Larry Bodine's LawMarketing Blog

Canadian Bar Association Launches Podcast

MP3 File

Over the years, law firms have learned that quality service alone isn’t enough to attract and retain clients. Now, delivering quality merely gets you in the door. The new focus is on client retention.   The association offers 5 key client service techniques in a highly-polished, professionally-read podcast.  You can also read the article "Create a Winning Client Retention Strategy in 5 Steps" covered in the Podcast above (click the start arrow or download the MP3 file).

To see the same podcast with video visit http://www.envoyglobal.net/elawmarketing/cba. It's a Flash video that shows a slide show that is synchronized with the sound.  Way cool. It's perfect for today's ADD, short-attention-span, reading by skimming Web visitors.

The podcast was created by the skilled experts at eLawMarketing, which creates lawyer blogs, podcasts and Web sites.  If you'd like to have a podcast like this one, contact Josh Fruchter at josh@emailmessaging.net and (718) 793-7168.

Podcast: Top Marketing Mistakes That Law Firms Make

Today I present my first podcast, through the help of eLawMarketing. Click on the arrow graphic below to hear the most common ways that law firms mess up marketing. The list includes hiring a marketing director without defining the job. Or setting up an expensive Web site without listing the industries that the firm serves.

In this podcast we'll run through the top 10 marketing mistakes that law firms make that stand out time and time again. (Wait 5 seconds for the sound to begin and you'll hear the narrator.)

Please give me your opinion of this podcast -- email me at Lbodine@LawMarketing.com.  I'm open to constructive criticism.

The firm that set up my podcast is eLawMarketing. It was a pleasure - within minutes my broadcast was online and posted to my blog - eLawMarketing now offers podcasting services to law firms and individual attorneys - check them out at:

http://www.elawmarketing.com/elawmarketing/law_firm_podcast_service.html

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.

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.

John Roberts: The Teflon Nominee

Viewing things from a lawyer marketing standpoint, John Roberts has been turned into the Teflon Nominee.  His "speak no evil" no-downside marketing is working. (At right: The nominee shares a chuckle with with Sen. Ron Wyden (Democrat from Oregon.)

According to the Washington Post, more than a dozen Democratic senators have decided that they will not launch a major fight to block him.  They don't want to waste their political capital.  "No one's planning all-out warfare," said one Senate Democratic aide.

Roberts has turned himself into a matter not worth fighting over.  An excellent marketing tactic.

So all the blogger comments and news reports are sliding off and not sticking:

• ABC News said that as a young lawyer in the Regan White House, Roberts wrote about "the abortion tragedy" in a 1985 memo.
• ABC News also reports that Roberts wrote in a 1985 memo that forbidding prayer in public schools "seems indefensible."
• Bayoubuzz.com notes that "Roberts offered that he would have "no objection" to a constutional amendment permitting voluntary prayer" in schools.
• As an assistant White House counsel in 1984, Roberts "scoffed at the idea of equal pay for women" according to Americablog.com, adding "he compares the idea to communism."  Roberts belittled three women Republican members of Congress who promoted that idea.
• Scripps Howard News Services said, "In a 1984 gender pay case, Roberts criticized as "radical" the controversial theory of "comparable pay" for men and women.
• Last week NARAL pulled an ad accusing Roberts of aiding anti-abortion violence.  Yahoo News said "the failure of the NARAL attack ad reflects the overuse of negative scare tactics."
• USA Today noted that, "As a Justice Department lawyer in 1981, for example, Roberts draft an article that referred to the "so-called 'right to privacy'" and asserted that "such an amorphous right is not to be found in the Constitution."

All these facts came out among 5,400 pages of records about Roberts released by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.  An additional 478 pages that cover the same subject remain under seal, but it doesn't make any difference. All this is slip, sliding off the nominee.

The Christian Science Monitor headline is: "In media battle over Roberts, GOP on top." The President has set a target date of October 3 -- the first day of the Court's new term -- as the date for completing the Senate's consideration of the nomination.  He could be confirmed by the Senate as early as September 16.

Anti-Roberts Ad is a Smear, New Ad Planned

The anti-Roberts TV ad linking him with violent protesters at abortion clinics is a smear, and is being replaced with a new ad from Naral Pro-Choice America.  The initial ads were called "blatantly untrue and unfair" and "inaccurate, filled with innuendo and shameless."  The ads even embarrassed Ted Kennedy. 

From a marketing standpoint, it appears that a smear campaign is not the best approach to oppose U.S. Supreme Court nominee John C. Roberts.  This is a surprise, considering how well smears have worked for right-wing groups like the Swift Boat Veterans when they smeared John Kerry and John McCain. Lesson for marketers: only twist the truth when attacking Democrats.

Naral will begin running new ads examining Judge Robert's record, including the argument he made as a government lawyer  in 1991 that Roe v. Wade was "wrongly decided."

So, score one for the Bush White House; they are clearly better marketers than the opposition.  The being said, Roberts' abortion views are now fair game.

Marketing Challenge for Roberts on Abortion

Will John G. Roberts be "Borked"?  He is no longer the "no downside" appointee for the U.S. Supreme Court.  All politics aside, he's got a lawyer marketing challenge to overcome in a TV ad that attacks his record on abortion clinics.

Naral Pro-Choice America in running ads on the Fox and CNN cable networks saying that when abortion clinics were under violent attacks, he filed court briefs in 1991 supporting the bombers and failing to defend the clinics.  Naral urges viewers to call their senators to oppose Roberts because America can't afford a Justice "whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans."

Ouch! The opposition picked the most controversial issue in politics and positioned him as being anti-choice.  No matter what the talking heads on TV said about the particulars of the matter, the vivid image has been painted.

From a marketing standpoint, it's time to call in the crisis team.  The Bush White House labeled the charge as a "reckless smear." Factcheck.org, a nonpartisan watchdog project, immediately had a spokesman on TV saying "the ad is false" and "misleading."  A fast response is always effective, especially from a neutral party. The White House also produced a 1986 brief Roberts wrote arguing that abortion clinic bombers should be prosecuted. Supporting paperwork for a claim is also impressive.

However the fact remains that Roberts argued in 1991 in Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic before the U.S. Supreme Court that the Ku Klux Klan Act did not apply to clinic protests.  The Klan Act lets federal judges issue injunctions against violent demonstrations.  The Court agreed with Roberts.  The violence continued.

So Roberts is now on the defensive from a marketing standpoint.  He's been tar-brushed but has remained silent.  This is not good marketing.  Battling TV ads and spokespeople will not carry the day.  Roberts cannot remain above the fray; he's in the fray now.  If I were his marketing director, I'd advise him to make a statement to the world -- something neutral like "I'll judge each case on the merits without any preconceived ideology and will be fair to all parties."  It would end the media frenzy.

But that won't happen.  Roberts advised Sandra Day O'Connor in 1981 to avoid specific answers at her Senate hearings, a tactic he is likely to use at his own confirmation hearing.

Lawyer Marketing for John G. Roberts

Of all the lawyer marketing campaigns, the most high-stakes is that of attorney John G. Roberts, Jr. for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Drawing on my 15 years of experience in legal marketing (and all politics aside), the campaign is working just as planned.

I call it the "no downside campaign," which is very popular among large law firms.  The pitch is: pick us, there is no downside; if we lose the case, you can say you did the best thing by choosing our shimmering credentials.  In fact, when I was a marketing director at a Top 10 law firm, I used to sell marketing ideas internally by saying, "there is no downside to it."  The lawyers, trained to look for flaws, could find nothing wrong with my idea.  They'd say, "O.K. Proceed.  I have no objection."

I rarely promoted the upside or the benefit of a marketing idea, because they are ineffable and lawyers couldn't imagine them.  But "no downside" was a potent argument, and it is working for John Roberts.

"Judge John G. Roberts continued to win support from all wings of the Republican Party while leaving Democrats with little that might threaten his confirmation," said the July 29 New York Times.  Here's how Roberts marketed himself (quoting the August 1 New Yorker):

• Kindly of gaze, square of jaw, dimpled of chin.
• Bulletproof resume, simple professional excellence.
• Disciplined and unidirectional legal career.
• Gentle temperament, not a hater nor a particularly rigid ideologue.
• Unknown legal biases, because you cannot attribute the positions he took as a lawyer for clients to him personally.
• A "mainstream conservative" (i.e., "middle of the road").
• Even if Justice O'Connor's support becomes Roberts's opposition, Roe v. Wade will still have majority support on the high court by one vote.
• Does not hold strong political beliefs.  Not a Scalia-style ideologue.
• Believes in judicial restraint in the style of the revered Justices Holmes and Brandeis.
• Avoids legalese.  "Give me English words over Latin Maxims," he wrote recently.

In other words, what's not to like?  There is no downside, according to the marketing campaign.