Providing outstanding legal services and winning cases for clients is the best way for any law firm to generate new business, but marketing is still essential to grow. Most attorneys we’ve met don’t particularly enjoy the marketing aspect of running a law firm, but do acknowledge the need to market their practice areas to potential clients. But as most attorneys know, there are laws about legal marketing that you have to follow as well.
And it’s important that you follow those laws for advertising & marketing a law firm. Your state bar license could depend on it.
Because of the importance of staying within the advertising laws for legal marketing, smart attorneys keep a close eye on everything that goes out representing the firm. Keeping a close eye on your legal marketing program can help keep your firm out of any trouble down the road, but you don’t want it to take away from lawyering.
Law firm marketing guidelines can get pretty specific at points – and we’re not attorneys, so it’s up to you and your team to create a set of rules that work best for you. With that in mind, most of the laws about legal marketing come down to one thing…
Avoid Direct Solicitation
You cannot directly solicit a potential clients that may be in need of legal services. Could you imagine if attorneys were allowed to show up at the scene of a car accident and hand out their business cards to victims on stretchers getting into the ambulance? Or a lemon law lawyer knocking on the door of someone with a certain make / model of car in their driveway that is known for generating cases?
That doesn’t mean that an attorney can’t hand out their card to a friend in need, or that they can’t target a specific audience in their local area that may have prospective clients. Printing custom door hangers that advertise your firm’s case history, practice areas and contact info to be distributed around a local neighborhood or in apartment buildings can help gain awareness & produce new leads.
Attack Cases Head On
Marketing your law firm isn’t all about generating leads, it’s also about turning those leads into clients. Professional services that print full color letterhead, such as law firms see excellent long term benefit and command trust from clients. This simple marketing tactic can increase the number of consultations that turn into clients – and turn those clients into another success story for your firm.