45 Years Later, Lawyers Are Still Not Sure About Advertising, Especially Online

The same year Star Wars clobbered its next closest rival, Smokey & The Bandit, at the box office, the US Supreme Court ruled that prohibiting attorneys from advertising was a violation of their commercial free speech and that such marketing served society’s need to make informed decisions, despite a possibility of abuse.?

The attorneys in Bates were offering “legal services for reasonable rates” and even listing pricing for some select matters like a divorce for $175 plus a $20 court filing fee in the local newspaper.

They were sanctioned by their own State Bar, facing suspension of their licenses, lost at the State Court level and forced to appeal. What they were doing would seem tame by today’s standards but was highly disturbing to attorneys at that time on many levels - economically, emotionally and professionally.?

My First Legal Hero?

When the Bates ruling came down, my uncle and godfather, Pat Cahill, three years fresh in the Michigan State Bar, was establishing his solo general practice in his hometown of Detroit, networking for clients in his community the way it had been done forever.

He is the ultimate “people person”, a great joke teller who’s warm, empathetic and helpful to those in need, which makes it very natural and comfortable for anyone to refer potential clients his way.? He was so successful and respected in his practice that his adopted hometown of Hamtramck, independent but oddly located completely inside the City of Detroit, elected him as its District Judge three times, the last two unopposed.?

I asked him how he marketed himself before being elected, and he shared, “it was primarily word of mouth, aided by involvement in the church and community groups like Rotary, and that running for any office was a great way to get your name out.”? Adding further, the pressure was to be “likable, offer competitive pricing, be competent in a lot of different types of cases and be conveniently located” in order to compete with the "dozen of so guys just like him within 10 miles." I can almost hear people adding today's commonly used search term “near me” to these real life conversations.?

When I explained how our clients generate profitable cases today using pay per click ads and even some social media to acquire cases, he was amazed at how things have changed, how much opportunity it creates for attorneys, but also how much different the business of practicing law would be with this type of new client “machine” at his disposal. He worried that it could be misused to mislead potential clients and create false and dangerous expectations. He commented, "It’s sure not going away, because it obviously works for many.”

At 73, and after a successful third act in the corporate world, he no longer represents clients on a daily basis but many of his peers or those close in age are still at the helm of law firms large and small, having grown up and been successful doing things how they've always been done.

Uncle Pat’s Generation Is Still Calling the Shots In Many Firms

As I prospect for new business, it is not uncommon at all to run into founders and decision makers who started the same way as my Uncle Pat. These experienced leaders often struggle to understand how adding Google as a de facto partner to their business for up to 20% of their billings in many cases, could possibly be right or even fair.?

As an example, the basic math of investing say $1250 into a client by closing 1 of 12 clicks that cost $104 each that generates on average $3500 per case in revenue may make sense on paper, but they remain skeptical and even offended by this system. Even when we add in some potential lifetime value of a repeat client or adding them as a referral or the very intangible but unmistakable value of a 5 star review on their Google profile, it can be a tough sell.?

Author’s Note: You are right to be skeptical. When done wrong, this same $1250 could be spent on awful, unqualified clicks due to poor campaign setup, keyword strategy or lack of attention and produce $0 revenue. ?

But, I promise, those that relent to this pressure or even embrace this way of running their practice are seeing the results, growing their staff roster with attorneys, paralegals, operations experts far faster, more profitably and at a scale unimaginable to many.

Accepting Today’s Reality

Word of Mouth won’t cut it today for anything bigger than a lifestyle practice. Neither will running for the Planning Commission and planting signs on your neighbors' lawns.

Today, almost no one would simply ask their friends if they know a "good lawyer" and enter into an attorney-client relationship without?“Googling” their case type or the attorney that's been recommended, or both.

Then the fun begins. When they do type in these valuable phrases including a lawyer's own name in some states, there is a great chance some of the top results will be some very familiar names from TV or radio commercials, billboards or even above urinals placed by firms investing as much as 30% of their annual billing back into ads.

To some, it seems as if these firms are basically running a branded consumer service business that packages the practice of law as a product, templated and sold online.?You can basically hear the leaders ordering "more dog bite cases" like a Big Mac in the drive thru.

Newly minted attorneys with a career arch and ambition similar to my Uncle Pat’s solo general practice path, would have a heck of a time competing with these big spenders to land any clients while serving as the usher at church.

And what about the associates at a large firm who are asked to develop new business??

Without a marketing budget and machine to compete, they are fighting with at least one hand tied behind their back. However, if they can land clients on their own are they going to be happy handing over most of the profits to the firm? Not for long. They will be buying a domain and starting up their own firm pretty soon, bidding on keywords to supplement their own offline marketing efforts.?

3 Types of? Digital Age “Life Event” Lawyers

I want to leave you with the most common options for those practicing the highest searched and? advertised “life event” pillars of law - personal injury, family and criminal. In today’s reality, there are three choices::

1. Enjoy the success of your current practice and new client pipeline but know that your clients are likely “googling” a lot before reaching out, and may end up elsewhere if you’re not careful.?
2. Build or convert your firm into a well marketed, branded law firm that is known, seen, heard and most importantly found on the web for very focused types of cases with the help of true professionals who not only know digital marketing but also understand the business of law firms.?
3. Work for a branded law firm, taking your seat at the table of a firm that feeds its lawyers qualified leads, pays them well but will never have enough left over for you to get rich after Google takes its share and the partners receive the benefit of their investment. You’ll likely not be held to a very high standard as a revenue generator, but be working for aggressive business people who happen to be lawyers.?

If you are in the first bucket, I hope you’re really good, and if you are in the last one, I hope you really like to work.? But if you are in bucket #2, I’d love to know how we can help.?

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Chris Cahill, JD MBA, Michigan State Bar Member since 1995, has been helping 100s of business owners grow their revenue via sales and marketing strategic development and implementation, streamlining their operations and by recruiting superstar contributors. Reach out if you need help.