Legal Marketing Archives - Page 6 of 34

EDPB on Dark Patterns: Lessons for Marketing Teams

“Dark patterns” are becoming the target of EU data protection authorities, and the new guidelines of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) on “dark patterns in social media platform interfaces” confirm their focus on such practices. While they are built around examples from social media platforms (real or fictitious), these guidelines contain lessons for all websites and applications. The bad news for marketers: the EDPB doesn’t like it when dry legal texts and interfaces are made catchier or more enticing.

To illustrate, in a section of the guidelines regarding the selection of an account profile photo, the EDPB considers the example of a “help/information” prompt saying “No need to go to the hairdresser’s first. Just pick a photo that says ‘this is me.’” According to the EDPB, such a practice “can impact the final decision made by users who initially decided not to share a picture for their account” and thus makes consent invalid under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Similarly, the EDPB criticises an extreme example of a cookie banner with a humourous link to a bakery cookies recipe that incidentally says, “we also use cookies”, stating that “users might think they just dismiss a funny message about cookies as a baked snack and not consider the technical meaning of the term “cookies.”” The EDPB even suggests that the data minimisation principle, and not security concerns, should ultimately guide an organisation’s choice of which two-factor authentication method to use.

Do these new guidelines reflect privacy paranoia or common sense? The answer should lie somewhere in between, but the whole document (64 pages long) in our view suggests an overly strict approach, one that we hope will move closer to commonsense as a result of a newly started public consultation process.

Let us take a closer look at what useful lessons – or warnings – can be drawn from these new guidelines.

What are “dark patterns” and when are they unlawful?

According to the EDPB, dark patterns are “interfaces and user experiences […] that lead users into making unintended, unwilling and potentially harmful decisions regarding the processing of their personal data” (p. 2). They “aim to influence users’ behaviour and can hinder their ability to effectively protect their personal data and make conscious choices.” The risk associated with dark patterns is higher for websites or applications meant for children, as “dark patterns raise additional concerns regarding potential impact on children” (p. 8).

While the EDPB takes a strongly negative view of dark patterns in general, it recognises that dark patterns do not automatically lead to an infringement of the GDPR. The EDPB acknowledges that “[d]ata protection authorities are responsible for sanctioning the use of dark patterns if these breach GDPR requirements” (emphasis ours; p. 2). Nevertheless, the EDPB guidance strongly links the concept of dark patterns with the data protection by design and by default principles of Art. 25 GDPR, suggesting that disregard for those principles could lead to a presumption that the language or a practice in fact creates a “dark pattern” (p. 11).

The EDPB refers here to its Guidelines 4/2019 on Article 25 Data Protection by Design and by Default and in particular to the following key principles:

“Autonomy – Data subjects should be granted the highest degree of autonomy possible to determine the use made of their personal data, as well as autonomy over the scope and conditions of that use or processing.
Interaction – Data subjects must be able to communicate and exercise their rights in respect of the personal data processed by the controller.
Expectation – Processing should correspond with data subjects’ reasonable expectations.
Consumer choice – The controllers should not “lock in” their users in an unfair manner. Whenever a service processing personal data is proprietary, it may create a lock-in to the service, which may not be fair, if it impairs the data subjects’ possibility to exercise their right of data portability in accordance with Article 20 GDPR.
Power balance – Power balance should be a key objective of the controller-data subject relationship. Power imbalances should be avoided. When this is not possible, they should be recognised and accounted for with suitable countermeasures.
No deception – Data processing information and options should be provided in an objective and neutral way, avoiding any deceptive or manipulative language or design.
Truthful – the controllers must make available information about how they process personal data, should act as they declare they will and not mislead data subjects.”

Is data minimisation compatible with the use of SMS two-factor authentication?

One of the EDPB’s positions, while grounded in the principle of data minimisation, undercuts a security practice that has grown significantly over the past few years. In effect, the EDPB seems to question the validity under the GDPR of requests for phone numbers for two-factor authentication where e-mail tokens would theoretically be possible:

“30. To observe the principle of data minimisation, [organisations] are required not to ask for additional data such as the phone number, when the data users already provided during the sign- up process are sufficient. For example, to ensure account security, enhanced authentication is possible without the phone number by simply sending a code to users’ email accounts or by several other means.
31. Social network providers should therefore rely on means for security that are easier for users to re[1]initiate. For example, the [organisation] can send users an authentication number via an additional communication channel, such as a security app, which users previously installed on their mobile phone, but without requiring the users’ mobile phone number. User authentication via email addresses is also less intrusive than via phone number because users could simply create a new email address specifically for the sign-up process and utilise that email address mainly in connection with the Social Network. A phone number, however, is not that easily interchangeable, given that it is highly unlikely that users would buy a new SIM card or conclude a new phone contract only for the reason of authentication.” (emphasis ours; p. 15)

The EDPB also appears to be highly critical of phone-based verification in the context of registration “because the email address constitutes the regular contact point with users during the registration process” (p. 15).

This position is unfortunate, as it suggests that data minimisation may preclude controllers from even assessing which method of two-factor authentication – in this case, e-mail versus SMS one-time passwords – better suits its requirements, taking into consideration the different security benefits and drawbacks of the two methods. The EDPB’s reasoning could even be used to exclude any form of stronger two-factor authentication, as additional forms inevitably require separate processing (e.g., phone number or third-party account linking for some app-based authentication methods).

For these reasons, organisations should view this aspect of the new EDPB guidelines with a healthy dose of skepticism. It likewise will be important for interested stakeholders to participate in the consultation to explain the security benefits of using phone numbers to keep the “two” in two-factor authentication.

Consent withdrawal: same number of clicks?

Recent decisions by EU regulators (notably two decisions by the French authority, the CNIL have led to speculation about whether EU rules effectively require website operators to make it possible for data subjects to withdraw consent to all cookies with one single click, just as most websites make it possible to give consent through a single click. The authorities themselves have not stated that this is unequivocally required, although privacy activists notably filed complaints against hundreds of websites, many of them for not including a “reject all” button on their cookie banner.

The EDPB now appears to side with the privacy activists in this respect, stating that “consent cannot be considered valid under the GDPR when consent is obtained through only one mouse-click, swipe or keystroke, but the withdrawal takes more steps, is more difficult to achieve or takes more time” (p. 14).

Operationally, however, it seems impossible to comply with a “one-click withdrawal” standard in absolute terms. Just pulling up settings after registration or after the first visit to a website will always require an extra click, purely to open those settings. We expect this issue to be examined by the courts eventually.

Is creative wording indicative of a “dark pattern”?

The EDPB’s guidelines contain several examples of wording that is intended to convince the user to take a specific action.

The photo example mentioned in the introduction above is an illustration, but other (likely fictitious) examples include the following:

For sharing geolocation data: “Hey, a lone wolf, are you? But sharing and connecting with others help make the world a better place! Share your geolocation! Let the places and people around you inspire you!” (p.17)
To prompt a user to provide a self-description: “Tell us about your amazing self! We can’t wait, so come on right now and let us know!” (p. 17)

The EDPB criticises the language used, stating that it is “emotional steering”:

“[S]uch techniques do not cultivate users’ free will to provide their data, since the prescriptive language used can make users feel obliged to provide a self-description because they have already put time into the registration and wish to complete it. When users are in the process of registering to an account, they are less likely to take time to consider the description they give or even if they would like to give one at all. This is particularly the case when the language used delivers a sense of urgency or sounds like an imperative. If users feel this obligation, even when in reality providing the data is not mandatory, this can have an impact on their “free will”” (pp. 17-18).

Similarly, in a section about account deletion and deactivation, the EDPB criticises interfaces that highlight “only the negative, discouraging consequences of deleting their accounts,” e.g., “you’ll lose everything forever,” or “you won’t be able to reactivate your account” (p. 55). The EDPB even criticises interfaces that preselect deactivation or pause options over delete options, considering that “[t]he default selection of the pause option is likely to nudge users to select it instead of deleting their account as initially intended. Therefore, the practice described in this example can be considered as a breach of Article 12 (2) GDPR since it does not, in this case, facilitate the exercise of the right to erasure, and even tries to nudge users away from exercising it” (p. 56). This, combined with the EDPB’s aversion to confirmation requests (see section 5 below), suggests that the EDPB is ignoring the risk that a data subject might opt for deletion without fully recognizing the consequences, i.e., loss of access to the deleted data.

The EDPB’s approach suggests that any effort to woo users into giving more data or leaving data with the organisation will be viewed as harmful by data protection authorities. Yet data protection rules are there to prevent abuse and protect data subjects, not to render all marketing techniques illegal.

In this context, the guidelines should in our opinion be viewed as an invitation to re-examine marketing techniques to ensure that they are not too pushy – in the sense that users would in effect truly be pushed into a decision regarding personal data that they would not otherwise have made. Marketing techniques are not per se unlawful under the GDPR but may run afoul of GDPR requirements in situations where data subjects are misled or robbed of their choice.

Other key lessons for marketers and user interface designers

Avoid continuous prompting: One of the issues regularly highlighted by the EDPB is “continuous prompting”, i.e., prompts that appear again and again during a user’s experience on a platform. The EDPB suggests that this creates fatigue, leading the user to “give in,” i.e., by “accepting to provide more data or to consent to another processing, as they are wearied from having to express a choice each time they use the platform” (p. 14). Examples given by the EDPB include the SMS two-factor authentication popup mentioned above, as well as “import your contacts” functionality. Outside of social media platforms, the main example for most organisations is their cookie policy (so this position by the EDPB reinforces the need to manage cookie banners properly). In addition, newsletter popups and popups about “how to get our new report for free by filling out this form” are frequent on many digital properties. While popups can be effective ways to get more subscribers or more data, the EDPB guidance suggests that regulators will consider such practices questionable from a data protection perspective.
Ensure consistency or a justification for confirmation steps: The EDPB highlights the “longer than necessary” dark pattern at several places in its guidelines (in particular pp. 18, 52, & 57), with illustrations of confirmation pop-ups that appear before a user is allowed to select a more privacy-friendly option (and while no such confirmation is requested for more privacy-intrusive options). Such practices are unlawful according to the EDPB. This does not mean that confirmation pop-ups are always unlawful – just that you need to have a good justification for using them where you do.
Have a good reason for preselecting less privacy-friendly options: Because the GDPR requires not only data protection by design but also data protection by default, make sure that you are able to justify an interface in which a more privacy-intrusive option is selected by default – or better yet, don’t make any preselection. The EDPB calls preselection of privacy-intrusive options “deceptive snugness” (“Because of the default effect which nudges individuals to keep a pre-selected option, users are unlikely to change these even if given the possibility” p. 19).
Make all privacy settings available in all platforms: If a user is asked to make a choice during registration or upon his/her first visit (e.g., for cookies, newsletters, sharing preferences, etc.), ensure that those settings can all be found easily later on, from a central privacy settings page if possible, and alongside all data protection tools (such as tools for exercising a data subject’s right to access his/her data, to modify data, to delete an account, etc.). Also make sure that all such functionality is available not only on a desktop interface but also for mobile devices and across all applications. The EDPB illustrates this point by criticising the case where an organisation has a messaging app that does not include the same privacy statement and data subject request tools as the main app (p. 27).
Be clearer in using general language such as “Your data might be used to improve our services”: It is common in most privacy statements to include a statement that personal data (e.g., customer feedback) “can” or “may be used” to improve an organisation’s products and services. According to the EDPB, the word “services” is likely to be “too general” to be viewed as “clear,” and it is “unclear how data will be processed for the improvement of services.” The use of the conditional tense in the example (“might”) also “leaves users unsure whether their data will be used for the processing or not” (p. 25). Given that the EDPB’s stance in this respect is a confirmation of a position taken by EU regulators in previous guidance on transparency, and serves as a reminder to tell data subjects how data will be used.
Ensure linguistic consistency: If your website or app is available in more than one language, ensure that all data protection notices and tools are available in those languages as well and that the language choice made on the main interface is automatically taken into account on the data-related pages (pp. 25-26).

Best practices according to the EDPB

Finally, the EDPB highlights some other “best practices” throughout its guidelines. We have combined them below for easier review:

Structure and ease of access:
- Shortcuts: Links to information, actions, or settings that can be of practical help to users to manage their data and data protection settings should be available wherever they relate to information or experience (e.g., links redirecting to the relevant parts of the privacy policy; in the case of a data breach communication to users, to provide users with a link to reset their password).
- Data protection directory: For easy navigation through the different section of the menu, provide users with an easily accessible page from where all data protection-related actions and information are accessible. This page could be found in the organisation’s main navigation menu, the user account, through the privacy policy, etc.
- Privacy Policy Overview: At the start/top of the privacy policy, include a collapsible table of contents with headings and sub-headings that shows the different passages the privacy notice contains. Clearly identified sections allow users to quickly identify and jump to the section they are looking for.
- Sticky navigation: While consulting a page related to data protection, the table of contents could be constantly displayed on the screen allowing users to quickly navigate to relevant content thanks to anchor links.
Transparency:
- Organisation contact information: The organisation’s contact address for addressing data protection requests should be clearly stated in the privacy policy. It should be present in a section where users can expect to find it, such as a section on the identity of the data controller, a rights related section, or a contact section.
- Reaching the supervisory authority: Stating the specific identity of the EU supervisory authority and including a link to its website or the specific website page for lodging a complaint is another EDPB recommendation. This information should be present in a section where users can expect to find it, such as a rights-related section.
- Change spotting and comparison: When changes are made to the privacy notice, make previous versions accessible with the date of release and highlight any changes.
Terminology & explanations:
- Coherent wording: Across the website, the same wording and definition is used for the same data protection concepts. The wording used in the privacy policy should match that used on the rest of the platform.
- Providing definitions: When using unfamiliar or technical words or jargon, providing a definition in plain language will help users understand the information provided to them. The definition can be given directly in the text when users hover over the word and/or be made available in a glossary.
- Explaining consequences: When users want to activate or deactivate a data protection control, or give or withdraw their consent, inform them in a neutral way of the consequences of such action.
- Use of examples: In addition to providing mandatory information that clearly and precisely states the purpose of processing, offering specific data processing examples can make the processing more tangible for users
Contrasting Data Protection Elements: Making data protection-related elements or actions visually striking in an interface that is not directly dedicated to the matter helps readability. For example, when posting a public message on the platform, controls for geolocation should be directly available and clearly visible.
Data Protection Onboarding: Just after the creation of an account, include data protection points within the onboarding experience for users to discover and set their preferences seamlessly. This can be done by, for example, inviting them to set their data protection preferences after adding their first friend or sharing their first post.
Notifications (including data breach notifications): Notifications can be used to raise awareness of users of aspects, changes, or risks related to personal data processing (e.g., when a data breach occurs). These notifications can be implemented in several ways, such as through inbox messages, pop-in windows, fixed banners at the top of the webpage, etc.

Next steps and international perspectives

These guidelines (available online) are subject to public consultation until 2 May 2022, so it is possible they will be modified as a result of the consultation and, we hope, improved to reflect a more pragmatic view of data protection that balances data subjects’ rights, security, and operational business needs. If you wish to contribute to the public consultation, note that the EDPB publishes feedback it receives (as a result, we have occasionally submitted feedback on behalf of clients wishing to remain anonymous).

Irrespective of the outcome of the public consultation, the guidelines are guaranteed to have an influence on the approach of EU data protection authorities in their investigations. From this perspective, it is better to be forewarned – and to have legal arguments at your disposal if you wish to adopt an approach that deviates from the EDPB’s position.

Moreover, these guidelines come at a time when the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is also concerned with dark patterns. The FTC recently published an enforcement policy statement on the matter in October 2021. Dark patterns are also being discussed at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). International dialogue can be helpful if conversations about desired policy also consider practical solutions that can be implemented by businesses and reflect a desirable user experience for data subjects.

Organisations should consider evaluating their own techniques to encourage users to go one way or another and document the justification for their approach.

Article By Peter Craddock, Sheila A. Millar, and Tracy P. Marshall of Keller and Heckman LLP

For more cybersecurity legal news, click here to visit the National Law Review.

13 Types of Law Firm Content Marketing That Really Work

If you are unsure about where to focus your law firm’s content marketing efforts, realize that there is more to this marketing strategy than just writing articles. Great content talks to the people that will consume your legal services and also to the search engines to support SEO. But content has many shapes and sizes so lawyers often wonder what options are appropriate for them. This article covers 13 types of content that any lawyer or law firm regardless of their practice area can add to their law firm’s marketing strategy.

Law Firm Blog Posts

Blog posts are one of the easiest ways to start creating content and getting your law firm’s name out there. You truly just need to sit down, write about what you know and what you are passionate about, and publish it. Of course, you want to make sure your content is attractive to your target audience, so use your market research to craft posts that are easily understood by and interesting to your audience. Marketing savvy law firm owners develop a theme to their blogs so after one year of producing content, they can stitch the material together in e-book or white paper format.

Infographics

Infographics are a powerful tool for lawyers and law firms to reach their target audience. Research indicates that people remember 65% of the information they see in a visual format, compared to just 10% of what they hear. Some attorneys shy away from creating infographics, but there are many online design tools to make it quick and easy to produce this type of original content for your law firm. Infographics can live on your website and even be repurposed in your firm’s social media presence or collateral materials. They are a great way of explaining steps in the legal process or even the interpretation of complicated laws.

Podcasts

This type of content requires lots of planning and time, but it can pay off in spades. Creating your own podcast that answers legal questions or explains complex legal concepts in fun, easy-to-digest ways allow you to reach a massive audience of potential clients with interest in your area of practice. Podcasts are a great idea for attorneys that have clients with similar issues. For a family law attorney this might include child custody issues or post-decree matters. A business attorney might have clients facing issues related to corporate formation or the hiring of vendors. Having a practice area-centered podcast with episodes that focus on issues that potential clients commonly struggle with will help you attract a greater audience of listeners.

Video Marketing

Videos showcase your personality, highlight what unique traits you bring to the table, and create a connection with potential clients. Integrate search terms into your video headline and description to bring in even more traffic to your website. YouTube is the “second largest search engine behind Google,” making it a great platform for uploading and sharing your law firm’s videos. These videos can be focused on the same frequently asked questions that you would answer in written format on your website. They can also be a case study or even a client testimonial.

Guest Posts

Publishing your content on other websites expands your network, strengthens your own website’s search engine optimization, and helps build your law firm’s brand—you have a lot to gain from just one post. You can publish on other legal blogs, magazines, and local publications. Guest posting is an easy way to credential your practice through bylines and repurposable written content.

Newsletters

Whether you publish monthly or quarterly, do not give up on your law firm’s newsletter. While some people have eschewed their newsletters for more modern forms of content, you leave out a significant part of your client base when you do so. For maximum effect, stick to a strict publication schedule that allows you to share valuable, relevant information—do not just send out a newsletter for the sake of it. Depending on your needs, you could do an e-mail newsletter, a print newsletter, or both. The biggest challenge for law firms and newsletters is staying on schedule and determining in advance what to say. Marketing savvy law firms develop an editorial calendar for their newsletters one year in advance, so they are never scrambling to publish the newsletter.

White Papers

Driven by data and statistics, white papers look at a specific issue within your practice area and dig deep into the information surrounding it. The information provided in a white paper also provides a path forward for solving the proposed issue. Law firms can successfully produce their own white paper content and keep it on their website to connect with potential clients. But be sure to use the help of a graphic designer if you intend to create a white paper for your law firm. Their creative eye will help make your content stand out to readers.

Curated Content

Sharing resources with website visitors and clients shows that you genuinely care about their wellbeing, not just getting them to become paying clients. You might create listicles that link out to useful resources and guides. These work great for consumer-facing practices that serve populations that might need guidance outside of their legal matter. For instance, a plaintiff personal injury attorney could publish ideas on mental health and wellbeing after being treated for a serious car accident. Your goal in using curated content is to be a central hub for the information your audience could need to know about your practice area and how it affects their lives.

Testimonials

Satisfied clients are often the best form of advertising. If potential clients see that you have successfully solved the problem they now face, they have substantial motivation to reach out to you. Testimonials and reviews can be collected and curated to be their own page on your law firm website. However, ensure that you are working within the laws and ethics that regulate law firm and lawyer advertising as this can be a sticky area of law firm marketing.

E-Books

Compared to print books, e-books require almost no financial output and are incredibly easy to share. Some attorneys use electronic books as a vehicle to provide in-depth guides for clients interested in their legal services, while others repurpose blog content into an e-book for easy reading. You can also write an e-book and use it as a lead magnet—for example, a construction defect attorney might give a copy of “7 Things You Need to Know Before Buying a Newly Built Home” to those who sign up for their e-mail list.

LinkedIn Articles

One type of content that is often underutilized is LinkedIn content. When you write an info-rich LinkedIn article and share it with your network, they can share it with their network. Your reach can multiply quickly with just one piece of well-written content. This is an excellent strategy for expanding your professional network, increasing the likelihood of client referrals and brand recognition.

Tutorials

Guides and tutorials offer detailed step-by-step instructions on specific tasks, which is content that consumers can use right away. The topics you cover depend on your audience and area of practice, so you could start by finding out what struggles your target market has and what legal issues you can immediately alleviate. For example, a family law attorney might write a how-to guide on gathering financial documents and other paperwork for easy analysis of assets during a divorce. A business law attorney could do a screencast of how to register a business in their state and set up tax filing.

Lectures and Speaking Engagements

When you establish yourself as a leader among your peers, you are in an excellent position to gain acceptance as an expert among potential clients. You can host CLE events and dig deep into a topic relevant to your area of practice, serve as a speaker at legal conferences, and share your expertise at other industry events. Be sure to share any video content of your speaking engagements on your website. If your speech is later transcribed, it becomes another content source that could bring in clients and contacts.

For modern law firms, content is a key component in their marketing and business development strategy. Everything on this list of content types will funnel traffic back to your law firm’s website. By integrating different types of content into your marketing plans and on your website, you can reach clients from all walks of life while establishing your position within your practice area.

Article By Meranda M. Vieyra with Denver Legal Marketing.

For more articles about law firm management, visit the NLR Business of Law section.

February 2022 Legal News Roundup: Women in Law, Promotions & More

Happy belated Valentine’s Day from the National Law Review team. Please read on for new legal industry hires, promotions and awards.

Firm Recognition & Awards

Much is included on the 2022 Top Workplaces USA list, which recognizes organizations with a people-centered culture.

“At Much, our culture centers on people: our employees, our clients, and our community partners,” said Managing Partner Mitchell Roth. “We work each day to support a collaborative, kind, and service-oriented environment, so to be recognized for our culture on a national level is a tremendous honor.”

The rankings are based on employee feedback from a survey administered by Energage, an employee engagement technology partner. The survey gauged various aspects of workplace culture, including alignment, execution, connection, and more.

Womble Bond Dickinson is one of the Best Places to Work for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) workplace equality, earning a perfect score of 100 percent on the 2022 Corporate Equality Index (CEI).

The survey is administered by the Human Rights Campaign, and acts as a benchmarking tool to track how businesses are adopting equitable workplace policies, practices and benefits for LGBTQ+ employees. Womble Bond Dickinson earned perfect scores every year since 2015.

“We are honored to be named one of the HRC’s Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+ Employees once again,” said Betty Temple, Chair & CEO of Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP. “We at Womble Bond Dickinson have worked hard to promote diversity and inclusion. These efforts include earning Mansfield Rule 4.0 Certification. The goal of the Mansfield Rule is to boost the representation of historically underrepresented lawyers—including LGBTQ+ attorneys—in law firm leadership, partner promotions and lateral hires by broadening the pool of candidates considered for these opportunities. We have much more work to do, but we are proud to be recognized for the progress we have made.”

Lawdragon recognized Foley & Lardner partners Daniel Kaplan, John (Jack) Lord, Jr., and Rachel Powitzky Steely on its 2022 edition of 500 Leading U.S. Corporate Employment Lawyers, an annual recognition of the nation’s top advisors on workforce issues. Lawdragon selected the honorees based on submissions, editorial vetting and journalistic research.

Lawdragon said that this year’s honorees “specialize in defending corporations in everything from wage and overtime claims to trade secret disputes, while helping companies maintain global workforces throughout a pandemic.”

Law firm Hiring & Additions

Varnum LLP expanded its intellectual property practice with the addition of Timothy D. Kroninger. Joining the firm’s Detroit office as an associate, Mr. Kroninger focuses his practice on copyright law, trade secret law, patent and trademark prosecution and more. He also has experience in drafting design patent applications, as well as participating in United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) trademark opposition proceedings.

Beyond his practice at Varnum, Mr. Kroninger works as a supervising attorney in the Trademark and Entrepreneur Clinic at University of Detroit Mercy College of Law. There, he instructs law students on copyright registration, drafting corporate documents, and protection of trademarks.

Beveridge & Diamond PC elected four new principals: Eric Christensen, located in Seattle; Allyn Stern, located in Seattle; Michael Vitris, located in Austin; and Gus Winkes, located in Seattle. Mr. Christensen practices in energy law, assisting companies and consumers in navigating the legal and regulatory landscape. Ms. Stern, former U.S. EPA regional counsel, helps clients develop environmental compliance strategies. Mr. Winkles practices in a variety of fields, providing solutions-oriented legal representation in the areas of enforcement defense, regulatory compliance, and contaminated site cleanup. Mr. Vitris, former litigation attorney with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, defends companies in class actions and environmental mass torts.

“Each of these Principals’ talents, skills, and expertise deepen and enhance B&D’s dynamic regulatory compliance and litigation practice as environmental and energy law continue to evolve,” said firmwide managing principal Kathy Szmuszkovicz. “They’ve proven their ability to deliver top-notch service to clients and to serve as thought-leaders at a particularly exciting time in our practice. We look forward to their continued success and contributions in their new roles.”

Barnes & Thornburg LLP added five new attorneys and legal professionals across various offices. Associate William Choi joined the firm’s Los Angeles office, and associate Albert D. Farr joined the New York office. Mr. Choi focuses his practice on product liability and complex civil litigation, and he is well-versed in all aspects of pretrial case management. Likewise, Mr. Farr practices in transactional tax law, counseling multinational strategic and private equity clients on transaction tax structuring, tax diligence and more.

Furthermore, legal professionals Amit Datta, Al Maloof, and Soyoung Yang joined Barnes & Thornburg’s Chicago, Indianapolis, and Washington D.C. offices, respectively. Dr. Datta, a business transaction advisor, provides targeted legal advice and strategic insight for European clients conducting business in the U.S. Mr. Maloof, a client relationship specialist, provides strategic consultation among the firm’s government services, compliance and regulatory attorneys. Ms. Yang, a legal fellow, aids attorneys and clients on matters related to international trade, customs and the supply chain.

William L. Nimick joined the Construction Litigation and Counsel practice group at Goldberg Segalla LLP. An experienced litigator, Mr. Nimick is located in the firm’s Raleigh office, where he counsels insurers, contractors, subcontractors and corporate entities in liability claims including but not limited to property damage, personal injury and construction defects.

Previously, Mr. Nimick worked as a civil litigator across North Carolina, representing clients in areas such as wrongful death, workers’ compensation, and subrogation. Specifically he handled subrogation claims such as motor vehicle accidents, product liability lawsuits and large fire losses.

Women in the Legal Industry

Angela Bowlin of Frilot LLC law firm has accepted a position serving on the International Association of Defense Council (IADC), an organization for attorneys who represent corporate and insurance matters. Ms. Bowlin focuses her practice on mass torts and class actions, with experience in asbestos and other toxic tort cases.

“I am honored to have been selected as a member of IADC and look forward to working on the many important committees related to the law and its many facets,” said Ms. Bowlin.

Nicole Archibald joined Foley Hoag LLP as their Director of Legal Recruiting. Ms. Archibald will work alongside the Foley Hoag team to attract and promote a diverse group of attorneys to help the firm achieve its diversity and inclusion goals.

“We’re very pleased to welcome Nicole to Foley Hoag, and are confident that she will be a great asset to the firm and its culture. Her considerable prior experience as a director of recruiting, legal search consultant and practicing litigator will prove a valuable asset as we look to 2022 and beyond. Our executive committee, practice leaders, hiring committee and I are excited to begin working with Nicole to attract new talent and strengthen our market-leading practices,” said Foley Hoag Co-Managing Partner Kenneth Leonetti.

“I look forward to collaborating with Foley Hoag’s management, department chairs and practice leaders, and hiring committee to develop, implement and execute proactive recruiting initiatives to further the firm’s hiring goals and strategic growth plan,” said Ms. Archibald.

Norton Rose Fulbright appointed New York partner Robin Adelstein as the Co-Head of Commercial Litigation, joining Houston partner Andrew Price. Ms. Adelstein brings extensive experience in litigating complex commercial disputes and advises companies with respect to antitrust issues regarding mergers, joint ventures and more.

“Robin has long been respected as a leader within the firm as our Global and US Head of Antitrust and Competition, and she is a highly-recognized practitioner in her field. I look forward to seeing the great work that our commercial litigation group will do under Robin’s and Andrew’s leadership,” said Jeff Cody, Norton Rose Fulbright’s US Managing Partner.

“Our firm has a longstanding reputation for advising clients on their most complex and significant matters. It is an honor to head Norton Rose Fulbright’s commercial litigation group along with Andrew; I am proud to be leading such a talented group of lawyers,” said Ms. Adelstein.

Article By Rachel Popa, Hanna Taylor, and Chandler Ford of The National Law Review / The National Law Forum LLC

For more on the business of law and legal news, click here to visit the National Law Review.

How to Create an Editorial Calendar for Your Law Firm’s Social Media Campaign

Social media is an invaluable marketing tool for any attorney at any size of law firm. Unfortunately, it won’t run or sustain itself. Those who want to reap the benefits of being present on social media platforms must be willing and able to put in the time and effort to experience the return. If you want to leverage social media, it’s imperative to have an editorial calendar.

What is a Law Firm Social Media Editorial Calendar?

If you use your social media without planning and forethought, you won’t get the results you’d like. Your audience doesn’t want to read about the same topic every other week or issues that may no longer apply in their situation. Instead, they want fresh topics pertinent to their questions and experiences. An editorial calendar helps you plan things out, allowing you to cover a wide variety of balanced topics relevant to your social media audience.

Creating Your Law Firm’s Social Media Editorial Calendar

Use Tools

First, you’ll want to take advantage of a basic Google Doc or Google spreadsheet to map out each month of content. This step is essential before moving onto the design phase as you need it to review, rearrange and proof your calendar. Additionally, you may want to consider using another tool that allows you to plan social media in advance by pre-loading your calendar. Buffer or Hootsuite are two viable options that many law firms and other types of businesses use.

Consider Holidays and Other Events

The best way to create an editorial calendar that works for your social media accounts starts with a brain dump. Consider your audience and what makes sense to their calendars. Think about holidays, back to school, tax season, summer vacations, the Super Bowl, preparing for winter weather, and other notable dates or seasons that might apply to your audience.

For instance, publishing content about parenting plans over winter or summer break should be timed accordingly if you practice family law. You can also tie in other dates of the year—for example, a blog about grandparent involvement in the lives of their divorce grandkids around Grandparents Day (always the first Sunday after Labor Day).

Address Applicable Common Questions and Concerns

Once the basics are covered on your editorial calendar, consider some of the most common questions or stumbling blocks your clients encounter. Aim to publish several posts throughout the month with this helpful information. If you aren’t sure what information your audience might be searching for, check out tools such as TextOptimizer, which can show you what your potential clients are googling. Use a keyword of your choosing on the “Find Content Ideas” page to find out what questions are being asked about specific areas of law that you practice.

Plug these topics into your calendar where you see fit. For example, you may want to reserve those that require more depth for when your schedule is more open, providing you with more time to focus on your content. Save easier topics for busier weeks.

Add Relatable Details

Remember to add details that make you or your firm seem human and relatable. To do this, you can include things like:

Behind the scenes office photos
Pictures of you at speaking events
Anything else business-related that shows there’s a personality and team behind your law firm

These are all great ways to cultivate a connection with your audience and prospective clients. You want them to see you as a human who is compassionate and approachable, not just a robot behind a screen somewhere. Keep in mind when publishing content that many readers are searching for an attorney or law firm to represent them. They want someone who is personable and relatable. They aren’t searching for just anyone who is knowledgeable and can get the job done.

Make Your Social Media Editorial Calendar Work for You

Never forget that this is your social media editorial calendar. You get to choose and maybe even experiment with what works for your practice and what doesn’t. With a little bit of time and effort, you could experience a significant RIO.

Article By Meranda M. Vieyra of Denver Legal Marketing

For more articles on legal marketing, visit the NLR Law Office Management section.

2022 Legal Marketing Trends for Law Firm Success

Lawyers get into law to practice, not to focus on administrative tasks or marketing. However, running a law firm is much more than practicing law – it’s running a business. If law firms want to stay in business, they need to put effort into keeping abreast with legal marketing trends to attract new clients and keep the firm growing and profitable.

According to recent research, 57 percent of clients look for a lawyer on their own, and many use the internet to search for firms. In addition, 66 percent of solo lawyers do their own marketing, while 46 percent of law firms have a budget for marketing.

The global market size of the legal services industry is projected to grow over $900 billion by 2025, so it’s primed for innovation and evolution. Law firms need to stay current on legal trends and invest in marketing to be part of this massive industry growth.

Here are the top legal marketing trends for 2022:

Setting SMART Goals
Creating a Brand
Running an SEO Campaign
Embrace Content Marketing
Explore Video Marketing
Focus on the Right Social Media Platforms
Post Reviews from Clients
Showcase Case Studies
Create an Email Marketing Campaign
Use Automation to Track Legal Marketing Trends

Setting SMART Goals

No strategy is worthwhile without goals. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals that ensure marketing results match their intent. Setting goals allows marketers to see what’s working and what isn’t to refine and reconsider the strategy.

For example, a goal to “generate new clients” doesn’t fit the SMART goals framework. Instead, the goal should be to increase the number of client leads generated per month from 15 to 30 as a result of the newsletter. This should be achieved in six months.

Each goal should be aligned with a purpose, or what the law firm is hoping to achieve. Here are some examples of general marketing goals:

Brand awareness
Lead generation
Client acquisition
Increased customer value

Creating a Brand

Branding isn’t limited to retail corporations – law firms need a brand, too. A brand helps a law firm attract the right type of client and grow.

Creating a brand is a long process, but it starts with thinking about the mission and vision of the firm, the core values of the firm, and the unique value proposition (what separates the law firm from its competitors?).

Running an SEO Campaign

Search engine optimization (SEO) is vital to any marketing plan in 2022. Competition is fiercer than ever, so law firms need to stand out and gain a ranking on the first page of the search engine results to drive traffic to the firm website.

Law firms should use tactics like content marketing, strong keyword research, optimized images, intuitive website structure, and a fast and secure web hosting platform to improve SEO.

Embrace Content Marketing

Content marketing is essential for a law firm from both an SEO and a general marketing perspective. Valuable content turns a law firm into a thought leader in the industry or practice area, bringing clients back when they need a solution to a problem.

It’s important for firms to create in-depth, original content that addresses common questions for the target audience. A good place for firms to start is with a legal blog that addresses topics such as frequently asked questions from clients.

Explore Video Marketing

Video marketing is sweeping the marketing world, and it has plenty of value for law firms. Consumers are more likely to listen to a message in video format than written format since people like to skim. Using a video gets the message across and serves to humanize the law firm’s brand.

Videos come in many shapes and forms, including animated explainer videos that break down complex legalese, spokesperson videos with a partner answering frequently asked questions, and client testimonials to showcase how the firm helps people. These videos can be used on the firm’s website, emails, or social media accounts like YouTube and Facebook.

Focus on the Right Social Media Platforms

Plenty of law firms use social media platforms, but not all are created equal. It can be challenging to maintain accounts on every social media platform, so it’s best for law firms to select the platforms that have the most prospective clientele.

Once law firms focus on the ideal social media platforms, they can observe how clients and other law firms interact and increase engagement with followers. Over time, the presence on social media will grow.

Post Reviews from Clients

Client reviews go a long way in helping law firms attract new clients and earn a higher search engine ranking. If a law firm doesn’t have a lot of reviews, it’s important to prompt clients to leave a review on social media, Google, or the website.

If getting reviews is a challenge, law firms can create incentives for staff to ask for reviews and how it can impact the firm. The firm can also offer incentives to clients. Keep in mind that video reviews or testimonials can go a long way in increasing credibility for a firm.

Showcase Case Studies

Case studies are in-depth and demonstrate expertise and success for clients. Law firms should have a page with current, comprehensive case studies that highlight successful case outcomes. If it’s well organized, clients can find case studies that are similar to their case and gain more confidence in selecting a firm.

Create an Email Marketing Campaign

Despite social media and other communications, email marketing is an incredible outbound marketing technique that’s still important in 2022. Nearly 60 percent of marketers say that email delivers the highest ROI, no matter the industry.

Sending out targeted, value-packed emails can help a law firm build credibility, convert new leads, and attract new and repeat customers. Once the email list is built, law firms can segment the list according to the stage of the customer journey, location, practice area, and more to create highly targeted email messaging.

Use Automation to Manage Legal Marketing Trends

The legal industry is traditional, but legal practice management software is the way modern firms get ahead. Legal management software, like PracticePanther, helps law firms in a variety of lucrative business operations including streamlining billing and invoicing managing client communications and tracking time. With the burden of marketing tasks, having legal practice management software allows law firms to automate many day-to-day tasks, freeing time to focus on marketing efforts. It also offers automation for some marketing efforts, such as custom tags to track lead sources or assigning marketing tasks through workflows to ensure you’re never missing a lead.

Article By PracticePanther

For more articles on legal marketing, visit the NLR Law Office Management.

Legal News Roundup December 2021: Firm Inclusion & Diversity Efforts, Hiring & More

Happy new year! Read on for the latest law firm hiring, pro bono and innovation news:

Ropes and Gray announced the opening of their 12th location in Los Angeles in 2022, which will focus initially on the healthcare and equity & asset management industries. Attorneys Howard Glazer, Torrey McClary, Ranee Adipat and Leslie Thornton will assist in opening the new office, as they look to expand their reach in the Southern California market.

Ropes and Gray also added Brandon Howald to their new Los Angeles team. Mr. Howald brings 22 years of private equity experience to the practice.

“Opening an office in Los Angeles is a really exciting move for Ropes & Gray. Southern California is a market where we have been active for many years. We already have a robust and growing roster of clients in a region with a vibrant private equity and asset management business, as well as strong California health care, life sciences, M&A, and technology practices. We have been very strategic in establishing a presence where our clients needed us, from Asia to London to Chicago to the West Coast. That same vision propels us into Los Angeles—and Howard Glazer, Torrey McClary and Brandon Howald have the industry expertise, entrepreneurial drive and Southern California roots to help lead us,” said Ropes & Gray’s chair, Julie Jones.

“We are opening in Los Angeles with a powerful platform: a roster of market leading clients, established partners with deep ties to Los Angeles like Brandon Howald, Howard Glazer, Torrey McClary and our powerful global network—all with the high bar of excellence clients come to expect from Ropes & Gray,” said the firm’s managing partner, David Djaha.

Real estate and general practice attorney Carmen I. Pagan has joined Romer Debbas LLP as Partner and the head of their Agency Lending Practice. Ms. Pagan specializes in commercial lending issues, senior and student housing through Freddie Mac Seller/Servicer and Capital Markets Execution programs, cross-collateralization loans and more.

Recently, Hofstra University School of Law, named alumna Ms. Pagan asan “Outstanding Woman in Law” which acknowledges women who made inspiring contributions to the legal profession. Ms. Pagan is committed to the advancement of women’s issues in the workplace and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

McDermott Will & Emery announced three new additions to their Intellectual Property practice. The new additions are:

Simon Roberts, who focuses on patent litigation in the biotechnology and life sciences actors. Mr. Roberts is joining the New York office.
Jason Leonard, who advises on complex life sciences patent litigation. Mr. Leonard also is joining the New York office.
Maxwell ‘Mac’ Fox, who focuses on Intellectual Property IP infringement litigation and licensing and counseling matters. Mr. Fox will be joining the Japan office.

“McDermott continues to make incredible strides toward advancing our remarkable IP practice into an industry powerhouse. Simon and Jason bring significant life sciences patent litigation strength to our bench in New York, and Mac’s experience with Japanese technology and life science companies is unmatched. These three bring a lot of fire with them, and they will be incredible additions to our global IP team,” said William Gaede, Chair of McDermott’s Global IP practice.

Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton announced the addition of Ms. Lauren Strickroth as a partner in their Orange County office. Ms. Strickroth specializes in fiduciary litigation, business disputes, private wealth disputes and litigation involving estates and trusts matters. Ms. Strickroth also serves as general counsel for private businesses.

“Sheppard Mullin’s private wealth and fiduciary litigation team constitutes one of the premier practices in the U.S. We are confident Lauren will help expand our impressive record of success in the courtroom that has kept us at the top echelon of this niche field of trial attorneys throughout the U.S. and worldwide,” said Private Wealth and Fiduciary Litigation Practice Group Leader Adam Streisand.

“Over the last few years, our Private Wealth and Fiduciary Litigation practice has grown and their ongoing involvement in some of the most high-profile estate disputes is a testament to their outstanding reputation and expertise. We’re thrilled that Lauren is joining us,” said Sheppard Mullin’s vice chairman Jon Newby.

Legal Industry Awards and Recognition

Who’s Who Legal – Environment named Lynn L. Bergeson as a leading legal practitioner in North America for the 17th time. Further, she was named a top lawyer in chemicals, manufacturing, nanotechnology, and pharmaceuticals industry groups by Super Lawyers for the 15th time. Ms. Bergeson, an experienced attorney in environmental, chemical, and nanotechnological law, is presently a Managing Partner at Bergeson & Campbell, P.C., as well as President of The Acta Group , Bergeson & Campbell’s scientific and regulatory consulting arm.

As noted in the recognition by Who’s Who Legal, “Lynn Bergeson is renowned as ‘an excellent lawyer, particularly in chemical matters’. Her in-depth knowledge of risk assessment and liability management receives further applause.”

Simultaneously, Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. received National and Metropolitan Tier 1 rankings for Environmental Law and Environmental Litigation in U.S. News and World Report’s 2022 Best Law Firms. As of this recognition, the firm has held these rankings for a full decade.

Chicago Lawyer Magazine named Antonio M. Romanucci, Founding Partner at Romanucci & Blandin, LLC, their 2021 Person of the Year. The award is given to honor a notable newsmaker, trendsetter or legal leader in the preceding year. Mr. Romanucci, a long-time civil rights lawyer, most notably represented the family of George Floyd in the civil lawsuit against the City of Minneapolis and four police officers.

“There is no question that this honor is a capstone for my career as a trial attorney,” said Mr. Romanucci. “It’s so hard to believe how far my life has come since my days as a Cook County Public Defender to now one of the founding partners at a nearly 25-year-old Romanucci & Blandin. It’s a testament to the will and fortitude my law partner, Stephan Blandin, and I have always had to make sure the client comes first.”

“The banner headline for Antonio Romanucci this year is the historic $27 million settlement the George Floyd legal team secured,” said John McNally, Managing Editor at Chicago Lawyer Magazine. “It’s a major dollar figure for a case that struck nerves – many that continued to be frayed to this very day – throughout the United States. But where one could be despondent, Romanucci is hopeful. He has to be, otherwise what’s the point? So in addition to his heavy workload at Romanucci & Blandin, he’s barnstorming the country speaking to lawyers, law students and others who can make a difference in the quest for justice.”

Henry Talavera, a Shareholder at Polsinelli PC, received a Lifetime Achievement Award as part of Texas Lawyer’s 2021 Texas Legal Excellence Awards. A member of the firm’s Dallas office and the vice chair of the Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Practice, Mr. Talavera is well-experienced in the fields of employment law and tax law, and has represented clients before the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

Brian Bullard, Managing Partner of Polsinelli’s Dallas office, notes the significance of this award: “For the last eight years at Polsinelli and throughout his career, Henry has played a vital role in the legal community, not only providing needed counsel to his wide range of clients but serving as an advocate for diversity in the profession and beyond. This Lifetime Achievement honor recognizes just how vital his contributions have been for the past three decades, and all of us at Polsinelli look forward to witnessing and supporting his continued accomplishments going forward.”

Firm Inclusion & Diversity Efforts

Much joined the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance (LFAA), which aims to use the law as a vehicle for change to help oppressed and underserved communities. Much previously represented the LFAA in filing an amicus brief in the Supreme Court about an issue involving Jim Crow measures used to disenfranchise Black jurors.

“We’re proud to join the nearly 300 Alliance firms working together to address systemic racism in the law. It’s our privilege and our responsibility to continue working for the rights of marginalized people,” said Steve Blonder, who led the recent work with LFAA and also serves as chair of the firm’s social responsibility initiative, Much Community.

The LFAA works to create systemic change and racial equity in the law.

Kimya S.P. Johnson joined Jackson Lewis as its new chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer (CDEIO) and principal. She will work with firm leadership, key stakeholders, and practice group leaders to expand, manage and oversee firmwide DEI initiatives and lead a team to execute a comprehensive, strategic DEI plan.

Ms. Johnson will also serve as a member of Jackson Lewis’ Corporate Diversity Counseling group, advising companies on diversity assessments and action plans. She has over 20 years of experience as an employment attorney, and supports employers in their efforts to provide legally-compliant, effective and organizationally-integrative DEI plans. Ms. Johnson previously served as the chair of the Diversity & Inclusion practice group at Ogletree Deakins.

“With Kimya at the helm of our strategic DEI efforts, we will strengthen our inclusive culture that values the contributions of every employee and continues to emphasize the importance of having a workforce that reflects the various communities in which we work,” said Firm Chair Kevin G. Lauri. “In addition, I believe all within Jackson Lewis and beyond will recognize we are intentional and committed to doing what it takes to move our leadership, our firm, and our profession forward in this vital area. We are thrilled to add Kimya to the team.”

“Fostering DEI is a critical component of Jackson Lewis’ culture, and the CDEIO role will collaborate with all departments and functions to advance DEI as a firm value,” said Firm Managing Principal Samantha Hoffman. “Kimya has a track record of creating meaningful enhancements for law firms. She is known as an innovator and has already contributed excellent ideas to build on the success of our DEI strategy. We are so pleased to have her on board.”

Before her career as an attorney, Ms. Johnson worked as a public elementary school teacher in South Bronx, New York and served as campaign manager for a candidate for U.S. Congress.

Dinsmore received Best in Class for diversity in the legal profession by Crain’s Cleveland Business in its issue recognizing seven “notable businesses championing diversity and inclusion.”

“Everyone has a customer in the business world, and the customer population is becoming more diverse,” partner Richik Sarkar told Crain’s. “Look around your company. If everyone seems the same, especially in leadership, you’ll have a problem serving your customer, and if you don’t take steps to understand your customers, you’ll face failure sooner rather than later.”

Dinsmore previously earned the Mansfield Rule 4.0 Certification Plus for the 2021 iteration of the diverse leadership hiring initiative. The firm also partnered with Procter & Gamble and the Ohio Innocence Project at Cincinnati Law to create a fellowship for a diverse recent law school graduate to gain experience in civil rights litigation and policy-making.

The firm’s Pre-Law Minority Program also helps students of color at four Kentucky universities.

Article By Hanna Taylor, Chandler Ford and Rachel Popa

of The National Law Review / The National Law Forum LLC

For more articles on legal marketing, visit the NLRLaw Office Management section.

Content Marketing Idea: Create a Year-End Email and Social Media Post

I have an idea for you to engage with your clients and prospects this time of year – send them a year-in-review email.

An effective year-in-review email strengthens confidence in your business, shows your growth while reinforcing your market position.

Think of your year-in-review email like an annual review of your company’s top highlights over the past year and a recap of your best blog posts, articles, webinars and other client-centric content.

Many brands use an annual report to brag about their successes, and that’s why they fall flat.

You’ll have so much more engagement if you keep the content client centric and not boastful.

This is not the place to tout your rankings or brag about why you are the best. Always ask yourself “why would my audience care about this piece of content?” “does it educate or help them?” and if you can’t answer that, omit it.

If you provide a product solution, use the email to remind your audience how much your product or service helped them achieve success and inspires them to accomplish even more next year.
You can also share stats and facts that show milestones and how you’ve grown, such as: reached x customers, welcomed x new team members, opened a new location, moved to a bigger office, product and partnership launches, mergers, anniversaries, a rebrand or lateral growth. You can also highlight specific clients. Just avoid vanity metrics.
Take a look at your behavioral data and identify trends within your audience, like top-selling products, most popular blog posts and client alerts, most shared social media posts, etc.
Consider recapping some top stories or interesting stats of the year in your industry and for each one, share a brief reflection, action you took or a relevant tip.
You can also look ahead to 2022 – discuss industry trends, highlight upcoming 2022 events or upcoming launches.
Add personalization, if possible – pull stats unique to each customer and incorporate into the content.
At the end of the email, thank your readers and make it easy for them to share the content with others.
Create a call to action depending on your business goals. Drive readers back to your website, promote sign-ups for your newsletter or encourage following your social channels.

Year-in-review emails are great for generating leads and conversions, engaging your audience, and retaining clients and are often overlooked.

Article By Stefanie M. Marrone of Stefanie Marrone Consulting

For more articles on social media, visit the NLR Law Office Management section.

Hiring and Marketing in the Legal Industry with Roy Sexton of Clark Hill Law and Legal Marketing Association [PODCAST]

Thor’s hammer, “Mjollnir!” Attorneys with dogs! Superman t-shirts! Roy Sexton leads a lively discussion about how the little quirks make your law firm more attractive to new hires, current staff, and the audience of your marketing efforts. He shares his career anecdotes and Clark Hill Law‘s recent branding revamp while being frank about the need for a new type of law firm culture. Learn more about the Legal Marketing Association here.

We’ve included a transcript of our conversation below, transcribed by artificial intelligence. The transcript has been lightly edited for style, clarity, and readability.

INTRO 00:02

Hello, and welcome to Legal News Reach, the official podcast for the National Law Review. Stay tuned for a discussion on the latest trends in legal marketing, SEO, law firm best practices, and more.

Rachel & Jessica 00:15

I’m Rachel. And I’m Jessica. We’re the Co-Hosts for The National Law Review’s Legal News Reach podcast.

Rachel 00:22

In this episode, we’re excited to talk to Roy Sexton, Director of Marketing for Clark Hill, about hiring and legal marketing. Roy would you like to introduce yourself?

Roy Sexton 00:30

Sure, I think you’re gonna regret having me as a guest. But I’m Roy Sexton, Director of Marketing. I’m also an active volunteer with the Legal Marketing Association, recently named President-elect for 2022, and President in 2023. Again, probably something they will live to regret. But I’m very honored to have been tapped in that way.

Rachel 00:50

Congratulations. As I mentioned earlier, one of the topics that we really want to dive into here is hiring and marketing trends in the legal industry, I think there’s been a lot of interesting hiring and sort of labor/employment topics to come out out of the pandemic. In particular, specifically, how it’s getting harder to hire people, you know, retaining people that we do have, and just how COVID maybe long term will affect labor in this country and employment and hiring and all those things. In terms of the difficulty that midsize firms are finding it hard to hire lawyers on their legal staff. Is that a trend that you’re seeing? And if so, like, how can offices really remedy that issue?

Roy Sexton 01:30

Yeah, obviously it’s a trend we’re seeing in the industry. But fortunately, we’re not seeing it at Clark Hill. I had a recent opening in our team. And it’s for an events role. So presumably there are a lot of people out there that in the event space that we’re looking so I’m not going to put you know, you got to think about what, again, each submarket of the hiring market, right, and what’s influencing that, but in this case, we had like 85 applicants all pretty strong. And when I’ve had positions posted before I get me like 2030. So again, it’s an event so that’s probably driving that as well. I think we as a firm have really pushed culture, we launched our new brand in May. And my boss Susan Hearn, who’s a genius and wonderful because performance reviews are coming up soon. I love you. She, you know, she had the wisdom with our chief HR officer Kathy Sullivan, to say, when we launched that brand, let’s take the values that we usually keep for internal purposes and make them the spotlight on the brand. So we push that hard. And we did a lot of video asset creation about the firm generally the culture we are because we knew our clients and prospects would say that’s a nice place. Those seem like good people, I want to work with them. And I think we now that our second phase of the brand launch, launched about a week or so ago was a talent brand specifically. And we have Kathy with a video that’s gotten like 60,000 views on our social media so far, talking about, “these are our values, we believe in them.” And at Clark Hill, everyone has an equal footing. I mean, I think we know law firms struggle with that kind of upstairs-downstairs thing. If you’re not an attorney. Well, you’re just you’re dispensable and you don’t be treated with the same level of respect. I think clerk Hill has tried to intentionally take a different tack in that regard. And the attorneys are there with us. I mean, it’s not like we’re trying to sell them on an idea that they themselves don’t believe. They are there already. So we’ve fortuitously pulled from the culture, we already had clerk Hill has grown through acquisition. So we had a lot of different regions that came together to be Clark Hill. And it was important for us to go forward or the brand that told the firm story, elevated, everyone, and said, “I’m part of a bigger family here.” And I think, knock-on-wood, our recruiting efforts have benefited from that kind of message. So you know, I don’t want to, you know, spoil the secret sauce. But for those firms that are facing that conundrum, everyone always says, Oh, we’ve got a great culture. Well, show it, demonstrate it, use video, use photos. This is my home, I’m in the basement. My husband sent me down here 19 months ago, and I haven’t come back. But you know, we in the early days of pandemic, I had my dog here beside me the whole time and my social media person, Tommy said, Hey, let’s do a four-legged coworkers campaign. And we did and we got so much response from that we were posting dogs not and you’re like oh, and Facebook, right? I think LinkedIn. Interestingly, a year later, LinkedIn now has dogs of LinkedIn. Have you noticed this? They promoting that and I’m like they stole our idea. After we went through about six weeks to this one person in the firm said, should we be doing that? That doesn’t really seem like something we should be promoting. I said Well, too late. It’s over. It’s said to people, this is who we are. We’re human beings. We do good work showing our humanity does not detract from our ability to do good work. It enhances it. And I think that’s what the pandemic has hopefully shown people that are willing to listen.

Rachel 04:47

I mean I dunno about Jess, but I’m all for more dog photos in general.

Jessica 04:52

Yes. Spoiled pets!

Roy Sexton 04:54

I also benefit as a manager from previous experience. I worked in healthcare for a decade and that’s fraught with its own challenges in the healthcare system I worked at had a Leadership Academy and I took every class I could and I loved it. And it was very much about, listen to your team, help them succeed. Find you have a job description, you have the talent, but find the path for them. So they see they have a career and potential. One of my early management memories is I had taken over marketing at this healthcare system, and they had an outboard Remember, you’re too young to remember those. It was like, it was a whiteboard, and it had little magnets or like I’m in, I’m out. And I had an exceptionally talented person who did our radio show all this stuff. She loved working from home, this is about 15 years ago. And I said, Fine, you can work from the moon, I don’t care. If you’re doing good work. I don’t care. Now look where we are. Well, she would always like to write on the board. I am working from home. So a colleague came in, who managed the quality and accreditation and was that kind of busy body of the of the health system. And she looked at that in whiteboard. And she kind of made a mental note and walked away. And later she goes, Roy, I got a call on the hotline. Do you have people working from home? I’m like, Maureen, you did not get a call on the hotline, you saw that board. So what I did is I walked out of my office and I said, “Hey, Barb, does this come off the wall?” And I ripped the whiteboard off the wall, I said, Yep, comes off the wall. So I solved for the problem a little differently. Lisa continued to work from home, I’m sure it was in violation of some policies and processes, but she was doing good work. And to change that, because someone was being a busybody in the organization was going to hurt the outcomes of the organization. You know, I’m not advocating people ignore the rules of their organization, don’t get me wrong, but understand your talent in what they need. And if they shine in a certain environment, let them be there. And don’t worry about what time they’d showed up. And because they’re gonna give you more than you ever expected, but if you manage for style and time and what they were, and when they showed up and how many hours they were in, they’re only going to give you that they’re not going to give you any more.

Rachel 06:59

I think that level of trust is really important. I think when they feel they can be trusted to sort of do that in their own way. And yeah, in the way that makes them work better. I think that’s something I hope many industries learn from this pandemic.

Roy Sexton 07:15

I don’t want to seem ageist, I do think we have generational issues. And it depends on your leadership and what they’re comfortable with. We are used to our cell phones and zoom in all these different ways that I can, you know, for 15 years now, I basically could do my job remotely, wherever and whatever I was doing, because there are those tools. So their assumption is, we all know what we know, they assume nobody’s doing anything because you’re not here in a suit and tie. No, it’s a little harder for a manager. But it’s so much more rewarding to focus on the outcomes. So you learn your talent, you learn their limitations, you help them fly, you don’t overly critique them until they’re ready. You can calibrate but let people get the foundation, let them be safe, folks who want to be here in a suit and tie if that’s what you want, you come in, but don’t expect that of everybody. You have to focus on the individual. And if they have talent, where are they going to shine the best, and it’s a job. And I appreciate that I work in a culture that has its rules, they follow the protocols, they ask you to commit to well, what are you doing to create a culture that people want to be part of, and it’s going to solve itself?

Rachel 08:23

You touched on this a little earlier in terms of bringing people into new roles, training them. And we touched a little bit on hiring, one of the things that we wanted to ask you about is what are your thoughts on hiring professional staff with like no experience in the legal industry, and what are the advantages and the disadvantages of that?

Roy Sexton 08:41

I think people get very linear and they’re like, Well, you only have these criteria, you don’t qualify for this. You don’t have to talk to the universe of people, some people just aren’t the right fit, but look at their personalities as much as the background they have. And I think you gain a lot. Somebody should at least have lawyers in their family. If you’re going to work for a law firm, you got to fit the personality is unique. Doctors have a unique challenge in that they love risk, but they love data. So if you’re working in marketing with doctors go in with enough data that they see you. You did some scientific method of this. Yeah, sure. Okay. Great. With lawyers, I went to I went in with data, because that’s what I knew from healthcare, oh, I barely left the room alive, because all they saw was risk and possibility. They want to avoid risk. You know, there’s some things you learn about the culture quickly, that that’s the only thing I would say if you’re going to hire somebody. And you have a very difficult law firm culture, a very demanding group of attorneys, you might want to grab somebody who’s at least worked with lawyers in some aspects. I don’t need to know the nuance of what the litigator is doing. But I need to know why it’s important, what audience you’re trying to reach. And then trust me to figure out the channels, the mechanisms and all that to do and sometimes attorneys jump into that they want to tie your hands and say I want to sponsor this rodeo because I’m going to get all this stuff out. I’m like, That’s a stupid idea, I can’t say that, I have to say, well, they could do that. Or you could do this, I don’t think you need to have a law firm background, at least for roles like mine. I hate it when people say it’s not rocket science, what we do is difficult, let’s not minimize that it is as hard as rocket science. Because it’s people, it’s relationships, and you never know what you’re getting when you walk in the door with somebody. But if you have some emotional intelligence, you have the chops to communicate to right, you understand the digital channels that are available to us. And you have the sensitivity to appreciate. This very busy person who has an attorney is very stressed out, and they’re not mad at you, they just don’t know what you’re talking about. And you have to have the patience and the calm and the kindness to understand what’s important to them, you can work very well. So that’s kind of what I look for when I’m interviewing people. I don’t get hung up on if they’ve worked in a law firm before. But if I feel like they’re a bad culture fit, and they haven’t worked in a law firm, and they don’t have the skills, and I said to somebody yesterday, you don’t want to work in a law firm, you’ve worked in retail, most other places don’t do it.

Rachel 11:07

That focus on interpersonal skills is something that I think, in the past has been undervalued. Yeah, sort of going off of what you said earlier, in terms of you know, you’re in college, you had an arts degree, I mean, think just my both have parts degrees, in some sense. And I also have a partner that has a STEM degree. And you know, there’s sort of like this dichotomy of like, those very hard math and science skills like, yeah, aren’t always what you need to succeed, a lot of times it is learning how to talk to people and form relationships and things like that.

Jessica 11:36

So when we think about the increasing conflation of a firm, like their operations that are changing- your cultural changes, what do you see as the role of a marketing professional in the market that exists now?

Roy Sexton 11:51

I think we’re in a unique opportunity, and a really strong one, you know, people, people fixate on the AI as an abstraction versus something that just needs to be the reality. When you think about the AI, or when you think about wellness or any of these topics, that confluence of law firms are struggling, we need to fix our culture, we need to have representation, we need to have legitimate, you know, put people in leadership roles that look like us on this call, you know, there are people of color there, you know, so people see themselves in the leadership ranks, and they’ll stick around. So if you make that change, now take the victory lap for marketing, tell people about it don’t don’t suddenly get shy. I’m celebrating a leader who’s creating great change. I’m celebrating young people who are being seen, their friends and family are like, wow, that’s a neat organization. And, again, you have to see that larger, you know, Disney, Apple, those companies do a good job of creating an environment you want to be part of, if you can steal some of that, as a law firm, don’t get so focused on I want a case tell everybody I won that case, it’s going to get me business. Okay, maybe. But if they see what kind of organization it is the culture change that’s happening, the fact that good work is coming out of that organization, then you’re going to attract talent, you’re going to attract customers, you’re going to have a sustainable model. And I do think sometimes people are just so linear in their thinking they miss that that broader storytelling, opportunity. So you know, I think we’re in a unique place. I also think the other side of the coin, I’m going to get real, technical, we have so much data available to us right now. We have so many tools. It is a marketer’s dream right now that we have to work with, we don’t have to go to outside agencies, sorry, service providers to do stuff. Use data in that way, again, to drive change in the culture to drive engagement. And these digital channels, you’re, you’re using them beautifully. I mean, I really, when I saw Jennifer Scholler, at ALM, she was overwhelmed with the response that has come from your platform. In recent months. This is it’s off the charts, because you got good content, you’re reaching people, you’re putting it out there in smart and clever ways. And you have a following. And people then gravitate, you know, they gravitate to where there’s a following, so.

Jessica 14:10

I’m so glad you mentioned how the legal industry does have the weird, high walls around it. Sometimes I think there’s such a particular hierarchy in a law firm in general. So the fact that you know, we all know people want to connect with people. So if you keep just having these tall walls of legality, I guess. Preventing people from wanting to connect with you. That’s why I mean, over and over. If we beat anything into this podcast, it’s that people want to know a law firm. They want to know the people. That makes them want to go to you in the first place.

Roy Sexton 14:47

I switched my LinkedIn picture the other day and I switched it back but I had one of me and a Superman t-shirt. Somebody took me I loved it. And I got so much great response to that but I got some people inside from like, Do you think that’s really the professional look you want to be going for and I second-guessed myself, I changed the picture. And then I resented myself for it, finding those moments of authenticity. That’s what people respond to. And I think we get so worried in law firms are rife with this law firms want to be first to be second, like, they don’t wanna be the first one to do anything, in case it’s too risky. But they want to be right there at second, we’ll be the first, no one’s paying that much attention anyway, you’re not going to, you’re not going to ruin your organization, anybody who comes at you with a phrase, you need to be taken seriously run away from them, because they’re worried about the wrong, none of us need to be taken seriously. We need to do good work, we need to be accessible, we need to have fun and enjoy the lives that we’re living. And those people who say those things to you, they’re nervous themselves, they want to be out of their own shell.

Jessica 15:46

It’s just that old environment, like what you’re saying about employees, you know, there are the ones who want to wear the suit and come in, and that’s fine. But that’s because that’s who they are. Yeah, and you should be okay with that, if that’s what you want to do. You know, but also the same has to go for people who want to work remote, and yeah, have Thor’s hammer behind them. You know what I mean? Like, I just feel like, I’m hiring the attorney that posts dog photos. That’s something I can connect with. And yeah, I think that attorneys in particular, so before this, I was a paralegal for a couple of years. So I’ve worked around attorneys a lot. And I think the, it’s that competition with each other, you know, you got to be the best you got to put up your Super Lawyers because people won’t take you seriously. I don’t know why that idea persists.

Roy Sexton 16:32

So I realize it come into a room. And it’s easy for me to say I don’t need to worry about being taken seriously, because I have the latitude to have Thor’s hammer behind me. And it’s colorful, somebody else who’s coming maybe and nobody knows I’m gay unless I tell him but I tell everybody, I have the latitude to be a little more myself. And I appreciate that some of what I’m saying may not work for people who have been in marginalized groups or who have felt, I’m speaking to two women. And so I’m going to mansplain back to you the experience you’ve had my husband, I were talking about this last night, he had a colleague who posted something about I’m part of this women’s group, and I’m so grateful for their support. And my husband’s kind of manager who literally does not see gender color. He just sees talent. He’s a wonderful human being in that regard. He goes, does that do people really need those groups still, I go, honey, you’re different than everybody else. A lot of women have had to go through hell. We saw it in the “Me Too” movement, things that we never knew or heard about. It happened behind closed doors, slights that happen, the marginalization that happened. So I realize there is an element sometimes if I wear the outfit everybody else is wearing, it gives me entree to then be myself, try to help us try to break down that need in an environment. If you knew the hurdles you had to overcome to get into your role, break them down for other people don’t let that continue. Because it’s unnecessary.

Jessica 17:57

I want to know because I’m sure law firms now with all these changes are getting so…not frightened- that might be too strong of a word, but they’re very cautious about things in general, you know, the risk, the risk management part of that is definitely a little bit. But when it comes to how you’re doing things with marketing, you know, how are you using like numbers to show that the work you’re doing is effective? You know, how are you doing that to reassure firms that yeah, you know, the necessity of it.

Roy Sexton 18:32

So we use Power BI as a sort of a baseline, we’re doing a lot of analysis through what we use sprout for social media. I’m not I’m not advertising to these people. I’m just saying that’s what we use. We’re working with ALM right now sorry, on some direct advertising. And and, and that’s giving us that ability to target and figure out who we’re reaching when we’re reaching and how we’re reaching them. Were really, with the new launch of the new website and brand, we stepped up our SEO, and we’re working with a partner there that isn’t just doing the SEO for us. They’re teaching our team how to do it correctly. So we have a monthly report that we send out to the firm, that’s more anecdotal. But he always take those laps, put yourself back in front of the firm going, here’s everything that happened this month, half of them read it, we get some nasty grams too long, didn’t read fonts too small, that kind of stuff. But mostly they’re like, we’re here. And now on a weekly basis, we send another digest, like, here’s how many alerts went out. Here’s how many events. So those are your kind of leading indicators that people go, there’s some kinetics happening and social media is really helpful that way.

Rachel 19:31

For our next topic, we want to focus in more on what Clark Hill has been doing in recent months, like you mentioned specifically earlier that the firm, create a new brand and focused on you know, the sort of value in the culture-aspects of it. How did that process go and what can law firms learn from?

Roy Sexton 19:48

The pandemic served us well, it gave us more time. We had a very aggressive timeline that I don’t know that we would have hit before. It gave us more months to dig in, and really what we had done in the development of brand- we worked with One North on the brand and the website. And we had a lot of listening and learning outposts. That was important to me. And it was important to my boss. And so we had a survey of everybody in the firm, not just attorneys, and we got like an 80% response rate with like, a shortlist of questions. What do you think the brand is? What do you hear that? You know, because we were bringing a culture together too. And then we went externally, we did client interviews, what do you think of the brand? What do we do? Well, what don’t we do, we baked all that together. So we did the discovery piece of it to then move to well, What messages do we think are a reflection of who we are, and then what’s our stretch to what we want to be, and we took the time to go through that process. And then we landed on a brand, we then with the pandemic, we had the moment to step back and go, Okay, we didn’t think we’re gonna be able to go through all the content on the website like we wanted to, we do. So let’s use the Education own moment here. Rather than just marketing, go rewrite everything and put it up. We use this as an educational opportunity with our BD folks and everybody to divvy up all the bios, we had a new structure to it, we had a headline, we did that intentionally, like let’s create a structure that forces a rewrite of the BIOS. So then we had the time to do a bio project. And Alex, France and Tommy on our team, they, they set it all up, they put a video together, we went to each business unit said, This is what we’re trying to do, the voice we’re trying to capture. We got pushback, we got people that didn’t want to do it for mostly though people. And the attorneys themselves took a swing at it. We use the development of the brand and the website very collaboratively, we delegated everybody got some time in it. We worked with all the operational areas in the brain lunch, we had an extensive process. Cheryl Kravitz helped us with a timeline of HR, you’re doing this, it you’re doing this, it’s not just only marketing things, everybody gets a piece of this. And at the end of it, we had a celebration, everybody got a swag box, we wanted to make sure everybody wherever they were got a box of new branded stuff, we had a wonderful video that tells studios put together of who we are telling our story. I’m an opportunist, and I’m cheap. So I’m like, we want to do a video that will work internally. And then I can slice it up and put it externally people didn’t understand what the hell I was talking about until we did it. They were like, well, this is for we want to talk about internal things. They go no, no, just inspire people. We can have some framing stuff from our leaders, but just inspire people. And then we’ll have that out in the world. We had like 370,000 views of that video, when all was said and done. It was thrilling. And we told our story, but we took time to have everybody feel like they were part of it. So when we launched the brand, not many people had seen it. But they felt like they were part of it when they saw it. And that made all the difference with all the other random stuff that comes our way on a daily basis to do this correctly, and make it launch where you don’t have 1,000 knives in your back. Give yourself two years and really open up the process where you can have people feel like they were part of it.

Rachel 22:51

Yeah, I think what you’re saying how the pandemic helps move things along is not uncommon. In terms of like the interviews we’ve done so far. I think a lot of law firms have said that the pandemic really pushed them to make these changes. And these changes were something that were in the pipeline for a while, and they just forced to move forward with them because they didn’t have any other choice. So that’s sort of that sort of leads into my next question here, when you were doing this and doing this branding and all this other stuff, and you launched it, you know, what has really been the response that

Roy Sexton 23:25

It was overwhelming. They were minor hiccups. And what I love about my boss is just a Roy, just take a pause, it’s fine, don’t don’t catastrophize it’s gonna be fine. Just We’ll get through it. It’s not a big deal. So sometimes you gotta listen on the things that don’t matter, really like the font of that email, and give. And then you have the big win. And by God, everybody loved the stuff that mattered the brand, they were so hungry for it. They had felt included, we done enough lead up to it, they knew it was coming, they loved the look, they felt elevated, that’s what you want with a brand. They felt like the brand that they’d had and inherited. And again, these were four or five different separate firms that have come together, Clark Hill inherited an old Clark Hill brand that even Clark Hills unlike anymore, seven felt like they needed new clothes for school. They so you gave them something fresh. And the video that was embedded with all these faces from all over the country, again, my boss’s wisdom, because I was like, well, let’s just have two or three people. Let’s make this easy. And she was No, no, Roy, we got to figure out how to get to six different locations and have a lot of people interviewed. She was right. Because people saw themselves in the story. And the response we got internally was exactly what we wanted. People quieted down. Their obsession was signage and all this stuff that they were driving us all crazy because they were like, Oh, you have this in hand. It gave us the credibility and all the other things to like, Oh, you guys actually know what you’re doing? Yeah, we do. And then the external response was, like I said with the video itself had 300 I think 375,000 views and the response from people outside the firm, because lawyers will never tell you that they’ll tell you when someone Outside the firm is teasing us. But they don’t tell you when they hear the good stuff. But I know they did. I know they heard from people outside going, Wow, you guys woke up, you’re doing interesting stuff. And and that’s what we wanted. You know we’re having a record year again, many law firms are having a record year again. So I can’t chalk it up to the brand and the website necessarily, but I feel like we landed a market and brand message just when we needed it at the right time to galvanize the organization to help us move forward. With strong leadership. Our CEO has been there every step of the way and supportive he was part of the brand launch, she has reinforced the things we needed him too. He’s challenged us when we needed to be challenged. My boss has seen the long game. I’ve had an incredible team of people whenever Anderson, she I feel like I’m giving an Oscar speech came in under budget way under budget, and on time, which is unheard of, and I’m very proud of that

Rachel 25:51

We spoke a little earlier was the importance of diversity and creating diverse teams. Can you speak a little bit about you know, what Clark Hill has done to do that, and like why it’s important?

Roy Sexton 26:01

Part of the DNA of the organization, our Texas offices that came online a couple years ago, Strassburger, they had a really robust program, they called it bold thrive and pride. I think we’re sort of evolving. I think affinity groups are important, but sometimes they almost think they also do some disservice. It’s like, I feel this way, sometimes all you gay people get together and go do stuff and talk and it’s like, Well, okay, but we need to, we need to demonstrate to everyone else, we have value. But those are that we brought those in and again made them part of this launch that we had attorney leaders now, not just in Texas, but across the country who are driving those efforts. Pride is obviously for our LGBTQ community. Thrive is for people of color. And then bold is our women’s initiative. But somewhat, they’re all a bit inwardly focused, because you’re trying to provide talent, tools, resources, and commiseration to people who are in those groups that work for the firm. But we’ve also started to extend that out to say, well, what are the programmatic offerings we can provide to demonstrate we’re committed to this, the education pieces, it’s, it’s gonna sound like small potatoes, but it was a big impact. Alex France on my team, she looked at the calendar and all of the events that are important both as recognition months, as well as the holidays, based on faith and culture and all those things. And so we have a an intentional message that goes on, we have an editorial calendar against that. And we’ve also used as an engagement strategy with our HR folks. So for, for example, Asian Asian American Pacific Islanders month, we had Alex and glory pack who was with us at the time, they put together little placards, we put on our social media with a story or a video component with people in their own words. And again, we didn’t live in it to attorneys, it’s paralegals, it was office managers, it was legal assistants, anybody who was in that category, or felt strongly about that and wanted to had something to offer, we made sure we were telling their stories on our digital channels. And then we circulated that internally. Now that all feels a little window dressing, you know, to get to the substantive issues our leadership team is actively looking at, how are we recruiting? Who are we putting in what roles how are we promoting and actively assessing that data to say, you know, are we using the Mansfield rubric, we don’t have enough hear or in some cases, we’ve actually been pleasantly surprised, because I think you always feel like you’re not doing enough. And then you look at some of it, and you’re like, Oh, we’re actually we’ve been more intentionally we even realized. So Linda Watson, who’s one of our attorneys has been leading that effort with HR, and they’re relatively early in that journey. But you know, they’re taking it quite seriously. When I was in health care, we went, we did something called the Malcolm Baldrige assessment, which is a quality piece, and some people do it just to win the award, we did it to actually improve. And Clarksville is doing that same thing with Mansfield, it’s like, of course, we want the recognition. But we want to use the criteria to get better. And I’m thrilled to see that, you know, I’m not involved in it other than this communication stuff I talk about, but what I’m seeing the firm do, I’m really pleased about. So

Rachel 29:03

I think it’s just great to highlight those things on this podcast, I think being able to learn from what others have done and be able to apply it to actually helps make change.

Roy Sexton 29:12

Well, and that’s why I’ve always loved being part of LMA. I mean, I don’t know if the attorneys know this. But when we all get together we tell everybody what we’re doing. Right? Don’t do that. Well, it’s there’s what you do, and there’s how you do it. So it’s it’s always good to see what other people are doing. Because then you can take that idea and build on it. And then they can build on your idea and you just get better. You know, there’s always live in abundance, not scarcity. And so you’re right, look at what other people are doing. go think about that. We should do some of that. But let’s do it our way. Let’s take the idea and do it in our style. And then you’re not stealing from anybody so

Rachel 29:47

Excellent. So yeah, we’ve had a great conversation with you today. Right. We really appreciate you joining us. A special thanks to Roy Sexton from Clark Hill for joining us today.

Roy Sexton

Thank you for having me.

Article By Rachel Popa and Jessica Scheck of The National Law Review / The National Law Forum LLC

For more articles on the legal industry, visit the NLR Law Office Management section.

Top Storytelling Techniques Lawyers Need to Use in Their Marketing

In the past, marketing and advertising strategies were all about showing your ideal clients why your law firm was the one to choose. Every ad and marketing plan was focused on framing the law firm or the attorney as the hero of the story: “Let us step in and save the day!”

The problem is, your clients do not need a hero. They are the hero of their story. And law firms and attorneys across the country are only beginning to see how storytelling is going to be an integral part of their content marketing and digital marketing strategies going forward.

It’s all about relating to your ideal client and giving them the information that they really need to make decisions that work best for their family. It sounds a lot more complicated than it is. But there are several techniques that you can use to make sure that your marketing is telling compelling stories that are going to guide your ideal client to the decision that your law firm is the one that is going to help them achieve their goal.

Tip 1: Focus on Making Your Client the Hero

One of the biggest mistakes law firms are making in their marketing strategies is making themselves the hero at the expense of what the client really needs. Traditional marketing has told law firms to sell their accomplishments and achievements. Listing reason after we reason for why this law firm was the right one for that particular client. Are you bored? So is your client. And chances are, if your readers are bored, they are not going to convert into clients.

With that in mind, you need to tell stories in a way that grabs their attention and helps them see that they are the hero in their story. Instead of talking about all of your law firm’s achievements, you should be relating to your clients. What services are you providing to them that allow them to fix their legal issues and come out on top?

Leading with a firm first approach isn’t likely to be successful in today’s age. These days, your clients know that they are the hero, and they are not going to choose a law firm that they feel like they have to compete with.

Tip 2: Frame Yourself as the Guide

You still need to be able to explain to your clients in all of your different marketing strategies why your law firm is better than the competition. But you can do this in a way that does not come across as you are showing off or attempting to put the spotlight on your law firm’s biggest case results, settlements, victories, and achievements.

Instead, you should frame yourself as the guide. This is the concept of the Storybrand by Donald Miller, where the service provider is the guide who helps the client (the hero) find a solution to fix their problem. Make sure that your marketing materials are framed in a way that sets your law firm up to be the guide that will help the hero solve their problem.

Tip 3: Solve Your Ideal Client’s Pain Points

It sounds easy. Writing content and developing marketing materials that make you the guide and the reader the hero. Check. If only it were that easy. Unfortunately, developing these types of storybranded materials can be challenging. There is a fine line between showcasing the benefits of working with your firm and showing the reader how you can solve their problems. Many law firms miss the mark, and it costs them clients.

If you want to get it right, make sure you start off by thinking about the biggest pain points your client is experiencing with their legal issue. How high are their costs? Are they experiencing substantial economic and non-economic losses? Are they at risk for going to prison? Do they have complex legal issues they do not understand? These questions become more and more specific depending on the type of practice area you are in and the type of content materials that you are developing. By addressing your ideal client pain points, you can show them how your law firm will provide them with the tools they need to fix their legal issues.

Make sure to keep your content short and to the point across the board. Most readers do not have the time, patience, or inclination to read more than one or two lines. The first line should describe their pain point. The second line should describe how your solution fixes their problem. If you do it right, that is all you will need to get your prospective client to pick up the phone or fill out your website’s contact form.

Start Storytelling With Your Law Firm’s Marketing Strategies

Storytelling and storybranding are the future for law for content marketing. Gone are the days where clients chose law firms based on their achievements and successes. All lawyers are successful in the eyes of a potential client, figuratively speaking. What your clients care about is how you are going to help them solve their issue. They couldn’t care less what college you graduated from, what your Avvo rating is, or all of that volunteer work you put in while you were working for the County Clerk’s office.

You can still use these credentials and accomplishments as benefits that you provide to clients in need. But you need to be sure to do so in a way that still frames the client as the hero. How specifically does your accomplishment help them help themselves?

You need to be very careful to produce content that answers this question carefully. If you miss the mark and make yourself a hero, you have probably lost a potential client. But, if you can clearly answer this question and provide your prospective clients with the information they are looking for, at a glance, you are more likely to generate the leads you hoped to see online.

Article By Meranda M. Vieyra of Denver Legal Marketing

For more articles on legal marketing, visit the NLR Law Office Management section

8 Tips to Boost Law Firm Marketing ROI

Marketing campaigns to generate leads are a significant investment for many law firms. In return, they expect their law firm marketing ROI tactics to produce higher client conversions and be worth the investment of time. Unfortunately, some firms lack the lead capture capability to nurture leads, wasting their marketing spend.

For high marketing ROI, a law firm must-have tools and resources in place to effectively capture leads and convert them into clients. Here are 8 tips to boost law firm marketing ROI.

What is ROI?

ROI is a performance measure that evaluates the efficiency and profitability of an investment, such as marketing spend. Usually, ROI is calculated by dividing the benefit of the investment – such as leads generated – by the cost of the investment.

In some cases, ROI can be a complex calculation that considers many investments of time, effort, and money. Realistically, a lot goes into a conversion, such as attracting a new lead or signing a client, but it’s best to focus on the specific and measurable benefits with the costs for a simple ROI result.

1. Set a Standard for Law Firm Marketing ROI

Calculating ROI can be complex, but there are acceptable ranges for what an ROI should be. This provides a standard to measure future efforts against.

Your law firm marketing ROI strategy should try to set a target prior to the marketing spend, then see if the campaign reflects that target. If expectations and ROI don’t match, it’s time to reevaluate the ROI calculation, the marketing efforts, the intake process, or all three.

2. Find the Right ROI Calculation Method

Law firms should calculate ROI using the following method:

Total the investment:

Investment = Implementation Cost + Cash Cost

Calculate the net annual savings:

Net Annual Savings = Annual Savings – Annual Expenses

Calculate the ROI:

Annual ROI = Net Annual Savings / Investment

This is a standard calculation, but some firms may lack the raw data necessary or have too much uncertainty. In these cases, the marketing ROI can be simplified by creating test groups to remove as many variables as possible. Use “like-for-like” comparisons to see which efforts yield results and which don’t.

3. Hire Intake Specialists

Law firms can be busy places, so it’s possible for new leads to get lost in the shuffle. Receptionists often have long to-do lists and can’t dedicate the time and attention to nurturing leads.

Prospective clients reach out to a law firm and expect a quick response and expert consultations. If that doesn’t happen, they’ll keep searching for a firm that caters to their needs. Intake specialists can ensure each client is given the attention they need in a professional and efficient way, boosting the marketing ROI all around.

4. Provide Immediate Responses

Legal troubles can be stressful, so clients calling a law firm want a live response that eases their concern and gives them peace of mind about the process. When a client calls a law firm and gets a dedicated team to handle their case consultation, they no longer feel the need to shop around for another firm.

Professional legal call centers can give prospective clients a response within 30 seconds, or fewer than three rings. They also offer live outbound calls in response to website inquiries. This response time shows prospective clients that they’re valued, boosting the chances for conversion.

5. Implement After-Hours Support

Marketing campaigns can generate high call volumes, quickly overwhelming a law firm’s team. Worse yet, if calls go to voicemail after hours, the client is likely to continue calling firms until they find one to help.

Law firms should always have a dedicated answering service for after-hours support. These trained professionals can handle the overflow and field calls to nurture leads, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Every prospective client will receive an instant response, no matter the time of day or night.

6. Keep Track of Leads

Lead tracking is likely part of the intake process, but it’s important to follow up and give every prospective client the care and attention they want. Lead tracking helps law firms follow through with leads along each phase of the customer journey, from initial awareness to conversion. The information from lead tracking can also be used to follow up at critical points and set up appointments and consultations.

Lead tracking can reveal flaws in the current intake process as well. Law firms can evaluate the intake process and identify areas for improvement, both for the larger goal and to enhance the client experience.

7. Create Convenient Contract Delivery Methods

The delivery and signing of a contract is a crucial step in converting a lead. Ideally, all qualified leads should be signed on the initial call, or they may seek help at competitors’ firms.

Convenient contract delivery methods solve this problem by sending fee agreements through text, email, or conventional mail to get documents signed quickly. This not only benefits the client and provides a stellar experience, but it increases conversion rates for the firm.

8. Embrace Legal Technology

Many tools are available for law firms to track profitability, manage client relationships, and monitor expenses, such as marketing investments. Legal technology offers powerful tools, such as expense tracking and reporting to keep up with expenses from anywhere, on any device. Legal technology may also feature client management to track and optimize the client relationship for better service and increased efficiency.

Workflow management may be included, which can help with client response protocols, client intake procedures, and lead nurturing. Depending on the features of the legal technology, law firms can take a lot of mystery and time out of the lead generation process.

Article By Bill4Time

For more articles on the legal industry, visit the NLR Law Office Management

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