Home Office Lawyer

Lawyers and twitter

Law Firm Web Strategy had a very interesting post today called, Lawyer Marketing with Twitter? You really need to read this one.

I have been using twitter now for almost a month and I have to say, my blog traffic has increased and in turn, so has business. Don't overlook the benefits of using a "micro-blogging" tool like twitter.

Be The Lawyer You've Always Wanted to Be

I'm writing to introduce you to someone who has the potential to change your life and your business.

You may already know Alexis Martin Neely, but if you don't this is the time to meet her because she's so fed up hearing about failed estate plans,lawyers working themselves to death just to barely get by, never being able to jump off the marketing merry go round and constanly reinventing the wheel that I think it's driven her insane.

In her quest to "revolutionize" the broken business model she's giving away systems, tools, strategies, special reports and mp3s that would cost you thousands of dollars to purchase.

Why is Alexis doing this? Because she has a two-fold mission:

1. To help you be the lawyer you've always wanted to be by buildinga law business (not a practice) that makes a real difference

AND

2. To change the way Americans think about lawyers.

I too was skeptical when I hear about Alexis, but after thoroughly researching her and her message, I concluded that she is the "real deal."

To fulfill her mission and help you as much as possible, Alexis launched the "Law Business Revolution" yesterday, Thursday April 3, 2008.

Over the next few weeks she is going to give you a slew of valuable gifts. These are NOT designed to sell you
anything. She is giving you these gifts to help you. Period.

Then, on May 7, 2008, Alexis is going to be conducting a live, no cost, "Law Business Revolution" simulcast event. (More details coming in the next few weeks.)

Now, Alexis is an Estate Planning Attorney, and her Personal Family Lawyer program is for EP lawyers OR for non-estate planning attorneys who want to add very lucrative estate planning to their roster of client services

BUT, and read this carefully...

Regardless of whether you want to join her Personal Family Lawyer movement, she really does want to help you. THAT is the reason she's giving you all the materials and all of the are applicable to ANY law practice, estate planning or not.

To register to get all the gifts, go to:

Law Business Secrets

Martindale-Hubbell's value to Solos?

Kevin O'Keefe at Lexblog had a post today called, Martindale-Hubbell's value to law firms in steep decline. Quite frankly I have never really thought M&H provided any value to the solo. Perhaps its only value would be to the good old boy network. Publishing a well designed and maintained blog will do a Solo more good and give you a higher return on your investment than wasting money on a listing in M&H. If you have a different take on the value provided to the Solo, please enlighten me.

ABA’s 50 Ways to Market Your Practice

Once again, the ABA has not disappointed me. It recently published its 50 ways to market your practice. I read, re-read and re-read the list again. Am I missing something? Where is blogging mentioned as a way to market your firm?

Is it because the ABA just doesn't get it? And if I did miss it in this list of marketing tools that have been around since they started to use carbon paper, someone please tell me.

CONTEST - Get a FREE copy of the Blawg for Profit course!!!!!

Yes, it is true. Not only will the Blawg for Profit progam be launched on October 15th, 2007, we are having a contest and throwing a party. To enter the contest, go HERE and read our post on Blawg for Profit. Follow the instructions. It is easy, leave a comment on that post.

To qualify for the drawing that will take place during the call, here is what you have to do:

Go the the comment section of this post, and enter a comment stating why you would like the program, and how you think it would benefit your practice. That’s it. Then be on the call to see if your name is the entry that gets selected for the course.

Make sure your comment is posted by midnight Thursday, October 11 to be considered. And, remember to leave your e-mail so we know how to contact you about receiving the prize if you are the winner.

Everyone on the call will receive some valuable information about blogging to attract clients, and each person on the call will also get a special gift just for being a part of our Party. So, don’t miss out.

Michael and I are very excited about what we are offering and we too can't wait for the official launch. And to celebrate the release, we are throwing a Pre-Launch Party.

On Friday, October 12, we are celebrating that launch with a Pre-Launch Party by teleconference call at 3:00 pm Eastern (call details to come - but save the date now!). All solo and small firm lawyers are invited, and on the call we will be sharing some practical, valuable advice on how to effectively blawg for profit.

Also, on the call, to celebrate the release, we will be awarding one lucky winner a free copy of the Blawg for Profit course. The course consists of 4 audio CD’s, 2 DVDs, a Workbook, and several other goodies all of which are designed to make you a more effective blogger.

So, head on over to Blawg for Profit and post your comment to be eligible for your chance for a free copy.

Should I use a Ghost Writer for my Blog?

This was posted today on a Listserv I am on. I could not let it go without responding. I am not providing who stated this and won't until such time as they might comment to this post.

“If you want to be seen/heard/read or increase your ranking in the search engines, content is king. If you're in a competitive market, you need steady, frequent content. Ghostwriters/content providers fill the minor holes that you don't have time to address.“

And let me reply. I have been blogging now for almost 3 years. I have started blogs and killed them. Some I have started to see what kind of SEO I can get and how quick. I have to report, I have yet not had one move up in Google quick.

Recently, I started a new project. While we are building it, I have been posting daily to the main blog the network is being built around. We are getting great results and it has only been up for a month. Last night I did some stat’s surfing and discovered that with some searches our readers are doing, we are showing up not only on the first page of Google, we are showing up in the top 5 most of the time.

Blogging takes a commitment. And if you want to blog, and if you want that blog to be successful, you have to make a commitment to make it happen.

Kevin O’Keefe and I have posted about this on our blogs. But, let me make just this one statement. I have always been a proponent of CONTENT. Not just content, but relevant content. However, I have neve said you can just throw up content and expect it to stick. That would be like throwing some crap on the wall and watching to see what sticks. It ain’t going to happen. And heres why.

Blogging is one of the best communication tools we have available today. It is one of the best ways to get involved in the conversation too. No where else can you so quickly become a part of a nationwide, worldwide conversation on a topic. But you have to get noticed. And you do that by becoming involved in the conversation. Post, link, trackback, comment, email bloggers, email commentors thanking them for commenting, allow comments and trackbacks.

But, how you say do I do this. First of all, you can't even attempt to keep up with what is going on in the blog world if you aren't using RSS and a good feeder. You have to find the conversations and you can best do that if you are being fed them.

Next, don't try to be all to everyone and everything. Pick a niche and blog about it. Pick something you are excited about. Get involved in it. Set your RSS feeder to feed you information about that niche, topic or interest. Blog about it, comment about it and get involved in it.

YOU CAN‘T DO THAT IF YOU AREN‘T THE ONE POSTING ABOUT IT.

If you can't think of something to blog about, ask a GUEST poster to do a post. Or in my case, I asked Allison Shields to do a series of post on billing. It was great and we BOTH had great traffic from it. We both had traffic for two reasons. It was a great series with some great content. And it was a hot topic at the time. We both knew that because we follow such topics in our RSS feeders and on Listservs.

Do a post about your competition. Post a comment to a competitor‘s blog. OMG, I cant do that. They might benefit from it. Yes, they will and best of all you will too. I call this my McDonald’s theory. Where is the best place to put a new fast food restaurant? Right next to a McDonald’s. They get traffic and you will too.

If you are not willing to make a commitment to make blogging work, don't even start one. You will be disappointed and you will not become a believer. If you are willing to make the time commitment, work commitment and focus on the results, you will become a believer and you will actually enjoy it.

Good Content AND Get People to Talk About You

Over at Blawg for Profit I am participating in a conversation about blogging. Go there and participate yourself by reading and comment on a recent post I did called, Good Content AND Get People to Talk About You.

Lets keep the conversation going and lets get noticed.

Attorneys Benefit From Handling Family Law Cases on a Fixed Fee Basis

The South Carolina Family Law Blog has a post about fix fees in family law cases. In the post, Ben Stevens explains why attorneys benefit from such a fee arrangement.

Attorneys benefit in the following ways from handling family law cases on a fixed fee basis:

• No longer having to track every minute of every day will mean that the attorney is no longer a slave to the billable hour.' For most attorneys, tracking time is a stressful, cumbersome, and tedious process.' It is inconvenient and counterproductive to have to continuously stop working on clients' cases to record what time was spent on each one, and then to track and review the recorded time at the end of each day or week.
• The attorney will gain several extra hours per week that used to be spent recording time, and this newly found time can be spent working on clients’ files, spending time with family, or relaxing - all of which are better than chasing the tail of the billable hour.
• Even more time will be saved by not having to send out as many bills per month, record and process the payments, and deal with the trust accounting issues that are involved with retainers.
• There should be no disputes with clients over the amount of a bill and/or no questions to be answered about the amount of time that was spent on a given activity, because the amount charged for the services was negotiated and agreed upon before the representation began.
• Handling cases in this manner gives the attorney the ability to decide up front if he/she wishes to represent someone for a reduced fee, such as military personnel, teachers, or other public servants.
• There are other benefits to the attorney, such as the additional leverage gained when establishing fees in this manner and the ability to deposit these fees directly into the attorney's operating account if the fee agreement is drafted properly.

Source for Post: South Carolina Family Law Blog.

Blogging Networks -- Part 1

The Home Office Lawyer is in the process of developing and starting two blogging networks. The first one that is almost off the ground is called the Divorce Help Network. (DHN). The concept is a simple one. Provide a way for family law attorneys to be part of a nation wide database not built around a static Web site, but a focused network of state specific blogs.

I am excited about DHN as it is a natural step for me to take from the Kansas Family and Divorce Lawyer Blog. I have seen first hand the benefits of blogging for the family law firm. And I can see first hand how powerful the Internet has become as a tool for the consumer to use to find professional service providers. And DHN will do both. The database will give the consumer a source of local lawyers to go to for help. And the blog network will enhance the lawyers Internet presense even further. It will also provide a great resource of information for the public.

The DHN will be a subscription based service for family law attorneys. There will be three levels of service. The basic level will provide only the data base presence. The second level will provide the data base presence and the state specific network blog which the subscriber will blog to and provide the links for, with our help if requested of course. The third level is still being ironed out, but it appears it will be a complete package of a custom family law blog, with training and coaching, and the data base presence. Can you even imagine the SEO of 50 or MORE blogs posting about family law information, connected to a nationwide network of family law blogs? It should be amazing.

UPDATE: The DHN concept is expanding and the official launch may be delayed as we work out features and the tools we will be providing. Stay tuned for more details as they come down the pipe.

Lawyers -- Salesperson?

Jay Fleischman on his Bankruptcy Practice Pro blog has a first in what appears to be a series of very interesting post about lawyers as salespersons. The first one is called Face Facts - You’re in Sales.

Jay states at the end of his post:

Over the next few weeks the conversation will be taking a remarkable turn as we explore the role of the attorney as sales person. Much of what I have to discuss will be controversial, and a few things may be outlandish. But in the end, you will come away with a huge arsenal of proven tactics for turbo-charging your firm profitability.

I for one look forward to following this series and it should be very interesting. Even if you don't practice bankruptcy law, you really should read Jay’s blog. It is packed full of good and insightful information.

UPDATE: Susan Cartier Liebel in a comment to this post, reminded me of a great post she did on this very subject, Be a Brilliant Saleperson to be a Successful Lawyer. Susan’s blog Build A Solo Practice, LLC is another one of those blogs you just have to read and follow. Put it in your RSS feeder and enjoy.