.

A lawyer who is required to take the course must successfully complete the course within six months. Successfully completing the course involves the lawyer completing the self-testing components for all course modules. Each module features written material and a self-test, and usually features slideshows, appendixes (forms and precedents), and links to additional resources.

The 16 course modules cover the following topics:

• Accounting System;
  
• Trust Accounting Essentials;
  
• Trust Filing and Trust Applications;
  
• Taxation and Employee Deductions;
  
• Goods and Services Tax;
  
• Social Services Tax;
  
• Retainers;
  
• File Retention and Disposal;
  
• Coverage During Absence;
  
• Withdrawal of Services;
  
• Conflicts, Client Screening;
  
• Dealing with Difficult Clients;
  
• File Management and Diary Systems;
  
• Delegation of Tasks and Supervision; and
  
• Avoiding Fraud.

The Law Society’s Small Firm course has been recognized with an award for professional excellence from the Association for Continuing Legal Education, an international organization that includes representatives from more than 300 member organizations.

The Law Society, as a companion offering to the Small Firm Practice Course, designed the Building Your Practice Course, which can be completed in approximately two hours, and is non-mandatory. The course offers modules on topics relevant to building a law practice, with a focus on sole practitioners and small firm lawyers. The topics include business planning, client development, client service, and the use of technology.

B.C. lawyers are motivated to take these courses because they help them to practice law competently and effectively, which ultimately benefits the most important participant, the client.