Today's Law Marketing Resource

Cordell Parvin's "How To Prepare A Business Plan That Will Make You More Successful" from The Practical Lawyer (pdf). It's a year old, but that doesn't take anything away from this article. It's full of practical advice, the kind that takes you from where you are to where you want to be. Whether you aren't sure you need a plan or you just don't know how to get started, this will point you the right direction and give you a little shove to get you on your way.

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Margaret (“Molly”) DiBianca's "Complex Ethical Issues of Social Media" from The Bencher, the flagship magazine of the American Inns of Court. This post provides an in-depth analysis of the ethical impact social media has on the practice of law (and not just as a marketing tool). Although it appears to be written primarily for lawyers not active in social media, all lawyers will benefit from DiBianca's thorough review of these issues.

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Venkat Balasubramani's "A Topic That Refuses to Die - What Drives the Law Blogger?" from his blog, Spam Notes. A lot has already been written on the "why" of lawyer blogging (including from me), much of it simply re-hashing the same concepts over and over again. Not this post. Read it and see for yourself.

But don't take my word for it: Antonin Pribetic likes it too, and tells us why in "Why Bother Blogging" over at The Trial Warrior Blog.

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Doug Jasinski's "Marketing Legal Services On The Deepening, Splintering Web" from his blog Jasinski on Legal Marketing. This is a great post reminding us that in the increasingly crowded and fragmented online legal marketing landscape, it's still the basics that count. Read this for a good discussion of why you should continue devoting the lion's share of your efforts to content, conversations, and search.

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Michelle Golden's "Do You Make it Easy for People to Call You?" from her Golden Practices Blog. Sometimes it's good to get back to the basics. This is one of those times. Don't make it hard for people to get in touch with you. They might decide it's not worth the trouble.

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Dan Hull's "The 12 Rules of Client Service" from What About Clients? 12 rules. 83 words. There's no fluff here, just practical, to-the-point principles for aligning "the interests of clients/customers and service providers to the fullest extent possible." Read them. Print them out and tape them to the wall above your computer screen. Make them part of your personal mission statement. You, and your clients, will be glad you did.

Every so often you come across a blog that feels like home. What About Clients? is that blog.

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Scott Preston's "Technology is not your friend – your client is," from 3 Geeks and a Law Blog. Technology -- the kind that helps add value, like extranets and collaboration software and voice mail and email -- is good. But it's no substitute for interacting in real life with your client, for asking them questions and listening to the response, for knowing their business and helping them make it better. That's your job.

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Debra Bruce's "Listening Means Business!" from her Lawyer Coach blog. Sometimes it's good to get back to the basics. And listening is one of the most important skills a lawyer can have. So spend some time getting better at it. This post will help you.

Today's Law Marketing Resource

"Lawyers must be culture vultures" from Lawyers Weekly, featuring Gerry Riskin on cultural issues, dealing with lawyers in other countries, and why lawyers must give regard to cultural differences while sitting in their own office. This is Globalization 101, and lawyers not heeding this advice are going to be left behind. Don't be one of them.

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Jay Shepherd's "Two kinds of lawyers" from his blog The Client Revolution. Regular readers know that I like what Shepherd has to say. He's clever and funny and knows his stuff. More importantly, he practices what he preaches, and his perspective on billing and pricing comes from jumping off the cliff and completely eliminating the billable hour from his law practice. Like this: 

"You can go to all the two-day seminars on AFAs you want, but mostly you'll be learning about Not Pricing. Your time would be better spent learning about your client and how they value the solutions to their problems and whether you can make a profit solving their problems for that amount.

That's pricing."

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Janet Ellen Raasch's "Client satisfaction interviews help law firms keep clients close" from her blog Constant Content (part of a three-post series; see also parts two and three). It's written for those not convinced that interviews make sense, but the anecdotal information found in the full series provides a useful reminder to all lawyers that talking to clients about the work they're doing is a valuable and meaningful business development effort.

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Guy Kawasaki's "Why Websites Suck" on the American Express Open Forum. #1 reason? "Organization-centricity:"

"At the root of practically, every website failure I’ve come across is the organization wanting the customer to fit around how it’s organized, how it thinks, and the language that it uses. By contrast, great websites organize around the customer."

Does that describe your firm's website? How could your site be organized around your clients?

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Cordell Parvin's "12 Ways Social Media Client Development Tools Benefits Lawyers and Law Firms" from his Law Consulting Blog.

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Tom Kane's "Legal Project Management as Marketing Tool" from his Legal Marketing Blog. Want to learn more? Check out "A Practical Approach to Legal Management" from Pam Woldow and Doug Richardson (registration required). And follow Pam's Twitterfeed, full of valuable resources and great insight (she's @pwoldow). 

Today's law marketing resource

Michael Chang's essay on "Managing Change," from ACC Docket, in which Chang recounts what his life experience has taught him about being a better lawyer. 

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Adrian Lurssen's "Social media delivers law firm content to people who want it" from The Scoop. See also "Social media is not about distributing your law firm's content to people", the post from Kevin O'Keefe that inspired Lurssen's post (and another on the same topic that Kevin wrote last year: Distribution of law firm content is not what social media is for).

Today's Law Marketing Resource

Today's law marketing resource: Jim Hassett's three-part series on alternative fee strategies from his Legal Business Development blog. 

• Part 1: Aggressive risk-taking
• Part 2: Conservative risk avoidance
• Part 3: Transparency and shadow billing

Today's Law Marketing Resource

I've started posting a daily law marketing resource on the 22 Tweets Facebook page and will start posting those links to this blog going forward. To catch you up, here are the resources I've identified so far:

• "Building a Law Practice from the Ground Up. Now." from Elizabeth Munnell on her Posterous blog.
• "Marketing Law Firm Value: Alternative Fee Arrangements" from Shani Magosky in The National Law Review.
• "Recent ethics opinion: Lawyer websites" from Peter Geraghty in Your ABA (including the link to the opinion).
• "How Far Should You Go for a Client?" from Brian Tannebaum in GPSolo Magazine.
• "Tweet disposition - the tech-savvy lawyers making social media work for them" from Sofia Lind in Legal Week.
• "Your Call Is Important to Us" from Jordan Furlong on Slaw.
• "Don’t Nickel and Dime Your Clients. Just Don’t." from Susan Cartier Liebel on the Solo Practice University Blog.
• "Technology and Ethics: Online Marketing and Networking" from Aviva Cuyler in GPSolo Magazine.
• "11 More Thought Provoking Questions I Keep Pondering" from Cordell Parvin on his Law Consulting Blog.
• "Attorney Advertising (So how are YOU going about it?)" from Eric Turkewitz on his New York Personal Injury Law Blog.
• "Why Law Firm Marketing Plans Fail" from Allison Shields on Slaw.
• "Why Law Firms Should Wow Their Current Clients" from Carolyn Elefant on Nolo’s Legal Marketing Blawg.
• "Strategic Planning for Law Firms: Key Steps in the Process" from Colin Cameron on Cameron's Profits for Partners Blog.
• "Are Law Firms Really Ready for Project Management?" from Bill Henderson in Business Review USA.
• "PR Tip: Make Friends with Reporters and Editors" from Tom Kane on his Legal Marketing Blog.
• "Five ways to not screw up your next networking attempt" from Peter Shankman on his blog, P.S.
• "Budget Essentials for Law Firm Business Development" from Deborah C. Scaringi in Legal Marketing Reader.
• "The Art and Science of Lawyer Bios" from Bob Ambrogi in his LawSites blog.
• "7 Things that Blogging Does" from Mitch Joel on Six Pixels of Separation.
• "What Makes a Good Facebook Business Page? (Pt. 1 of 3)" from Adrian Lurssen on JD Scoop.
• "10 Items for Your Law Firm Marketing 'To-do' List" from Stacy West Clark on Law.com’s Small Firm Business.
• "Writing a winning proposal" from Dr. Tom Sant on Law Marketing Portal.

From Business Review USA: "Are Law Firms Really Ready for Project Management?"

"Are Law Firms Really Ready for Project Management?" from Business Review USA. This post could be subtitled: "Reality may intrude." Bill Henderson, professor of law at Indiana University School of Law, thinks that project management as a discipline should and will take hold in the delivery of legal services. But it will take time and effort, and significant change to law firm culture, compensation, and cost-structures.

Bill Henderson's work focuses on empirical analysis of the legal profession, on the business of law, and on legal education. You can--and should--read what he writes at the Legal Profession Blog and on SSRN.

From The Bizzle: "The limits of outsourcing"

"The limits of outsourcing" from The Bizzle. Want to know what keeps your clients up at night? Read this blog, and you will. You'll also find out what in-house counsel wants, needs, and thinks of the lawyers they hire. Not enough? You'll get hard-to-find insight into the legal and non-legal matters in-house lawyers deal with every day. Like this post, which looks at outsourcing from the client's perspective, exploring the tension between outsourcing-as-cost-savings and outsourcing-as-a-management-and-cost-control challenge:

"The more complex the outsourced service, the more scope there is for errors and omissions in the list of activities. This is often to the benefit of the supplier, in the sense that it can name its price for the rectification of the contract to include an omitted activity."