Larry Bodine's LawMarketing Blog

Don't Accept That Counter-Offer

When you get a job offer it's better to take it than to accept your current firm's counter-offer, according to Bruce Allen of Rutan & Tucker.  In a recent Marketing Catalyst blog post he says, "An amazing statistic is that 89% of people accepting counter offers are gone in 6 months. 89 PERCENT!"

He recounts how me made a job offer to a woman to join his marketing team.  "When partners at the last firm found out she intended to leave they pulled out all the stops; made promises; told her everything is going to be great from here on out. She stayed." Bruce wrote.

"Not too many days later I've heard from her and now she is MEGA unhappy. The partners may have wanted things to transform, but the people she actually reports to are still the same." he says.  "If the relationship is not transformed, money and platitudes will not change a thing. A huge discount (or a raise in the case of my teammate) changes nothing about why someone is unhappy."

So maybe the grass is greener on the other side.  If you get a good job offer, simply take it.

Can Roberts overcome Ethics Lapse?

The Wall Street Journal honed in on a recent ethics gaffe by Supreme Court nominee John Roberts (see 8/26/05 issue, p. A4). He ruled in favor of a case involving President Bush on the same day -- July 15 -- that Roberts met with Bush for the job-clinching interview. The blunder was revealed in a response to a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire.

Speaking as a lawyer myself, this is a conflict of interest you could see in the dark. Roberts was on a three-judge panel in the Salim Hamdan case, about the Bush administration's policy to deny legal rights to Guantanamo detainees before military commissions. The Hamdan case differs from others because of the personal involvement of the president, who created the military commissions in an executive order and selected Hamdan as eligible for prosecution.

Roberts could have:

• Notified the litigants of his conflict of interest.
• Recused himself.

But he did neither. He ruled in favor of his political sponsor.

Law professors Stephen Gillers of NYU, David Luban of Georgetown U. and Steven Lubet of Northwestern U. wrote an artice citing prior instances where other judges recused themselves in similar situtions. The White house responded with professors Ronald Rotunda of George Marshal U. and Thomas Morgan of Geoerge Washington U., who said that Roberts' impartiality could not "reasonably be qeustioned" and that he broke no ethics rule.

I follow the maxim that "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and sounds like a duck -- it's a duck." In this case, the duck is a quid pro quo. Here in Chicago, where I live, when a judge rules in favor of his patron, we refer to this as a payoff.

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NARAL is back with a TV commercial on CNN criticizing Roberts, the Teflon Nominee. "But John Roberts dismissed one of our established liberties as the 'so called right to privacy,' and co-wrote a brief arguing that Roe v. Wade shold be overruled," the announcer says. "There is just too much at state to let John Roberts become a decision vote on the Supreme Court. NARAL's earlier TV ad was yanked immediately for being false and misleading.

RSS Feeds on NJ Law Firm Site

This just in: The law firm of Stark & Stark in Princeton has made available 15 separate RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds specific to various firm practice areas through its New Jersey Law Blog (www.njlawblog.com). The addition of these customized feeds allows subscribers to get instant notification of new developments in area of law most important to them.

According to Richard C. DeLuca, Director of Business Development for the firm, Links to these newly available feeds can be located within the "Blogs" section of the 90-lawyer firm's Web site. The 15 practice area feeds now available are:

Banking & Financial Services
Bankruptcy & Creditor's Rights
Business & Corporate
Collections
Community Associations
Condemnation & Eminent Domain
Corporate Investigation & White Collar
Divorce
Employment
Environmental
Litigation
Podcasts
Real Estate, Zoning & Land Use
Securities Compliance & Arbitration
Trusts & Estates

The New Jersey Law Blog still offers a main RSS feed (http://www.njlawblog.com/index.xml) which distributes information added to any one of the blog's 18 sub-categories.  The firm also publishes the Traumatic Brain Injury Law Blog at www.braininjurylawblog.com.

RSS Feeds Appearing Now on Law Firm Web Sites

In a new phenomenon I've discovered, law firms are beginning to add RSS feeds to their Web sites. This is a universal feature of blogs, of course, but it works just as well for Web sites. I've had RSS (or Really Simple Syndication) feeds on The LawMarketing Portal for several months. now. They're wonderful for attracting traffic because they allow visitors to subscribe to my content.

Wilmer Cutler offers RSS feeds to 19 sections of its Web site at http://www.wilmerhale.com/rss/. "RSS feeds allows Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr to deliver the content that you select from our list below and display it for you in one convenient location. RSS feeds are a simple way to receive timely legal updates from the firm," the Web site explains.

Wilmer Cutler has more than 1,000 lawyers with offices in 14 cities in the United States, Europe and Asia. To view the firm’s RSS feeds, you must first have a news reader (or aggregator) installed on your computer. A news reader is the application used to view the headlines via RSS. To download a news reader select a reader for free download through a site such as download.com. The one I use is NewsGator, available free at www.NewsGator.com.

The RSS feeds for Wilmer Cutler include Antitrust and Competition, Aviation, Bankruptcy and Commercial, Communications and E-Commerce, Corporate, Defense, National Security and Government Contracts, Environmental, FDA, Financial Institutions, Intellectual Property, International Arbitration, Labor and Employment, Litigation, Private Client, Public Policy and Strategy, Real Estate, Securities, Tax, and Trade.

Criminey, if the firm could get the risk-averse lawyers in Corporate and Securities to have an RSS feed, ANY firm should be able to convince ANY practice group head to do the same.

This morning I discovered that Canada's Clark Wilson, up in Vancouver, British Columbia is also offering RSS feeds on their Web site for the firm's publications. By using RSS feeds, visitors with interests in specific legal subject matters will receive immediate notification as soon as alerts and articles that match their interests are posted on their Web site.

Clark Wilson LLP, with 65 lawyers, is one of the first law firms in Canada to offer publication headlines via RSS. You can subscribe with Bloglines, My Yahoo, Newsgator or XML. Their feeds cover 14 different categories of legal topics, including technology and intellectual property, real estate, securities, energy, labor & employment, higher learning, and general business issues. Clark Wilson LLP feeds are located at: http://www.cwilson.com/feeds.

Dead Practice Area: Federal Trials

The number of tort trials in federal courts has fallen by nearly 80 percent in less than two decades, a government study found.  If your firm has an active practice in Federal trials, it's time to get out.  This area is dead or dying.

Legal experts attribute the drop to Supreme Court rulings in the 1990s that made it much more difficult for people bringing lawsuits in federal courts to prevail.  "Plaintiffs have been avoiding federal courts," Aaron Twerski, dean of the Hofstra University school of law, told the Associated Press.

President Bush signed legislation in February to have federal judges take most large class action lawsuits away from state courts. In a nine-minute White House signing ceremony, Bush said a half-dozen times that the legislation was only a beginning in his drive to end "the lawsuit culture."

The number of tort trials concluded in the federal court system in 1985 was 3,600, compared with fewer than 800 in 2003, the government study said. Nine out of 10 tort trials in federal courts involve personal injuries such as product liability, car accidents and medical malpractice cases.

The total number of tort cases concluded in federal courts -- those that went to trial and those that didn't -- hit a high of 60,941 in 1999, with an influx of asbestos and breast implant litigation. The figure declined to 49,166 in 2003.

A major reason for the decline in trials: Rulings like the 1993 Supreme Court case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals which set a very high standard for admitting expert testimony in federal courts, said Twerski.

Testimony from expert witnesses is often the vital link in convincing juries that an anti-nausea drug causes birth defects, that PCBs in industrial brake fluid accelerated a worker's lung cancer or that a defective tire was the reason for a blowout on a minivan that killed several people.

Elaborate pretrial hearings over proposed expert witnesses are driving up the costs of tort cases, Brooklyn law school professor Margaret E. Berger told the Associated Press.

Twerski also said a string of fairly conservative judicial appointments during the administrations of Ronald Reagan and both Bushes "does not look kindly to this cutting-edge-type litigation."

Bush took his campaign for lawsuit reform local early this year, visiting Madison County, Ill., which the American Tort Reform Association dubbed the nation's top "judicial hellhole." The county has a reputation for handing out big awards and allowing lawsuits that would be thrown out in other districts.

More than 1,400 asbestos cases were filed in Madison County over the last two years, and it was home to 179 class action lawsuits during that time. A Madison County judge ordered cigarette maker Philip Morris USA to pay $10.1 billion for falsely marketing light cigarettes as less harmful than other brands.

So it will pay off to promote and market your firm's trial experience in state courts instead.

Roberts' Marketing Picking Up Supporters, Detractors

The lawyer marketing campaign for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts is generating heat.

• US Chamber of Commerce endorsed Roberts.
• The National Association of Manufacturers became the first business group to endorse him.
• The National Review online defended him, sort of, with columnist Leonard Leo saying Roberts would not "toss old widows on the street and leave the rest of us property owners twisting in the wind."

He's also got more detractors, meaning that the marketing campaign is pressing hot buttons:

• People for the American Way announced its opposition.
• Lambda Legal wants Roberts grilled on gay rights legal issues.  Saying it has "serious concerns" about him, the group set up an online petition to pressure the Senate to ask the questions.
• Newsday.com said "Roberts looks like early Archie Bunker" in a column by Marie Cocco.

The heat goes on.

How to Determine Traffic at a Competing Site

Is there a way to know in real time how many visitors come to a specific site, without help from that website? Yes there is, according to Dr. Ralph Wilson's Web Marketing Today newsletter.

The doc says there are four ways to determine traffic. Three companies monitor traffic to websites and sell this information to their clients, though some information on the highest traffic sites is sometimes displayed for free. These companies are:

comScore Media Metrix (www.comscore.com/metrix)

Nielsen//NetRatings (www.nielsen-netratings.com)

Hitwise (www.hitwise.com)

You may have to purchase data from comScore or Nielsen//NetRatings. If you can't afford their data, you can get a relative idea of traffic to a site by using Alexa (www.alexa.com). This service, owned by Amazon, ranks websites on the basis of traffic, #1 being high. They don't tell you absolute numbers of unique visitors, however. For such an estimate, find the traffic rankings (in press releases, etc.) of the sites just above and below your site of interest in the Alexa ranking, and its relative traffic will be between those numbers.

Associate Business Development Survey Now Open

Click here to see the results of this survey online.

The Sage Professional Development Institute and the LawMarketing Portal are sponsoring a groundbreaking new survey:  "Current Practices in Business Development for Associates." Please participate by visiting http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB224KLK2JRHJ
or click here to participate.

There is no public information available on this important topic -- today's young lawyers may become tomorrow's rainmakers.  But the path they take depends on today's current law firm practices. That's why your feedback is important.

There are only 7 questions, and the survey takes on 5 minutes or less to complete.  The survey is designed so that you may complete it only once, to prevent duplicate responses.  It will be open for responses this week only -- Monday August 22 to Friday August 26.  Again, simply click here to participate.

Find a Publicist the Media Loves

Joan Stewart, a/k/a the Publicity Hound has six great tips for hiring a "dream publicist."

They have a hot list of media contacts at newspapers, magazines and TV stations where you want your story to appear--or they know how to create the list.  The Number One factor in hiring a publicist is chemistry.

If you're looking for a publicist, be on the lookout for someone who:

--Can deliver a snappy, succinct telephone pitch within 15 seconds.

--Can create a clever media kit that reporters won't toss in the newsroom wastebasket along with all the others.

--Understands how to take the contents of that same media kit and put it at your website so reporters can access information about you within seconds, without you having to spend money on expensive overnight deliveries.

--Knows the target market for your product or service as well as you do and prefers to develop relationships with a short list of media contacts instead of sending blast faxes to a cast of thousands.

--Prefers to hold a magazine in her hands and inspect it before calling an editor to pitch.

--Uses accurate yet enticing email subject lines that force reporters to open email pitches.

For more info, including how to avoid a Publicist from Hell, visit her site at http://www.publicityhound.com/hireapublicist.html.

Roberts Gets Stamp of Approval

In marketing, a powerful asset is a third-party endorsement.  That's why professionals use testimonials, references and rankings by others to get new business.  It's always better to have someone else praise you than to praise yourself.

Supreme Court nominee John C. Roberts got that when the American Bar Association bestowed a "well qualified" upon him on August 17, the highest of three possible ratings.  (The possible ratings are "well qualified," "qualified" and "not qualified.")

The rating by unanimous vote of an ABA committee was disclosed as the Senate Judiciary Committee announced plans for the start of confirmation hearings on Sept. 6.

For more than 50 years, the ABA has evaluated the credentials of nominees for the federal bench, though the nation's largest lawyers group has no official standing in the process.  This is the fourth time the ABA has rated Roberts. He was designated well qualified in 2001 when he was nominated for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He received the same rating in 2003 when he was nominated again for the appeals courts and then confirmed. He was rated as qualified as an appeals court nominee in 1992, but the Senate never took up that nomination.

This approval trumps the marketing efforts of opponents:

• Democracynow.org insists Roberts had a conflict of interest when he interviewed with Bush officials while his three-judge panel was considering a Bush White House case involving Guantanamo Bay military tribunals.
• Senator Kennedy, a member of the Judiciary Committee, called for an investigation into the disappearance of documents related to Roberts' nomination. 
• The Democratic National Committee said it will file a Freedom of Information request to get documents relating to 80 cases that Roberts worked on in the first Bush administration.