This article discusses
- external factors affecting the way attorneys will manage their practices in the future.
- increased public interest in attorney and legal activities, forcing attorneys to learn how to handle public relations problems effectively not only for themselves but for their clients as well.
- the control and delivery of printed messages to a selected audience through means of effective advertising and literature distribution.
"Doing good work" is the ultimate business development activity, but there are many solid reasons why this fundamental aspect of the legal practice is no longer sufficient to retain existing clients and gain new ones.
External factors, beyond the attorney's control, are requiring no small effort to retain clients and to obtain new ones to replace the old that will inevitably fall away.
Efforts directed to the external audience are important for one simple fact: There is increasing competition among law firms for clients. The legal practice pie is growing, but the group of people who want a share of it is growing faster. This means that everyone will either have less or will take more than their share.
Other factors build pressure on attorneys to engage in more extensive external marketing activities. One is a prevalent negative image of attorneys and the legal professional in general. Another is that clients will drift away because of less than warm relationships and/or continual actions by the attorney that result in anxiety or mistrust of the work being done for them.
At the same time, there is a growing interest on the part of the public and the media in legal matters. As the media become more aggressive and the public demands inquiry into everything, the attorney cannot practice in isolation or assume that communication with the public and the media will be unnecessary.
In general, communication problems are being created for attorneys due to the increasing complexity of the legal process and the spiraling costs of litigation. High legal fees and large settlements always make news. The attorney and their client are forced to talk about them-to each other as well as the public!
Getting the Message Out
"Get the right message to the right people at the right time." That's the secret of success in any business. The following chapters discuss methods for attorneys to establish and maintain as much control as possible over all messages that are delivered to the selected audience.
There should be no doubt that attorneys must continually plan new marketing programs, revise old ones, and then implement intelligent and effective activities to be successful. The development of the "right message" is a complex process all by itself, requiring the analysis and consensus described earlier in this book. The "right people" are the clients (past and present), potential clients, and referrals so important as sources of new business. And the "right time" is a key part of any communication effort, that is, a message delivered to a person at the moment when he or she need or want it.
The proactive external marketing described here is carried out through advertising, literature distribution, publicity, speeches, personal contacts, community involvement, and many other activities. Attorneys are good on developing ideas for marketing, and they generally know what to say. But they are usually weakest on the delivery system, or the distribution of proactive marketing processes to the market.
Of the three components of the communication process-content, production, and distribution-it is this third and last component that invariably receives the least attention from attorneys. Just like the proverbial chain with the weak link, the best written newsletter, for example, has absolutely no value if it is not delivered correctly or on time.
Attorneys will write strong speeches, spend much money on beautiful brochures, achieve good publicity, and develop excellent advertising pro grams, and then in the end will fail to carry through with the delivery in an effective way. This final process of delivering messages is critical for ultimate success.
