Law Practice Management

Do you ever read an article and wonder how the attorneys or other people quoted in it get found by the reporters?  Are they friends with the reporter?  Are they on some special database of experts?  Maybe, but more likely they have responded to a reporter query from “Help A Reporter Out” (HARO), or another free query list. 

When you sign up for HARO: http://helpareporter.com/  (and there is no reason that you should not sign up for HARO), you’ll get 3 emails a day with 20 or so queries from reporters on all sorts of subjects.  If one applies to you (or a client of yours, who might want to be in a story), you respond to the reporter;  if the querying reporter decides to use you, you’ll be contacted.   Be sure to respond on-topic, and tell the reporter why you are the perfect person for their story.

Another free, but smaller, service is ReportersSource: http://www.reporterssource.com/. 

If you are on Twitter, you can follow these people for late-breaking and urgent requests for sources:

@skydiver (HARO) (www.twitter.com/skydiver) 

@ReportersSource (www.twitter.com/ReportersSource)

@ProfNet (www.twitter.com/ProfNet)

@SCGLPRNetwork (Sun Communications Group Legal PR Network) (www.twitter.com/SCGLPRNetwork) 

As Peter Shankman, the founder of HARO says, “Get sourced, get quoted, get famous!”

Special thanks for this blog post go out to Jared D. Correia, Esq., Law Practice Management Advisor, and to the Massachusetts Bar Association’s EJournal email newsletter, a publication of their Law Office Management Assistance Program (LOMAP) as well as to  author/ attorney Leanna Hamill.

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Labor law has been relatively quiet for many years.  Many lawyers saw the handwriting on the wall as labor unions started to wane in strength and influence.  Many switched over to employment law, seeing it as the next looming area ahead.  And they were not wrong.  No siree.  But with the signing of three new Pro-Labor Executive Orders, Labor Law may be making a rapid comeback as well.

Congratulations to Philadelphia-based Fox Rothschild, LLP  for getting the first Client Alert in my hands regarding the Executive Orders President Obama signed into law on January 30, 2009.  Although they apply to federal contractors, they are sure to generate a fair amount of work, as the practicality and cost of implementation, and the results,  conflict unintentionally with the intent to level the playing field for labor organization and the easier implementation of the intent of the NLRA mandates.  As Fox Rothchild points out in the alert, these new Orders go far beyond the current NLRA requirements.

Are you keeping a close eye on Washington?  I’m not talking about politics here, not really.  What I’m referring to are the chances that you will see some serious change initiatives designed to impact various industries, and all in relatively short order.  Some will make it through intact.  Some will languish and die.  And some will be very different when finally signed than originally conceptualized.  One thing is for sure, all of the change, and even the attempted change, will create opportunity for those of you who are watching, preparing, and able to swim fast enough to catch the new wave of work and surf in on it.  So get your antenna up and look for opportunities.

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Just at a time when firms are fiercely competing for highly desirable business clients, comes a whole new realm offering additional business development opportunities. Will you be on the radar screen for these prospects?

Who are the mysterious new prospects to whom I refer? I’m talking about those who increasingly participate in a rapidly expanding online virtual reality world. Participants in virtual reality design a unique online persona, called an Avatar, which becomes the online resident of the virtual world.

Second Life is probably the best known virtual world. It is a 3D online digital world imagined and created by its residents. In Second Life, through interactive computer simulation, participants act through their Avatars and can see, hear and work with simulated objects in a computer-generated environment.

Second Life boasts over 9 million participants from around the globe. Participants are governed by the Terms of Service for this virtual world, which specifically allow Second Life users to retain all intellectual property rights in the digital content they create or own in Second Life. While Second Life is a virtual world, participants conduct transactions in this space cumulatively involving more than $1 million per day. That’s a lot of virtual bucks.

In a very interesting article in Findlaw, Eric Sinrod, a partner in the San Francisco office of Duane Morris LLP, discusses a real-world complaint which has been filed, and arises out of a dispute regarding behavior conducted in the virtual reality.

Interested in hanging out your law firm shingle in virtual terra firma? You can find a review of the various virtual worlds available, make your pick, and then establish your Avatar. Who knows, it may actually lead to real-world clients.

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Every successful rainmaker knows how to ask for referrals. Do you? If not, don’t feel bad, because a lot of attorneys are reluctant to do so, fearing it will make them appear too aggressive. But there are ways to do it which are low key yet amazingly effective.

In a recent article entitled “The Art of Asking for Referrals“, Mark Powers, President of Atticus, walks the reader through a variety of scripts which will work wonderfully.

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I had the pleasure of attending a seminar entitled “Build a Practice from Referrals!!” which was presented by the Delaware Valley Law Firm Marketing Group at the offices of Dilworth Paxson in Philadelphia. I spend a great deal of time assisting law firms with marketing issues, both through the Pennsylvania Bar Association and privately. And I have amassed considerable marketing resources as well. So I was not surprised that there were no epiphanies for me. It was helpful to be reminded of concepts I know so well, and sometimes regard as so fundamental I often fail to emphasize them. Eight stood out clearly as basics we should never forget. You can read about them in an article entitled “Reinforcing Basic Marketing Concepts” which was recently posted to the web site of Freedman Consulting, Inc.

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