The second item should be of great interest to many law firm Marketing Directors. Think: ‘brand monitoring’.  If you’re responsible for tracking mentions of your firm’s lawyers or the firm’s name online, this will be a tool that you’ll want to add to your routine.

Unfortunately, Google+ does not have RSS feeds enabled yet; so automating the notifications for these mentions isn’t possible.  But with the release of the G+ API last week, things are moving in the right direction, and hopefully this kind of solution won’t be far off.

Accordingly, smaller firms need to work harder not just to differentiate themselves on a basis unrelated to size, but also to firmly establish that “fewer lawyers” does not correspond with “lower quality.” Differentiation usually comes in three categories:

Focus: Large full-service firms are vulnerable to the suggestion that trying to do everything means they don’t do any one thing extremely well. Small firms focused on a particular narrow practice area can claim “boutique expertise” and “niche specialization” to boost their attractiveness.

Service: Small businesses have always emphasized their “personal touch,” and no market could use that touch more than law. Extraordinary standards of client response, communication, accessibility and service can set smaller law firms apart from the giants, which rarely prioritize these things.

Price: Proceed with caution, because “lower price = lower quality” is a powerful presumption in this market; in addition, you don’t want to price yourself below profitability. But lower overhead and more efficient procedures can raise legitimate price advantages and should be promoted as such.

Online marketing is an excellent way for smaller firms to express these differentiators, because it scales so easily and affordably. You can’t afford full-page ads in a national magazine or billboards at the airport and you shouldn’t try — leave mass marketing to the mass firms. A small law firm can punch far above its weight class through a superb website, a powerhouse blog, tremendous content distribution, and a hard-earned reputation for great results on a small budget. Here are some suggestions for each of the foregoing categories.

1. Focus. This is where the strongest ties can be created between a firm’s strategic positioning and its online marketing. Here are a few thoughts:

• Generate lots of superb content on your focused practice area.
• Promote your specialties throughout your website, principally on your practice area page, your lawyer biographies, and your home page.
• Choose the few things (if not the one thing) you want to be known for and push it hard.
• Publish at least one blog on your narrow practice area and update it at least once week.
• If there are profitable sub-niches, isolate each topic in a separate sub-category.
• Use Twitter, JD Supra, and LinkedIn as distribution channels for your content.
• Identify industry or other community media outlets in this area and strike up relationships with their editors.

Make it clear to the world that you own this practice area in this market, that no other firm knows as much or can turn out as much insightful and relevant insight as your firm. Resist the temptation to generalize as a fallback position; have confidence in your ability to serve your chosen niches and make it what you’re known for.

2. Service. Many small firms, however, find themselves obliged by circumstance to generalize their practice and/or their market; but that doesn’t mean they can’t still stand out. Extraordinary client service is within the reach of every law firm of every size and type.

• Choose a client service standard at which you can be (and want to be) exceptional and make it a core element of your practice, e.g.,

1. Return every call the same day or within 24 hours;
2. Guarantee clients their money back if they’re not fully satisfied with your work;
3. Give clients 24/7 access to a private website for status and billing updates on their files, but send them a written update every month regardless.

• Then make this feature of your business the backbone of your (online) marketing, e.g.:

1. Write a blog about your fixed-fee approach to billing or your relentless focus on customers.
2. Cover your website with testimonials from clients raving about your service standards.
3. Pitch articles to journalists about the personalized legal audits you create for every client or the training you give your lawyers and staff in emotional intelligence.

Find the service-based hook that will set you apart in a tough market and become famous for it.

3. Price. The risks of marketing on price are detailed above. Nevertheless, we’re now in a period of great economic turmoil that could go deeper and longer than many people suspect, so it would be unwise to ignore price as a competitive advantage. This is especially the case for smaller firms, since they disproportionately serve individuals and small businesses hit hardest by the recession, and because price is a factor upon which large firms simply cannot compete, for structural and cultural reasons.

• Document automation, cloud-based practice management software, virtual assistants and project management are just a few of the ways in which internal costs can be reduced so as to allow lower prices without consequent hits to profitability, quality or reputation.
• Market these measures: tell the world about the programs, practices and priorities you use to reduce costs.
• Blogs, newsletters, Twitter accounts, and press releases should relentlessly use terms like “efficient” “automated,” “streamlined,” “user-friendly” and “systematized.”
• Use your content production and publishing arms to ensure that your firm is known not simply for being affordable, but for being smartly affordable.
• The key to marketing on price is to articulate the cause of the price advantage — you cannot let clients perceive that you cost less because you’re not as good. You cost less because you run a tighter ship.

In terms of marketing, survival and success for small firms in the decade to come rests on one thing: being remarkable. It almost doesn’t matter what you’re remarkable for — what you do, who you do it for, how you deliver it, how you price it, how you relate to your clients, whatever. What matters is that you stand out, that there’s something arresting and noteworthy about you and your firm. Know what sets you apart — and then take steps to ensure the rest of the world finds out.

The phrase “online branding,” however, can confuse firms into thinking that the brand must have something to do with social media. My column contends that firms need to establish their actual real-world “brand” first — once that prerequisite is met, then they can start applying various “online” tactics to help implement it. This point is worth a little more exploration.

Social media is not a marketing or business development strategy, any more than writing articles or speaking at CLEs or buying magazine advertisements is a strategy. Social media is a tactic, a means by which a firm’s marketing or BD strategy can be executed.

Nor is branding a strategy. Branding, crafted deliberately and executed successfully, is also a tactic, a means by which a consistent client experience is developed to further the firm’s strategic objectives.

Now, your brand can be based on social media, if you want to be known as the law firm that maintains 10 practice-specific Twitter accounts updated daily with practical client information. Likewise, your social media can be based on your brand, if you want to create a blog that focuses on client reaction to your 100% satisfaction guarantee.

But both are merely ways to achieve the firm’s strategy. Thinking of it that way might help firms distinguish their online means from their real-world ends.

After reading it, there will be little doubt that I am enthusiastic.  And frankly, after several years of “ho-hum” evolution online, Google+ is a welcome addition.  I am particularly excited about its potential to build upon the concept of social networking, creating ties to the tangible business results that Google has delivered in the past.

I also realize that I can bluster all I want about lawyers and firms becoming ‘early adopters’.  Those that currently see new files coming through the door via their websites and web presence will be the quickest converts.  But after that, the questioning will begin…  Is there enough time to manage yet another social network? How does it compare against our other in-house social media projects?

As I said in the article, benchmark your firm website’s referral metrics.  Google+ may not have the adoption numbers (yet); but the parent company does likely hold the number one spot for sending people to the webpages that describe your firm and its services.   In my view, that’s a potential worth betting on.

For more than a century, newspapers, radio and television have dominated public discourse, to the point that we collectively think of them as a colossal wave of content called the “media.” But that’s not accurate. Newspapers, radio and TV don’t create content — they distribute it. The word “media” actually signifies empty vehicles or containers used to carry something of substance. Reporters create content; radio playwrights create content; sitcom producers create content; newsprint, radio waves and TV signals don’t. The “media” are simply the mechanisms by which this content is profitably sold and efficiently circulated to the end user (at virtually no charge, thanks to advertising).

We need to understand Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter in the same way: they’re media. None of these gargantuan social networks creates one ounce of content (and neither does Google, by the way). They distribute other people’s content to their users, and they’re working on essentially the same advertising-driven business model as newspapers and TV. The significant difference between “old” and “new” media is that in the latter case, the content’s consumers are often also the content producers. (Often, but not always: Hulu should eventually trump YouTube, for example, because more people want to watch professionally produced content than home videos of babies and kittens. And as the Bin Laden story illustrates, Twitter amplifies official news, but it doesn’t create it.)

Now, blogs are not media. Blogs are content. A blog is a one-person (or one-organization) publishing house with a narrow editorial focus, very low costs, and an extremely small number of authors. In terms law firms are familiar with, a blog is an electronic newsletter published on a web page and updated in real time. Your law firm can create and maintain a blog because your law firm produces content — principally through your lawyers’ expression of their knowledge and insights in their subject areas.

Your firm might be quite good at creating content (although 80% of what lawyers write and say could be written and said far more clearly and usefully, from their audience’s perspective). But your firm, in all likelihood, is not very good at distributing content. Your mail and email lists are small, and anyway, unsolicited content delivered through these media nowadays is very likely to be quickly recycled or deleted. And it’s not like you own a printing plant.

So you need a better distribution system for your content. Up until about five years ago, you’d have had to try getting your lawyers’ articles or insights featured in newspapers and magazines. But those media have very narrow doors through which tons of legal content is trying to squeeze; the entry costs are high. But then along came Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and suddenly you had a range of extraordinarily powerful and accessible distribution platforms within easy reach. Hundreds of millions of people collectively access content through these services every day, and you can add your content to these vehicles with tremendous ease.

So this is the first thing lawyers need to understand: they are content producers, but they are not content distributors. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are distributors, and law firms should channel their content (through blogs, newsletters, podcasts, videos, whatever) into these vehicles. When you hear someone say that “lawyers ought to be using social media,” this is what they mean (or what they should mean, anyway).

That’s the first point. Here’s the second: social media are actually ideal for lawyers, because both social media and law practices rely on the same functionality: the recommendation.

• Twitter lives and breathes through the ReTweet: a recommendation (through repetition or forwarding) by one user of insightful, funny, or important content in another user’s Tweet. The ReTweet rewards the creator of a high-quality Tweet with peer recognition and a wider audience for his or her information, but this only works because the ReTweeter’s readers trust his or her judgment and will pay attention to his or her endorsement.
• Facebook’s Like button, which was on zero websites when it first launched and is on 2.5 million one year later, is nothing but a recommendation engine: one user’s decision to lend his or her credibility to a person, place or thing via an endorsement. (It’s also the basis of Facebook’s advertising hopes, by the way). If your friend Likes something, you’re more inclined to give it a look because of that recommendation.
• LinkedIn drives users’ desire for better career prospects through its Recommend function: if a direct contact in your network has recommended the work of another, that person earns instant credibility with you. But you don’t even need a specific Recommendation: just the fact that a person on LinkedIn is directly connected to your colleague or friend can provide at least a small degree of confidence in that person’s bona fides.

And the recommendation, as we all know, also happens to be the core business development tool of the legal profession. A potential client might come to you because she was dazzled by an article you wrote or an interview you gave. She might come to you because you were charming and approachable at a community event. She might come to you because your Yellow Pages ad was the biggest and yellowest.

But more often than not, a client comes to a lawyer because a family member, friend or colleague whom she trusts recommended that lawyer. It’s a truism that the best marketing a lawyer can do is to serve a client successfully and well; lawyers who accomplish that feat can and do expect new business to flow in through the client’s recommendations.

That’s what I think lawyers should keep in mind when considering how to use social media in their marketing and business development efforts. What powers social media and what powers legal marketing is really the same thing: the trustworthy recommendation. So you might want to think about ways to expand that common ground between your practice and the increasingly crowded and chaotic — but really remarkably simple — social media world.

Earlier this year, Facebook introduced a new feature called “Sponsored Stories.” The name is half-accurate: they’re certainly sponsored, but it’s a stretch to call them stories. Currently, in your Facebook news stream, you’re notified whenever one of your friends clicks the “Like” button on a Facebook page — or in fact, on any page anywhere on the internet (such as an article on CNN.com or at The Onion).

Nothing unusual there — part of the fun of Facebook is that you can point your friends in the direction of something interesting or amusing simply by “Liking” it. It costs nothing to Like and costs nothing to notice the Like, which is why most news streams are filled with Likes, and after awhile you stop paying much attention to them. Facebook has long wanted to leverage this sort of activity by its users, but it learned from its 2008 Beacon debacle not to automatically broadcast news of a user’s purchases to his or her friends. So it had to come up with something else. Now it has.

Facebook has hatched a plan to monetize the Like. “Sponsored Stories” offers businesses the opportunity to upgrade the impact of a Like, moving it out of the ordinary news stream and into a separate box on the right-hand side of the column. Every time a user Likes a product or service, checks in at a coffee shop or shoe store, or otherwise connects with a company that has paid to join the Sponsored Stories program, the box appears on the page of all of that user’s friends. In turn, if that friend Likes the Sponsored Story or the product behind it, that fact is posted to all of his or her friends’ pages, and so forth. This video explains how it works, and this Mashable article provides more details.

What’s Facebook up to? MIT’s Technology Review answers that question in an intriguing article titled, “You are the ad.” Some excerpts:

Facebook aims to be not just a place to advertise but an entirely new way to advertise — one that uses the power of social networks to create and amplify brand messages. In essence, the company is pushing a highly charged version of word of mouth, long seen as the most valuable of all marketing because people view friends’ recommendations as more credible than marketers’. …

“This is in many ways the Holy Grail of marketing: making your customers your marketers,” says [Facebook COO Sheryl] Sandberg…. “For the first time, you can do word-of-mouth marketing at massive scale.” To put it another way, when we use Facebook we no longer just view the ad; we become the ad.

What sets Facebook apart from online rivals, especially Google, is that its advertising is aimed not at influencing immediate purchases but at branding, something online ads have never done very well. “We’re not really demand fulfillment, when you’ve already figured out what you’re going to buy — that’s search,” explains Sandberg … “We’re demand generation, before you know you want something.”

This is something altogether new in the online advertising world, and although it’s off to a relatively slow start, “Sponsored Stories” taps into a very real facet of social networks: a genuine interest in what your friends like to read, use and do. Facebook is absolutely right that recommendations and word-of-mouth are the most powerful marketing tools, and it realizes that shaping brands — “demand generation” — is poised to pick up where traditional advertising (including Google’s search function) leaves off. If this works, Facebook can transform itself from a social phenomenon into a marketing juggernaut.

Why does any of this matter to law firms? Because personal recommendations and referrals just happen to be the way most consumers and small businesses (and a number of large companies too, I’ll wager) choose a lawyer. What did you do the last time you needed a lawyer in an unfamiliar area of practice for a personal matter? Most likely, you asked a friend or family member who they’ve used in the past or who they’d recommend. And when it comes to friends and family members, Facebook has about 600 million of them on hand.

So consider the result of a lawyer or law firm signing up for the “Sponsored Stories” program. The firm’s Facebook page already has a “Like” button, but the firm’s website and blog could add such buttons too. Every time a Facebook member “Likes” something about the firm, that fact is promoted to all the member’s friends.

Now, how many of those friends will be looking for a lawyer at that very moment? Vanishingly few — people looking for lawyers at a given moment are using Google. But those friends will all see the recommendation, will take note of the firm’s name, and will lodge that information somewhere in their cerebral cortex, theoretically to be retrieved when the need for a lawyer does arise — or more interestingly, will perhaps get them thinking about their own nagging legal needs. That’s demand generation, and that’s a very intriguing concept for a legal profession looking for new sources of business.

Caveats abound. Most midsize, large, and full-service firms would find little value in a service like this today (although in future, who knows the degree to which even the biggest corporate GCs will be using Facebook). As the MIT article notes, “Sponsored Stories” is in its infancy and hasn’t come close to Google’s ad revenue; the whole project might be abandoned if it doesn’t fly (although Zuckerberg & Co. seem deeply committed to it). Facebook itself has no guarantee of a long and fulfilling existence.

But the core of an extremely interesting concept for online legal marketing is definitely here. Good lawyers create relationships of trust and reputations for reliability with their clients. Personal endorsements from trusted friends are a very powerful tool for generating legal business. Any company that can connect these facts and create a relationship cascade through a social media platform should get the legal profession’s attention.

The firm has two free seminars coming up. The first is on Sept. 22nd in Toronto, where they’ve partnered with Marsh Canada, PwC and RBC Canada on Tools & Strategies for Canadian biotech companies to succeed.  And the second is out here in Vancouver on Sept. 21st, where they’ll present to biotech companies on Preparing and Packaging Your Business for a Deal.  The firm also announced the winners of their high school Biotech essay contest this week.

How does this relate back to marketing? There are two key elements worth noting: (1) timing and (2) industry participation.  Whether it’s online marketing or not, this is a great example of how to position your services in front of an industry:

• Partner with complementary groups and services;
• Give away as much as you can, to the right audience;
• Be aware of the timing of industry events, and when that group might be most receptive to your offering; and
• Support industry growth in an altruistic way, especially at “grass roots” levels.

There’s nothing wrong with sponsoring events or an Association, but it’s not hard to imagine the positive impact of this type of participation. Yes, participating requires a little more work; but it also demonstrates long term commitment. Closer relationships are developed, and really, this is business networking at its finest.

Could digital marketing and the web play a role? Of course. The presentations could be captured on video and shared on Youtube, the events live-blogged or tweeted, or the presentation slides distributed on Slideshare. The possibilities are endless.  However, what’s important is if the message will resonate — which makes that ‘altruistic’ element so important.  Technology is only an amplifier.  Participation, on the other hand, leaves a lasting impression.

His mistake wasn’t a mild one.  It wasn’t a bad call between sans serif or serif, or even an overly conservative fixation on Times New Roman.  No, instead  Mr. Gilbert’s choice was the ever mockable Comic Sans.  The design pundits on Twitter were chuckling about it so much, CNN was compelled to cover the story. Really. Over a font choice!

It’s a mild-wakeup call for all of us.  Not in terms of a potential embarrassment like this, but rather to reconsider the impression that different type face choices can make.  That while some font choices support the credibility of the writer, making the wrong one – Comic Sans topping that list – can do real damage to the message.  Need a refresher?  Check out the website Typography for Lawyers.  I can’t say I agree 100% with the advice, but a lot of it I do.

I’d also like to add a couple of my own tips:

1. Establish management buy-in first. Who stands up to the Partner that wants to choose their own font?  Or worse, wants to choose a new font every month? If the answer is ‘who cares…’, don’t bother investing your time creating standards.
2. When possible, however, creating approved firm standards for font face style & typography can help. Embedding those standards into printed work, forms production, templates, etc. can save a lot of headaches. It can also reduce internal bickering; and support those individuals tasked with maintaining consistent application.
3. For firms with a visual identity guide or style guide, be sure to include these font & typography standards. Define the font face usage not only in print materials, but also in digital placements. What are the acceptable line heights, kerning (space between letters)?
4. Delete Comic Sans off of every new workstation your firm purchases.  Nip those unsightly system fonts before they cause problems! :)

For the generations of lawyers who’ve spent the better portion of their lives absorbing marketing and advertising, especially via unidirectional channels such as television, there’s a real need to disconnect from that experience.  Those who grasp the concept of “paying it forward” early (think altruism, educating, and connecting) will most often develop a large and mature network of web-based relationships. Those that don’t…  are destined to invest hours into the tools, and gain little traction.

Point being? If you’re not obtaining new relationships with your web marketing efforts, it may be time to work a little harder on ‘outreach’; and ease off on the frequency (and intensity) of your marketing message.  Relationships are the number one objective for your marketing success online; which brings me to the second central message of the column, SEO without spam.

Great SEO is dependent on these relationships, especially relationships with other online publishers. Let me spell it out in SEO terms:

• a large social network translates into reciprocal linking (linking to and from others in your online social circle) ;
• that network of links will grow in size boosting your link popularity (Google PageRank, and the like);
• link networks are not only valuable when in sizable number, but also in terms of domain diversity (not the same people always linking in – new relationships help shape this diversity);
• websites that link in based on similar topic coverage are better aligned and authentic (also valued by the search engines);
• similar subject websites also generate links within the body of the page’s text (valued more by the search engines, compared to blogroll links or footer links).

Websites that are really great performers in the search engines – call it ‘link juice’, call it what you will,  have this kind of link network behind them. On-page SEO tactics aside, the real “silver bullet” to SEO rankings is relationships.  Kill those, and you kill your SEO potential.

Unsolicited (or unexpected) commercial messages (a.k.a. spam) kills marketing – good SEO & credibility are just the first casualties. Fortunately the answer is very simple: hang out your shingle and do your business on your website. If your web travels take you elsewhere…  be yourself, be professional, and leave the salesman at home.

These are both great resources, and I highly recommend them, but two important points caught my eye:

1. The tactical relationships between the stakeholder groups — Firm > Practice Groups > Professionals (or in our case, Lawyers). Each may have unique interests, but are also aligned to the organization’s business interests, such as client satisfaction and the marketing cycle.  Nothing exists in a vacuum – even individual marketing, and personal marketing plans, or PMPs, need to reflect this.
2. Web marketing tactics (obviously my primary interest) are much more valuable when dictated by business planning.  If the connections between PMPs and practice marketing or firm marketing is established early, the process of raising profiles at an individual level is much easier. And more so, the end result of those operations will be more satisfying to the company as a whole, because more stakeholder groups were considered earlier.

Congratulations to Michelle on what looks like a great presentation. And to this blog’s readers, enjoy her shared materials!

The term ‘law’ produced only 59 logos, so it’s not particularly heavy on legal examples;  but a database of 200K operational logo designs may help your next brainstorming session.

The paper I wrote with Reid Trautz last year, titled Supercharge Your Referrals With Technology, has been released as part the Best of ABA Techshow series. It’s the full version of the paper that was given out to attendees, in PDF format & around 15 pages.  I just re-read some of it, and was reminded of some of the great ideas we covered.

You can download more presentation papers from ABA Techshow, which runs again March 25-27th, by clicking over to the newly created section on the conference website.

And speaking of Mr. Trautz … Every year Reid publishes his guide on holiday shopping for lawyers. Reiding Reading his blog a few minutes ago, I notice the 2009 Gift Guide went up a couple days ago. It’s great fun, as usual!   Where else would I find an online store for a gas-powered blender! (seriously, near the end…)

Curious to see whether taglines have changed much since 2002, we decided to update the list and see if we could find more. We compiled the list by scoping out hundreds of US, Canadian, and international law firm websites, starting with the AmLaw 100 2009 and  Lexpert’s 30 Largest Canadian Law Firms and Magsitza’s big list from 2002. If we could quickly discern a tagline, we made note of it here. We left out generic-type taglines that really only refer to a state or city, or simply to the number of years the firm’s been around.

Taglines follow a variety of formats and styles; repetitive pairs, patterns, puns, and wordplay all figure prominently, and all with the goal of describing the firm’s philosophy succinctly and (hopefully) memorably.  (For more discussion of tagline formats, see this report from InterAct Marketing.)

Do they accomplish those goals? You be the judge!

101 Law Firm Taglines – 2009 Edition

AmLaw 100 2009:

1. Akin Gump: Power of Collaboration
2. Alston & Bird: Leadership. Creativity. Results.
3. Baker Botts : Deeper Understanding. Better Solutions.
4. Baker & Hostetler:  Counsel to Market Leaders
5. Bingham McCutchen: Legal Insight. Business Instinct.
6. Bryan Cave:  A Broader Perspective (SM)
7. Crowell & Moring: Experience. Creativity. Results.
8. Dickstein Shapiro: Experience Innovation
9. DLA Piper: Everything Matters
10. Faegre & Benson: More together.
11. Greenberg Traurig: We’re Built for Change (SM)
12. Haynes Boone: Setting Precedent (SM)
13. Holland & Knight: Industry focused. Relationship driven.
14. Howrey: The Advantage of Focus (SM)
15. Jenner & Block: When it’s a Matter of Importance. (SM)
16. Jones Day: One Firm Worldwide
17. Kilpatrick Stockton: Traditions of Innovation
18. Locke Lord: Practical wisdom, trusted advice (SM)
19. McGuireWoods: Relationships that Drive Results
20. Morgan, Lewis & Bockius: We’re In This Together. Your Team and Ours.
21. O’Melveny & Myers: Connecting Communities, Clients, and People
22. Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker: One Vision. One Firm.
23. Perkins Coie: Legal Counsel to Great Companies (SM)
24. Reed Smith: The Business of Relationships
25. Shearman & Sterling: Aligned for Excellence
26. Shepard Mullin: Our Mission is Your Success
27. Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal: Partnering for Progress
28. Steptoe & Johnson: When Experience Matters (SM)
29. Womble Carlyle: Innovators at Law

Other US law firms:

1. Adams & Reese: Out in Front
2. Andrews Kurth: Straight Talk is Good Business
3. Arnall Golden Gregory: Not If, But How (SM)
4. Barnes & Thornburg: Enduring Values
5. Bernstein: A Business Approach to Legal Service (SM)
6. Boyle Fredrickson: You’ve got ideas. We protect them.
7. Burr & Forman: Results Matter
8. Compatore Law: Legally Speaking
9. Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz: IP Smart. Business Savvy. Client Connected. (SM)
10. Cozen O’Connor: The confidence to proceed.
11. Davis Wright Tremaine: Defining Success Together
12. Dickinson Wright: Great Lawyers. Great Law Firm.
13. Ervin Cohen & Jessup: It’s Not a Common Practice. (SM)
14. Foster Townsend Graham: Damn Fine Litigators.
15. Fox Rothschild: Let Our Experience be Your Guide (SM)
16. Fredrickson & Byron: Where Law and Business Meet
17. Gardere: Legal Knowledge. Human Wisdom.
18. Goulston & Storrs: thinkresults
19. Greenebaum: Breakthrough Law (SM)
20. Grodsky & Olecki: What makes us different makes us better.
21. Halloran & Sage: Your solutions start here. (SM)
22. Harris Beach: Lawyers you’ll swear by. Not at. (SM)
23. Holland & Hart: The Law Out West
24. Holme Roberts & Owen: Experience Listens. Be Heard. (SM)
25. Jackson Lewis: All We Do is Work (SM)
26. The Law Firm for Non-Profits: Helping Good People Do Good Things^®
27. Leonard Street & Deinard: Uncommon Wisdom. Common Sense. (SM)
28. Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith: Client Focused. Results Driven. (SM)
29. Miller & Chevalier: Discern the Difference (SM)
30. Morse Barnes-Brown Pendleton: The Law Firm Built for Business (SM)
31. Munsch Hardt: Right Firm. Right Now. (SM)
32. Murthy: We Know Immigration Matters (SM)
33. Phillips Nizer: Resourceful Representation (SM)
34. Quarles & Brady: Common Ground. Uncommon Vision.(SM)
35. RMKB: A Better Legal System (SM)
36. Rose Law Firm: A Heritage of Results
37. Sheehy Ware & Pappas: Experience you need. Results you want.
38. Snell & Wilmer: Character Comes Through (SM)
39. Strellis & Field: Experienced. Driven. Effective.
40. Watt, Tieder, Hoffar & Fitzgerald: Building Solutions (SM)
41. Wells Jaworski & Liebman: Effective. Efficient. Expeditious.

UK law firms:

1. Berrymans Lace Mawer: Clear Concise Advice
2. Bond Pearce: Clients First
3. Browne Jacobson: Law, less ordinary.
4. Charles Russell: Understanding Relationships
5. Clifford Chance : Committed to Helping Our Clients Succeed
6. Holman Fenwick Willan: Lawyers for International Commerce
7. Irwin Mitchell: Towards a Positive Future
8. Lawrence Graham: Lawyers. Just Different.
9. Linklaters: Globally Minded
10. Mischon: Not just any law firm.

Canadian law firms:

1. Aikins, Macaulay & Thorvaldson: Legal Expertise with You in Mind
2. BCF LLP :  …Making it Possible
3. Blake Cassels & Graydon: Business is our Signature
4. Borden Ladner Gervais: It Begins with Service
5. Brazeau Seller: Business people. Business law.
6. Clark Wilson: BC’s Law Firm for Business
7. Cox & Palmer: The Difference is a Great Relationship
8. Crease Harman: We Mean Business.
9. Fasken Martineau DuMoulin: Beyond Results (TM)
10. Field Law: Our Practice is Your Solution
11. Fillmore Riley:  Practicing Excellence
12. Fraser Milner Casgrain: Your Future is Our Business
13. Gowling Lafleur Henderson:  A Tradition of Excellence
14. Lang Michener: High Performance (R)
15. Langlois Kronstrom Desjardins: A large firm with a human touch
16. Macleod Dixon: Local Expertise, International Depth
17. McMillan: Take the Lead
18. Robinson Sheppard Shapiro: Our Independence Makes the Difference
19. Siskinds: Leaders in their Field
20. Stewart McKelvey: When Results Count.
21. Zvulony & Co: A Small Firm That Acts Big. (TM)

Reader-contributed taglines:

• Harrison Pensa: In any case.
• Boughton Law Corporation: Built on relationships (TM)
• Harris & Moure: The International Law Firm for Business
• Dolden Wallace Folick: Insurance Law Expertise…It’s Our Policy
• Hull & Hull LLP: Trust Experience (TM)
• Hoyt & Bryan: Partners in Planning, Friends for Life
• Bernson & Burnham, PLLC: “We look at the law differently.”
• Davis LLP: Nationally Established. Internationally Recognized.

Did we miss your firm? or get it wrong entirely? Drop us a note in the comments, or an email in the coming days, and we’ll revise accordingly.

And finally, a huge thanks to Emma Durand-Wood (who now has a profile on the Stem website).  Emma was responsible for pulling this idea from one of our brainstorming sessions, researching and then compiling the list! A great project, with valuable results!

The title of month’s article is a bit of a misnomer, and my suggestion of a rule is a mental guideline more than anything. The basic premise is to be careful about taking raw unfiltered conversational exchanges online, and automating (RSS imports, Widgets) their re-publication to your business network. As stated in the article:

My formal-to-informal rule is simply that it’s always ok to route formal commentary to informal and conversational web tools; but that unfiltered, informal, or conversational tools should be considered a place of final destination.

For those who consistently stay on message, don’t mix their personal & business networks, or see little use for flippant or sarcastic comments, having a content routing strategy may make little difference. Unfortunately, I seem to fail those tests on a number of fronts. :)  But that’s ok. The important message here is self-reflection in an honest way, and recognizing when fail-safe measures are required.

As I said at the end of the article, I don’t know if everyone else needs a rule… but it makes sense to me. And if it raises awareness of potential problems with content routing, especially for those lawyers with more conservative clientele, then mission accomplished.

As an aside, I’ve altered my personal publishing routine, and will now try to coordinate new article releases to Stem’s JD Supra account. The rationale, for those interested, is two-fold. First, Canadian published content isn’t treated as nicely in the US search results (a.k.a. geo targeting), so I’m attempting to improve cross-border search exposure; and second, I want those JD Supra syndication partnerships to help increase content distribution.

If we’re compiling a list of unacceptable online behaviours for lawyers, this would be in my top-10. Maybe top-3.  We expect comment spam from viagra and casino vendors, not lawyers.

Now, here’s the rub, and something I’ve blogged about before: almost every blog software out there has a ‘no-follow’ attribute on comment links – as recommended by Google. That means, don’t index the outbound link AND don’t give the link any weight in the search rankings.  And when was this ‘cutting edge SEO’ technique outlawed?  If your SEO doesn’t know, you might want to inform them it was over 4 years ago!

SEOs or marketers that recommend comment spam are incompetent & unethical. Lawyers who use this tactic are acting in an unprofessional manner. If they knowingly endorse it, they should also be considered unethical.

There are lines no professional should cross. This is one of them.