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Your lawyers are your law firm’s greatest asset. They bring in the money, build your firm’s brand, and make a difference in your clients’ lives. The expectations are big — but sometimes the burnout is even bigger. With long hours, lack of work-life balance, and significant expectations placed upon them, it’s understandable that many lawyers struggle to make law firm life work.
This is where a law firm’s culture can make all the difference. Support and understanding will go a long way in keeping your firm’s lawyers not only content but also professionally satisfied.
In this article, we’ll discuss what makes for a great law firm culture. We’ll also discuss its overarching impact on lawyers’ happiness and thus your firm’s success and bottom line.
Your law firm’s culture is representative of its core values. Hopefully, those core values include respect, collegiality, and equity. Creating a law firm culture and environment that supports lawyers (and staff!) and treats each employee like a human being is central to cultivating a productive and supportive work environment.
All of this is good for your people, good for your firm, and good for your bottom line. So, consider these tips that will help you build a better culture at your law firm.
Money talks, but so do benefits and paid time off. The best way to ensure the satisfaction of your lawyers and staff is to offer salaries and benefits packages that are competitive in the market.
We understand that this is easier said than done — you’re the one balancing your budget at the end of the year, not us. But one of the best ways to spend your firm’s revenue is by paying your team and staff competitively, thus showing them their value to the firm. A higher salary means higher retention rates and thus less training of new associates and turnover of client contacts (we’ll get into this more below).
Valuing your team also includes promoting internal pay equity. The gender pay gap is no secret, and it’s larger for women of color. Your law firm can both promote equity and look out for its bottom line by offering all employees fair and competitive packages regardless of their gender or racial identity. By paying your staff thoughtfully and re-evaluating their compensation regularly, your firm will show concretely (read: in cold hard cash) that it values its workforce.
Creating a healthy firm culture requires healthy employees. There are several thoughtful ways to support your employees and thus create a great firm culture.
One of the biggest issues for lawyers is burnout. One way to combat it is to monitor the hours of your individual attorneys and apportion workload accordingly. This means that if you notice one associate has been billing 12 hours a day for a week straight, it likely means that she needs support, and you may need to reallocate her workload.
Overwork isn’t good for anyone: the quality of the legal work suffers, and your lawyers are more likely to become frustrated and disengaged.
Though secondary to a better work-life balance, recognition goes a long way. If one associate is key to a big settlement, give them a shoutout at the next team meeting or in the firm newsletter. If a partner recently won a big pro bono case, it’s appropriate to do the same. Letting your lawyers know that you notice their hard work is important to employee satisfaction.
The pandemic taught us many things about office life, including that it’s not for everyone and that many people can be just as productive (maybe even more productive) working from home. By offering flexible work arrangements, including work-from-home options, your firm can easily support its lawyers and staff.
Constructive feedback and encouragement are all important components of professional growth for lawyers. This proves especially true for junior lawyers and new staff members. By providing individualized feedback and having one-on-one meetings (not just waiting for end-of-year performance reviews), your lawyers will feel supported in their learning.
To encourage development, find out what your lawyers and staff members are most interested in learning about. This gives junior lawyers and other employees the ability to both shape their careers and get excited about their practice. In turn, this will motivate them to deliver better work.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said it best: I know it when I see it. You know when your law firm’s culture is healthy, supportive, and working. You can also sense when things are tense and some readjusting is needed.
Much of what makes a law firm culture good or bad comes down to one thing: respect. Do your lawyers feel respected by the firm? Do staff feel respected by the lawyers? Does everyone feel like their time and efforts are being respected? These are all important questions to ask as you both begin to create and reimagine your law firm’s culture.
Open communication is key here. A good law firm culture prioritizes communication. Lawyers and staff alike should feel empowered to communicate with firm management on all topics, including serious subjects like pay, discrimination, workloads, and wellness. It also means that you should also open the door for more business-oriented discussions, enabling your team to share innovative ideas for client development or interesting CLEs and conferences.
Make sure that your law firm also follows through. Open communication without results is just talking. So, if you know that an employee is struggling, help them. If an associate has a great idea, listen and then help them achieve it. Your law firm will be a better and more productive place if you can do these things.
A great law firm culture can help grow your firm in two very important ways: lawyer, staff, and client retention and recruitment.
By having a strong and supportive law firm culture, you’ll retain more lawyers and staff. Turnover is not good for your law firm in any respect. It requires outputting significant onboarding and training efforts, all of which are nonbillable and expensive. Additionally, the integration of lateral associates can be difficult for all parties. Fewer lawyers in a practice group often means that too much work is shared by too few lawyers, thus leading to burnout and possible resignation. It becomes a cyclical problem.
The best way to address retention issues is to not have them by supporting your lawyers and staff in all the ways addressed in this article. Retained lawyers mean greater team synergy and harmony, higher productivity, and a friendlier workplace.
Retaining your clients is just as important. No one (and we mean it, no one) wants to be fired by a client. Your firm’s culture is central to being client-centric. It should go without saying, but treating clients with respect and dignity is essential. If your law firm is staffed with positive, responsive, and productive lawyers, you’ll make your firm more attractive and competitive to the clients that pay the bills. This holds true for all firms: big, medium, small, or solo.
Your law firm’s culture (and reputation) is particularly important when it comes to recruitment. People talk, and culture plays a big role in getting top recruits. Think about it: would a top recruit with numerous options go to a law firm known for burning out its lawyers or not caring about its culture? Our guess is no.
Your law firm’s brand is indicative of its culture. Having one focused on positivity, collaboration, and collegiality is imperative for both short- and long-term growth.
The legal profession has never been representative of the general makeup of the U.S. population. This is changing, and your law firm can and should be part of that change. However, your law firm should not only be committed to hiring diverse attorneys and staff but also to retaining them. A positive and inclusive law firm culture is the best way to do so.
Diversity is important to your firm’s growth Different perspectives make for more innovative thinking and a more fulsome representation of clients. With different and varied voices at the table, you’ll be able to consider issues from all angles and come up with creative solutions not possible otherwise.
In short, a diverse and inclusive legal team is an asset to your law firm and a boon to clients. Inclusion and representation are important factors in an equitable firm culture and are good for the longevity of your law firm.
Your lawyers and staff want to work at a law firm that offers competitive pay, meaningful collaboration, and authentic collegiality. Support and a commitment to diversity and inclusiveness should also be included to boot.
All of this is achievable; you just need a good plan and open lines of communication. Both your staff and bottom line will thank you.
Where do you turn when you’re looking for the best sushi spot in town? What about when you’re looking for a reputable accountant? Or a recommendation for an electrician? We’d bet our bottom dollar that you’re searching online and reviewing websites and reviews.
Your potential clients are doing the same thing with your legal website. This is why it’s so important to have a good one. Like they say: you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Your law firm’s online presence is the key to turning potential clients into paying ones. We understand that it’s hard to know where to begin and when to begin again. In this blog post, we’ll help get you started with pointers, tips of the trade, and design inspiration.
You’ve got this.
Before we get too far into the weeds, let’s start with the basics. We recommend reviewing this glossary of key legal website terms before diving into this article.
A CTA entices your website visitor to take the next step and get into contact with your law office. CTAs typically come in the form of phrases or buttons that encourage website readers to “contact us now” or “click here for more information.” CTAs make it easy for visitors and other leads to get more information and, hopefully, get into contact with your firm.
Conversion rates evaluate the effectiveness of your law firm’s website. Put simply, your conversion rate is the ratio of people who visit your firm’s website (or click on an ad) compared to people who convert into a lead. With the right reporting tools, your law firm can track how long a visitor stays on your website, which pages they view the most, which pages have the highest bounce rates (e.g., visitors leaving the site), which visits resulted from organic searches, and how many visitors turn into leads. Conversation rates are powerful tools for improving efficiency.
Landing pages are web pages created for specific marketing campaigns. They have a single goal: converting visitors into prospects. A visitor arrives at a landing page most often after clicking on a link in an email or ad from a search engine or social media. To be most effective, your landing page copy has to be persuasive and centered around getting your visitor to take a specific action (like signing up for a free consultation).
SEO is the practice of optimizing a website to boost its online visibility. To improve your law firm website’s visibility, you must make your website relevant to users’ searches. That means your website content has to reflect the terms that users type into the Google search bar. The more relevant your content is to a user’s search terms, the more likely your content will appear at the top of a search page.
What makes anything stand out? It’s usually some combination of uniqueness and crisp design. The logic is no different for your law firm’s website.
You know how competitive the legal market is, and it’s important to give your firm the upper hand whenever and wherever possible. Good law firm web design is an easy way to do so.
When getting started with or revamping your legal website, we recommend following these principles to help it stand out.
The best law firm website is design-forward. Your website should anticipate its visitors’ needs and provide helpful design solutions. The user experience on your firm’s homepage and website is critical to ensuring that website visitors stay long enough to learn about your firm.
Given this, we recommend minimalistic streamlining. Don’t you hate it when a website bombards you with distracting animations and endless pop-ups? Your legal website should focus on professionalism with a bit of flavor. Opt out of the cluttered homepage and into something more sleek and high-quality. You don’t want to lose potential clients before they even get to the name of your firm.
Your firm brand should also be clear based on your lawyer website design. Typography, color palette, and font choice set the tone for the perception of your law firm. You can convey that your firm is contemporary and fresh by selecting a minimal and simplistic sans-serif font. A serif font can do the same but instead convey legacy and lineage.
There’s also room for creativity with your law firm website design. By choosing a unique, eye-catching design, you can set your law firm’s website apart from all the lookalike pages on the internet and stop possible clients from scrolling on by.
The best lawyer websites are accessible. As you know, accessibility can mean a lot of things. First, consider how your content (think blog posts and practice areas pages) will appear in layout. You want your website and all of its content to be accessible on all devices. A potential client should be able to read your firm’s newsletter on a cell phone, tablet, or computer. Remember to account for different browser types.
Further, your website should bolster accessibility with an intuitive and user-friendly layout. Ease of use is critical. We recommend making use of both bold headers and white space. Without these things, all the great content you’ve created may go to waste.
You should also make sure that people who have impairments can understand the content on your site so it is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). You are required to make sure your website accommodates people with disabilities. Here are some steps to take:
Attorney websites must be more than a homepage. An individual practice page for each legal service that your firm offers will enhance the user experience and encourage visitors to linger. You should also include pages for engaging attorney biographies and pages that detail your firm’s expertise, case studies, and testimonials.
Your law firm website should include CTA buttons on each page to make it simple for prospective clients to inquire about your law firm’s services. CTAs encourage website visitors to fill out a contact form to provide their contact information (think email and phone number). By having visible CTA buttons, you’ll be able to connect more easily with folks who might become new clients.
Whether you are a personal injury lawyer, work in real estate law, or run a small criminal defense firm, we highly recommend outsourcing the legwork to the marketing experts to help build you a new website or revamp your current one.
The best law firm website designs are specific to your law firm. That means you have to think a bit about your firm’s identity and goals. Your website’s goal is to attract new clients, but before you put the cart before the horse, you’ll need to think about who those new clients are and how they might benefit from your firm’s legal services.
Start with inquiries into your firm’s target audience. Who are they? Where are they? Might they need specific family law advice or general guidance on how to create a parenting plan? Once you have a grasp on the audience, you can begin building or revamping a website to meet their discreet needs.
Once you’ve handled the theoretical, it’s time to move to the practical: graphic design and website features. If you’re new to web design, we recommend using a template to get started. We also recommend choosing wisely. Your choice of a template will inform a prospective client’s first impression of your practice.
When selecting a template. consider the following factors.
We know that you know how important SEO is. It’s the most cost-effective way to attract new clients and build your firm’s book of business. If you boost your SEO, your website will be primed to find and engage prospective clients.
When selecting a template and website builder, make sure they come with SEO tools that you can use to optimize your site. The best practice is to pick a template that allows your firm to update each page’s metadata and use keywords. We also recommend using a website builder and template that provides a sitemap to specific search engines.
If you or someone else in-house will be handling the design process, start simple and intuitive. Find the right balance between all the bells and whistles and something that might be too simplistic (you at least need some color in your color scheme). Consider starting with a law firm WordPress theme or a drag-and-drop page builder.
Your firm is unique, and your selection of template should showcase that. This is essential for both design and connective purposes. If it’s important that clients be able to make appointments online, pick a template that supports that function. If you’re looking to update your blog daily, make sure that your selected template has the capabilities for it. Personalization of your selected template through either built-in features or third-party plugins is key to setting your website apart from the competition and showcasing your firm’s uniqueness.
Many firms choose to outsource the legwork of SEO and website design to web design experts who know the ins and outs of creative design. These experts take the headaches of web work away so you can focus on helping clients.
After thinking about your firm’s core message and considering the above tips on style and design, the next step is to dig into some great examples of inspirational law firm websites. The below websites are some of the best. Notice how each website establishes the law firm as professional and reputable while also being stylistically interesting.
The Sisk Law Firm website is immediately authoritative. The color scheme of deep blues and blacks conveys professionalism and competency but isn’t too dark or overwhelming. The homepage clearly sets out the law firm’s bankruptcy specialization, allowing visitors to see both the breadth and depth of the lawyers’ expertise. The homepage also states that the law firm offers free consultations, which will go a long way in the bankruptcy context.
Similar to the Sisk Law Firm, Slape & Howard has a signature color scheme. The navy blue and yellow palette strikes the perfect balance of professional yet approachable. The firm’s tagline, “We're Here When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” is displayed prominently on the homepage, indicating to visitors that the firm does plaintiff-side work. The website also includes helpful accessibility features such as multiple translation options and the ability to make the website font larger and more visible.
The Law Offices of John Della Rocca website takes an immediately local approach. The website indicates clearly that the firm practices in the Philadelphia area and lists specific case results there. The homepage also states that the firm has adapted to the new reality of COVID and has video calling capabilities. The firm’s contact information is displayed prominently and notes that free consultations are available.
If you are looking to take your law firm’s website to the next level, we recommend working closely with marketing professionals that can do it all.
You should re-evaluate your legal website yearly or whenever your firm goes through a significant alteration. Design tastes change, and your website should keep up with current trends. We recommend looking at peer firm websites as a metric for comparison when it comes to design. You’ll be able to get a feel for the appropriateness of your own legal website this way.
An important component of this evaluation is tech. Does your law firm’s website feel outdated? If so, it might be time to switch templates or webpage hosts to something more modern and capable of supporting plugins. Backend tech is always evolving, and keeping up is an important part of staying in the game.
Tracking your conversation rate and the general effectiveness of your website can illuminate where your site is struggling and help you make informed decisions on redesign. If visitors are always bouncing on one page, it’s probably a good idea to redesign it.
You should also re-evaluate your law firm website in connection with an office move or change in practice area or expertise. This sort of assessment doesn’t require a radical design transformation, but changing this information will ensure that your website is up to date and will show clients that you’re detail-oriented.
Every year, you should also schedule an evaluation of your website to make sure it is still ADA-compliant. Refer to the list of steps above. You can also visit ADA.gov for more details on website compliance.
Following the tips and tricks mentioned in this article can help accelerate the performance of your law firm’s website. Through compelling web design, enhanced SEO, and a keen sense of self, your firm will be off to the races. The right tools, solutions, and marketing experts are here to support your firm along the way.
More so than in other practices, personal injury lawyers must sell their services to possible clients. This is where a good website is key. The best personal injury lawyer website communicates who your law firm is, what services you offer, and why clients should choose you over other lawyers. Potential clients also may be seeking out your personal injury firm during a period of stress, and your firm’s website and related content should recognize that. With your website, you’ll want to showcase your firm’s competency, both emotionally and legally.
In this article, we’ll run through what makes a great personal injury law firm website and provide examples of some of the best.
To stand out in the crowd, your personal injury attorney website should have a homepage, descriptions of your practice areas, lawyer bios, testimonials, case studies, and resources.
Your website’s homepage must state clearly that you practice personal injury law. It should also communicate why clients should hire you by including easy-to-read, SEO-optimized headings that establish your credibility and set forth a clear core message.
Design is key here! You want to encourage prospective clients to stay on your website by providing a top-notch user experience. Don’t include too many banners or cluttered “click here" buttons; a streamlined and clean homepage communicates professionalism. Finally, your homepage should prominently announce how to get in contact with your firm.
Every area of expertise in your personal injury practice should have its own page that describes your firm’s experience. Do you practice in car accidents? Slip and falls? Insurance bad faith? Wrongful death?
By including specifics, you’ll be in a stronger position to capture possible leads. It’s important to explain in detail the types of matters your firm handles and give a list of representative cases so that clients understand that you have been there and done that.
A personal injury case is usually very close to home — clients who come to you for help may be injured or in a vulnerable position. You can help prospective clients feel comfortable reaching out by providing lawyer and staff bios; having a face behind the words on a page is always helpful.
We recommend highlighting your approach to personal injury cases or something in your background that will make you stand out to a prospective client. If your firm is smaller and staff will be interacting with clients and prospects, it makes sense to include a bio for them as well.
Include positive testimonials on your website to build credibility with prospective clients. You might also share case studies that show what results you’ve achieved for clients. If you won a big car accident settlement for a client, consider including it.
The same goes for smaller wins like dog bite or neglect cases. To personalize case studies and testimonials, ask former clients to share a photo or record a short video about how you helped them. (You can repurpose these photos and videos on your social media channels too.) These success stories should be uplifting and positive. News snippets, badges, and certificates will also go a long way in building a positive reputation for your personal injury law firm and helping the community learn to trust in you.
This is the area where your firm will build the most credibility. You may include blogs, news about your firm, white papers, ebooks, and other downloadable content that will convince visitors that you are an authority in your practice areas.
Another popular item to include is frequently asked questions (FAQs). Not only will FAQs help you land higher in the search engines when clients type legal questions into their search bar, but they also give you a chance to show off your knowledge of personal injury law.
Your personal injury law firm website should focus on two things: subject-matter expertise for your various legal services and optimization for the web. By prioritizing these core elements, your website will not only increase its number of visitors but also get them to stay.
Personal injury law is complex and showing off your firm’s subject-matter expertise is key to letting prospective clients know that you can help solve their problems. So, your website should showcase your law firm’s authority and knowledge.
However, building authority does not necessarily mean having an authoritative tone. The best way to build authority for your personal injury law firm is to know your target audience and to address them specifically. The copy on your truck accident page should differ from that on your nursing home neglect page. You’ll want to strike the tone of compassionate competence in your wrongful death copy but will probably want something more professional for your product liability page. Knowing who you’re addressing will convey knowledge and competence to prospective clients and help you land them as paying clients.
Your website should also be backed up by in-depth, expertly written content. By focusing on your target audience with your firm’s website, you’ll establish your law firm as both client-centric and approachable. As applied to your personal injury law firm’s website, your goal with content creation should be to showcase your law firm’s work, practice areas, and lawyers. To get started, ask what questions your target audience and leads might have. Consider questions like these:
We then recommend answering these questions by creating legal content such as blog posts, social media posts, videos, webinars, and even white papers. By focusing on your target audience with your firm’s website, you’ll establish your personal injury law firm as both client-centric and approachable.
We’ve spoken extensively about the wonders of optimization and how it can make your firm’s website more visible. Boosting your personal injury law firm’s website is no different — it remains the best and most cost-effective way to attract new clients and build your firm’s book of business.
SEO is the practice of optimizing a website to improve online visibility in search engine rankings by using certain relevant search terms in your created content. The more relevant your content is to a user’s search terms, the more likely it is that your content will appear at the top of a Google search page. Your law firm website will best find and engage prospective clients if you boost your SEO. We recommend getting started by researching keywords related to your practice as a personal injury lawyer.
Local SEO is also essential to optimizing your law firm’s website. Optimizing your firm’s presence on Google Maps, Google My Business, and Yelp can help establish your personal injury firm as the reputable, go-to one in the community.
Your law firm website design is so important. You’re competing with other personal injury firms, and a compelling user experience might be what snags the next client for you. Your website should be functional and accessible first. Every design decision you make for your personal injury firm website should ask the following question: will this help potential clients find and then choose my law firm over others?
Picking the right font for your website is important, and so is creating a compelling visual design and color scheme. Consider how your created content (think white papers and lawyer bios) will appear when laying out your website. The best legal websites can be interacted with on all devices (cell phones, tablets, computers, etc.) and on all browsers. Your law firm website should also be laid out intuitively and be friendly and easy to use and navigate, with clear headers and white space. Without these things, all the great content you’ve created may go to waste.
Your personal injury law firm website should also include call to action (CTA) buttons to make it simple for prospective clients to inquire about your firm’s services. CTAs encourage website readers to fill out a contact form to provide their information. Many of your prospective clients will be visiting your personal injury website for guidance and answers. By having visible CTA buttons (maybe even one that offers a free consultation), you’ll be able to connect more easily with folks who might need your firm’s services.
Many personal injury law firms choose to work with outside law firm marketing experts to build their brand with web designers and marketing strategists. These experts know the ins and outs of web and template design and have access to advanced marketing tools that will help you build a clean, impactful law firm website. Bringing in a digital marketing services team can help your firm figure out the best way to increase its client conversions.
The best personal injury firm web designs are updated each year. We cannot recommend enough the ease of working with marketing professionals to stay on top of the trends and ensure that your website is competing. Below are personal injury law firm websites that exemplify the points discussed in this article. Each website highlighted below establishes the law office as an expert in personal injury law and helps them reach a larger audience, therefore generating more leads.
The Denning Law Firm is a great example of a personal injury law firm website that has it all. Its lawyers have created helpful pages for visitors to access additional information regarding its firm’s expertise, and they clearly sublabel each area of personal injury law that they practice in (e.g., product liability, medical malpractice, and construction accidents). Denning’s blog is updated regularly with information and resources, helping clients understand their need for legal counsel and support. The website also features an “In the News” tab where prospective clients can learn about the firm’s recent wins, gaining the firm social prioof and giving the prospect an understanding of what Denning can do for them.
Paul Benson Law Firm is a law firm specializing in personal injury law, including car accidents, slips and falls, and pedestrian accidents. The site’s homepage is clean and concise. It features the attorney’s succinct firm statement as well as links to landing pages showcasing the firm’s expertise in personal injury law. It is client-centric, written in an appropriate and authoritative tone, and features a “get in touch” CTA. We also note that the firm logo is distinct and interesting but still professional.
Zwick Law is another law firm specializing in personal injury cases. The firm’s homepage is approachable and clean and includes various case results suggesting the firm’s superb reputation to website visitors. The website also features a compelling attorney biography page with easily accessible contact information, including phone number, as well as a blog that is updated regularly with relevant content, improving the website’s SEO.
Your firm depends on a steady pipeline of prospective clients. The best way to keep and acquire new clients is through a compelling website.
By using legal marketing tactics that enhance your site’s visibility, including increasing your website traffic by implementing SEO and improving your content generation, even small law firms will be optimized to compete for new leads and prospective clients. The right tools, solutions, and marketing experts will help your personal injury law firm stand out.
Breaking up is hard to do — we all know this. And while any divorce or separation can be painful, the stakes are higher when children are involved. Having a parenting plan in place can help with both logistics and healing and, most importantly, ensure that the best interests of your children are kept at the forefront. Stability is important, and a well-drafted parenting plan can help any family achieve it.
In this article, we’ll cover all aspects of parenting plans, from what you should include to how to avoid common pitfalls to specific state law requirements. A good parenting plan will help you and your co-parent navigate new waters and ensure that your children are cared for.
A parenting plan is just that — a plan for parenting children. Generally, a parenting plan is drafted and put into place in connection with divorce, separation, annulment, or child custody disputes. Parenting plans are sometimes referred to as parenting agreements, custody agreements, or co-parenting plans, and they may or may not be required by a court.
Essentially, a parenting plan is an agreement between parents that outlines the schedule, duties, and responsibilities of each parent. The agreement may contain specific information regarding guardianship, and if there are other parties involved, such as stepparents or grandparents, the parenting plan will likely also cover their rights and role in the child’s life. A parenting plan is drafted by the parents, the attorneys involved in the dispute, or the court itself, and the plan may be created even if not required by the state.
By having a parenting plan in place, you can reduce conflict and friction by setting clear guidelines and expectations of your former partner while also understanding what is expected of you. Parenting plans benefit both parents and children alike, and drafting a good one is important to creating a harmonious co-parenting situation.
What is a good parenting plan for one family will be deficient for another, which is to say, it depends. The best parenting plan is one that is specific to your situation. However, there are general components that should be included in all parenting plans. The key is specificity.
Your parenting plan must include the general information of the parties involved. This includes the names, contact information, and phone numbers of each parent and the names and birthdates of all children.
Legal and physical child custody are perhaps the most important (and contentious) components of a parenting plan. However, it is important that the specifics regarding custody of the child be laid out clearly and agreed to within the arrangement. There are several custody options available:
A custody or visitation schedule sets forth when each parent will have parenting time with the child. The specifics of this parenting time schedule will be based upon which legal and physical custody arrangement you and your former partner have settled on. When building this schedule, consider how visitation might work for the non-custodial parent. What will the details of your holiday schedule be? How will birthdays be spent? New Year’s Eve? What about school breaks? Shorter breaks, such as Labor Day or Memorial Day? While some of these things might seem minor, ironing them out in your parenting plan now might help you to avoid conflict later.
Along with determining your custody or visitation schedule comes establishing the duties and responsibilities of each parent. It’s important to outline each parent’s rights to see their children during day-to-day activities. Do both parents have the right to attend the child’s extracurricular activities? What about pick up from the children’s school, daycare, or childcare on transfer days? Your proposed parenting plan should also state clearly in which situations a parent is required to contact the other, such as in the case of a mental health crisis.
Your parenting plan should also detail how you’ll split expenses related to the child. Will one parent provide child support? Who will pay for health insurance or health care? What about private schools? Who will claim the child as a dependent on their taxes? Your parenting plan should lay all of this out clearly and carefully to avoid future contention and to ensure that your child is properly financially supported.
Because your family is unique, you’ll also need to include details specific to your family in your parenting plan. Consider any particular day-to-day decisions that might need to be made as well as anything in connection with special occasions. Maybe spending Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Easter, or Diwali with your children is particularly important to you. If that’s the case, have it in the plan. Further, if you are separating from a partner because of domestic violence, that is something that should also be addressed in the parenting plan with specificity.
While all of this may seem overwhelming, particularly in the wake of a divorce or separation, the most important thing to keep in mind when writing your parenting plan is your child’s well-being. It’s a balancing act between specificity and flexibility.
The parenting plan that you write specifically for a court should contain all of the core elements discussed above. In fact, in many states, courts prefer that parents submit their own detailed parenting plan (as opposed to having the court order a specific arrangement) because they understand best what their children need.
Typically, you and your former partner will come up with your parenting plan either outside of court or during formal court proceedings. If you are able to come to an agreement outside of court, generally you will present your parenting plan to the court for the judge’s approval. If approved by the court (pending any specific state law concerns (as discussed below)), your parenting plan will become enforceable by law. A parenting plan that is informal, not in writing, and not approved by a court may not be enforceable.
In the situation where parents are unable to agree on a parenting plan, the court may issue a plan for them. To the extent possible, it’s best to avoid a court-ordered parenting arrangement because, as discussed throughout this article, you, as a parent, are in the best position to determine what arrangement will work best for your family. Alternatively, a court may allow each parent to present their own plan. The judge will then listen to each plan and pick one (likely with adjustments). If only one parent presents a plan, it’s likely that the court will adopt that plan. So it’s important to develop your own parenting plan and to do so thoughtfully.
Though it will vary from state to state and judge by judge, when assessing a parenting plan, courts will typically consider the following factors:
You may want to consult a family law lawyer to help you draft your parenting plan, particularly if your divorce or separation has been contentious. There are specific state law concerns that you may want legal advice on, and a law firm will be able to help you. Alternatively, many parents find it helpful to use a parenting plan template or worksheet, many of which are available online. These resources allow you to customize your parenting plan to cover what is most important to you and your family.
The more harmonious and detailed your parenting plan, the smoother co-parenting will go for you and your former partner. Court wants to see how your parenting plan will create a stable and loving environment for your children.
Your parenting plan is about your children. One of the biggest mistakes parents make when determining their plan is to put their own needs ahead of their children’s. As discussed throughout this article, the best parenting plan is one that is agreed to by both parents and focused on the best interests of the child.
Other common mistakes include creating a parenting plan that is too vague. This generally leads to disharmony between co-parents and the need for regular day-to-day negotiation, which isn’t fun for anyone. The terms of the parenting agreement should be laid out clearly and specifically. Specifics that are regularly left out include forgetting to specify what happens when one parent wants to relocate and failing to include specifics on tax deduction issues.
Additionally, there should be a provision about how to handle changes to the parenting plan. As time passes and your children grow older, it’s inevitable that revisions will need to be made. Make sure that you follow the proper legal process as set forth in your parenting agreement for these changes—doing so will only protect you.
Though there are specific laws that differ state by state, the core elements of your parenting plan will remain the same regardless of the state in which it’s drafted or enforced. You will always want your parenting plan to be specific, clearly drafted, and legally enforceable. However, the way in which it is drafted and becomes legally enforceable will differ in each state.
Some states require that specific information be included in a parenting plan. For example, in Arizona, a joint legal custody agreement requires that a written parenting plan include a way to resolve conflicts about custody and parenting time; additionally, Arizona also requires that certain language stating that joint custody does not necessarily mean equal parenting time to be included in the parenting plan. Further, many states require that a parenting plan be signed before a witness or notary public to be enforceable, while others do not.
The key is knowing and following your specific state custody guideline when drafting your parenting plan. If you and the other parents live in different states, this gets a bit murkier, and it’s likely to your benefit to consult a family law lawyer. You can use this resource to start considering more specifics.
Divorce and separation are hard. By drafting and implementing a well-thought-out and complete parenting plan now, you’ll protect your peace of mind later. Remember what’s most important during the process, and be sure to take advantage of all resources available to you. This is an opportunity to start defining your new family.
Forecasting isn’t only for your local weatherman—it’s an essential legal process too. Fortunately, forecasting income and expenses isn’t as complex as predicting where the next hurricane will hit or when the first freeze of the year will occur. But, when you’re juggling all the tasks of running a law firm, the forecasting and budgeting process can seem both challenging and overwhelming.
Law school courses don’t teach you the practical aspects of running a business, even though they come up every day in real-life practice at a small firm, especially for solo practitioners.
Creating a solid budget and getting your law firm’s finances in order are imperative. This is the only way to stay competitive in the legal market.
The good news is that with the right strategy and management tools, your firm will be off and running. Let’s take a look at these critical processes and what steps you can take to create a budgeting plan.
A budget is an estimate of revenue and expenditures for a specific time period. Basically, it’s your law firm’s plan for sustainable financial success, and budgeting is the process of creating that plan.
Budgeting provides your law firm with a measuring stick for periodic review throughout the next year. If your law firm is hitting its goals, maybe it’s time for an office party! If it’s missing your desired milestones, it’s probably time to re-evaluate and adjust. Creating a comprehensive budget is the best way to proactively manage your law firm’s finances.
A good budget is thoughtful and aligns anticipated revenue and expenses with goals.
What to include in your law firm budget will depend on the size of your firm, how long it’s been in operation, and what practice areas it specializes in. However, there are a few constants for all practices that you should consider when drafting your firm’s budget. Ask yourself these questions.
Don’t start your budget planning in a vacuum. Instead, start by thinking about your firm’s mandatory expenses.
· What is required of the legal professionals at your firm?
· What is the cost of bar association dues?
· What do their CLE expenses look like for the year?
· Does your firm maintain malpractice insurance?
· What is the yearly premium?
· What about subscriptions?
Additionally, think about staffing. If firm leadership is planning to add more employees to the firm, you’ll need to know whether your firm will have money to cash flow that addition. You’ll also want to consider the tangibles: the cost of office space, hardware, and legal and accounting software. What about upgrading to new technology? Or the cost of business cards? Note that some of these expenses will be incurred yearly, some monthly, and some only once.
Once expenses and other overhead costs have been itemized, your next step is to consider profitability (and to do so realistically).
Revenue is the money your firm receives from clients for legal services rendered. When you subtract expenses and overhead costs from revenue, you have net profit (otherwise known as the bottom line).
Think about net profitability in real terms: how many clients will your firm need to service over the next quarter (the next two quarters? the next year?) to bring in the desired level of revenue? Are your firm’s rates high enough to support the practice? What is the required cash flow to keep the lights on? Can improving your invoicing practices improve that cash flow? What about accepting alternative payment methods like credit cards?
If your law firm is hitting revenue milestones without increasing net profit, it means you might need to cut expenses and overhead costs. Be sure to consider seasonality when it comes to revenue. If you’re a tax firm, you’re likely booming in April and slow in July. With awareness, your firm can account for these patterns and set aside capital accordingly so that the necessary funds are still available during less profitable months.
Keeping track of your law firm budget can be time-consuming and stressful. Many new law firms will opt for Excel spreadsheets or budgeting templates to get started with tracking planned expenses and revenue. However, when your law firm grows and its workflow increases, keeping track of your law office budget on those tools might prove even more time-consuming and stressful. The right legal reporting software puts a host of budgeting and financial reports at your fingertips, each of which will help your law firm organize your finances, optimize your practice, and help you strengthen client relationships.
When it comes to how often to review your budgeting process, we recommend assessing your budget each month. This regularity will provide your law firm with a good idea of whether you need to make any adjustments. Additionally, your firm should review its budget yearly to adjust for goals, new practice areas, or unforeseen circumstances (like a market crash or, say, a global pandemic).
While budgeting will look different for each firm, we suggest a couple of tools of the trade to get you started on creating or rethinking your law firm budget.
Setting your law firm goals is one of the first steps in creating a workable budget. Goals are a benchmark to help you determine where to put capital and where to cut costs.
We recommend classifying your goals into the following categories: (1) short-term goals that you can reach in the first six months of your fiscal year, (2) mid-term goals that can be reached by the end of your fiscal year, and (3) long-term goals that will take your firm longer than a year to reach. Also make sure that each set of goals is specifically laid out, measurable, and realistic.
Using the right tools and legal tech can transform a firm’s profitability and law practice management. While it may seem like just another line item expense, technology can actually help keep your costs low through workflow and document automation, which frees up your lawyers and staff to work on billable matters (i.e., tasks that pay).
The right legal tech will help your firm simplify nonbillable tasks like client intake, practice management, billing and collections, and time tracking. With more time for billable work, your firm can raise its revenues. And with the right tech that offers a streamlined experience and integrations, your firm will minimize its use of subscription services and administrative time and thus minimize your overhead costs. The result is the perfect recipe for increased profitability.
We aren’t yet out of uncertain times, and keeping a pulse on what’s to come is important when setting your budget. If your law firm hasn’t yet undergone a full return to the office, your budget may need to include capital for the transition. Or, if your law firm has stayed committed to a hybrid workplace, you might still need to budget for increased tech costs and stipends to employees.
Additionally, many law firms are amplifying their marketing strategies. It’s likely worthwhile to consider how marketing efforts can fit into your budget and increase awareness and thus revenue.
Budgeting and forecasting are both helpful tools that your law firm can and should use to establish a financial plan. As discussed throughout this article, budgeting is the game plan for where firm management wants to take the firm.
Essentially, your budget is an outline of financial expectations and goals. Forecasting, on the other hand, is interpreting whether that plan is working and whether the firm is moving in the right direction by estimating revenue, costs, and ultimately profit that will be achieved at a future date. Generally, forecasting looks at historical data (like last year’s or last quarter’s profits) and then anticipates future outcomes based on it. It’s like a crystal ball, but only better because it’s filled with cash.
Forecasting helps firm management make needed adjustments in practice areas by hiring in anticipation of a boom and, more generally, helps you develop an informed business plan. You can then take that informed business plan into consideration when developing a budget.
With some critical thinking and the right tools, your firm will be ready for the coming year. Remember that no budget is perfect, but by having one in place and monitoring it regularly, your law firm can forecast big changes and adjust as needed.
Whether you’re about to write a memo or a brief, it’s hard to stare at a blank page. Now, it’s even harder if that blank page is the website for your law firm.
When you’re starting to plan your website, there are countless things to consider: whether to outsource the work, what website tools to use, and what your budget should be, to name a few.
But it doesn’t always have to be that hard. If you choose a template for your website design, especially one that has built-in flexibility, you can get up and running much more quickly than if you were to design your website from scratch. Depending on the template you choose, it can not only make creating your website easier but also ensure that you have a consistent, clear brand.
It’s a lot to consider! So, in this article, we’ll help you get started. We’ll introduce what makes a good attorney website template and what to look for when selecting one for your law firm.
You want your law firm website to help clients discover and then choose your law firm. We’ve waxed poetic about the importance of a good legal website. If you’re new to online marketing, getting started is as simple as selecting the right template.
Your choice of template will impact a client’s first impression of your firm. The right template for your firm depends on what your law firm wants to achieve with its website (e.g., selling the abilities of your lawyers or getting prospective clients to fill out a contact form).
When selecting lawyer website templates, we recommend keeping three rules of thumb in mind.
Use a website builder and template that feel intuitive to you. Many templates may claim to have all the bells and whistles, but when it comes down to it, they’re just impossible to actually use. (And some of them might cost you an arm and a leg if you want to customize them.) Others might be too simplistic and won’t allow you to create an engaging or attractive lawyer website.
The key is to find the right balance for your firm and reap the benefits of more leads and potential clients. If you’re handling the creation of the website yourself, consider starting with a law firm WordPress theme or a drag-and-drop page builder.
Use a website builder and template that allow your firm to personalize your website’s pages. There may be features that are important to your firm, such as the ability to book appointments online, the capacity to host a live chat, or the ability to support a chatbot. It’s important to figure out which personalized components are important to your firm and then ensure that the template selected can support them. Functionality is key!
Personalization of your selected template through either built-in features or third-party plugins (e.g., widgets, Elementor page builder, Visual Composer, WooCommerce, WPML, or other lawyer WordPress theme plugins) is key to setting your website apart from the competition and showcasing your firm’s uniqueness.
Consider, for example, Bootstrap, a free, open-source, front-end development framework that can be used to create a legal website. As a framework, Bootstrap includes all your basics for a responsive design and is built on HTML, HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript.
Whether your firm specializes in ecommerce or personal injury law, an optimized website will help it attract new clients. Search engine optimization (SEO) improves your law firm’s website to boost its online visibility in search engines. For instance, Google search results rank the responses to a user’s inquiry based on the content of webpages. Thus, the more relevant your content is to the search terms entered, the more likely that your content will appear at the top of a search page.
Your selected template and website builder should have the right SEO tools to optimize your website. For optimal results, pick a template that allows you to update each page’s metadata, including the page’s meta description, and use keywords. We also recommend using a website builder and template that provides a sitemap to specific search engines.
Many law firms choose to outsource the legwork of SEO and site design to web design experts who know the ins and outs of web and template design. These experts take the headaches of web work away so you can focus on helping clients while they find ways to attract a pipeline of future business for your firm.
The user experience of your law firm’s website is critical: you want visitors to stay put, engage with your content, and then hopefully get in contact with your law office. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of your law firm's website. A thoughtful website design will keep web visitors engaged while also guiding them along in selecting your firm for legal services. However, a cluttered homepage filled with moving banners, animations, and endless pop-ups won’t convey your firm’s capabilities and might even cost you possible leads.
We recommend that your web design and layout be multipurpose: functional, accessible, and interesting. Ask yourself the following question as you make decisions: will this design and layout help potential clients find and then choose my law firm? Select the template with that question in mind. The goal is to convert leads into paying clients (and to get folks down to your legal offices).
As you focus on how to get the most out of your template, consider the following elements.
To create a compelling visual design, you’ll need forethought. Consider how visual content like lawyer headshots, videos, and graphics will appear on your website. The template that you select should not just support but also highlight this important content (think parallax display and retina-ready images). Many attorney WordPress themes have these features built in.
For example, your homepage announces who your firm is and why clients hire you. It’s also the first impression that you’ll make to prospective clients. Be sure that your law firm template complements any images you intend to display on your homepage, including in the header. Your chosen template should support (and not clash with) your firm’s logo design and color scheme. When picking a template, consider where your logo and other visual content might appear and adjust accordingly.
Additionally, the best web design is built on a responsive template. That means your website should adapt and look good on all devices (cell phones, tablets, and computers) and on all browser types (Google Chrome, Safari, and Firefox). Friendliness and ease of use are also important and will make navigation easier. The right template selection and design will ensure a positive user experience with your legal website.
When selecting your website template, give thought to the content that will be displayed on each page. For example, consider the template that you’ll use for your firm overview page as opposed to your lawyer and staff bio page. You’ll also want to carefully choose the right font for your legal website. This decision requires balancing readability, messaging, and authority.
The copy on your firm overview page should explain clearly what your firm does. Ask questions like these:
For your firm overview page, you’ll likely want a simple template with a singular focus on your firm’s core messaging.
In contrast, your lawyer and staff bio pages are intended to help potential clients get to know the folks who keep your firm running. This page will contain more information than your firm overview page, so the template for this page will be different.
We recommend a template that offers tabs for various aspects of a lawyer’s bio: law school attended, bar admissions, practice area expertise, and even client testimonials or case studies. You’ll also want your website to be able to link to secondary content, like your firm’s social media pages.
The website builder that you use should provide data on your website’s analytics. Without this valuable information regarding your potential clients’ behavior, it’s hard to track web traffic to certain landing pages and even harder to optimize your overall marketing strategy.
Your firm’s brand is critical, and your online presence is an essential part of your brand. The template that your law firm chooses for each aspect of its professional services can either reinforce or hurt your brand.
Before you choose a template, consider the basics outlined in this article. And, if you have any questions or decide that you’re in over your head, online marketing experts are ready to help you.
Your law firm needs a marketing strategy to compete. While it’s easy to defer developing a smart marketing strategy because your firm is busy, we promise that it’s time well spent. Without it, your firm will be relying on word-of-mouth referrals and stunting its growth. To best grow and sustain itself, your law firm needs to attract new business. Having a concrete marketing strategy is the most effective and efficient way to build a pipeline of new leads.
In this article, we’ll cover best practices for building a marketing strategy and offer tips on how to market your law firm. Let’s get started!
Law firm marketing is used to attract (and hopefully convert) potential clients to your firm. It’s an important part of developing successful strategies to grow and sustain your legal practice. And it’s not only for big law firms! Small firms, boutiques, and solo practitioners alike can all benefit from a marketing strategy. Basically, developing a marketing strategy requires putting thought into your firm’s needs and mapping out actionable steps to meet those needs and build your roster of clients.
Your law firm runs because of one thing: a continuous stream of paying clients. But maintaining a profitable level of client activity is a real struggle for many small firms and solo practitioners. Acquiring new, paying clients is not an easy process, especially when your firm is just starting out. A successful law firm marketing strategy can help fix this. By marketing your law firm efficiently, your firm will generate new leads and increase its opportunities to acquire new clients. New clients mean more billable hours, which means more profit. All of this starts with a good law firm marketing strategy.
Creating and then enacting a good law firm marketing strategy is a multi-step process. The key steps are knowing your law firm, identifying your target audience, considering your competition, defining your goals, and then executing the strategy.
Patience is also key in this process. It’s unlikely that your law firm will get it all right on the first try. Your marketing strategy will require adjustment to reflect shifting needs and priorities. The best law firm marketing strategy is flexible, so just know that whatever your firm decides upon now is not set in stone.
Why does your law firm exist? The first and most important step in developing your law firm’s marketing strategy is to figure out your firm’s core message and positioning.
Your firm’s core message is what you want clients to know about your law firm. It should address your current and aspirational clientele and emphasize your firm’s strengths. The clearer your idea of your firm’s core message, the easier it is to determine its trajectory.
As you consider these things, your firm may find it helpful to outline the types of legal services that it offers. Questions to start with should include these:
· What type of clients does your law firm usually serve?
· How many clients do you serve per year?
· What practice area does your firm specialize in?
· What are your law firm’s strengths?
· What are your law firm’s weaknesses?
The answers to these questions will help your firm begin to craft its lawyer marketing strategy.
Without identifying the folks who might need your law firm’s services, it’s hard to know how to tailor your firm’s marketing activities. A steady understanding of your firm’s target audience is the best way to determine the focus of your law firm’s marketing efforts.
Important factors to consider regarding your target audience include geographical location, age, gender, income, and occupation. If businesses are your law firm’s main clientele, consider your typical client’s size, geographical location, and industry. By knowing your target audience and considering them when making marketing decisions, your law firm will optimize its efforts and reach people most in need of its services and thus most likely to turn into paying clients.
The legal market is competitive. One way to stay ahead is by analyzing the market and considering your competition. Conduct a market analysis by evaluating your target audience, the size of business opportunity in your area to serve that audience, and possible practice area expansions. Think about the level of competition in your practice area and location when creating your law firm marketing tactics.
For example, your tactics will differ if your firm specializes in executive compensation in a competitive market like New York City or if you’re a solo practitioner in a small New England town. The best law firm marketing strategy considers market opportunity and possible market share.
What do you want your law firm’s marketing strategy to achieve? Think in three-, six-, and twelve-month increments. We recommend setting SMART goals for each timeframe and re-evaluating them regularly.
The key factors to consider when defining your law firm marketing strategy goals include the number of new clients your firm wants to acquire, the number of clients you expect to retain, the firm’s projected and current revenue, the firm’s practice area expertise, and the number of team members you plan to hire and retain. To best envision your goals, your law firm should consider questions like these:
· Is generating new leads your main focus?
· Does your firm want to expand into new regions or practice areas?
· How much of a concern is your firm’s bottom line?
· Is your firm in major growth mode?
Once you’ve determined your law firm’s marketing strategy goals, you can decide where to focus your firm’s efforts and how to get the most out of the capital that you spend on marketing.
When creating or revamping your law firm’s marketing strategy, consider early on who at the firm will be the head of marketing and who will make up the larger marketing team. We cannot stress enough the benefits of outsourcing the legwork to marketing agency experts who can help you devise and implement your legal marketing strategy (and who won’t blow your budget).
Remember to keep your target audience top of mind when devising what marketing channels your firm will pursue. For example, if you practice in trusts and estates, a Twitter campaign might not be the most fruitful use of your firm’s marketing funds. However, if your firm practices in tech mergers and acquisitions, a LinkedIn campaign might be the right place to advertise.
Though they sound similar, your marketing strategy and marketing plan are distinct. Your law firm's marketing strategy is the connective tissue between your law firm's goals and your firm’s ongoing marketing efforts. Your strategy is based on the theoretical, focusing on the why behind your decisions. Why this marketing goal? Why this target audience? Why these legal services?
A law firm's marketing plan defines the specific actions that your law firm is going to take to execute its strategy. Just as you might outline a business plan, your law firm's marketing plan should be well-structured and detailed. Your marketing plan will include specific actions like digital marketing, the creation of a law firm website, content marketing, email marketing, or enhanced search engine optimization.
Having a sound law firm marketing strategy plus an actionable law firm marketing plan is key to keeping your firm top of mind for potential clients. But because marketing is outside the skill set of the typical legal professional, many law firms choose to work with outside expert marketing strategists who know the ins and outs of law firm marketing.
Your firm’s marketing strategy should be primarily digital. Sure, you can plaster your firm’s name on a billboard, but you’ll likely get more bang for your buck with online advertising on targeted websites. More now than ever, life is happening digitally. By focusing your efforts on digital marketing like increased search engine optimization (SEO), blogs, newsletters, and ads, you’ll ensure that your law firm reaches a wider but curated audience.
Another important component to consider is your marketing budget. What is it? To figure this out, your law firm will need to identify its goals and determine the revenue you need to achieve those goals. It’s important to be realistic here and to know that as your firm begins to reap benefits from its marketing strategy in the form of new clients, revenue will increase, and, in turn, your firm’s marketing budget can increase too. Once you’ve created a budget, try to stick to it, re-evaluating it as necessary.
Your legal marketing strategy is an essential part of your firm’s growth. As with any important matter, there are some must-haves that your firm should include in its marketing strategy.
Your law firm's website is the most important marketing investment you’ll make, and grabbing the attention of leads and prospective clients is its primary goal. The design of your legal website should be functional, interesting, and accessible. You only get one opportunity to make a first impression. We recommend asking yourself the following question during the design process: will this web design help potential clients find and then choose my law firm? Your design decision-making should revolve around that question.
Your Law Firm Website Design Inspiration 101 - Centerbase must be simple, clear, and uncluttered. A website visitor should know what it is that your law firm does. We recommend that the most important content appear “above the fold,” meaning that a visitor can see it without having to scroll. Use high-quality photographs, an aesthetically appealing color scheme, a well-thought-out font, and enough white space to entice visitors to linger on your page. Consider how certain content, like lawyer bios and video marketing, will appear when laying out your website. The best legal website permits content to be interacted with on all devices — cell phones, tablets, and computers — and on all browser types. A positive user experience is critical.
We also recommend that your website include call to action (CTA) buttons. Your CTAs should encourage visitors to take action, whether that’s reading more of your website or giving your firm a call for a free consultation. Prominently place your contact information, including your phone number and email, in several places on your website. This is the best way to get web visitors to convert into potential clients and build your legal directories.
You want your marketing strategy to help your law firm generate new leads, engage possible clients, and boost your firm’s SEO. SEO improves your law firm’s website by increasing its visibility in search engine results.
Here’s how it works. Google search engine results rank the responses to a user’s inquiry based on the content of web pages. Thus, the more relevant your content is to the search terms entered by the online searcher, the more likely that your content and thus your firm’s website will appear at the top of a results page. We recommend conducting keyword research to figure out what words your target audience is searching for.
SEO is also measured by the quality of your law firm’s web page. That means metrics such as web design, readability, the quantity of website traffic, and backlinks matter. Improving these important SEO metrics will increase your overall law firm SEO, leading to increased searchability and visibility (and hopefully new clients in the process).
Local SEO is another important aspect of your legal website’s overall SEO. Your law firm can optimize its geographic reach through local SEO, helping to establish your firm as the go-to in your community. To begin maximizing your local SEO, think about topics that will appeal to clients in your target geography. For example, you might write an article explaining contributory negligence in North Carolina or a blog post about tortious interference with contracts in New York.
If an organic search leading to your firm’s website isn’t generating the results your marketing team had hoped for, paid search marketing campaigns are another marketing tool to consider. We’ll cover the basics of the three main types of digital ads: pay per click, pay per lead, and Google’s Local Services ads.
· Pay per click: With pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, your firm only pays for the number of “clicks” it receives from online users. For example, your firm’s ad is featured on a given platform (a website, social media, a search engine), an online user clicks on the ad, and then your law firm pays for that click. It seems like a simple process, but optimization requires strategic thinking and regular re-evaluation. As with SEO, research is important here. Your law firm will need to conduct research on keywords, organize those keywords into logical groupings, and then link to the correct landing page of your website to hook the lead as quickly as possible. PPC is a great tool to get your law firm out there, but to best optimize your results, we recommend working with marketing experts.
· Pay per lead. With pay-per-lead (PPL) advertising, the amount that your firm will pay for an advertisement depends on the number of leads acquired. Typically, your law firm will be able to define what constitutes a lead and thus only pay when those requirements are met. An example of a PPL arrangement is one where a firm pays by the number of leads who provide their contact information. A PPL arrangement is a great option for small law firms or solo practitioners who want their law practice to grow but don’t yet have the capacity for dozens of new clients.
· Google’s Local Services ads. With Google Local Services ads, your law firm can connect with people who search on Google for services that your firm offers. It works like this: your firm’s advertisement will show up for customers in your geographic area who search for legal services related to your firm. Similar to standard PPL, your law firm will only pay if the lead calls or messages directly through the advertisement. These Google ads are relatively new and require multistep verification and an otherwise fairly rigorous process. As with other advertisement strategies, Local Services ads should be optimized to showcase your law firm’s expertise. Relatedly, we also recommend Facebook ads as a route to grow your firm’s online visibility.
In connection with each paid advertisement method, you’ll also want to set up landing pages where clients who click on your ad can get more specific information about your firm. To be most effective, the content on your landing page should be both persuasive and centered around getting your visitor to take that next step of getting in touch with your firm.
· Content strategy. Your law firm’s content strategy is an important component of its marketing strategy. Any content created should be high quality, showcasing your firm’s excellent work, practice areas, and attorneys on staff. If your law firm is after a long-lasting online presence, integrating content marketing into its overall marketing strategy is key. To begin, consider what questions your target audience might have. Does your firm mostly service parents in custody disputes? Folks suffering from injuries in connection with personal injury claims? Businesses trying to best protect their trademarks? Once your firm has considered these topics, it should create regular content addressing them, such as blog posts, social media posts, white papers, webinars, and even a podcast or two.
Social media marketing is an effective and low-cost marketing tactic for your law firm, and it should be included in your overall strategy. Get started with Facebook, Google Business Profiles or Google My Business, Yelp, and LinkedIn. Your law firm’s online presence should be friendly, and you should post regularly. Your overall strategy should be to create ties with the community as well as to establish your firm as an authority in your practice areas. While there are many marketing services, we recommend the services of an A+ marketing team to get your firm started on its social media campaign.
An email marketing strategy is another cost-effective tool to consider and one that allows for regular contact and follow-up with clients. We recommend beginning by building an emailing list, which your firm can achieve by offering free resources (think newsletters or relevant white papers). Your firm will be able to collect email addresses from prospective clients this way while also staying in contact with current clients (or even past clients). Another avenue is to build lead magnets that online visitors can download directly from your firm’s website. Lead magnets are a free service or resource that you give away to collect potential clients’ contact information (emails, phone numbers, etc.). Once your firm has acquired a robust emailing list, you can begin effective email marketing. We recommend showcasing your firm’s expertise through positive reviews, testimonials, case studies, and other helpful resources that show how your firm can make life easier for clients. Positive client reviews are one of your best marketing tools.
By implementing the digital marketing strategy and tools highlighted above, your law firm will be well on its way to creating or strengthening its online presence. Online marketing strategies include a well-designed and aesthetically pleasing website, using SEO techniques to optimize searchability, content marketing, social media, paid search campaigns, and email marketing. The goal is to get your firm out there and to start bringing clients in. With a good marketing strategy, these goals are achievable.
Your law firm’s online presence can be a determining factor in clients choosing to do business with you. Thankfully, the quality of your site is also completely within your control. The only question is how to find the time and resources to develop a thoughtful website and content marketing plan — without breaking the bank.
This article will cover the basics of good content generation and website optimization, integration, and design. We’ll discuss how to think about your target audience and capitalize on new website visitors. These considerations are key in developing the best legal website and ensuring that your law firm puts its best foot forward.
What is “good content” for your firm depends on what you’re trying to achieve by producing new content and who you’re producing it for. Is your law firm trying to catch the eye of new clients? Building a reputation as the go-to authority for a certain practice area? Trying to grow your presence on search engines?
Before your law firm begins to invest in building or recreating a legal website, it’s important to understand the purpose of the content being produced.
The same goes for defining the target audience for your website content. Without first identifying the folks who might need your law firm’s services, it’s difficult to tailor your content production. What’s good content differs for a law firm focused on elder law and a law firm of transactional lawyers focused on intellectual property law.
Important factors to consider regarding your target audience include geographical location, age, gender, income, and occupation. If businesses are your law firm’s bread and butter, consider your typical client’s size, geographical location, and industry. You can use these details to create a persona for each segment of your audience. You can then personalize your content for each persona.
We highly recommend working with an expert who can help you craft and implement content to best serve your target audience and purpose for content creation.
Every law firm website needs to communicate who you are, what services you offer, and why you’re the best choice for prospective clients. To accomplish these goals, attorney websites typically need the following content elements:
· Homepage: A homepage announces who you are and why clients should hire you. You should include easy-to-read, SEO-optimized headings that establish your credibility and set forth a clear organization for your site. Be sure to use attractive images that encourage visitors to stay on the page. Additionally, your homepage should prominently announce the best ways to contact your firm, preferably at the top of your site.
· A firm overview: This page should explain more about what your firm does. What’s your firm’s story? How long have you been around, and how have you evolved? What is important for clients to know about how you operate and what clients you help?
· Practice area descriptions: Every practice area should have a page describing your experience. Explain the types of matters you handle and give a list of representative cases so clients understand that you have been there and done that.
· Lawyer and staff bios: Help prospects get to know who is behind the words on the page with enticing stories about who works for the firm. Each bio should tell the lawyer’s story in terms that would resonate with a client — not with another lawyer. So while it’s impressive that you were on law review, what may be more meaningful to a client is work you’ve done that’s similar to what they are searching for. Depending on your audience and your type of practice, consider whether to highlight your approach to cases or something in your background that will make you stand out to a prospect. If your firm is smaller and staff will be interacting with clients and prospects, it makes sense to include a bio for them as well.
· Resources: This is the area that clients can visit to have their questions answered. You may include blogs, news about your firm, white papers, or ebooks and other downloadable content that will convince visitors that you are an authority in your practice area. Another popular item to include is frequently asked questions (FAQs). Not only will FAQs help you land higher in the search engines when clients type legal questions in the search bar, but they also give you a chance to show off your knowledge in your field.
· Contact page: Take the friction out of client contact by putting all the information that clients need to reach you in one place, including your phone number and email address. You should also include a fillable contact form that makes it easy for clients to reach out to you. Don’t forget to include links to your social media accounts.
· Testimonials and case studies: If your practice has online reviews, you can highlight the best ones here. This can help you build credibility with prospects. You might also share case studies that show what results you’ve achieved for clients. To personalize case studies and testimonials, ask clients to share a photo or record a short video about how you helped them. (You can repurpose these photos and videos on your social media channels too.)
As with the rest of your law firm’s website, the user experience is critical: you want visitors to stay put and engage with your content. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of how content is displayed on your law firm website. The design should be functional, accessible, and interesting. Continue to ask yourself the following question as you make web design decisions: will this content design help potential clients find and then choose my law firm?
Picking the right font for your legal content is an art and requires balancing readability, messaging, and authority. Creating compelling visual content also involves other important decisions. Consider how content, like lawyer bios and white papers, will appear when laying out your lawyer website. The best legal website allows content to be interacted with on all devices — think cell phones, tablets, and computers — and on all browser types. A piece of content should also be laid out intuitively. Friendliness and ease of use are also important and will increase the user experience by making navigation easier.
When creating content, we recommend keeping the rules of thumb below in mind. Without them, all the great content you’ve created may go to waste.
· Keep it readable. The written content featured on your law firm website should be easy to understand. Avoid legal jargon, and try to keep sentences under 25 words and paragraphs no longer than four or five sentences.
· Keep it scannable. Content should be broken up with meaningful headings and subheadings. Adding white space gives readers a mental break and improves comprehension.
· Keep it visual. When possible, reinforce key concepts with interesting graphics. By using images to convey information, your law firm content will better engage users. Think about how much faster and easier it is to review a chart or infographic than to read dense paragraphs.
Good legal content can put your law firm on the map. At a minimum, good content will get your firm’s name out there. When you optimize that content, you can raise your firms ranking in the search engines, build its reputation, and establish it as an authority in the legal space.
Awareness is a top priority here. We don’t need to tell you how competitive the legal industry is. Creating high-quality content and doing it regularly is the best way to build prospective clients’ brand awareness of your law firm and get potential clients talking.
Your firm’s legal expertise is truly what it all comes down to for potential clients. So, the content on your website should showcase your law firm’s knowledge and provide examples and evidence of your firm’s expertise and successes.
Start creating law firm website content by asking what questions your target audience might have. Address those questions as you create content. Also write about current developments in the law and how your firm can help clients handle them. These pieces show that your firm can both talk the talk and walk the walk. Creating high-quality content is how you’ll build your law firm’s credibility and expand its market reach.
Keep in mind that building authority doesn’t necessarily mean having a domineering tone. The best way to build authority for your law firm is to know your target audience and address them specifically. By knowing your audience and putting them first in your content creation plan, your law firm will prove both its authority and competency. The tone and presentation of the content created should also be in-depth and expertly written. The goal is to establish your law firm as both client-centric and approachable.
To build a successful online presence, your law firm needs to have a robust content creation plan. Without it, your firm won’t reach its growth potential. Below are some common website content strategies your law firm can use to get started.
Search engine optimization (SEO) improves your law firm’s website to boost its online visibility in search engines. For example, Google search results rank the responses to a user’s inquiry based on the content of webpages. Thus, the more relevant your content is to the search terms entered, the more likely that your content will appear at the top of a search page. You’ll need to do some keyword research to figure out what words your prospective audience is searching for.
Importantly, SEO is also measured by the quality of your law firm’s website. That means metrics such as your website’s layout, accessibility, keywords, quantity of web traffic, and backlinks matter. Yes, this means the internet is judging your readability, grammar, and syntax. Improving these important SEO metrics will increase your law firm’s overall SEO, leading to increased searchability and visibility and therefore increasing your market reach.
Local SEO is also something to keep in mind when creating a piece of content. Your firm likely works in a specific geographical region, and that’s your sweet spot for prospecting. By optimizing your firm’s content creation to target these areas, you can establish your firm as the go-to in your community.
To start optimizing your content for local prospects, we recommend creating content with a local angle. For example, you might write a blog post on who’s at fault in connection with a slip and fall under South Carolina law or an article on how the state of New York handles worker’s compensation claims.
Good legal web content and a well-thought-out digital marketing strategy will help your firm boost its search engine rankings, thus increasing its market reach and landing new clients.
In tandem with optimizing your law firm website is creating ways to capitalize on new traffic. New website visitors are great, but what your firm is really looking for is to turn those visitors into paying clients.
We recommend dynamic and relevant call to action (CTA) buttons on your website to make it simple for prospective clients to become paying ones. CTAs are intended to make it easy for website visitors to get more information or get in touch with your firm through a contact form. Essentially, they entice folks to take the next step by providing their contact information. CTAs typically come in the form of phrases that encourage website readers to “contact us now” or “click here for more information.”
Your law firm should also build landing pages on its website for certain content. Landing pages are web pages created for specific law firm marketing campaigns and have a single goal: converting visitors into prospects.
A visitor arrives at a landing page most often after they click on a link in an email or in an ad from a search engine or social media. To be most effective, the content on your landing page has to be both persuasive and centered around getting your visitor to take that next step. For example, your firm could advertise your lawyers’ family law expertise by offering a downloadable guide explaining the steps that should be taken in connection with a custody dispute on your child custody practice page.
Many law firms choose to work with outside experts to build their brand with web designers and legal marketing agencies that know the ins and outs of web and template design and can help you build an impactful law firm website.
We discussed content design briefly above, but it is so important that it deserves another mention. The best law firm website is design-forward, features usable content, and provides a positive user experience by anticipating needs. Accessibility is key — it’s critical to ensuring that online visitors stay on your website long enough to engage with your content and learn about the excellent legal services your firm has to offer.
We recommend a streamlined and clean website. No one likes a cluttered homepage filled with moving banners, animations, blindingly bright graphics, and endless pop-ups. To keep visitors on your firm’s homepage, it should feature a concise statement about what you do, your firm’s logo, a contact page, and clear navigation to additional pages that explain your firm’s expertise and knowledge. The typography, color scheme, and symbols of your website and law firm logo can convey a lot about your firm by saying a little. A smart choice of font can convey seriousness or help build casual rapport.
Whether you’re a small personal injury law firm or a litigation boutique, we highly recommend outsourcing the legwork to the website and content creation experts to help build your firm a new website or revamp your current one.
Creating content is a critical strategy for building awareness and establishing your law firm as knowledgeable and reputable. Key takeaways to maximize include improving your law firm’s search rankings through search engine optimization and developing an interesting and user-friendly website design. By boosting the ways that your firm can be discovered through quality content generation, you’ll reap the benefits in both the short and long term.
What’s your law firm’s most important marketing tool? Aside from great service that sparks referrals, we’re talking about your firm’s website, of course.
The legal space is only growing more competitive, and a good law firm website is an important weapon in the battle for clients. A good law firm website can make or break your chances of reaching and capitalizing on leads and turning a prospective client into a paying client. And the best law firm websites help grow your firm and increase its value.
Because your firm’s website is likely to make your first impression on future clients, it’s important to get it right. That means it’s no one-and-done endeavor: you have to keep your website fresh by updating its design and content regularly. So, content generation, optimization, integration, and design are all important aspects of a law firm website.
Now, let’s get into the details of what you can do to up your website game.
When considering different frameworks to achieve the advertising goals for your website, we recommend going with a simple one. There’s an art to the best legal website, and we recommend the services of a leading legal marketing team to get your law firm started on building or revamping its website.
No matter how you go about it, your law firm’s website should explain how your firm can serve clients, and it should do this in a user-friendly way, with an appealing visual design and an intuitive flow. To achieve these goals, you should focus on three key elements in designing your website: subject-matter expertise, optimization, and functionality.
Your law firm’s subject matter expertise is truly what it all comes down to for potential clients. So, your website should showcase your law firm’s authority and knowledge.
By providing examples and evidence of your law firm’s expertise and successes, you’ll build your law firm’s credibility and expand your market reach. The best way to build trust with prospective clients is by generating quality content (and doing it regularly) that shows how you walk the talk on your website. In addition to writing pieces about current developments in the law and how your firm can help clients handle them, you can also include client case studies and success stories.
You already know that best practices for a law firm marketing strategy include a content creation strategy. As applied to your law firm’s website, your goal with content creation should be to showcase your law firm’s work, practice areas, and lawyers. To build a long-lasting online presence and solid website, your firm needs to integrate content marketing into its overall online tactics.
To get started, ask what questions your target audience and leads might have. Consider questions like these:
We then recommend answering those questions by creating legal content such as blog posts, social media posts, videos, webinars, and even white papers. By adding relevant legal content, your law firm website will generate new visitors and build a strong reputation.
By including client success stories on your law firm’s website, you demonstrate how capable your law firm is and give future clients information regarding your firm’s positive results. A client success story tells your website visitors that your law firm solves issues and that your firm can solve their issue too. Reviews and testimonials add trustworthiness and social proof to your firm, making website visitors feel more comfortable reaching out to get more information or for a free consultation.
Your website should first and foremost emphasize that your law firm is client-centric and ready to help. So, we recommend including both your high-profile cases and some smaller ones with direct quotes, if possible, from clients who enjoyed working with your law firm. These success stories should be uplifting and positive. You’ll get extra points if these stories address the questions you’re also answering in your content creation strategy. News snippets, badges, and certificates will also go a long way in building a positive reputation for your law firm.
Boosting your website’s online visibility is important to attracting new clients and building your firm’s book of business. To do this, you have to engage in search engine optimization (SEO), which is the practice of optimizing a website to improve online visibility.
To raise your website’s visibility, you must make it relevant to users’ searches. This means your website content has to reflect the terms that users type into the Google search bar. The more relevant your content is to a user’s search terms, the more likely it is that your content will appear at the top of a Google search page. Your law firm website will best find and engage prospective clients if you boost your SEO.
SEO is also measured by the quality of your firm’s website. We’ll discuss functionality in more detail below, but for now, when assessing the quality of your attorney website, consider its layout, font, keywords used, quality and quantity of traffic, and even the quality of written content.
For SEO optimization, your firm’s website should feature a clean and interesting web design, high-quality photos and content, and contact details for your law office (including your address, email, and phone number). Local SEO is also essential to optimizing your law firm’s website. Optimizing your firm’s presence on Google Maps, Google My Business, and Yelp can help establish your firm as the reputable, go-to law firm in the community.
We cannot emphasize enough the importance of how information is displayed on your law firm website. Your law firm website design should be functional and accessible. Every design decision you make should ask the following question: will this help potential clients find and then choose my law firm?
We’ve already discussed picking the right font for your law firm website at length. Creating a compelling visual design also involves other important choices. Consider how content, like webinars and lawyer bios, will appear when laying out your website. The best legal websites can be interacted with on all devices (think cell phones, tablets, computers, etc.) and on all browsers. Your law firm website should also be laid out intuitively and be friendly and easy to use and navigate. Without these things, all the great content you’ve created may go to waste.
Lawyer websites should also include dynamic and relevant call to action (CTA) buttons to make it simple for prospective clients to become paying clients. CTAs encourage website readers to fill out a contact form to provide their contact information. Many law firms choose to work with outside experts to build their brand with web designers and marketing strategists who know the ins and outs of web and template design and can help you build a clean, impactful law firm website.
A good law firm website is design-forward and features usable content. Your law firm web design should provide a positive user experience by anticipating needs and providing thoughtful solutions.
As noted above, your law group’s website should be accessible, and potential clients should be able to contact your law firm quickly and easily. The user experience on your firm’s website and homepage is critical to ensuring that online visitors stay on the website long enough to engage with your content and learn about the exceptional legal services your firm has to offer.
Follow these three tips to create the optimal law firm website design so your law firm stands out and keeps visitors on your site.
We recommend a streamlined, clean website and homepage. A cluttered home page filled with moving banners, animations, and endless pop-ups doesn’t scream professionalism. After all, you don’t want to lose the potential client before they even get to the name of your firm. Your homepage should feature a direct and concise firm statement, your firm’s logo as a header, a contact page, and clear navigation to additional pages that explain your firm’s expertise and knowledge.
The typography, color scheme, and symbols of your website and law firm logo can convey a lot about your firm by saying a little. Is your firm classic and traditional with a rich history? Or is your firm more modern and cutting-edge?
A smart choice of font can convey seriousness or help build casual rapport. The same goes for your law firm logo design and graphic choices, which offer the opportunity for some creativity. Choosing a unique, eye-catching design can set your law firm’s website apart from all the lookalike pages on the internet and stop possible clients from scrolling on by. Use real photos rather than stock photos when possible to give clients a sense of who you are.
Of course, keep in mind that you don’t want to go overboard here. Clients may perceive a crowded, brightly colored website as unprofessional.
The best law firm sites consist of more than a homepage. Your law firm website should have individual landing pages for each legal service that you offer. You should also include pages for engaging attorney biographies and pages that detail your expertise and case studies. Depending on your practice areas, an FAQ page may also be a good idea.
Whether you’re a small estate planning law firm or a big business law firm, we highly recommend outsourcing the legwork to the marketing experts to help build you a new website or revamp your current one.
As lawyers, you know that authority is important. We’ve discussed how to build authority with your legal website throughout this article, but given its importance, we’re mentioning it again here.
Building authority does not necessarily mean having an authoritative tone. The best way to build authority for your law firm is to know your target audience and to address them specifically. By understanding who your law firm is generating content for, you’ll better know what type of content to create and the tone in which to create it. For example, if your law firm focuses on business law, you’ll likely want to present your website’s content in a formal business tone. This will convey knowledge and competence, and your law firm’s blogs, webinars, white papers, and other similar content should be drafted in a similar tone.
However, if you work in juvenile or family law, the tone of your website, and thus the authority that you build, will be different. Potential clients will seek out your firm during periods of stress, and your firm’s website and related content should recognize that. The tone of relevant content should be softer and more human to convey your firm’s competency, both emotionally and legally.
By knowing your audience and putting them first, your law firm will prove both its authority and competency. The tone and presentation of the content created should also be backed up by in-depth, expertly written content. By focusing on your target audience with your firm’s website, you’ll establish your law firm as both client-centric and approachable.
As with fashion, the best law firm web design changes each year. We recommend working with marketing professionals to stay on top of the trends and ensure that your website is competing.
The following are legal websites that achieve the framework discussed above. Each website highlighted below establishes the law firm as a reputable business and helps the firm reach a larger audience and therefore generate more leads.
Paul Benson Law Firm is a law firm specializing in personal injury law, including car accidents, slips and falls, and pedestrian accidents.
The site’s homepage is clean and concise. It features the attorney’s succinct firm statement as well as links to landing pages showcasing the firm’s expertise in personal injury law. It is client-centric, written in an appropriate, authoritative tone, and features a “get in touch” CTA. We also note that the firm logo is distinct and interesting but still professional.
Collin County Law Group is a law firm specializing in criminal defense, juvenile law, and family law.
The firm’s homepage includes clear information regarding the firm’s specialties as well as multiple avenues to contact the law firm for more information or a consultation. The website features multiple landing pages regarding the firm’s recent positive case results and client testimonials regarding the firm’s superb service. Moreover, its pages are easy to read and navigate.
The firm’s homepage is approachable and clean and features the firm’s various accolades and badges suggesting the firm’s reputation to visitors. The website also features a compelling attorney biography page with easily accessible contact information, which humanizes the firm and improves its SEO.
Denning and Marker and Crannell have created helpful pages for visitors to access additional information regarding each firm’s expertise.
Denning’s blog is updated regularly with information and resources related to its practice areas, helping clients understand their need for legal counsel and support.
Crannell’s website features an extensive FAQ page that asks questions to showcase its lawyers’ legal acumen and provide resources to potential clients. These websites achieve their goal of establishing their law firms as leaders in their respective practice areas.
Following the tips mentioned above can accelerate the performance of your law firm’s website. By using tactics that enhance your site’s visibility, including increasing your website traffic by implementing SEO and improving your content generation, your firm will be optimized for new leads and prospective clients. The right tools, solutions, and marketing experts will help you create a website that builds awareness about your law firm as well as a more profitable client list.
If you’re a family lawyer, it’s a constant challenge to demonstrate what sets you apart from the competition. This is especially true where law firm marketing efforts are concerned.
Legal marketing for family law firms usually is more formulaic than creative. But strategic legal marketing is instrumental in helping you realize your full potential as a family law attorney: building your brand recognition, growing your business, and solidifying your reputation with new clients.
Coming up with an effective marketing strategy for family law practice areas can be a challenge for even the most experienced marketing professionals. However, a viable marketing plan is the foundation for successful outreach to new clients.
Whether your firm is well known or just starting out, it’s important to consider what marketing tools to include in your next legal marketing campaign. In this post, we’ll outline key family law marketing ideas that will help you breathe new life into your internet marketing strategies.
Before assessing what marketing services will work best for your law firm, let’s consider how marketing for family law firms differs from marketing for law firms with more general legal services.
As a family law lawyer, you’ll often assist people through some of the most challenging moments of their lives. So, your marketing needs to be tailored to show that your firm is a go-to resource for individuals with family law legal issues or questions. And your marketing has to be human: clients in these delicate situations need more than just a lawyer at times. They need someone in their corner they can trust.
Marketing for other legal practices usually emphasizes a firm’s accomplishments or seeks to attract potential clients based on a lawyer’s recent successes. For example, with personal injury law firms, potential clients want to know about how many cases a lawyer has handled and how much money they’ve helped plaintiffs recover. While these cases can be emotional, they’re often not tied up in relationships; they often involve a company or person your client doesn’t know on the other side of the case.
But family law marketing differs from other legal marketing because it’s so personal. So, when hiring a lawyer, it’s important for clients to make an authentic, empathetic connection with their lawyer. Showcasing that your firm is willing to build trust with its clients communicates your intent to help your clients in their time of need.
To build a connection before you ever meet a client, focus on pinpointing your firm’s personality and culture. Your messaging should explain to prospective clients how they’ll feel when they walk into your office and meet you for the first time. What is your approach to family law disputes? Do you want to be known as an aggressive divorce lawyer? Or do you want to be seen as a more approachable lawyer focused on bringing families together after a dispute? As they say, different strokes will resonate with different folks, depending on their feelings about their case and spouse or partner.
Successful family law marketing also depends on how well you’ve structured the information on your website. When prospective clients are looking for a law firm, they’re likely to gravitate to a website that answers their most pressing questions about topics including divorce and child custody and support. The better and clearer your answers to those questions, the more likely you are to get hired.
That also means that your website needs to be primed for its spot on the web. Here are eight marketing tactics that can help.
It’s critical to market your firm in an honest, transparent way given the level of emotional investment often present in family law cases. Following these six family law marketing strategies can pay dividends when advertising your practice.
When prospective clients come to your website, it’s important to grab their attention. But you have to attract clients in the right way.
That means you need to have a simple, clear website that’s not cluttered and that immediately makes it clear who you are and what you do. The most important content should appear “above the fold,” meaning that a visitor can see it without having to scroll. Use high-quality photographs, an appealing color scheme, a simple font, and enough white space to entice visitors to linger on your page.
It’s also important to include a call to action (CTA) at the bottom of the page. Your CTA should encourage visitors to take action, whether that’s reading more of your site or giving your firm a call for a free consultation. Prominently place your contact information, including your phone number, in several places on your website.
Above all else, make sure your website is mobile-friendly. Many clients will be scrolling through your website from their phones. Consider whether to minimize some elements or menus to make it easier for visitors to scan your site on a small screen.
With so many law firms in the market and so many potential clients starting their search for a lawyer online, a strong digital presence is more important now than ever before. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one way to help drive your target audience to your website. When SEO is done well, a family law website will appear toward the top of Google search rankings.
Table stakes for on-page SEO are using the right keywords in the right places, such as in your page title, meta description, headings, image alt tags, and more. And there’s an art to content-related SEO as well as a science. You want your content to sound like it was written by and for humans, not as if you stuffed a keyword in every other sentence. Save the stuffing for teddy bears and turduckens.
Another key for family law practices is to make the most of local SEO efforts. That means you’re optimizing search for potential clients in your area. Typically, clients will search for “family law lawyer” plus a city, such as Chicago or Dallas. Make sure you include local identifiers and other important keywords that clients will be searching for in the content you add to your site.
Google My Business is also an important part of your local marketing toolkit. When you update your Google My Business listing, you’ll show up in search results with a map to your practice along with details about your firm, including its website and online reviews. Make sure you choose the right category for your law firm (e.g., family law attorney), and then start seeking Google reviews (more on this below).
Your content is what will attract new clients to your firm. The content on your website will influence clients’ first impression of your family law practice and give prospects the confidence that you are their ideal legal resource.
Today, law firms create and share high-quality content in a variety of ways. Whether your content takes the form of blogs, articles, ebooks, interviews, podcasts, videos, interviews, or another format, it’s critical to select content that will resonate with your audience. Think about the questions family law clients might have if they’re struggling with a divorce, separation, or child support. Use those questions to structure the content on your family law firm website.
Speaking of structure, organize your content in a way that’s intuitive for first-time visitors. In addition to pages that describe the family law services that you offer, include resource pages that explain complicated legal concepts, such as alimony and support calculations. Use your site navigation to pull people through your website.
And keep your clients at the center of your content: it should always be about how you can help them, not promoting you and your firm. That means you must remember that you’re writing for humans going through a personal struggle — and not to impress other lawyers. Include definitions for legal terminology and write in simple language that doesn’t scare off prospects.
When searching online for a family law lawyer, people often consider lawyers listed in law firm directories, such as Avvo, Martindale, Lawyers.com, and more. Many of these directories include free as well as paid listings.
As with every online presence for your firm, it’s essential to optimize your profile. Stronger profiles get more attention. So fill out your profile with your name, practice area, location, years of practice, contact information, and a brief overview that explains your experience and services.
In your profile, write about how you can help rather than about your experience on law review or your GPA. Because the first few lines of your profile are the ones that prospects will see and skim first, they have to be packed with meaningful information that grabs the reader’s attention. They should tell a prospective client enough to get them to click on your profile to read more.
To cement your first impression, always include a professional headshot. A casual crop of yourself on the beach or in another informal setting could make clients believe you won’t take their case seriously.
Many legal directories also include client reviews. Profiles with more reviews and higher ratings from former clients build trust in future clients. So be sure to ask clients to add a review to your profile.
Because of the personal nature of family law, your firm absolutely must have a social presence. Social media channels can help prospective clients get to know and trust you and your firm.
You can use your account to share important law firm information, including updates about your firm and profiles of your staff. You might highlight important decisions or legal developments that will affect your future clients’ cases. You might also answer frequently asked questions. Whatever the approach, the focus with social, as with content generally, is on the needs of clients seeking legal advice, not on you and your accomplishments.
You’ll also want to consider which channels to invest in. You’ll need to maintain a presence on LinkedIn to encourage referrals from other lawyers and professional groups. To reach prospective clients, however, you should spend time where they are, and that’s on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.
Remember that you’ll need to have patience when engaging prospects on social media. Their decision-making tends to be more painstaking than other clients, and they’re likely to test the waters with several law firms before they choose a lawyer.
Email marketing can help keep your family law firm top of mind with your target audience. Not only does email marketing help you create personalized messaging for your clients, but it’s also instrumental in solidifying the relationships you may already have in place.
The advantage of email marketing lies in its capacity to help a family law practice maintain its professional legal network. By sending out mass emails, your firm can stay engaged with a vast number of clients and prospects. You can also segment your list into smaller groups, such as prospective clients and potential referral sources.
When conducting email marketing campaigns, communicate in an articulate, direct way. Having a clear message before writing the email helps focus your marketing. For example, your email could answer a common question or share a video. Or you might explain a recent decision of interest to your clients. You can also repurpose content from your website, including blogs. And you can make your content even more personal if you include video. Regardless of which vehicle you choose, the key is to deliver value to your recipients.
If organic traffic to your firm’s website isn’t generating the results your marketing team had hoped for, it may be time to consider paid search advertisements, including Google ads or other pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, to jump-start your firm’s web presence.
When people find themselves requiring family law services, they most likely turn to the internet to search for a lawyer who will address their concerns. PPC can bring your law firm right to the top of the search engine results. (Of course, some people skip over ads, so your best long-term bet for online visibility is to up your content game and invest in SEO).
Running a paid ad campaign will require you to think about the keywords that your clients are searching for and the zip codes where your clients are located. You’ll also need to set up a landing page where clients who click on your ad can get more information about your firm. If you spend time thinking through these elements of your advertising, you’re likely to pull in more qualified leads.
Word of mouth is a powerful marketing technique for family law firms. Firsthand accounts from clients who have worked with you in the past can have a remarkable impact. The voice of past clients has a level of authenticity that you often can’t capture in other forms of advertising. People trust the word of other people like them. Testimonials offer a firsthand perspective into what your firm does and how it operates.
You can also share client testimonials on your firm’s website and social media. Clients sitting on the fence about whether to work with your firm will consider these reviews, and they can be a powerful tipping point in your favor if your reviews are overwhelmingly positive.
It’s important to get reviews on lawyer directories like Avvo. But you should also ask clients to post reviews on Google, Facebook, and even Yelp. Given their prominence in search engine rankings, these sites are the first places that prospective clients will see reviews and look for referrals. So be sure to solicit positive reviews from your clients; ask your top clients to give you five stars and say a few words about how you helped them.
If you implement any (or all!) of the digital marketing tools highlighted above, your family law firm will start building a stronger presence. Online marketing strategies, including a well-designed website using SEO techniques, content marketing, social media, paid search, email marketing, reviews, and directories, are the tactics your law firm needs to implement to meet — and exceed — your marketing goals.
