ALMResearchBlog

Time to Shorten the Firm's Name?

Tom Kane, on the Legal Marketing Blog says Yes! - IF the firm has more than two names. In his experience, Kane says, there are a couple of things that seem to run true in the Name Dept:  No matter how long the name, people on the street (and other lawyers) only refer to the firm by the first name or at most the first two, and only in the case of firms that have a name like Smith, Jones, Ego, Ego, Ego & Ego. Actually, he says his only point is that from a legal marketing and business development standpoint, it is more important to have a memorable, short name that clients (and certainly prospects and referrals sources) can say without embarrassing themselves when asked.

Update: New Jersey Ruling Against “Super/Best Lawyers” Stayed

The New Jersey Supreme Court has issued a stay of a ruling by the state’s attorney advertising committee that lawyers advertising in a publication called “New Jersey Super Lawyers” violates New Jersey's rules of professional conduct. Last month, the Garden State became the first to rule that advertising in “Super Lawyers” — which publishes different editions in 21 states — violates professional conduct rules. The publishers of “Super Lawyers” magazine and the state bar association challenged the ruling. This report appeared on the Wall Street Journal Blog,

referencing an original report in ALM’s New Jersey Law Journal.

Calendar: Navigating and Managing Lists and the New Rules that Apply

Wednesday, September 13, 12:00PM - 2:00PM Eastern, LJN Online will present a webinar featuring panelists Steve Naifeh, Founder & Publisher, The Best Lawyers in America; Joe Calve, Chief Marketing Officer, Proskauer Rose LLP; Jennifer Hamm, Business Editor, Los Angeles & San Francisco Daily Journal; and Rosemarie Clancy, Research Editor, ALM.

Some of the key topics covered will be:

• How peer-review lists got started and where they are headed.
• State regulation of peer-review lists.
• Are there too many lists?
• Lists and Myths: Does money talk and fairness walk?
• Ethics Watchdogs: Swatting flies with a shovel.
• BigLaw and SmallLaw: One size fits all?
• Keep it simple, keep it current, keep it in perspective.
• Things you should submit vs. things you shouldn't submit.
• Tips for an eye-catching submission.
• Recent winners and insights into what made them stand out.

To register visit: http://www.lawjournalnewsletters.com/alm?sept13 or call 800-999-1916

Law Dogs: Banned in Florida

At ALM Research, we have our own dog mascot, Data Dog, who even has his own site on the blog. And Womble Carlyle has their mascot, Winston the Bulldog, who appears in the firm’s ads and on their Web site. But the Florida Bar ruled that the law firm Paper and Chandler could not use this image of a pit bull in its ads because they say it is “demeaning” to the profession. Larry Bodine posted about the situation on his blog, noting that “firm mascots are a powerful marketing tool that firms can use to establish a recognizable brand.” But he also poses the question: “Is use of a pit bull or bull dog or other kind of animal advertising ‘demeaning’ to the profession? Or is it clever marketing?”

The World’s Best Brands

The new BusinessWeek/Interbrand Top 100 list is out, with the top five companies in the same positions as last year: Coca-Cola (1); Microsoft (2); IBM (3); GE (4); and Intel (5). Mercedes-Benz moved into the 10^th position, from 11^th last year, and Marlboro fell from 10^th to 12^th.  But the main story was about 69^th ranked Motorola, which the magazine says new products like the RAZR and SLVR have been a hit, and a hip marketing campaign behind them is adding luster to the Moto brand.”  That should be good news for their outside counsel, who – according to the ALM Research Online database (available to subscribers) – include Arnold & Porter for corporate transactions and other corporate representation, DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary for products liability work, and Fish & Neave also for general corporate representation.

ATLA Name Change: Pros and Cons

After the Association of Trial Lawyers of America voted to change its name to the American Association for Justice, the Daily Business Review, ALM’s Miami-based newspaper, weighed in with an article that focused on why the name change was “a good change that reflects what we do and not who we are,” as the new AAJ’s president Mike Eidson put it. But Bob Ambrogi had a different viewpoint, which he wrote about on Legal Blog Watch, calling it “ill-conceived.” “Aren’t all lawyers engaged in the pursuit of justice?” he asks.

“Super” and “Best” Lawyers Hire “Big-Name” Lawyers to Battle Ad Ban

That’s the way reporter Henry Gottlieb put it in his story for New Jersey Law Journal about the recent Opinion 39 of the NJ Supreme Court's Committee on Attorney Advertising, which banned the mention of a firm’s or attorney’s inclusion in the publications of “Super Lawyers” and “Best Lawyers” in advertising. According to Gottlieb, Super Lawyers’ parent company hired Gibbons Del Deo to attempt to reverse or modify the decision, and Best Lawyers hired Wilentz Goldman.

Adjectives “Super” and “Best” Banned in New Jersey, When Prefacing the Word “Lawyer”

Posted by Margaret Daisley

   

I’ve been hearing the grumblings for some time now, mostly from marketing folks. The broad topic of the grumblings had to do with the burden of surveys they were expected to fill out. It wasn’t so much the fact-based surveys like The Am Law 200 and The NLJ 250 which lead to adjectives such as “biggest” and “richest.” Or the associate satisfaction surveys (The Midlevel Associate Survey and The Summer Associate Survey), in which ephemeral attributes such as “most satisfied” can be measured on a 5-point scale.

   

No, it was the beauty contests that were causing the problems, these marketing folks would say. Beauty contests are those surveys in which the firm or individual lawyer (read: marketing staff member) must fill out endless forms and complete (or arrange to complete) endless interviews about one’s self and other “best” and “super” lawyers and law firms and law departments. Unlike surveys which use mostly quantitative measurements, beauty contests use more qualitative methodology. As described in a recent blog post by consultant Larry Bodine on his Law Marketing Portal: “The publisher of Super Lawyers, Minneapolis-based publisher Law & Politics, a division of Key Professional Media … conducts surveys to identify the best 5% of all lawyers in a state, based on their verdicts, settlements, transactions, clients, experience, honors, position in the firm and pro bono work.” And “The Best Lawyers in America, published biennially since 1983, is a lawyer referral guide covering 57 specialties in the U.S.

   

(Full disclosure: As ALM editor in chief Monica Bay puts it on her blog, The Common Scold, our mutual employer, ALM Media Inc., partners with Best Lawyers to produce "The New York Area's Best Lawyers," which runs as a Special Advertising Supplement in New York magazine.)

The lists are compiled through a peer-review survey in which lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. The 2006 edition of Best Lawyers, is based on more than 1.5 million evaluations of lawyers by other lawyers.”

Marketing: Best in Show

Last year the MLF 50 premiered in LJN's Marketing The Law Firm, an ALM Media, Inc. publication.  The list, which comes from self-nominated entries to determine the best marketing departments has, according to editor Betiayn Tursi, “set the bar for law firms of 100 attorn” and “quickly became the benchmark for the profession.”  This year, MLF has created a separate competition for smaller firms -- the MLF 50/II, a listing of The Top 50 Small to Mid-Size Law Firms (10-100 attorneys) in Marketing and Communications. Reports of both lists will be published in the September issue.

    

All entries were due by July 21st.  Stay tuned for the results. The MLF 50 — The Top 50 Law Firms of 100 or More Attorneys in the areas of Marketing and Communications will move to a November publication date.  All entries for this competition will be due by September 15th. Each firm is required to write an essay according to certain specifications and topics. More information is available from Elizabeth Anne "Betiayn" Tursi (elizabethtursi@aol.com), Editor-in-Chief, Marketing The Law Firm.

Commemorating the Firm’s History: ALM Reprints Services

Posted by Margaret Daisley

At the beginning of the month, I wrote a blog item about archiving the firm’s history and mentioned several firms that are actively pursuing preservation efforts and a company that specializes in helping organizations preserve and archive important paperwork, photos, oral histories, film and other historical materials and turn them into beautiful commemorative pieces, such as documentaries or “coffee-table” books.

   

Twelve lashes with a wet noodle for me, as Ann Landers used to say when she fell down on the job. How could I have failed to mention the services provided by our own ALM Reprints? Especially since they have just recently launched some new services, including one in which they will bind into one lovely volume the reprints from press coverage that a firm may have received in ALM’s dozens of publications – firm profiles; attorney-authored articles; top rankings; mentions of the firm and its lawyers in newsworthy deals and suits, and so on.

      

The “reprints” division, in fact, offers numerous services besides the traditional fulfillment of reprint requests. They offer a wide variety of products (e-prints, banners and buttons, firm newsletters, plaques, trade show signage, custom publishing) and many useful services (article research, mail fulfillment, marketing packages, and permissions). Check out their web site, almreprints.com, for more information. Or call 212-545-6111.