Newsletter of Law Firm
Vardan Petrossiantz
Legal Tech Lawyer @ Freshfields | Automation of Legal Processes | Adjunct Professor at EUBS
A newsletter is a specialized type of serial publication that is distributed regularly. It has evolved from physical print to digital formats such as email, web-based platforms, blogs, and social media channels like LinkedIn.
Primarily, newsletters offer a consistent means of communicating with clients, colleagues, potential employees, and others interested in your firm or products. The essential elements of a newsletter include information sharing, marketing and branding, education, and community engagement.
For law firms, newsletters can serve as a way to maintain and enhance client relationships in an indirect yet effective manner. Reminding of your expertise even after project completion can pave the way for future collaborations.
Moreover, the dynamic nature of the legal field, characterized by frequent updates in laws, regulations, and technological advancements, makes newsletters an ideal tool for keeping your community informed about significant changes.
By correctly utilizing newsletters, law firms can position their standing as thought leaders, especially if they involve Partners and Senior Associates in content creation to contribute to the firm's digital presence.
The educational components should not merely target clients but also potential employees, law students, and individuals interested in the legal field. Sharing valuable knowledge is the initial step toward potential collaborations and building trust.
Ultimately, the regular appearance of law firms with professional content helps keep the firm's name prominent among potential clients, enabling the company to boost its marketing and business development efforts and demonstrate its expertise.
Categories of Legal Newsletter
The firm's newsletter should not be limited to a single category or area of the firm. Instead, it should be divided into multiple categories to engage all possible audience segments.
In addition to providing legal insights, case studies, information about completed projects, and details of notable cases the firm has handled - including the strategies used and the outcomes achieved - the law firms can introduce other categories to draw the audience closer to the firm and its employees. For this purpose, video content is invaluable.
Recorded interviews with attorneys can offer personal insights into the legal profession and establish a personal connection with the audience, where people can see how the firm’s lawyers speak, think, and analyze. Viewers may leave comments on these posts, which can lead to deeper discussions. However, this approach is more suited to live webinars and online events, which represent another sub-area for the legal newsletter.
The newsletter should not only share information about upcoming webinars, workshops, and other events but should also organize these events online as part of the newsletter, transforming it from a static publication into a dynamic and interactive platform. This is the point where the newsletter transforms from notification into video and text content.
Now, let's move to the next categories. Updates on new legislation, regulatory changes, and legal precedents are crucial. However, it is even more important to describe and explain those changes in terms so simple that first-year law students, non-lawyers, and experienced attorneys can read and enjoy the articles or news without expending all their brainpower to understand complex texts.
Tips for Clients and Tips for Law Students can include educational information and valuable legal knowledge for both groups. These tips may also offer practical advice on legal issues for potential clients or career guidance for students.
Most importantly, the firm should highlight its legal tech innovations. This is an opportunity to engage a broad audience by providing enough technical detail to captivate innovators and practical solutions that appeal to clients tired of manual work and processes.
Historical legal facts can make the newsletter more engaging. Interesting stories from the legal field can convince the audience that law is not boring, and stories about lawyers may inspire others to pursue a career in law.
So, we have outlined various categories for the newsletter, each tailored to different audience segments.
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The sole purpose of these categories is to bridge the gap to the outside world. By staying connected and not isolated within the pressures of deadlines, legal stress, and challenges, the firm can attract clients, talent, and projects as if it were a magnet.
However, this approach presents a significant challenge: how can we gather and produce so much content? Is there a need for a dedicated media or newsletter department? While managing 1-2 categories may be feasible, handling 8-10 seems unrealistic and unlikely to guarantee high quality.
Content for Newsletter through Gamification
Large law firms possess extensive resources, numerous employees, and a variety of topics and projects. Consequently, they have a wealth of information to share, report, and teach.
A small team of 2-3 people cannot effectively organize a comprehensive newsletter that encompasses such an array of quality data. Therefore, integrating a tool for gathering newsletter content within the law firm could be beneficial. This tool would involve everyone in the newsletter-building process and maintain high motivation through elements of gamification.
Imagine a user-friendly digital platform where employees can submit content, ideas, articles, case studies, or other relevant materials, categorized by the specific focus of the newsletter.
The status of the submitted content could range from initial ideas and drafts to items ready for publication. Based on this status, content providers would receive varying incentives and rewards.
Rewards might include a points system tied to leaderboards. Accumulated points could then be exchanged for tangible rewards, such as extra vacation days, reserved spots at events, or other incentives.
Content that is ready to publish will undergo an approval workflow, while ideas and drafts can be picked up and developed by any other person within the firm to a proper standard. The Newsletter department can also initiate and complete topics as needed.
The tool should guide writers and content creators on the concept, style, and other rules to observe. The role of generative AI can be crucial here to enhance the quality of articles or video scripts.
Additionally, the tool will organize the structure of the newsletter, including all its categories, generate hashtags, oversee the publishing schedule, and ensure that the newsletter's goals and KPIs are met or are within reach. Creators will have the ability to monitor outcomes and view analytics.
Through this approach, law firms will not only produce content for their newsletters but also create a valuable knowledge base covering various topics and areas.
Creating a community and running a newsletter is a challenging task for law firms. It's common for firms to find themselves in a situation where the only digital followers are their own employees and prospective job candidates. Positioning the newsletter correctly from the outset is critical. However, if the newsletter already exists within a limited concept, rebranding, restructuring, and repositioning it should be undertaken with overpowered robustness and commitment.