10 more ways to guarantee your press release is toast

Specialty ad rules back to status quo

By Peter Vieth
Published: April 18, 2013
Tags: Ethics, Legal Marketing, Supreme Court of Virginia News, Virginia State Bar

After announcing rule changes that would have barred lawyers from advertising credentials as specialists, then vacating the new rules a day before their effective date last fall, the Supreme Court of Virginia now has published a new set of lawyer advertising rules that preserves the status quo for specialty claims. In the latest set of [...]

A foot in the door: Getting a first client meeting

By Correy E. Stephenson
Published: March 18, 2013
Tags: Legal Marketing

Struggling to get meetings with prospective clients? Larry Bodine, a legal marketing expert and editor-in-chief of Lawyers.com, said the first thing to do is to throw away some common ideas of marketing. He rejected several traditional methods lawyers use to try to get a client meeting, including cold calling. “It’s uncomfortable for you and for [...]

Lawyer marketing can be low-cost, high-impact

By Correy E. Stephenson
Published: December 18, 2012
Tags: Legal Marketing

Every day, James Reed sends one personal note. “In this day and age, anybody can shoot off an email or text, but everybody knows that it requires just a little bit more effort to hand write a note,” said Reed, who practices law in Elmira, N.Y. “You can send out 10,000 emails but it doesn’t [...]

Board certification claims still allowed

By Peter Vieth
Published: December 7, 2012
Tags: Ethics, Legal Marketing, Supreme Court of Virginia News, Virginia State Bar

Lawyers upset about having to remove board certification credentials from websites and other advertising materials may have prompted the Supreme Court of Virginia to abandon its publicly announced revisions to lawyer advertising rules just two days before they were to take effect. In a Nov. 29 order, the court “vacated and set aside” its Sept. [...]

Lawyers who lunch: Don’t overlook a great marketing opportunity

By Dolan Media Newswires
Published: October 8, 2012
Tags: Legal Marketing

“Let’s do lunch.” OK, maybe, maybe not, especially in the law profession. According to a Robert Half Legal survey, a majority of lawyers — 57 percent interviewed — said “power lunches” are less common than they were three years ago. But if you like to break bread with associates or clients, take heart: while lunches [...]

You can hate the ranking game, but be a player

By Dolan Media Newswires
Published: October 8, 2012
Tags: Legal Marketing

Legal rankings often elicit strong reactions from attorneys. I had a lawyer tell me he planned to call one publication to tell it to remove his name from the list, and another said she was embarrassed because she was unranked. Are rankings a meaningless game, or can placement in legal directories help attorneys win new [...]

31 days, 31 ways to bring in more business for your firm

By Virginia Lawyers Weekly
Published: October 1, 2012
Tags: Legal Marketing

Ah, Autumn! The summer heat abates, school children head for the bus stops and Virginia lawyers scramble to finish their required CLE credits. It’s the fourth quarter of the year, and a good time for lawyers to take stock. Lawyers in private practice may want to reflect on how the year has gone so far [...]

IT and marketing departments join forces to launch mobile app

By Sarah Rodriguez
Published: September 24, 2012
Tags: Legal Marketing, Technology

Legal marketers looking to develop a law firm app face a number of hurdles, both technological and financial. But they may be overlooking a valuable, yet cost-effective resource: their firm’s own IT department. It seems like an unusual partnership. Marketers are often seen as creative, outgoing communicators. And information technology specialists are viewed as more [...]

Supreme Court nixes changes in lawyer ad rules

By Peter Vieth
Published: September 20, 2012
Tags: Ethics, Legal Marketing, Rules of Professional Conduct, Supreme Court of Virginia News, Virginia State Bar

The Supreme Court of Virginia has rejected proposed reforms in lawyer advertising regulations, refusing to relax requirements for disclaimers on claims about case results and tightening limits on the use of words such as “expert” and “specialist.” With amended advertising rules adopted Sept. 18, the court spurned a plan by the Virginia State Bar and its [...]