How to Ensure Your Firm's Name Appears in Media Coverage Along With The Name of Your Lawyer

Firm Issues

By Bob Weiss
September 2007

Getting published is a great achievement but before you start writing articles, consider these tips to ensure that your efforts are most effective.

Although most surveys show that article writing is comparatively less effective when it comes to generating referrals and direct requests for legal services than trade/community group activity and public speaking, publishing carries less social risk, requires less time and is preferred by many lawyers.

The problem: even lawyers who write well skip so many steps in the publishing process that their efforts are nearly useless to them and to their firm.

To ensure your article-writing efforts are as valuable as possible consider the following best practices we have learned from our clients in the defense, contingent-fee and transactional bar nationwide:

• Before you publish, make sure the topic will have impact on the day-to-day activities of clients and referral sources. If it doesn't, why would anyone read it? Your topic is a chance to reveal your ability to think ahead, just as you would think ahead if you were the reader's counsel.

• Contact several clients and referral sources before you start writing. Explain where the article is to appear and what you plan to emphasize. Ask them what additional issues or angles might be added to the article. Contact not only people with whom you are in regular contact, but those with whom you have allowed relationships to wither, or with whom you'd like to establish a relationship. As one leading lawyer coach says, articles are "catalysts for conversations." Invite your colleagues to suggest people you might contact for input, as well.

• After the article is published, obtain copies and send them to clients and referrals sources with a handwritten note or letter. Have your colleagues do the same. In the note or letter ask for feedback and for suggestions about other articles they'd like to see. If you're comfortable doing it, ask recipients who they may know that would be interested in receiving a copy of the article. (This is a real BEST practice-surveys show that top rainmakers are far more likely to ask for introductions to potential clients than colleagues who generate less business.)

• Finally, consider into what other media the article might be formulated. For example, one of our clients wrote an article on vicarious liability for a bar publication. We broke the article into four distinct segments and now have the lawyer recording them as a series of three-minute CDs. The CDs are being mailed quarterly over a one-year period to referring counsel. Subsequent to that, the recording will be featured on the firm's Web site. How might your article translate into video?

Writing an article is an interactive process and incorporating these best practices into your publishing efforts will ensure it leads to new business for you and your firm.

ALYN-WEISS & ASSOCIATES, INC.
Public Relations | Marketing
1331 - 17th Street, Suite 410
Denver, CO 80202

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