Friday, February 07, 2003 7:21 PM
The role of blawgs in servicing existing clients has significant potential. Especially in regulatory areas, the concept of a topical weblog covering daily news, notices and events makes perfectly good sense. I immediately think of environmental and health law, as areas that have a natural fit with blawgs. Lawyers practicing in these areas often need to keep their clients updated regularly with any news or information of which the client should be aware, especially related to legislative rulemaking. Indeed, I remember well pouring through the paper version of the Federal Register on behalf of various clients while clerking at an environmental law firm during my law school years.
However, I also remember that the mediums used to convey items of interest to the various clients of the firm were the telephone and mailed paper summaries. The efficiencies of attempting to track down busy executives at myriad clients, or preparing and mailing a large number of paper summaries, left something to be desired. Comparing these processes to that of a blawg and blawg feed approach, immediately reveals a labor savings. With a blawg feed, one attorney can convey a daily message to a large number of clients--in the format they choose (e-mail, headline feed, etcetera)--in a matter of minutes. Finally, in these days of cost-cutting, how many clients really want to pay for legal labor that isn't absolutely critical.
At present, there are a number of examples of topical websites run by big U.S. firms that attempt to service existing (and potential) clients by offering newsfeeds and related content. Examples include Greenberg Traurig's EmploymentLawNet and EnvironmentalLawNet, and Mayer Brown's Securitization.net. Moreover, at one point (and it is not clear whether they still offer this service) Greenberg Traurig offered to install the entire topical site within a client's intranet, and then update it via a push technology. In a sense, these sites are nothing more than expanded blawgs.
However, not every lawyer or firm can afford custom websites such as those noted above. The law cost of entry to create and maintain a topical blawg is thus of great benefit. Interestingly, many law firms already spend money on custom newsfeeds packaged by the big providers such as Lexis, Westlaw and Moreover. These topical feeds appear either as e-mail in a lawyer's inbox or are displayed on the firm website. Which leads me to this question: if firm lawyers find such feeds useful, wouldn't a firm's clients likewise find them useful?
Ultimately, what is somewhat surprising is that more law firms don't sponsor the blawgs of their lawyers. There seem to be a significant number of lawyers maintaining blawgs, but not a huge number of firms sponsoring the blawgs. I can understand that a firm may not have vested interest in supporting a general interest blawg. However, for a topic specific blawg which directly supports a firm practice group or main area of concentration, integrating this blawg content into the firm's service offerings just makes good sense
The complexity and culture of the legal marketplace ensures that there are never easy answers or quick adoption. However, my conclustion is that in time, blawgs (and their derivatives) will play a large role in supporting existing clients.
Postscript: I didn't even mention the legal vertical buzzword, "cross-sell." But, clearly, this is a perfect fit with the blawg concept...
Purpose 4: Marketing Lawyer Expertise
Bookmarks: Intro | Research | Gaining New Clients | Supporting Existing Clients | Marketing Lawyer Expertise
Read Full Article in Printer Friendly Format