Law.com has a new article up that addresses the business value of SEO for law firms; including some good tips on how to get an in-house program up and going.

But what really caught my eye here, was the great personal story about Araceli Parra, a legal assistant about to lose her job who learns some SEO skills, and ends up helping her firm dive a ton of new business off the web! Check out the opening paragraphs:

Araceli Parra was about to lose her job.

The legal secretary’s Oakland, Calif., firm — a DUI specialty practice — was struggling to land clients, and she saw the writing on the wall. But instead of resigning herself to the inevitable, she decided to improve the firm’s marketing efforts to keep herself employed.

Her strategy? Create a killer Web site and make it the most popular site on Google.

“I didn’t know much (about the Web) at the time, so I started going to the library and studying online and went to a seminar called Webmaster World,” she says. “I learned a lot.”

The research paid off. Parra took the firm’s “really bad site” and tore it apart, improving the design and completely reworking the navigation. Most importantly, she created a huge amount of content and fine-tuned the site using guidelines and techniques approved by the major search engines.

The end result? Jackpot. “When I finally launched the fully optimized site, it only took seven days to hit the top of Google,” she says. And the clients began to pour back in. That was two years ago; today, Number1DUIoffice.com is still the first result returned in Google for the keywords “Oakland DUI lawyer.” And all the firm’s eggs are firmly in the online basket, says Parra: “We’re entirely Web-based, and we don’t do any other advertising.”

That’s a great success story, and a testament for anyone looking to take the initiative on a project outside their area of expertise. Not everyone always thinks this way, but they should. Good things happen when you create your own opportunities.

Many people would be surprised to find out how many SEOs first learn their skills on the job, and that includes the legal industry. Over the past year, I’ve had a number of LAs, Paralegals, and Librarians email me and tell similar stories; that they’re doing SEO in-house, or have been tasked with trying to better their firm’s Google rankings. And while I think Araceli Parra’s story isn’t as unique as one might first assume, I do think it was a story that needed to be told.

So bravo to Law.com and freelance writer C.C. Holland for digging a bit deeper. Nicely done!