Do World Wide Web Pages
Benefit Law Firms?

by Jerry Lawson, Esq.

A poorly designed or promoted web site (sometimes called a "home page") will provide little benefit. One that is designed to appeal to targeted audiences and properly promoted can provide a major boost for some firms, helping them with their existing clients and attracting new clients.  

Existing Clients

For some firms, the attractiveness of being able to easily and inexpensively distribute information to clients easily is in itself enough to justify the venture. Boston's Hale & Dorr is a good example of this philosophy. At least one law firm (Beckman & Hirsch, Burlington, Iowa) uses its web site solely to service existing clients. It does not publicize the URL of its web site to anyone except existing clients.

While there is some value in having a mere "cyberspace billboard," the equivalent of a firm brochure or even just a business card on the Internet, experience has shown that your page will be much more beneficial to you if you can use it to provide something of value to the community. Give people a reason to visit your site, and while they are there, they will learn about the services available through your firm. The site can benefit you just as much, and probably more, by generating more business from your existing clients as by bringing in new ones.

Attracting New Clients

At a minimum, having a World Wide Web site helps a firm establish or reinforce an image as an innovative organization that knows how to use technology to keep up with or surpass its competitors. This is particularly valuable when dealing with more sophisticated clients. This may be the reason that firms that handle (or would like to handle) intellectual property and high tech legal matters tend to be among the first to establish web sites.

Unless you are in the right practice area or have a well promoted web site with dynamite content, don't expect it, standing alone, to do much for you. You should look for a synergistic effect with your conventional promotional efforts. The web site's biggest marketing value may be that it reinforces your other promotional work. Your other promotional work reinforces your web site.

While it does happen occasionally, most firms should expect to get few, if any, clients from people who stumble across their firm for the first time while "surfing the Net." However, if clients are trying to decide which of several firms to go with, the customer service and convenience of having a web site can be a decisive advantage with clients who are technically literate and on the web. The number in this category is increasing exponentially, as mass market services like America Online, Prodigy and CompuServe change the Internet from being a techie-only haven to being a middle American phenomenon.

There are many ways in which WWW sites may advance a law firm's marketing strategy. A web site may facilitate a move into a more lucrative practice area. A young attorney handling mostly petty criminal cases may have few, if any present clients who are likely to use the Internet. One such attorney stated jokingly, "I'll get a web site when they start putting Internet terminals in the jails." Maybe someone in this situation should be thinking about attracting a better class of client. An Internet site focusing on the defense of white collar criminal cases could be a key step in such a marketing strategy. Studies have shown that the stereotype of Internet users as being Net surfing college students is no longer accurate. Internet users tend to be better educated and more affluent than the average American. They are also much more likely to be managers or professionals.

The Memphis and Nashville based immigration law firm of Siskind, Susser, Haas and Devine is an example of a firm that is well placed to take advantage of the Internet and knows how to use it to good advantage. Using their WWW site and an Internet mailing list, they have been able to expand their firm into a national practice. In less than a year, their web site expanded their practice to the point that a majority of their clients are now from outside the state of Tennessee, and they have branch offices in cities outside Tennessee. 

California estate planning attorney Mark Welch has received more modest benefits with his WWW site, but considers the effort well worthwhile, and has composed an essay explaining how he designed the site and the results it has achieved.

If you would like to develop or enhance your reputation as an expert in a particular area, a Web site is one of the best ways to go about it. Lew Rose, of Washington, DC's Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn is a great example. His pioneering page on advertising law has reinforced his standing as a leading expert in the field, bringing him at least a dozen new clients in just a few months.

Characteristics of Promotion on the Web

Web sites work best if they are targeted to particular market segments. The general firm brochure format is not as effective as providing specific information that various segments of your market will be interested in. Even if you are a general practice firm, it is a good idea to single out some specialized areas and use them to interest and attract visitors. For example, see the law firm of Rice & Stallknecht, P.C. This is a general practice law firm, but sections of their web site are devoted to Social Security disability law, the Fair Labor Standards Act and Like Kind Exchanges under Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code. Each of these sections is an independent traffic generator, funneling prospective visitors to the law firm's web site.

Law firm web sites have one feature that distinguishes them from just about any other method of law firm promotion: they are non-intrusive. No one visits your web site unless they want to visit it. A web site will not annoy your clients like mailing them a firm newsletter they might view as junk mail, and its aura is miles apart from the potentially annoying "in your face" nature of television or print advertising.

The non-intrusive nature of web sites is a two-edged sword. On one hand, this makes them highly appealing for attorneys who consider most forms of advertising inappropriate for law firms. On the other hand, if you are not "in the faces" of potential clients, then you have to let them know where you are (your "URL") and entice them into visiting your site. Once they get there, you will have a chance to tell them your story in detail. The big problem--one discussed in a related essay--is how you get them there.

Web sites are inexpensive compared to other forms of law firm promotion. In large urban areas you can post a commercial site for from $15 to $100 a month, and have your own domain name registered for about $100. This is a trivial amount compared to what most firms spend on yellow pages listings alone.

Your largest expense if you decide to have a web site for your firm will not be having a firm do the HTML coding for you or rental of space on a web server, but indirect costs: the time that you will need to spend planning what you want to say substantively and keeping your site updated.