When it comes to marketing his law firm, Ken Harrell, managing partner of the Joye Law Firm, has tried just about everything. Some campaigns have worked well; others have failed miserably. The trick to making it work is simple, though, says Harrell: Have a lot of money, and know when it’s time to move on to the next idea. The firm advertises its bread-and-butter personal injury practice everywhere — on television, on billboards, in the Yellow Pages and on the Internet.

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The website for Raleigh's Kurtz & Blum is sleek and well-designed, complete with photos of the attorneys, easily navigable links and a slogan at the top designed to instill client confidence: "We're in your corner." In a lawsuit, Kurtz & Blum claims that The Wright Law Firm of Charlotte, and its principal, Roderick M. Wright Jr., copied its website design right down to the "We're in your corner." The suit asks for damages including Wright's profits that were the result of what it calls his wrongful actions, as well as treble damages under G.S. § 80-12.

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Not only does nearly every lawyer practicing have his own website, but potential clients are much more likely to plug "DWI lawyer" into a search engine than to look in the Yellow Pages. And as legal marketing has morphed into new arenas with ever-changing technology, there's some concern that regulatory agencies and state bars have not kept up. Ryan Blackledge (pictured), who serves on the N.C. Bar Association's Technology Advisory Committee, said that any new ethics rules need to reflect a true understanding of the various media.

Tagged with: Ethics Ethics Committee Internet legal marketing Social Media Websites

Numerous surveys and studies indicate that women are no more than 20 percent of the partners at most large firms, and hold an even smaller percentage of senior firm or practice management positions. One effective way for firms and individual lawyers to broaden this participation is by emphasizing women's career advancement through marketing. While too many lawyers, including women lawyers, believe they are not skilled at marketing, everyone can market effectively if they approach it within their zone of comfort.

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Building rapport and maintaining constant communication are the keys to sustaining a healthy business relationship between in-house and outside counsel, panelists said at Lawyers Weekly's Business and Law Breakfast Wednesday. About 40 people gathered at the Marriott City Center hotel in downtown Raleigh as panelists Jay Campbell, executive director of the N.C. Board of Pharmacy; Ken Hammer, general counsel and vice president of corporate governance at DataFlux Corp.; and Jeff Miller, vice president, general counsel and secretary of Highwoods Properties discussed the most effective ways for outside firms to attract in-house business.

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Many lawyers and law firm marketers have sounded alarms that the American Bar Association's Commission on Ethics 20/20 is examining legal ethics issues arising from lawyers' use of Internet-based client development tools. Those tools encompass a wide range of now common marketing tactics: online social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter), blogging, discussion forums (listservs) and websites.

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When does someone visiting your website, blog or LinkedIn page become a prospective client? This does not seem to be a difficult issue. Everyone that a lawyer meets, including in cyberspace, is a prospective client! To think otherwise is to say you don't believe you have something of value that can help the person reading your material or who is standing in front of you. Of course, if your target audience is not focused on using the Internet and searching the Web on a regular basis, then you likely will not get many new prospects and clients that way.

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Internet marketing is nothing new, but a few attorneys in North Carolina are trying a tactic that has caught the attention of the N.C. State Bar. It works like this: A lawyer purchases a keyword or a phrase though Google's AdWords service so that when a consumer types in that keyword or phrase, the attorney's ad pops up on the screen along with the search engine results. Attorney J. Mark Wilson (pictured) believes the marketing tactic could lead to possible trademark infringement cases.

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 By CAITLIN COAKLEY, Staff Writer [email protected]   For a law firm that wants to serve as outside counsel for a company, the best thing it can do is have an attorney who is the absolute best in his or her ...

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By DIANA SMITH, Staff Writer [email protected] When it comes to marketing, perception is 99 percent of the sale. That’s the philosophy that Indievision CEO Bert Hesse adopted when his Charlotte-based company was hired to design a website dedicated solely to ...

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