Ask The Coach
August 01, 2003
This month's questions:<p>Q: Like many law firms, to create access to new prospects we host seminars on a variety of topics. How can we differentiate our offerings in a virtual sea of seminars?<br>Q: How can we maximize the effectiveness of these investments?
Your Firm In A Nutshell
August 01, 2003
Domestic and international corporations have long used slogans and tag lines as tools to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Think of Avis' "We try harder," Michelin's "Because so much is riding on your tires," and "Thank goodness for Kleenex." Consider as well Coca-Cola and McDonald's.<BR>Decades of research ' and corporate bottom lines ' support branding as a tool to help sell consumer goods. Can law firms use this technique, too?
Client Intelligence: IT, Marketing and Library Services Unite
August 01, 2003
As a futurist to what law firms need to be thinking about, I am always excited about "out of the box" methodologies that can impact the marriage of technology, research and marketing. Over the last few years, as IT and marketing departments have played a more prominent role in law firms, IT departments have rolled out software programs to assist marketing with the capturing of basic client relationship information for mailings, law alerts, programs and the like while at the same time working in tandem with the library to upgrade their legal research tools. Happily, with the advent of solution-based client intelligence/relationship management products, a new method of delivering all of this information can now be aggregated in one interface.
Rev the Revenue: The Marketing Focused Retreat
August 01, 2003
Tear the roof off most any major law firm and what do you see? Massive amounts of unfocused marketing energy. From this 30,000 foot, leaders-eye view, responsible stewards of their firms should ask, "how do we harness this energy, how do we concentrate it to achieve our overall goals (assuming we have any), and how do we converge the activities of our individual lawyers, the practice groups, disparate offices, and departments in order to unleash the potential that we know exists?
On the Job
August 01, 2003
In law firms, it can be difficult ' sometimes impossible ' to get actionable feedback from responsible partners or administrative management on how well a marketing professional is doing his or her job. While nice, I'm not talking about the "attagirl"s or "you go boy"s that might come from many of lawyers and co-workers as support and encouragement or intermittent salary hikes. I'm referring to a regular, systematic process that lets you know whether your assignments and objectives are being achieved as the firm expects.
Lawyers, Providers Split over Divorce Sites
August 01, 2003
You might think a couple wanting a quick divorce would first stop at a lawyer's office ' or maybe two lawyers' offices, one for each. Not necessarily. Their first stop may be the computer. Welcome to the new world of dot-com divorce.
Internet Not Only Loser at Supreme Court
August 01, 2003
When the Internet and the First Amendment lose at the Supreme Court, it is time to stop, look and listen.
Varied Rulings on 'Screen Scraping'
August 01, 2003
The courts continue to wrestle with how to map existing law onto the shifting terrain of computer technology. And it appears that new controversies are arising faster than judicial consensus can form. One of the latest controversies surrounds "screen scraping," a process by which a software program simulates a user's interaction with a Web site to access information stored on that site. A screen scraper not only can enter the information a human user would, but also can capture the Web site's replies. This facility may include the ability to extract substantial portions of data stored on the site ' and therein lies the beginning of the controversy.
A Salacious Tale of Two Sites and a Lawsuit
August 01, 2003
Katy Johnson is a former Miss Vermont who operates a Web site on which she champions moral values such as abstinence from casual sex and alcohol consumption. Tucker Max is a former law student who operates a Web site on which he champions competing values, such as frequent indulgence in casual sex and excessive alcohol consumption. In the summer of 2001, Johnson and Max made brief physical contact in Boca Raton, FL.<BR>This is essentially all that the two parties agree upon. Johnson claims that the physical contact constituted common law battery by Max. Max claims that the contact was not only voluntary, but also voluntarily intimate, and that this allegedly intimate contact was only the starting point of a passionate affair.
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