I’ve been a solo practitioner for nearly a year and a half now. During that time I’ve learned that sustaining a small firm or solo practice isn’t easy work. In fact, it’s safe to say that most of us work nights, weekends, and holidays for the good of their practice. Nonetheless, it’s satisfying work and
4 Ways to Add Oomph to Your Practice
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New GAO Reports - Defense Acquisitions, Defense Infrastructure, Emergency Alerting, Export-Import Bank
Defense Acquisitions - Continued Management Attention Needed to Enhance Use and Review of DOD's Inventory of Contracted Services, GAO-13-491, May...
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Just Released: The New York Fed Staff Forecast - May 2013
Just Released: The New York Fed Staff Forecast—May 2013, Jonathan McCarthy and Richard Peach - "As we did last year...
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Capturing the beauty and wonder of the Galapagos on Google Maps
Google Official Blog: "The Galapagos Islands are some of the most biologically unique ecosystems in the world. Explorers and scientists...
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Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy
"Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy, a report from the McKinsey Global Institute, cuts...
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Five Steps to Protect Law Firm Data
Computer security is a cat-and-mouse game, and we’re the mouse. Even with virus prevention and detection, says Don Wright, it’s only a matter of time before unauthorized programs and predators get past the gates. Still, there are steps to take to keep your client and law firm data reasonably safe. For this Friday Five, we asked Don, who's head of information systems at the Association of Legal Administrators, for some advice. ... READ MORE
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More Poetry I Like: Take Time To…
I continue to hear from lawyers sharing poetry they like. A reader recently sent me this poem. Take Time Take Time To Think – It Is The Source Of All Power Take Time To Read – It Is The Foundation Of All Wisdom Take Time To Play-It Is The Source Of Perpetual Youth Take Time... Continue Reading
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THE ACADEMY’S GREATEST HITS — Session 4, Required Technology For Law Firms Today
We are pulling together THE ACADEMY’S GREATEST HITS—1993 through 2013. There are eight courses that we’ll be offering to non-members at no charge during our 20th year, (members feel free to sign up and review!). Each week we’ll give you the summary of ONE course. You can begin the course any time you want. Once [...]
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Thoughts On Legal Marketing and Intellectual Property Rights
If you were a carpenter and someone stole your only hammer what would you do?
Most likely, you would chase down the offending party and demand your hammer back. If he failed to give your hammer back, you would look for a legal remedy, in order to continue to make a living.
This is a simple concept to grasp.
![Legal Marketing Creating Your Own Intellectual Property]( "Legal Marketing Creating Your Own Intellectual Property")
Every couple of months (and with a troubling increase in frequency) someone violates my intellectual property rights. They copy text from my website or material, they use my trademark, or they blatantly deliver an identical presentation to one I have delivered in the past.
Many of these people are lawyers turned marketing gurus.
I go to great lengths to find these people. I pay for a service that monitors my intellectual property. I work with two attorneys who not only protect my intellectual property, they help me maintain and enforce my rights.
Why go to these lengths?
First: My business consists of two elements: 1) Goodwill – My relationships with clients, vendors and referral sources and 2) Intellectual property – Work products I create and sell to clients and license to others. I like my business and I want to keep growing it.
Second: Most people lack creativity. My intellectual property is a byproduct of my competitive advantage – my creativity. If you steal my intellectual property you are weakening my competitive advantage.
Third: If I do not enforce my rights to my intellectual property it weakens its value.
Finally: I have an intense dislike for people who compete with me. The best case for me would be for my competitors to go into other lines of business. Absent that happening, I’m always looking for ways to crush them. Late at night, when they sleep, I am on a plane traveling to meet with their best client. When they are sitting on the couch watching reruns of Hogan’s Heroes, I’m coming up with a new consulting methodology that will change the rules of the game.
So when I have an opportunity to legally smack down a competitor, I take it.
Intellectual property is central to my ability to make a living. It is, in essence my hammer. But it is more than that. It is as if the hammer had special and unique powers. Possession of that hammer gives me a competitive advantage. I have every right to keep that hammer for exclusive use in my business or license it to anyone I see fit. When someone takes it, I go after them.
What does this have to do with you?
Attorneys use forms, documents, visual identities and phrases in their practice and in their legal marketing. Often they think nothing of “borrowing” a form they have seen a competitor using. They do not hesitate to “adopt” a phrase from someone else or use a cute derivation from a successful competitor.
Many times this is done with a lack of concern for the rights of the creator of the intellectual property.
Don’t think this applies to you?
What music do you have on your telephone system when you put someone on hold?
How about the photos on your website?
Do you use a fictitious name for your law firm?
How about your tagline or logo on your website or business cards?
The bottom line: Be creative. Create your own forms. Do your own branding. Don’t tread on the intellectual property rights of others.
Continue Reading...
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Every couple of months (and with a troubling increase in frequency) someone violates my intellectual property rights. They copy text from my website or material, they use my trademark, or they blatantly deliver an identical presentation to one I have delivered in the past.
Many of these people are lawyers turned marketing gurus.
I go to great lengths to find these people. I pay for a service that monitors my intellectual property. I work with two attorneys who not only protect my intellectual property, they help me maintain and enforce my rights.
Why go to these lengths?
First: My business consists of two elements: 1) Goodwill – My relationships with clients, vendors and referral sources and 2) Intellectual property – Work products I create and sell to clients and license to others. I like my business and I want to keep growing it.
Second: Most people lack creativity. My intellectual property is a byproduct of my competitive advantage – my creativity. If you steal my intellectual property you are weakening my competitive advantage.
Third: If I do not enforce my rights to my intellectual property it weakens its value.
Finally: I have an intense dislike for people who compete with me. The best case for me would be for my competitors to go into other lines of business. Absent that happening, I’m always looking for ways to crush them. Late at night, when they sleep, I am on a plane traveling to meet with their best client. When they are sitting on the couch watching reruns of Hogan’s Heroes, I’m coming up with a new consulting methodology that will change the rules of the game.
So when I have an opportunity to legally smack down a competitor, I take it.
Intellectual property is central to my ability to make a living. It is, in essence my hammer. But it is more than that. It is as if the hammer had special and unique powers. Possession of that hammer gives me a competitive advantage. I have every right to keep that hammer for exclusive use in my business or license it to anyone I see fit. When someone takes it, I go after them.
What does this have to do with you?
Attorneys use forms, documents, visual identities and phrases in their practice and in their legal marketing. Often they think nothing of “borrowing” a form they have seen a competitor using. They do not hesitate to “adopt” a phrase from someone else or use a cute derivation from a successful competitor.
Many times this is done with a lack of concern for the rights of the creator of the intellectual property.
Don’t think this applies to you?
What music do you have on your telephone system when you put someone on hold?
How about the photos on your website?
Do you use a fictitious name for your law firm?
How about your tagline or logo on your website or business cards?
The bottom line: Be creative. Create your own forms. Do your own branding. Don’t tread on the intellectual property rights of others.
Continue Reading...
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Thoughts On Legal Marketing and Intellectual Property Rights
If you were a carpenter and someone stole your only hammer what would you do?
Most likely, you would chase down the offending party and demand your hammer back. If he failed to give your hammer back, you would look for a legal remedy, in order to continue to make a living.
This is a simple concept to grasp.
![Legal Marketing Creating Your Own Intellectual Property]( "Legal Marketing Creating Your Own Intellectual Property")
Every couple of months (and with a troubling increase in frequency) someone violates my intellectual property rights. They copy text from my website or material, they use my trademark, or they blatantly deliver an identical presentation to one I have delivered in the past.
Many of these people are lawyers turned marketing gurus.
I go to great lengths to find these people. I pay for a service that monitors my intellectual property. I work with two attorneys who not only protect my intellectual property, they help me maintain and enforce my rights.
Why go to these lengths?
First: My business consists of two elements: 1) Goodwill – My relationships with clients, vendors and referral sources and 2) Intellectual property – Work products I create and sell to clients and license to others. I like my business and I want to keep growing it.
Second: Most people lack creativity. My intellectual property is a byproduct of my competitive advantage – my creativity. If you steal my intellectual property you are weakening my competitive advantage.
Third: If I do not enforce my rights to my intellectual property it weakens its value.
Finally: I have an intense dislike for people who compete with me. The best case for me would be for my competitors to go into other lines of business. Absent that happening, I’m always looking for ways to crush them. Late at night, when they sleep, I am on a plane traveling to meet with their best client. When they are sitting on the couch watching reruns of Hogan’s Heroes, I’m coming up with a new consulting methodology that will change the rules of the game.
So when I have an opportunity to legally smack down a competitor, I take it.
Intellectual property is central to my ability to make a living. It is, in essence my hammer. But it is more than that. It is as if the hammer had special and unique powers. Possession of that hammer gives me a competitive advantage. I have every right to keep that hammer for exclusive use in my business or license it to anyone I see fit. When someone takes it, I go after them.
What does this have to do with you?
Attorneys use forms, documents, visual identities and phrases in their practice and in their legal marketing. Often they think nothing of “borrowing” a form they have seen a competitor using. They do not hesitate to “adopt” a phrase from someone else or use a cute derivation from a successful competitor.
Many times this is done with a lack of concern for the rights of the creator of the intellectual property.
Don’t think this applies to you?
What music do you have on your telephone system when you put someone on hold?
How about the photos on your website?
Do you use a fictitious name for your law firm?
How about your tagline or logo on your website or business cards?
The bottom line: Be creative. Create your own forms. Do your own branding. Don’t tread on the intellectual property rights of others. Continue Reading...
![]()
Every couple of months (and with a troubling increase in frequency) someone violates my intellectual property rights. They copy text from my website or material, they use my trademark, or they blatantly deliver an identical presentation to one I have delivered in the past.
Many of these people are lawyers turned marketing gurus.
I go to great lengths to find these people. I pay for a service that monitors my intellectual property. I work with two attorneys who not only protect my intellectual property, they help me maintain and enforce my rights.
Why go to these lengths?
First: My business consists of two elements: 1) Goodwill – My relationships with clients, vendors and referral sources and 2) Intellectual property – Work products I create and sell to clients and license to others. I like my business and I want to keep growing it.
Second: Most people lack creativity. My intellectual property is a byproduct of my competitive advantage – my creativity. If you steal my intellectual property you are weakening my competitive advantage.
Third: If I do not enforce my rights to my intellectual property it weakens its value.
Finally: I have an intense dislike for people who compete with me. The best case for me would be for my competitors to go into other lines of business. Absent that happening, I’m always looking for ways to crush them. Late at night, when they sleep, I am on a plane traveling to meet with their best client. When they are sitting on the couch watching reruns of Hogan’s Heroes, I’m coming up with a new consulting methodology that will change the rules of the game.
So when I have an opportunity to legally smack down a competitor, I take it.
Intellectual property is central to my ability to make a living. It is, in essence my hammer. But it is more than that. It is as if the hammer had special and unique powers. Possession of that hammer gives me a competitive advantage. I have every right to keep that hammer for exclusive use in my business or license it to anyone I see fit. When someone takes it, I go after them.
What does this have to do with you?
Attorneys use forms, documents, visual identities and phrases in their practice and in their legal marketing. Often they think nothing of “borrowing” a form they have seen a competitor using. They do not hesitate to “adopt” a phrase from someone else or use a cute derivation from a successful competitor.
Many times this is done with a lack of concern for the rights of the creator of the intellectual property.
Don’t think this applies to you?
What music do you have on your telephone system when you put someone on hold?
How about the photos on your website?
Do you use a fictitious name for your law firm?
How about your tagline or logo on your website or business cards?
The bottom line: Be creative. Create your own forms. Do your own branding. Don’t tread on the intellectual property rights of others. Continue Reading...
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Chicago Construction Law – Conway & Mrowiec
Conway & Mrowiec, a Chicago construction law firm, has just launched an Essentials website. Conway & Mrowiec represents construction contractors, construction managers, design/builders, trade contractors, developers, owners, architects, engineers and sureties. Conway & Mrowiec has concluded claims on more than… Categories: Site LaunchesThe post Chicago Construction Law – Conway & Mrowiec appeared first on PaperStreet
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The Mental Fortitude Necessary to Practice Law
From the moment you start practicing law, people are going to tell you that you aren’t very good at your job. Sometimes they will be right. Sometimes they will be trying to intimidate you. Sometimes they will just be jerks. If you aren’t prepared for this (because your law school artificially boosted your GPA, for [...]![Join the Lawyerist LAB!]()
The Mental Fortitude Necessary to Practice Law is a post from Lawyerist.com
The Mental Fortitude Necessary to Practice Law is a post from Lawyerist.com
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On-Demand Seminar: Rainmaker Secrets to Building a Referral-Based Law Firm for Litigators
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Most litigation attorneys have a difficult time building a consistent book of business. They go from one extreme of having too much work to handle to the other extreme of waiting around for the next case.
In this recording of the well-attended seminar I gave earlier this month on Rainmaker Secrets to Building a Referral-Based Law Firm for Litigators, I share with you the secrets we have uncovered from working with thousands of top litigators on how they have transformed their business from the traditional “feast or famine” approach to having a consistent pipeline of clients by implementing a proven referral system.
You can discover:
The top 2 reasons why you aren’t getting more referrals right now and how to fix it
How litigation attorneys can easily keep in touch with all their former clients, prospects and referral sources in less than 1 hour a month
6 questions you must pro-actively answer to get more referrals
The top 4 referral sources for litigators and where to find them
How to use LinkedIn to connect with referral sources
The 5 best times to ask clients for a referral
Click here to order this informative online seminar and discover how attorneys just like you are using this information to build 7-figure law firms.
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Court Denies Restraining Order Against Ex-Boyfriend Who Threatened to Post Revenge Porn -- EC v. CBT
[Post by Venkat Balasubramani] E.C. v. C.B.T., SR., A-1185-12T2 (N.J. Ct. App. May 6, 2013) Plaintiff and defendant lived together...
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5 Things that Have Changed Internet Marketing & Website Development
The constant factor in the relationship between Internet marketing and website development is Change.
Whether you work in the field of online marketing or run a business, the evolution of content, SEO, web design, social, and local listings significantly impacts how a website is structured and how it targets visitors for conversion.
Since listing all of the changes that have occurred since the Internet’s inception would take until Thanksgiving, the below blog focuses on the main evolutionary changes that we’ve seen at SLS Consulting.
1. Write for Your Audience First – In the past, content was more about keyword stuffing, linking, and organization that appealed to the search engines for higher rankings. These tactics just don’t work anymore, or at least, they don’t last for long. Whether you’re creating content for your blog or website, putting writing for your audience before writing for the search engines is more effective for increasing visitors, lowering bounce rates, getting favorable search placement, and converting visitors into clients.
2. Quality Links Over Quantity – The amount of links you have isn’t always as important as the quality of those links. Linking quality is affected by the variety of phrases being linked and where the links are going. Search engine optimization is no longer about “how much,” but more about substance and tact. The change in SEO may be more time consuming, but with the waves of recent algorithm updates, it’s worth it for your website’s success to change how you optimize your site, blog, and on other platforms.
3. Simple & Responsive Design – Making a website easy to navigate and respond to the type of device being used has shaped how website designers cater to the needs of both the target audience, search engines, and the client’s preferences. Because so many people are using computers, laptops, iPads, smartphones, and other devices to browse the Internet, a website now has to adjust its design intuitively in order to keep the attention of and engage a visitor.
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It Matters Not Whether you call it a "Blog" or a "Blog Post" - What Matters is that You Write
The well known US and Slate Magazine blogger Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) recently drew my attention to an essay on blogging on Twitter (giving meaning to my philosophy that Twitter is a wonderful "serendipity machine"):
This is a blog post, not a blog:…
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Weekend Reading: “On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession”
I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the profession that you are about to enter is one of the most unhappy and unhealthy on the face of the earth — and, in the view of many, one of the most unethical. The good news is that you can join this [...]![Join the Lawyerist LAB!]()
Weekend Reading: “On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession” is a post from Lawyerist.com
Weekend Reading: “On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession” is a post from Lawyerist.com
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Origins of the Legal Writing Wars, Part One
I invite you to come along as I finally learn the real reasons most legal writing is bloody awful. Not “why” in terms of the battles between Legal Writing in Plain English and “traditional” legal writing, but by learning the history of legal writing itself. I’m reading Legal Language by Peter M. Tiersma. He has [...]![Join the Lawyerist LAB!]()
Origins of the Legal Writing Wars, Part One is a post from Lawyerist.com
Origins of the Legal Writing Wars, Part One is a post from Lawyerist.com
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See Erin Brockovich (and Me!) at PILMMA Legal Marketing & Management Summit June 6-8
I will be at the Personal Injury Lawyers Marketing and Management Association (PILMMA) Legal Marketing & Management Summit on June 6-8 in Myrtle Beach, S.C., when I will be making a special presentation on Secrets of a Lead Conversion Specialist: Turning Browsers into Buyers & Prospects Into Paying Clients.
There are a host of other nationally renowned speakers who will be joining me for this three-day super summit, including:
Erin Brockovich is President of Brockovich Research & Consulting, and is currently involved in numerous environmental projects worldwide. Erin is a true American hero whose icon status and “stick-to-it-iveness” only fuels her determination to expose injustice and lend her voice to those who do not have one.
Jay Henderson began his corporate training career with the Covey Leadership Center, helping to launch Dr. Covey’s best-selling book, First Things First. He has helped many organizations implement Covey Leadership Training. He also is a certified instructor of Dr. Covey’s three internationally recognized leadership programs: Principle Centered Leadership, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and First Things First.
Josh King is Vice President of Business Development & General Counsel of Avvo. He is responsible for the company’s business development, finance, business operations and legal affairs. He is also a frequent writer and speaker on First Amendment, media and professional ethics issues.
See the entire line-up of experts who will be presenting on law firm marketing and management strategies at this conference and visit the PILMMA website for more details.
You should also know about PILMMA’s 100% money-back guarantee – if, after the end of the Summit, your trip has not been worthwhile, PILMMA will refund 100% of your registration fee and up to $500 in documented travel expenses.
For those who are not already members of PILMMA, you will be able to attend this two-day summit and get three months of PILMMA Gold Membership rights at one all-inclusive rate. PILMMA members and non-members can register online -- simply click this link and learn how you can start growing your law firm faster than you ever imagined!
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Ripple in Still Water – Justia Weekly Writers’ Picks
United States v. Tebeau, US 8th Cir. (4/30/12) Criminal Law Defendant owned more than 300 acres of land where he has held weekend music festivals at which drug use was widespread. Defendant invited various bands to perform at the festivals and he also performed with his own Grateful Dead tribute band. After law enforcement conducted an undercover investigation into the…The post Ripple in Still Water – Justia Weekly Writers’ Picks appeared first on Justia Law, Technology & Legal Marketing Blog.
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