A fun idea germinating from a discussion with Jordan Furlong… Is it possible to reduce a company’s elevator pitch down to the 140 character limit of a twitter entry?  Brevity never being an easy task, it seemed like a challenging & hopefully productive exercise. So, I’m in.  I’ll queue the entry below up on my own account in a few minutes.

If anyone reading would like to also take part, please include a #TEPitch hashtag.  And for those of you not on twitter, here’s what I came up with:

Stem does leg work to help law firms get noticed: in search engines & social web + build grass roots brands, trans 2 profile & MSM #TEPitch

Fitting everything into an entry like this is near impossible, so getting down to the company’s core services was essential.  Obviously, our phone rings here at Stem because we are a lawyer SEO company. That’s a foundation, so I’m putting it right up front. We also stick to working within the legal industry. I think that’s decipherable from the company name, but important for the message. Our development of new ideas, fleshing out of web brands, and the ‘trickle up’ effect on media coverage round out the last few words.

While we deliver a fair bit of consulting, both informally within our retainer service and via written reports, I always like to say that Stem executes projects on behalf of clients, and that our opinions come along for the ride. The word consulting is also a tough term to differentiate, so while ‘doing the leg work‘ may be too casual for some, at least for me, it’s a more expressive way of putting it.

I’m also overlooking some of the web development work we do, but again (& like any elevator pitch) something had to give.  I consider web development a ‘value add’ element we bring to client relationships, and (at least for now) not directly why we get hired.

So there you have it. My tweetable elevator pitch for Stem. If you’d like to try the same for your company or organization (or blog, or ???), please do. The more the merrier!

And… Happy July 4th to all our friends & clients down south!

Cheers,
Steve

For the past couple weeks, Stem client Themis Solutions, which offers the legal case management software Clio, has been running a series of blog posts aimed at demystifying Software as a Solution, or in its more common abbreviated form ‘SaaS‘.

Here’s a quick run-down of Clio’s 10 key aspects for legal SaaS:

1. What is Software as a Service?
2. Why (or why not) choose a SaaS solution?
3. Why web-based practice management?
4. Security
5. Privacy
6. Data availability
7. Total cost of ownership
8. Terms of service
9. Data Migration
10. Offline Access

For more details, link on over and read the entire posts within the series. See: “10 Things Every Lawyer Should Know About Legal SaaS“.

Here’s what Stem clients have been up to throughout the month of June:

• Mike Myers, Bob Espey and Randy McClanahan of McClanahan Myers Espey were each honoured by H-Texas magazine. Myers and Espey were named two of Houston’s top lawyers for civil litigation; McClanahan was named a top lawyer for business litigation.
• BC law firm Clark Wilson LLP was busy guest blogging at Slaw.ca, where established Megawatt and Canadian Trademark Blog writers join forces with new bloggers to produce 10 outstanding posts throughout the week.
• New Jersey criminal defense firm The Law Offices of John Marshall rolled out a new website for its NJ shoplifting defense practice.
• Product injury firm Hissey Kientz introduced a new practice page on herbal fen phen, which contains the chemical ephedra and has been linked to serious side effects.
• At his Nursing Home Abuse Blog, injury attorney Jonathan Rosenfeld took a look at a frequent underlying cause of nursing home falls: hypostatic blood pressure.
• New York injury lawyer John Hochfelder summarized a number of recent injury cases on his blog, including brain injury pain & suffering, stroke victim’s past pain & suffering, and construction site catastrophic injuries. He also looked at finger amputation cases.
• Florida criminal attorney Ron Chapman explored the question of whether Florida’s new DNA law is constitutional or not. The law allows police to take a  DNA sample from anyone arrested for a felony offense.
• Addiction treatment center The Meadows, who graciously support Stem’s Lawyer Addiction blog, published the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of  their alumni magazine, MeadowLark.
• Web-based case management software Clio just wrapped up a 10-part series on what lawyers should know about SaaS, starting with the basics: What is Software as a Service?
• At the Arizona DUI Defense Blog, Phoenix criminal lawyer Lawrence Koplow wondered: what do field sobriety tests prove? Koplow explores the history and development of this type of blood alcohol testing.
• Legal document sharing service JD Supra rounded up its latest contributors, who range from mid-size firms to law students to sole practitioners.

Here’s to a productive second half of 2009!

I’ve been waiting all week to see the final breakdown of posts from Slaw’s second law firm guest blogger: Clark Wilson LLP.

For those that might not know, Clark Wilson is both my former firm and one of our first clients here at Stem.  But beyond that, the lawyers who participated (many who are long time friends) simply did an outstanding job.  Thanks to some fine internal quarterbacking by Jeffrey Vicq, the firm had an ample number of Partners involved, including a few practice group leaders, and a nice representation of practice areas.

Here’s a quick roundup of what CW lawyers posted over the course of the week:

From Bernard Pinsky, who is chairs the firm’s Corporate Finance/Securities and United States Law groups:

• How About Uniformity in Securities Rules?
• Canada Best Market for Business Access to Capital in 2008

From Nicole Byres, who practices with the firm’s Labour & Employment and Energy & Natural Resources groups.

• Focus on Employees: The Hidden Costs of Restructuring a Business

From Larry Munn, who chairs the firm’s Privacy Law Group and blogs at Canadian Trademark Blog:

• Canada’s Lawful Access Legislation: Civil Rights and Privacy Concerns

From John Fiddick, who’s a member of Clark Wilson’s Business Litigation and Insolvency & Restructuring Law groups:

• Stuck at the Border: New Challenges to the Registration of Judgments

From Warren Brazier, who chairs the firm’s Energy & Natural Resources Group (and also blogs at Megawatt: BC Renewable Energy Law Blog):

• British Columbia – Becoming a Renewable Energy Powerhouse

From Sarah Jones who’s a member of the firm’s Commercial Real Estate, Municipal Law, and Environmental Law groups:

• Suddenly …Nothing Happened! Despite Media Hysteria, Outs for Pre-Sale Condo Purchasers Remain the Same

From Neil Melliship,who chairs Clark Wilson’s Technology & Intellectual Property practice group and contributes to the Canadian Trademark Blog:

• Maybe the Jury Didn’t Like the Songs

From Brent Clark, who practices with the firm’s Commercial Lending and Insolvency & Restructuring groups:

• A Risky Business for BC Lenders

From Michael Jaworski, who’s a member of the firm Construction, P3 law, and Corporate groups, and edits the firm’s construction industry newsletter, Legal Framework:

• The Emerging Climate Consciousness – Public Company Disclosure and Beyond

Congratulations, everyone, on a very successful weeks’ blogging!

It’s been a couple months since our last lawblogs.ca update. Here’s a list of the latest additions:

• Magali Lepage, LL.B
• James Hatton on Licensing
• Nimonik – Environmental Regulations Simplified
• Res Ipsa Loquitur (Pamela Pengelley)
• Environmental, Energy, and Resources Law (Davis LLP)
• Family Law (Davis LLP)
• Democracy Law Blog (Clayton Whitman)
• The Litigator Live (Affleck Greene McMurtry)
• Legal Nurses of Canada
• Canadian HR Reporter (Jeffrey R. Smith)
• Canada Law Blog
• Trade Lawyers Blog
• Donna Neff’s Law Blog (Neff Law Office Professional Corporation)
• Toronto Trial Lawyer’s Blog (Allan Rouben)

A total of 14 new Canadian law blogs since our April update. Congratulations to all, and as always, let us know of any that are missing, and we’ll get them added ASAP.

In an ongoing effort here at Stem, we’ve been tracking the growth of the “Law Practice Industry” category on LinkedIn. For a bit more than a year now, we’ve run periodic searches on Google to see how many profile pages are indexed which include the industry class ‘law practice industry’.

Predictably, but still impressively, that number continues to grow. June’s number now shows 840,000 people within the law practice industry. In reviewing these profiles, we see a very high percentage of those people are lawyers; although it is an industry class and not professional.

With all factors consistent on each dated sample, here’s how things have stacked up:

• April 2008: 118,000
• June 2008: 216,000
• December 2008: 406,000
• March 2009: 563,000
• June 2009: 840,000

So what’s new in the world of lawyers on LinkedIn? A couple of observations:

• Groups: From legal marketing and technology to practice-specific groups for almost any area of law you can think of, lawyers on LinkedIn are getting more value out of their network by engaging in discussion. Groups are being used for Job postings, vendor recommendations, general questions, and sharing articles and links.
• Applications: Applications are basically widgets; tools that allow you to add external data into your LinkedIn profile. Two popular amongst lawyers are the Slideshare Presentations app, which lets you share presentations; and the RSS feed display, where you can post the feed from your blog, JD Supra documents, or any other content you like.
• Company pages: Just as important as individual profiles are company pages within LinkedIn. For instance, Clark Wilson’s profile includes a description of the firm’s services, a snapshot of current and former employees, location and contact details, and interesting auto-generated statistics such as median age, gender split, and top schools. Savvy law firms and other companies in the industry recognize this as a valuable opportunity to sculpt their online image.

Want a quasi brave prediction? That 840K number is going to be well over a million profiles by September 1st.

And thank-you to Larry Bodine for his email request to update the numbers!

May is almost over, so we’re due for our usual roundup of Stem client news and achievements. Here’s a look a what everyone’s been up to since our last update:

• West Palm Beach Criminal Lawyer Blog author Ron Chapman explains the process of administrative expunction at length at his Florida Criminal Records FAQ website.
• Bernard Pinsky, Chair of Clark Wilson LLP’s Corporate Finance / Securities Group, has authored a chapter in a new book, Securities Regulatory Compliance in Canada. The book addresses the similarities and differences between Canadian and U.S. securities regulation, and discusses strategies for cross-border compliance.
• Houston-based contigency fee litigation firm McClanahan Myers Espey LLP is celebrating partner Randy McClanahan, who was recently elected President of the Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists.
• The Meadows Addiction Treatment Center was pleased to announce the opening of The Meadows Texas, a new 8-person treatment facility in the Sam Houston National Forest, Montgomery Township.
• Hissey Kientz LLP rolled out its completely revamped products injury firm website, hkllp.com. The site has a fresh new look and includes more multimedia and practice pages, including one for Raptiva.
• At their new blog, New Jersey DWI Lawyer Blog, The Law Offices of John Marshall recently discussed tougher drunk driving penalties proposed by the State Senate of New Jersey.
• As noted on JD Scoop and many other places, JD Supra launched Law Centers: categories of shared legal documents organized by subjects. These new information centers maximize exposure for contributors and make it easier for visitors to JD Supra to find timely, relevant commentary and precedents on a wide variety of topics.
• Chicago nursing home lawyer Jonathan Rosenfeld has spun off a new FAQ website based on the bed sores category on his blog. The site features information, photos, and resources on this unfortunate condition, which is also known as pressure ulcers or decubitus ulcers.
• On their China Law Insight blog, King & Wood’s PRC lawyers discuss a new Interpretation from the Supreme People’s Court, which explains what constitutes a “famous” trademark in China.
• New York injury attorney John Hochfelder has republished his series of Hochfelder Reports: these reports give in-depth explanations of damages for various injuries in New York state, including back injuries, arm fractures, and traumatic brain injuries.
• And finally, our practice management software client Clio happily shared the results of an ABA Legal Technology survey that shows 22% of sole practitioners use an SaaS solution, along with more of the survey’s findings on lawyers’ use of technology.

We’ll be back again next month with more interesting projects and accomplishments.

In a press release that came out in early March, LexisNexis released their CRM product Interaction into the legal SaaS marketplace. Perhaps a sign that web-based software has finally “arrived”, the release itself was quite telling on a number of fronts.

First, the quote from Bill Wilshire, Lexis VP of CRM/Analytics:

“We estimate that the streamlined efficiencies of InterAction onDemand hosted software will enable a firm with 100 attorneys to realize average cost savings of about 22 percent over three years as a result of less hardware, staffing and licenses.”

This is a great statistic for web-software companies out there, including our own legal web software client, who can now point to a direct comparison (desktop application to SaaS) and show cost savings. Take that number, and identify the higher technology overhead (per lawyer) with smaller firms, and the sales proposition improves.

Second, the release shows that the legal web software market isn’t just for solos & small firms. Interaction is an enterprise CRM solution, and if Lexis can offer it to a firm of 100-lawyers, then the tipping point to a firm of thousands isn’t far off.  I don’t think that’s a prediction, that’s the future.

And lastly, I’m wondering if the web may be a merger point between all those software co. acquisitions and the Wexus duopoly of legal publishing products. Content is valuable when it hits eyeballs. In the current firm model, that means application software. Tomorrow?  Let’s just say it wouldn’t be surprising to see legal publishers hedging their bets; and perhaps using the web to deliver a unifying online product.

An item just posted on the Stem news page: JD Supra announced its new law centers this morning; a feature that should add both context & browsablity to their community-driven collections.

The law centers are broken down into four core divisions: personal law, business law, government law, and law practice management; with each major area then divided into related sub-centers.

What I like generally about this addition, is that JD Supra seems much easier for the casual visitor. If you’re trying to track down an employment lawyer or personal injury lawyer, there’s now a single location I can point people to (or bookmark) that shows the latest postings, and who are leading contributors.

I also like the top-5 contributor list on each page’s sidebar, which is based on the publishing track record within the category. The top-10 contributor list on the homepage is great for larger groups or big contributors, but these top-5 lists are a great way to stand out with 20 to 50 documents.

And if I put my SEO hat on for a moment, the practice centers also offer a host of new landing page opportunities for topical searches from the search engines. Making legal content more accessibile is JD Supra’s goal, and the additional search exposure adds to that offering.  I expect the link value from the practice centers will distribute evenly across the site, and more importantly, into each of the content items. Both the contributor profile pages and the content pages should see an ongoing benefit.

But probably the biggest difference for me, is the balance JD Supra now has between search and browse. As many of my fellow law librarians can tell you, information seekers often vary in terms of their search-vs-browse orientation.  Not everyone is the same in that regard.  What JD Supra had been lacking, was the functionality to support the browsing style.  The practice centers, in my view, fill that gap and create a more complete service.

Congratulations to everyone at JD Supra!

Project work has been plentiful here at Stem recently (which I’m blaming for my lack of blog posts). And like so many of you whose inboxes are constantly running out of control, I found myself needing to take additional action this week.

On Wednesday, notifications for twitter follows and friendfeed alone peaked at 45 emails, so I decided to route them around my inbox. We use Google apps for business, but the same thing can be done with Outlook or exchange. I simply created a filter for all incoming email from the two services, sending these messages into their own folder, and archiving them out of my inbox.

So here’s my new routine: I’ll scan these ever day or so, and will delete or follow back on Fridays.

Is this novel or innovative? Not at all. Lots of friends have recommended this to me for some time. If the volume had been a little lower, I’d probably have put up with it…  But setting the bar a little lower isn’t always a bad thing, and inbox management helps everyone.  So I’m passing it along.

April has flown by, but the news & projects continue to come for Stem clients. Here’s our monthly roundup of client successes:

• New York injury lawyer John Hochfelder hosted Blawg Review #209, and dedicated the legal blogging roundup to his late father. The Blawg Review was enormously well-received, and mentioned by at least a dozen other bloggers, who praised John’s creative and touching approach.
• Clio co-founder Jack Newton spoke at the LegalIT 3.0 conference in Montreal earlier this month, delivering a presentation called “10 Things Every Lawyer Should Know about Software-as-a-Service“. And TechnoLawyer dubbed Clio a “Best in Show” at this year’s ABA TechShow 2009.
• Contingency fee litigation firm McClanahan Myers Espey was pleased to announce that the firm’s client, Clear Correct, Inc., resolved its patent infringement dispute against competitor Align Technology.
• Nursing home lawyer Jonathan Rosenfeld wrote an article for Long Term Living Magazine on the Federal Trade Commission’s “Red Flag Rule” and how it will enhance privacy in nursing homes.
• Hissey Kientz LLP, a product injury law firm, re-launched its firm website.  With a fresh, clean look, the new site features expanded multimedia, news, and detailed information about the drugs, devices, and injuries the firm specializes in.
• At China Law Insight, King & Wood PRC lawyers wrote recently about changes to insurance law in China, as well as the country’s efforts to adapt to the changing global auto industry.
• Lyall Knott, Q.C., a senior partner at BC law firm Clark Wilson, was appointed to the International Joint Commission (IJC) as a Canadian commissioner.  The IJC is an independent, binational body that helps prevent and resolve water-related disputes along the Canada-US boundary.
• Our New Jersey criminal attorney client, The Law Offices of John Marshall, unveiled both a new website (New Jersey Marijuana Lawyer) and new blog (New Jersey DWI Lawyer Blog). The firm also added a service page for animal and dog bites to its personal injury website.
• The Meadows Addiction Treatment Center announced a new program called Integrated Evaluation, which combines the expertise of medical and mental health professionals and offers clients a comprehensive, thorough evaluation.
• West Palm Beach criminal lawyer Ron Chapman wrote about when a judge can increase a bond amount, and what constitutes “good cause” in order to do so.
• At JD Scoop, there’s a great post with practical ideas on “What Documents Should I Post on JD Supra“? Adrien Lurssen explains six main types of documents and they benefits and value associated with each.

We’ll be back next month to share more!

My latest Web Law Connected column is now posted on Slaw and on JD Supra.  The article is titled Lawyer Twitter Practices: 29 Do’s and Don’ts and offers an intemized list of ways lawyers are currently using Twitter. As the title alludes, some of those practices are helping to support the user’s professional reputation, and some are not.

If this is a topic that you’re looking to explore further, I have two additional recommendations. First, take the time to work through the comments at the bottom of the Slaw article. There were a number of great suggestions made there.  And second, drop over to Jordan Furlong’s Law21 and read his thoughts on Twitter. There wasn’t much duplication between the two articles, and Jordan’s post addresses a number of issues I didn’t get to.

Stem client John Hochfelder is the host of this week’s blawg review, which comes with an interesting personal touch – the review is both dedicated to, and the theme guided by, the life of his late father.  The publication date was also timed nicely for today, his father’s birthday.

And before anyone guesses wrong, the theme idea and craftsmanship was all John – So full credit to him!  And really, you don’t contrive a story like this.

What I would like to write about, web strategy wise, is the opportunity Blawg Review provides for legal bloggers looking to establish themselves.  Around since its first edition in April 2005, Blawg Review is one of the oldest and can certainly now be described as one of the strongest rotating blog carnivals. Each week someone new hosts the review on their blog, offering a personalized round-up of commentary (in this case, legal blogs) from the previous week.

Hosting a blog carnival has always been a solid web-marketing tactic, but like most things that work well in the online space, isn’t always easy to pinpoint why.

Two of the big issues I see with many new bloggers is that they are often: link-poor and (web) relationship deprived. Getting past those barriers, while difficult, requires: 1) writing commentary that is substantive & genuine in tone and 2) having the personal web-network of relationships that can help increase exposure.  Gaining attention in the blogosphere, simply put, requires both ‘the steak’ and ‘the sizzle’.

So how does hosting a carnival like Blawg Review help? A couple of ways. First, there’s a benefit on the link front – the host blog usually receives its fair share of quality incoming links. Links, I might add, that are based on substance (not schemes) and links that are strong on subject relevance.

And second, the host blog puts itself on the radar of the legal blogging community.  At a number likely over 5000 now, that’s not always an easy task.

Now let me make my confession (’cause Ed’s waiting for it) – I’ve never actually hosted Blawg Review.  So now that I’ve told you what a great idea hosting is, let me remedy my cobbler’s kids routine and say that I’m signed on to host while the Olympics are on in Vancouver (as is the Canadian Trademark Blog).

This is something I regret not giving priority to when I first started Stem, and probably a lesson to be learned by others who are looking to raise their own blogging profile.

A self-acknowledged vanity item: I was one of the video interviewees (embedded below) on the newly launched LexConference website that was covering ABA Techshow.

ABA TECHSHOW 2009 Interviews: Steve Matthews of Stem Legal from LexConference on Vimeo.

One of the groundwork slides in my referral networking session at ABA Techshow with Reid Trautz was Stem’s ongoing tracking of the “law practice industry” category on LinkedIn.  The slide quoted the number of profile pages indexed by Google on four different dates over the course of the last year. Those were:

• April 2008: 118,000
• June 2008: 216,000
• December 2008: 406,000
• March 2009: 563,000

And here is the associated graph:

The question I posed to attendees was this: What do you think these numbers are going to look like in a year’s time? two years? three years?  The point, of course, is that the adoption rate is skyrocketing. It’s also important to recognize that each of these profile pages was created by, and actively managed by, the participant’s effort.  Not a massive updating process by firms to keep their records current in a directory – but based upon actual participation.

For me, that’s the promise of the read write web.  And to those looking for proof of Susskind’s ideas within the 2009 Techshow keynote, look no further.