Flat fee arrangements are amazingly liberating. Most of my fellow litigators won’t take a case on a flat fee, either because they are concerned that they will grossly underestimate the time the case is going to take and end up with an effective hourly rate of $8.25, or simply because they think they’ll make more…
Category: Business
Don’t Let the Client’s Problems Create Problems for You
Being actively concerned about your clients’ problems will naturally come with the territory if you have a heart. When you are representing someone who is about to lose their home due to fraud, or lose visitation of a child through a custody battle, you can’t help but be awed by the life-altering nature of your…
Niches Make Riches – How a $5 Site Can Add $100,000 to Your Income
If you’ve been a regular reader here, then you know the heart of my law firm marketing is Internet marketing. Incredibly, I still occasionally get push-back from some attorneys who are doing just fine with no Internet marketing whatsoever, and can’t imagine why I go down that road. I know one attorney in particular…
How to Use “Freemiums” to Market Your Law Firm
“Freemium” is a business model that works by offering a product or service free of charge (typically digital offerings such as eBooks) while charging a premium for advanced features, functionality, or related products and services. The word “freemium” is a portmanteau* combining the two aspects of the business model: “free” and “premium”. Thanks Wikipedia. Freemiums…
Student Debt? What Student Debt?
With the downturn in the economy and the upturn in law school tuition, the perfect storm was created for a bumper crop of extremely dissatisfied law school grads, saddled with debt and finding only poor job prospects. On my Internet Defamation Blog, I wrote about the law student from Thomas M. Cooley Law School…
Don’t (Necessarily) Fear the Duplicate Content Reaper
Duplicate Content Will Google and the other search engines ban you if you publish duplicate content? Before I answer, let’s discuss the reason this issue would ever present itself. I don’t recommend or suggest that you ever publish IDENTICAL duplicate content. But if you have a blog for each of your various practice areas, it…
Don’t Be That Attorney – What Part of “Without Cause” Don’t You Understand?
Forgive me if I periodically vent here, but I’ll use my diatribes to illustrate important points. One of my fundamental points is that the practice of law is far more enjoyable if you are on the right side of a case. You can feel great about what you are doing, knowing that you are on…
Law Firm Marketing – The Easy, No-Cost Way to Crush the Competition
I listen to a lot of podcasts, always looking for good law firm marketing ideas that I can pass along. I find that the same ideas seem to come in waves, and one idea currently riding the crest is the idea of scheduling your email time. The new conventional thinking (read to the end to see…
Most Clients Find Their Lawyers Via the Internet — How to Make Sure it’s You They Find
According to a survey by FindLaw, 38% of clients find their lawyers via the Internet, and 29% still rely on a referral by a friend or relative. By comparison, in 2005 a full 65% relied on referrals by a friend or relative, and only 7% looked to the Internet. However, applying a little logic reveals…
Fiverr.com – Your Law Firm’s Low Cost Personal Assistant
If you have not yet experienced the joy that is Fiverr.com, you are in for a real treat. Fiverr is the world’s largest online marketplace for $5 services, with weird services such as “I will write any message on my lips and take a photo” or “I will make fun of someone in my stand-up…
It’s Your Time to Shine, Juke Box Hero
In a town without a name, in a heavy downpour Thought he passed his own shadow, by the backstage door Like a trip through the past, to that day in the rain And that one guitar, made his whole life change – “Juke Box Hero” by Mick Jones (Foreigner) At the risk of sounding grandiose…
How Does Google Work?
In my book, How to Create a Big, Fat Pipeline of New Clients for Your Law Firm in Just 10 Days, I discuss all the factors Google looks at to determine which search results will appear on page one. I came across this very good video that discusses the issues as well, and provides a basic…
Chocolate-Covered Strawberries Restore My Faith in Humanity
No doubt much to the chagrin of my partner, I give away an obscene amount of free legal services. The thing is, I’ve been doing this so long that I have worked out easy solutions for many of the legal problems I get calls about. Most attorneys would no doubt bring the caller in and…
New York Busts 19 Companies for Fake On-Line Reviews
Bloomberg Businessweek published a great article on Tuesday, discussing fake Yelp reviews, following a sting operation in New York, designed to catch businesses engaging in the process. Referring to the process as “astroturfing”, the article details the sting by the New York State Attorney General. The AG set up a fake yogurt shop in Brooklyn,…
Unhappiest Job in America: Associate Attorney
The website CareerBliss.com has compiled a list of the happiest and unhappiest jobs in America, and found that associate attorney is the absolute worst. Based on a survey of 65,000 employees, which examined such factors as relationship with boss, work environment, job resources, compensation, daily tasks and control over work, associate attorney rated just 2.89…
If You Lie Down With Dogs You Wake Up With Fleas — Rule #1 for a Satisfying Law Practice
My book on starting your own firm is oh so close to publication, and a call from opposing counsel today reminded me of the ramifications of violating Rule 1 from that book. Rule 1 is a lesson they never teach in law school; one that many attorneys never learn. In civil litigation, no one is…
A New Way to (Possibly) Add to Your Bottom Line — Write A Bonus Into Your Fee Agreement
I had nothing to do with this case, but an attorney friend of mine alerted me to this very interesting issue arising from an attorney fee application. Here is the scenario. A party won a breach of contract action and was entitled to attorney fees under the contract in question. As you are no doubt…