Do You Know Why You're Blogging—or Why You Should Be?
Law firm blogs, like law firm websites before them, sound like a great idea. And for many of us, they are. But like websites, blogs are only as effective as the plans and procedures surrounding them.
Just setting up a great blog on your firm's website and updating it regularly is likely to have about as much marketing value as posting a really good newsletter on your office door. The vast majority of people who see it are already where you want them.
A recent article in The American Lawyer cites many of the benefits of law firm blogs, but suggests that the payoff is largely indirect. One attorney quoted in the article says that he can't name a single client that's come in as a direct result of blogging—but he's from a large, commercial firm. It's probably true that most major corporations don't choose their attorneys online, nor make contact based on an impressive blog post. The same isn't necessarily true for consumers, who are far less likely to be acquainted with attorneys or other professionals who can offer solid referrals.
As you're already aware, establishing yourself as a source of valuable information and getting your name known among the people who might require your services are invaluable practice building strategies, and achieving that recognition in the online world reaches a whole new pool of prospective clients.
There are currently an estimated 7.5 million blogs online, and the people who write them, read them, and comment on them tend to conduct their business online—that means millions of people not likely to be reached through the telephone book or other traditional marketing outlets.
But a blog isn't an advertisement or a newspaper column. The blogosphere thrives on interaction, frequent updates, and the exchange of visits, links, and comments. The most important things you do to promote your firm's blog may not happen on your blog at all.
The bottom line is that a law firm blog can be an excellent, cost-effective marketing tool or it can be a pointless drain on time and resources. The determining factor might just be your own understanding of your goals and how to implement them. For some tips on making a law firm blog work for you, see the practice management tip in this issue.
As if the Credit Card Industry Wasn't Causing Enough Trouble...
In the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis, a decades-old issue resurfaced: race-based mortgage disparities. Consumer advocacy groups released data showing that minorities who could have qualified for conventional mortgages had instead been steered toward higher cost, higher risk subprime loans. Now, however, a study released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston suggests that the problem runs even deeper.
Mortgage redlining has been a problem for decades, and one that contributes to the deterioration of urban neighborhoods and correlates with low job growth and rising crime rates. From the mortgage lender's perspective, though, it makes a certain degree of sense: property values in certain neighborhoods are more likely to decline, and property may be more subject to vandalism or simply poorly kept up.
These concerns do little to explain the data revealed in the Federal Reserve Bank study, which indicates that a similar kind of redlining appears to be occurring within the credit card industry.
This isn't simply a matter of disparate impact caused by the fact that minorities statistically have lower credit scores or earn less income. Rather, the study determined that all other things being equal, applicants from predominantly black neighborhoods had less access to credit than those in predominantly white ones.
Given what we know about the credit card industry's punitive interest rates, universal default clauses, gratuitous fees, confusing teaser rates and questionable billing practices, it might seem as if the victims of this disparity are actually better off. But in the greater scheme of things, lack of access to credit cards can be very expensive.
That's due in no small part to the emphasis placed on credit history. Decades ago, a person applying for a home loan was judged primarily on the value of the home and the person's income and work history. Credit cards and alternate forms of credit were far less common, and many people financed only homes and cars.
Today, however, financing a home or car with little or no credit history can be very expensive. On a large ticket item like a house, the difference in interest rates can cost tens of thousands of dollars over the life of the loan. And some minorities, denied access to traditional credit, may be forced to resort to higher cost sources of short-term cash, thus perpetuating the cycle.
Despite the identification of the problem, the solution is far from clear. Decades of federal legislation intended to eliminate racial disparity in mortgage lending has apparently yet to have the intended impact, and the credit card industry has hardly shown itself to be a leader in economic justice.
Are You Paying for Someone Else's Divorce?
Between 1970 and 2005, the percentage of children living with two married parents dropped from 85.2% to 68.3%. More than three quarters of single-parent homes are headed by women. For years, study after study has told us that divorce takes a toll on children in virtually every way that someone has thought to study: grades, emotional well-being, likelihood of drug use, suicide risk, economic opportunities and more. Now, for the first time, we're being presented with data purporting to show that divorce doesn't just take a toll on individuals.
According to a recent study, divorce and single-parent births are costing American taxpayers $112 billion every year. And, the study's principle investigator suggests, that's a conservative estimate based only on purely economic factors. It's a big number, to be sure, but the data is indirect and we can't lose sight of the fact that each of the groups commissioning the study has its own agenda. The report is a joint effort among the Institute for American Values, the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, the Georgia Family Council, and Families Northwest.
The $112 billion was attributed to:
- An increase in poverty: The report cites previous studies indicating that more than 80% of poverty in the United States is related to changes in family structure.
- An increase in crime: One past study concluded that boys growing up in single-mother or cohabitating households were more than twice as likely to commit a crime leading to incarceration as their peers in two-parent homes.
Specifically, the study draws the preliminary conclusion that 60% of single-mother households could be "lifted out of poverty" by marriage, causing a 31.7% decline in the number of people living in poverty. Then, using a slightly more complex formula, that percentage of the total cost of poverty-related programs such as TANF, Food Stamps and Medicaid was attributed to "family fragmentation."
The causal relationships and directions are hazy, and the study's author admits as much. One thing is clear, though: unmarried households, especially those with children, account for a startling majority of the people living in poverty in the United States today.
Perfect Storm Threatens Drug Company Victims
When personal injury attorneys and medical associations are lining up on the same side of an issue, crying foul over the same behavior, it's pretty clear that something serious is going on. The something serious, thoroughly addressed in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) last month, is a drug company practice of conducting research and then paying scientists to pose as authors when the studies are published.
The issue isn't a new one; some physicians and scientists protested the practice in the early 1990s. It comes as little surprise, though, that it was Merck that finally went far enough to draw widespread response from the medical community—and perhaps even less surprising that it happened in connection with Vioxx.
Before settling Vioxx litigation last year, the company spent hundreds of millions of dollars defending against heart attack and stroke victims and the families of those who didn't survive. With the spotlight turned on the practice of paying for the privilege of putting a prestigious name on a study, though the scientist in question may have had little or nothing to do with the actual research, shocking stories are emerging. Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say, "stories that would be shocking if we didn't know the drug companies quite so well."
According to JAMA, Merck conducted its own research on Vioxx, then hired a company to ghostwrite reports for medical journals in the name of scientists with little connection to the research. The revelation brought forth prestigious scientists with stories of offers of payment to put their names on research they hadn't conducted; several were told directly that little work would be required, and one claims that the company quickly terminated discussions when she asked for access to the study data.
The practice would have been deeply troubling at any time in medical history, but it's especially so now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Riegel v. Medtronic. Now, the circle seems complete: medical device manufacturers submit their own research under the names of prestigious scientists; the FDA approves the device based on the "scientist's" reports; and people who are injured are precluded from bringing suit in state court because the FDA approved the device. It's a good year to be in pharmaceuticals.
U.S. Supreme Court to Decide Prosecutorial Immunity Case
Thomas Lee Goldstein spent 24 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. That's becoming an all-too-common story in American society, but Goldstein's case has its own special twist: an informant who testified at his trial claimed he wasn't receiving any benefit for his testimony and the prosecutors handling the case apparently didn't know he was lying.
The informant had, in fact, enjoyed a long-term relationship with the state which had netted him reduced sentences and other benefits on multiple occasions. However, no one thought to let the deputies trying the Goldstein case know about that.
Ironically, if they'd intentionally put on false testimony, the liability issue would have been clear. The Supreme Court has previously held that prosecutors enjoy absolute immunity to §1983 claims based on the decision to present knowingly false testimony at trial.
The case currently before the high court isn't quite so straightforward, though—at least, not according to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. On an interlocutory appeal, the Ninth Circuit ruled that two high-ranking prosecutors did not have absolute immunity with regard to Goldstein's allegations that they failed to put procedures in place to ensure that information was shared with attorneys working on the case, and that they failed to adequately train deputies.
Those claims, the Ninth Circuit said, were related to administrative and not prosecutorial functions and were more properly grouped with those areas in which prosecutors do not enjoy absolute immunity: making public statements, advising police officers during the investigative phase of a criminal case, and terminating or demoting employees, among other functions.
The Supreme Court granted certiorari on April 14; petitioner's brief on the merits is due June 30. The defendant prosecutors did not claim qualified immunity.
Kevin's Corner
Practice Management Tip of the Month on Effective Legal Blogging
"We've already established that law firm blogging can be a low-cost, flexible, highly effective marketing tool-IF it's done well. But from a marketing perspective, 'done well' doesn't just mean a good design and great posts. It means making sure that your blog reaches the right people.
"Reaching your prospective clients is multi-faceted as well. The first layer is straightforward: make sure they can find your blog, and not only if they already know about you and your law firm. The second is more substantive: make sure that what they find speaks to them directly.
"To that end, one of the most important things you can do when blogging for your law firm is to remember your audience. That means:
- Writing about topics of interest to your potential client base—not just things you'd like them to know, but topics that will capture their attention;
- Watching your vocabulary—remember that many terms that seem like common parlance to us are unknown to our clients; and
- Thinking about presentation—a blog is not a legal brief, a demand letter, or a contract, so keep your tone lighter and your paragraphs less dense.
"Blogging also involves some pitfalls for the unwary: keeping a blog updated with relevant, engaging content can be more time-consuming than many attorneys anticipate, and since blogging is an interactive format, the delicate border between information and advice must be zealously guarded. That's why it pays to plan ahead. Some possible preventative steps include:
- Designating only a small number of trusted attorneys or paralegals to write on the firm blog;
- Having each post reviewed by a designated attorney—preferably a partner—before it is published;
- Avoiding answering direct questions—comments can be a great source of information for you about what interests your readers and prospective clients, but use that information generally, not as if you were running an advice column; and
- Including appropriate disclaimers.
"Effective legal blogging takes work, and that may come as a surprise. Blogging may have seemed like a good addition to your marketing plans precisely because it looked easy and inexpensive. And relatively speaking, it is.
"But there's another, better reason to consider adding a blog to your firm's marketing plans: blogs reach prospective clients that you might not be reaching through any of your current marketing outlets."
- Kevin Chern is President of Total Attorneys and a Law Practice Management Consultant to more than 700 law firms throughout the country.
DUI Not a Violent Felony…for the Moment
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that driving under the influence of alcohol was not a "violent felony" under the terms of the Armed Career Criminal Act.
Of course, DUI doesn't fall within our traditional perception of "violent," but the language of the Act made the determination a bit less certain. The Act defines a "violent felony," in part, as "any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year" that "is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another."
In 2004, a federal judge relied on that last clause in imposing a sentence that reflected the Act's mandatory 15-year minimum, and the Court of Appeals upheld. The U.S. Supreme Court took a narrower view of Congressional intent and determined that a DUI conviction—even one entered as a felony and punishable by more than one year in prison—wasn't what the legislature had in mind when it crafted this particular statute.
The opinion, however, is very narrowly drawn. The determination rests entirely on the nature of the statute in question, its goals, and the language of the section in which "violent felony" is defined. The goal of keeping guns out of the hands of a specific class of criminals, within which drunk drivers did not fall, and the listing of certain specific crimes that bore little or no relationship to DUI dictated the result.
The opinion concedes with only passing discussion that driving under the influence of alcohol is conduct that "presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another." Thus, the high court hasn't actually said that DUI isn't a violent felony at all: it's only ruled that under this particular statute, as currently written and taking its legislative history into account, Congress didn't intend felonies like DUI to trigger the mandatory minimum sentence.
The unspoken but crystal clear message is that it could have.
Your Sponsor Advocate Team
An Update to the Transfer Process
Did you know that you now have more options when transferring contacts within your TA account that may be outside of your service area?
That's right! When you received a contact in the past that was outside your area of representation, your TA account initially only offered you the option of providing the city/state of the contact while making the transfer request. That option was later changed to providing the ZIP code of where the contact needed a sponsoring attorney. Never before were these two different options available at the same time.
Now they are, and here's a recap of how we've made the transfer process much more flexible, especially if you don't know the applicable ZIP code for an attorney in the servicing area of the contact.
- Begin by logging in to your account with your username and password at TotalAttorneys.com. Feel free to contact the sponsor advocate team at 312-753-6911 if you have lost or do not remember your password.
- Upon logging in to your account, you will be automatically taken to the "Attorney View," where you can view your contacts in the "Scheduled Follow-Up Calls" section. Click on the name of the contact that you need to transfer.
- On the following Contact's "Summary" page, you will see a "Transfer" button in the lower right-hand corner. Click on this button to access the "Transfer Case Request" form, where you can begin to submit your request via our updated options.
- Enter the city/state of the contact and provide the reasons for the request, or if you know the applicable ZIP code, enter that instead of the city/state. Feel free to do whatever is easiest and most convenient to you.
- When done, click on the "Confirm Transfer" button at the bottom of the page for your request to be processed.
If you have any questions about the new and improved transfer process, our sponsor advocate team is more than glad to help.
Simply call the number above or email support@totalattorneys.com, and our sponsor advocate team will get back to you as soon as possible.
Thanks again for your participation in the TA Program.
