Effectively Marketing a Solo or Small Law Firm Practice
Deborah Hrbek and Jill Miller, New York Law Journal
Lawyers in a solo or small firm law practice often find themselves intimidated by the business aspects of managing their own firm. Marketing in particular is troubling to attorneys, who have been trained to tread cautiously inside the ethical boundaries that prohibit solicitation. Yet in New York City, simply hanging out a shingle will not bring new clients into the office. In this metropolis with 75,000 attorneys, a lawyer's shingle often comprises simply one of hundreds of names listed in the lobby directory of a midtown high-rise office building. Focused, proactive marketing is essential to the success of the small law practice.
Distinguishing a small firm in the very crowded New York legal community is, undoubtedly, a challenge. The successful ones often focus as much attention on business development as they do on servicing their clients' needs. Marketing the small law practice is about demonstrating to an identifiable target market why this firm is the right fit to handle prospective clients' legal needs.
Before a small firm can be marketed effectively, its target market must be clearly identified.
To do this, the practitioner indulges the fantasy that it is the attorney who selects the client, not vice versa. This can best be accomplished by making a list of the qualities associated with the firm's ideal client -- the kind of person with the kind of case that gets the attorney excited about the practice of law.
IDENTIFYING TARGET CLIENTS AND MARKET
The description of the imaginary perfect client should be as detailed as possible: services needed, circumstance giving rise to need for services, social and economic bracket, personality type (easy or difficult), occupation, mindset and other relevant demographic information.
This is not a judgmental exercise. There is no bad client in an absolute sense. In a city like New York there is an appropriate attorney to handle almost every case imaginable. Rather, the practitioner particularizes the characteristics of the ideal client for his or her firm to service.
Clearly defining the target market better enables the small firm to make wise investments in terms of advertising and networking, and to select the best vehicles for reaching the desired audience.
Successful firms will turn down (and always provide a suitable referral to) clients who do not meet their fundamental criteria. It may seem counterintuitive, particularly during these challenging economic times, but attorneys who decline work outside of their target market necessarily end up doing more of the work they love.
For those who worry about turning work away when clients are few and far between, the remedy is in figuring out how to make the practice more attractive to the firm's ideal client, not in taking on cases that the attorney neither enjoys nor does well. Attorneys who focus on their areas of strength and on clients they enjoy working with tend to be better appreciated by those clients, for whom they are the ideal attorney, and this leads to more (and better quality) referrals.
As an added bonus, well-directed referrals to others tend to foster good will among colleagues, who have a different ideal client description, and who will be delighted to return the favor.
CREATE A BRAND
Branding may sound like a concept related to product development, but it is important for professional service businesses as well. Larger firms that have been in operation for many years have had the advantage of time needed to develop a presence and name in the legal community. Branding is especially important for small law firms that do not have a long and well established reputation.
Branding is the means by which a business owner can influence what others associate with the business or product.
For example, when discussing what hotel to book for a family vacation, a different image comes to mind when considering a Ritz Carlton versus a Marriott versus a Days Inn. An accumulation of various touch points creates the brand or impression that a business can have on the public.
The small firm should develop a concise message about its identity and its services, and develop some points of contact with clients and the public, which help to define the firm's character and image and clarify how the firm differentiates itself from others.
This might be communicated through the caliber, style and tone of the website. It might be done though the decor in the office reception area and the manner in which the firm's telephones are answered.
Every time the firm interfaces with the public, its actions contribute to its message and image -- its "brand" -- and can influence whether a potential client calls this firm or its competitor.
Defining a message can be challenging, as most law firms describe themselves and the services they provide with common traits: attention to detail, diligence, effectiveness and client-service focus. Having one or two points of differentiation can have a positive impact on a client's and the community's impressions of the small firm.
For example, a small immigration firm could brand itself as practicing exclusively in the field of immigration, located in downtown New York City with extended office hours to accommodate clients' work schedules and maintaining staff members who speak over 10 different languages. These points of differentiation will be shared with the public in various ways.
The firm's website can list its hours of operation, emphasize its convenient downtown location and boast the many languages spoken by the staff. A live person can answer the telephone and ask the caller in which language he or she prefers to communicate.
To help establish its expertise in the field of immigration law, the website can contain articles the firm's attorneys have written on immigration, list its attorneys' topical speaking engagements and announce details of future informational programs. The practitioner can produce or contribute to an immigration-related blog that the public can access in order to increase the firm's visibility in the target market online community.
In defining its brand, the small firm can leverage the advantages that are inherent in its small size. For example, consider what the term "boutique law firm" has come to symbolize: smaller-is-better, highly specialized, accessible.
In the small firm, fewer layers of attorneys tend to deal with any particular matter. The client will have greater access to the principal or to a more senior attorney than would be the case at a larger firm. Streamlined representation and lower overhead may allow savings to be passed along to the small firm's clients in the form of lower hourly rates, working under fixed or capped fee arrangements, generous "courtesy credits" for clients who pay on time, or even not charging at all for the minor administrative service items such as basic postage and in-house copying costs.
SERVICING NEEDS OF BUSINESS REFERRERS
Having numerous and steady referral sources are the lifeblood of any law firm.
Referral sources need to be identified and nurtured. The small firm may consider taking annual stock of its top sources of new business and writing down affirmative action steps that will be taken to reconnect with its major referrers. The principal attorneys should analyze what makes these contacts good referral sources, with a view to replicating them elsewhere.
The needs of the referral sources should not be a mystery. Time should be spent not only in developing these important relationships but also determining what each referral source needs and expects from its attorney colleagues. Such discussions should be had periodically, as needs change over time.
Smaller firms are generally able to adapt more quickly to the changing needs of referral sources due to the smaller administrative layers and policies involved to accomplish such changes. In discussing with the referral sources their needs, the attorney can explore:
· What qualities do their clients and contacts look for in an attorney?
· How can the attorney best serve the legal needs of the clients that the referral sources provide?
· If the referral source and the attorney are working together with the client, what works best for the referral source in a collaborative relationship?
Furthermore, valuable information can be gleaned by inviting the referral source to share some examples of disappointing past experiences with other attorneys. This way, pitfalls can be identified and the gap between the legal services delivered and the expectations of clients can be reduced, if not eliminated.
Ideally, once the needs of the business referrers and their clients and contacts are identified, the small firm can take steps to exceed their expectations. In addition, the attorney should always be aware of the referral source's own ideal client, in order to be well positioned to identify and direct potential leads to the referral source where appropriate.
GET OUT TO THE RIGHT PLACES
As a rule, waiting for the telephone to ring is not an effective business development strategy. A small firm must be proactive and make meaningful and consistent efforts to keep its message and presence in front of existing clients, business referrers and potential sources of new clients and new business referrers.
As it is true in many areas of life, success can generally be found in quality rather than quantity. The number of hours available to devote to marketing efforts will be limited at a small firm, where there are generally fewer attorneys available to share in the responsibility of bringing in new clients. Planning properly to maximize the effectiveness of networking and other business development opportunities is critical.
The small firm should analyze which efforts in the past have yielded the best results (be it from participating in or running seminars, writing articles, going on business lunches or participating in networking groups) and allocate time accordingly.
For example, the small firm practitioner can make a list of her top 10 or 20 best referral sources and identify how contact with them was first made. Was it through an office mate or colleague, someone she met at a seminar, or in response to an article she wrote?
If many valuable referral source contacts were initially made through a speaking engagement, then taking steps to give a repeat seminar or a similar program is a worthwhile effort. If many hours were spent working on an article for the popular press that yielded no inquiries, then the next time this type of opportunity presents itself, it should be declined.
It is time well spent to make the effort to consider what the different business development options are, and which of those efforts have the highest likelihood of success.
BE LIKEABLE BUT ALSO AUTHENTIC
People have a tendency to do business with people they like. Of course it helps if the attorney has the requisite educational and professional background, but at the end of the day, even the best qualified attorney in the world will not be retained unless clients have confidence in the lawyer and trust him or her with their legal matter. In other words, the client has to like the lawyer.
This fundamental law of human nature is particularly true for the small law firm practice. Small firm attorneys cannot hide behind the reputation of their firm. They are their own firm's reputation. They are always marketing; when they promptly return a client's call, when they take the time to provide a helpful referral to a prospect outside of the attorney's own practice area, when they give a courtesy credit to a client, when they make sure to be consistently accessible and responsive to client needs. Successful small firm attorneys are those who behave in the kind of manner that makes it easy for their ideal clients to like them.
This is not to suggest that it is appropriate to calculate what type of person an attorney's ideal client likes, and try to be that person. But this simple fact of life, the importance of the likeability factor, has to be borne in mind when identifying that ideal client.
The firm's ideal clients need to be the type of people who appreciate the characteristics and qualities (including the personalities) of the firm's attorneys and staff. It is critical to be authentic: Clients will be keenly attuned to sincerity and will be alienated by disingenuousness.
But it is also important for the principal attorneys to allow their personalities to shine through. For example, the slogan for one New York City personal injury firm is: "Like Having a Lawyer in Your Family." This tag line serves instantly to brand the firm as personable, trustworthy, affordable and honest. It also shows that the principals have a sense of humor, that they are likeable.
Clients often look to small firms for a more personal experience. Small firm attorneys should not be afraid to let their clients see them as real people, albeit in a manner that exudes intelligence, professionalism and expertise.
CUSTOMER SERVICE IS CRITICAL
Client retention is a vital part of marketing for the small practitioner.
The sales work is not done just because the attorney has the signed retainer in hand. Small firm attorneys are highly accountable, probably more so than their larger firm counterparts, whose checks are often cut by the client's corporate accounting department rather than from the client's personal checkbook. As professionals, attorneys often forget that their small law practice is a business like any other service industry. Customer service is critical.
Exceeding client expectations should be the goal. Clients never fail to be pleased and surprised by an attorney's genuine candor and accessibility, in addition to delivering high quality legal services. This is the key to a successful law practice.
*reprinted with permission 2010
