Updated August 31, 2022

Don’t Express Yourself – Obsess Yourself!

Over the past few years, passionate has been one of the most overused modifiers ofentrepreneurs and startups. If you don’t believe me, check out LinkedIn, where “passionate”turns up as a term in 5,447,000 profiles. Increasingly, solo and small firm lawyers also usethe term to…

Last night, I stayed late at the office. By D.C. standards anyway.  Meaning that when I departed at 1:30 in the morning, the metro trains that I use to commute to the office were no longer running so I had to find alternative transportation home. At that late hour, I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to find a cab – so I pulled out my smart phone, punched the Uber app button and was informed that a black sedan would arrive within four minutes.

Once out on the street, at least four cabs drove by in the 4-5 minutes that I waited for the Uber sedan. Tired and preoccupied with returning emails, I scarcely noticed or appreciated the interior. When the car pulled up to my house, I took out my phone to pay via the app but the driver informed me that my credit card had already been charged and that I’d receive a receipt within an hour. The receipt did indeed materialize – $50 for a trip that I’ve never been charged more than $30 by cab and sometimes, even as little as $20.00.  And with that, my earlier satisfaction with Uber dimmed.

But my experience also got me thinking about my law firm’s transactions. For example, when does it make sense to pay premium price for a marketing coach or a web developer or a Coach handbag that to me, doesn’t look all that different from the ones sold at Target or transport home? And on the flip side, when does it make sense to charge clients a premium price for service that they can procure at 20-30 percent less from another lawyer.

Via Solo Practice University’s Susan Cartier-Liebel, I learned that $99 wills and have documents notarized  — at least at two Walmart locations in Canada. The services are offered through Axess , a bonafide law Canadian law firm, through small branch offices located at the entrance of two Walmart stores. Currently, customer-clients can access Axess for wills and notary services; other matters are referred out to other firms.  Axess plans to add uncontested divorces to its service menu in the fall.

While Axess’ Walmart-based branch offices are fairly new, the concept of a store-based firms or legal kiosks has been around for a while. As Susan notes, she blogged about store-based law firms years ago, as did I. And of course, in the UK, Tesco Law  – supermarket-owned law shops – functioned as shorthand for alternative business structures (ABS) enabled by the  2007 Legal Services Act  — though significantly, the Axess model differs because the branch offices are owned by a law firm, not Walmart.

Many lawyers today turn up their nose at the concept of “Walmart Law,” – either arguing that a downscale location isn’t sufficiently dignified for lawyers, or questioning the competence of firms that choose to practice in that manner.  But truth is, the Walmart Law concept has legal nobility in its history, as I discovered on a family vacation in the midwest this summer. 

Last week, I shared some of the internet marketing lessons learned by online marketing companies. The bottom line: internet advertising can be pricey especially for small companies. This week, I’m publishing an article by Conrad Saam, founder of Mockingbird Marketing who asks whether solo attorneys are priced out of SEO.  What do you think?

Last week I wrote a post on Lawyerist outlining the changing economics of the legal search marketing game, expressing my concern (and frustration) that BigLaw is increasingly choking the solo practitioner out of the SEO game.

The posts genesis originated in my experience running an agency over the past year. I’m fortunate to belong to tight knit group (counted on one hand) of legal SEO professionals who run smaller agencies and deliver solid results for their clients. At geek conferences, we drink microbrews and share thoughts about the direction of search, rail against FindLaw contracts and trade tips about online project management systems.

And we share a deep dark secret:  our target market – those clients who make up the perfect client profile – does NOT include solos.

For nearly three years, I’ve been tracking solo Ekaterina Schoenefeld’s challenge to the constitutionality of New York Judicial Code 470, which imposes an in-state office requirement – but only on nonresident lawyers. Schoenefeld won round one, when a federal district court judge ruled that the statute infringes on nonresident attorneys’ right to practice law…

Via the Legal Profession Blog, comes a recent Indiana ethics decision reprimanding a lawyer who’d practiced 41 years without incident for participating Law Tigers , a site that helps members of the public find a motorcycle attorney.  Trouble is, in pursuit of a single Tiger that may purportedly cause harm to the public, the Indiana Supreme Court now has the entire fledgling industry of legal matchmaking platforms by the tail.

Here’s the background. The American Association of Motorcycle Injury Lawyers (AAMIL) operates the Law Tigers website – one of dozens of  lead gen platforms like the Nolo Law Directory  Total Attorneys that direct website visitors and prospective clients to participating lawyers who pay to receive leads within a designated geographic area. Naturally, to encourage site visitors to seek legal services, the Law Tigers website boasts “Exceptional Results: Settlements and Verdicts” and links to glowing client testimonials.  However, the respondent lawyers website, which could be accessed through a link on the Law Tigers site, included a disclaimer that a firm could not advertise past settlements or results.

Even so, this wasn’t enough for the Indiana Supreme Court which found that:
An average viewer would not differentiate between Respondent and the statements about Law Tigers on the AAMIL website and that Respondent is therefore responsible for objectionable content on the website.
For example, the court worried that website visitors might be mislead into believing that the testimonials on the Law Tiger sites referred to the Respondent or that the Respondent would achieve exceptional results even though the Respondent’s firm website contained a disclaimer. It is difficult to imagine a client so stupid as to associate a generic testimonial with Respondent’s service or so passive as to not inquire about the “Exceptional Verdicts and Settlements” advertised. In today’s internet world, clients have never been more savvy or educated, but to the court, they’re treated like a bunch of morons.  

How do you find clients for an online business – whether it’s an e—commerce shop selling a product like shows or magazines or gift baskets, or a website that offers services like web design or job placement or even legal services, through a virtual law firm?

Not surprisingly, many online business’ customers come from heavy investment in straight-up search engine advertising rather than social media, as discussed here in New York Times’ You’re the Boss Small Business Blog. And somewhat counter-intuitively, there are some online businesses that don’t spend money on online ads at all.

Two of the online proprietors quoted in the article — Paul Shrater, co-founder Minimus, a site that sells travel-sized toiletries and other mini-products and Sam Zaila, chief executive of SubscriptionAddiction that sells discount magazine subscriptions — are big spenders on Internet advertising campaigns.  Zaila, whose company had $1.3 million in 2013 reported that he spends:
…about $400,000 a year on online advertising — 70 percent on Google AdWords, 20 percent on Bing/Yahoo, 5 percent on Facebook ads and 5 percent on “display remarketing,” which helps businesses reach consumers who have previously visited their sites. Mr. Zaila also attempts to engage existing customers with a custom email marketing platform.
Meanwhile, Shrater also found that Google AdWords has been the best source of referrals for his web business, which had $5 million in revenue in 2013.  Shrater describes:

Google the phrase lawyers and “client service,” and you’ll find hundreds of posts on the importance of great client service – not as a reminder that lawyers have an ethical obligation to serve clients well – but rather as a way to generate future referrals or avoid malpractice. Lawyers are advised to over promise and under deliver, to delight clients so they’ll “make it rain” for your firm and to mimic the tricks of businesses like Starbucks, Jet Blue and Nordstrom that are known for service that keeps customers coming back again and again.

I don’t mean to criticize this approach or to suggest that you should treat clients rudely. But at some point, the “professionalization” of client service has the perverse effect of objectifying clients, transforming them from individuals with their own unique concerns and fears to a feeding trough. Plus, at some point, laser-focus on client service shifts the attention from client to us – as we toot our horn and pat ourselves on the back for doing what we should be doing anyway.

So that’s why this story about what Maine obstetrician, Robert Sansonetti does for his patients is so refreshing.  After buying the book Hat Heads for his teens about one man’s adventure knitting caps, Dr. Sansonetti decided to give it a try himself. Starting with a smaller hat as a practice for a larger project, Dr. Sansonetti realized that it was the perfect size for his patients’ babies. Since then, Dr. Sansonetti has knitted over 200 caps for each new arrival, documenting each creation on Dr. Bob’s Baby Beanies blog.

This isn’t an April Fools’ joke. You may have noticed my blog posts have become more sporadic. Part of the slow down relates to my schedule – just plain busy. But I’m also having more difficulty coming up with original content relevant to solos and smalls.

So if there are any topics you’d like me…

After my last  failed attempt to offer a webinar, I decided to take a break.  Still, I wanted to present content on starting a practice in a different fashion than blog posts or books, and I wanted the ability to reach a larger audience than a Google Hangout would allow.

So I began to explore the option of pre-taped, on-demand webinars. In contrast to the webinar format, where my live program would be recorded through an online platform for future use, recording a program right off my machine was simply more dependable because I wasn’t reliant on a shaky Internet connection that often lacks the bandwidth to support webcasts.  (Note – I use Screenflow to record on my Mac and edit videos; Camtasia is a popular PC option). At the same time, whereas a webcast platform hosts the recordings, I would need to find a place to upload my programs. So I began to investigate the platforms available for MOOCs (massive open online courses) and thus, began my love affair with Udemy.

Udemy allows users to create courses in a variety of formats – video, ebooks and/or audio – and upload them to the Udemy platform where you can make them available for free or fee. For my course, I created a free program, How to Launch A Successful 21st Century Law Practice, consisting of seven 20 minute modules and several handouts. Setting up the “classroom” and uploading my materials and the relevant descriptions was seamless and intuitive.  In fact, I was able to set up my course (once I prepared the videos) in a matter of minutes. The platform is robust, allowing for written Q&A, live sessions, quizzes and a video/powerpoint mashup.  Udemy also has a broad reach, and over the past several months, nearly 1000 students have signed up to take my class.

But what I liked even more about Udemy is that it strives to maintain quality. Udemy requires users to create an attractive “cover” for the program and provides a checklist that Udemy will run through before approving a class.