Law Practice Marketing

Law is an unbelievably competitive industry. There are over 1.3 million lawyers in the United States alone, far more than any other country. In fact, the US has one of the highest per-capita concentrations of lawyers in the world. Over the last 15 years, the growth in the number of lawyers has doubled overall population growth.  About a third of all US law firms are solo practice firms with only one attorney. Solo practices face unique marketing challenges.

With narrow exceptions such as patent law, any lawyer can practice in any niche of law –and “jack-of-all-trades” attorneys abound. As a solo practitioner, your challenge is to occupy a specific niche of the legal market, such as small business bankruptcy, that can get you referrals from both clients and other lawyers. Brand building, by contrast, is the effort to distinguish yourself as an individual rather than as “that lawyer who does small business bankruptcies.”  

No lawyer outside of a small town can afford to ignore Internet marketing. The Internet is its own world, however, certain aspects of which are critical to the success of your firm.

A website is no place to skimp on quality simply to “save money”–it absolutely must be professional-looking. A good analogy is the archetypal bookshelf of legal titles that sits behind a lawyer in any TV spot for a law office, making the lawyer look scholarly and knowledgeable. Never mind that the lawyer does his research online — image matters. Your website must also be informative, and possess technical features that make it stand out, such as live chat.

Social media marketing is a relatively new form of media that you simply cannot ignore. You can choose from many different forms of social media, depending on the nature of your practice. Quora marketing, for example, is a good way of establishing your legal expertise by answering general questions (even questions that you pay someone to post so that you can answer them).

Guest blogging on other people’s websites, and podcasting on your own, are two ways of establishing yourself as an expert in your particular niche. Both of these media need to be geared to reach your particular target audience. They also need to be informative without giving too much away.  

Success Working Solo is dedicated to the success of the solo practitioner. As a lawyer in solo practice, time is probably your most precious commodity. Consequently, Success Working Solo has distilled a large amount of practical knowledge into manageable portions, to create easy-to-digest online courses designed for you to absorb as quickly as possible. These courses are specifically designed to benefit someone in your position. Please see below for details:

Branding is one of the foundational tasks of a successful law firm–especially in solo practice. With over 10,000 sole practitioner law firms in the United States, and perhaps thousands in your state alone, how do you stand out from the crowd? The first step, of course, is to find yourself a professional niche where your particular expertise is most useful. It will take more than that, however, to create an effective brand. This course shows you how to: Research your target market; Define your brand by clarifying exactly what it stands for; Design an attractive, distinctive, and recognizable logo; and create a comprehensive identity system.

Total Competitive Advantage complements power branding by showing you how to identify your law firm’s Unique Value Proposition (UVP). What exactly is it that your firm does better than anyone else? There is likely something that your firm does best, even if you haven’t figured it out yet. Total Competitive Advantage helps you figure it out and, even if you come up empty-handed, shows you how to create it.

Marketing courses are a dime a dozen. The problem with most of them is that they are either one-size-fits-all or geared towards larger organizations. The marketing requirements for solo practice or a very small firm are very different from the marketing requirements for large firms.“Jump Start Success: The Simple, Lean Marketing Plan for Solo and Small Firms” teaches you, among other things: How to perform market research for small market segments; How to perform effective Effective SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis; How to create a small form marketing budget; and how to put it all together into a comprehensive solo practice marketing strategy.

What percentage of your clients provide you with referrals? Do non-clients ever refer business to you? Are your clients even aware of how important referrals are to your business? Success Working Solo’s Referral System Tuneup goes through all of the ins and outs of how to create a referral machine that will provide your solo law proactive with a steady stream of referrals–all at next to nothing in additional expenses. 

With the accelerating pace of technological change, law practice marketing has never been more promising — or more difficult. Opportunities for effective law firm marketing seem to multiply exponentially, along with the time required to take advantage of them. As a solo practitioner, then, time efficiency is not just a good idea–it’s a necessity. It is critical that you keep up with what is going on, and that you invest just enough time to learn how to market your firm with efficiency and effectiveness. Sign up below for free updates and access to exclusive training! If not now, when? Get started today.