Selecting a Legal Internet Marketing Company

Here are some of the considerations when deciding which vendor is most suited to providing your law firm with Internet marketing services.

1) Expertise:

- What is the background / experience of the individual(s) who will be providing the services?
- If you are seeking SEO services, where is the marketing company ranked on Google for its own desired keyword phrases?
- What is the scope of the company's capabilities?
- Who has the company worked with in the past?
- What type of law firm leads and other results have they generated?

2) Customer Service:

- How quickly does the company respond to your needs? (if you have concerns when a company is trying to win your business, you may have big problems once you are signed up)
- How professional and curteous is the company?

3) Price:

- How does the Internet marketing company compare to others that offer the same capabilities?
- What exactly is included in the fees?
- If a company is less expensive, as them directly how they are able to keep their prices so competitive. You should be comfortable with the answer.
- If a company appears to be overpriced, asked them how they justify the higher price and if they will give you a written guarantee that they will outperform lower cost providers on key performance metrics.

Law Firm Marketing: Firing Your Toxic Clients

Given that we are still neck deep in the worst recession the U.S. has seen since the 1930's, you may think I'm a bit off the wall when you read what comes next. Drop your bad clients. Do it now. Identify them, confirm your facts and give them a nice wave goodbye. You heard me correctly; there is no better time than today for your law firm to shed clients that you should not be working with.

But John, this is not the right time for this. Look what's going on around us - stores are closing, there are unemployed lawyers out there, competition is fierce...

So what? This is completely irrelevant. More often than not, toxic clients (as defined below) cost you money - they do not make you money. Most lawyers do not realize this because they have not analyzed the numbers and mix bad clients into the batter with quality clients.

What is a toxic client? For starters, let's go with one that doesn't pay on time, or doesn't pay at all. Hey, don't get me wrong, if you have the ways and means to represent a client pro bono, by all means do some good for society. However, if a client has agreed to an hourly rate and is not paying you within a reasonable timeframe you should stop catering to this client. Not doing so will result in a different type of representation, one that an accountant I know likes to refer to as "pro bonehead."

A plaintiff's trial firm, working on contingency, can't have a bad client, right? Wrong. A bad client can be one who nags your firm incessently for the settlement check, consuming hours of resource time. If you can't set up the proper protocols to handle them, get rid of them. Having your secretary spend 3 hours on the phone discussing when the settlement check is coming is not productive).

A toxic client in this type of firm can also be one that is not financially profitable. If you handle small value personal injury law cases / no-fault and you do not have an efficient method of processing them, your firm can be losing money on this type of client. That's right - half of your law firm's cases may be covering up the bad business practices represented by the other half. You may be going through the motion on every $8,500 settlement that you think contributes to the bottom line, when the $560,000 settlement is paying a majority of your bills and costing considerably less in time and effort. Get an accountant or financial analyst type to look at your books, see which types of clients are profitable for your firm and which are not and stop taking on the ones that do not make financial sense. Adjust your marketing strategy and messaging to acquire the types of new client leads that represent profitable opportunities.

Here are a few categories of toxic law firm clients that you should consider firing when they cross the line:

- The non-payer / late payer
- The resource time waster
- The unprofitable client
- The litigious client (the reason professional liability insurance for lawyers was invented)

Now, take the extra time you have freed up and shift it to giving better service to your existing clients, networking, or strategizing on new marketing ideas. I guarantee that shedding these toxic clients will have a profound positive impact on the health of your law firm and possibly even on your general mental health.