The Lawyer's Guide to
Marketing on the Internet

by Greg Siskind and Timothy Moses

Review Updated January 1, 2000

The Internet is changing rapidly, but the insights and clear explanations in this 1996 book make it still relevant today for any lawyer interested in marketing on the Internet.

While even attorneys with a fairly high level of sophistication should be able to learn a great deal from this book, the authors' knack for simple explanations will make it valuable even for total neophytes. If you want to design your own web site, this is the only paper reference you will need. It contains a selection of well-selected references to Internet sites that provide more detailed coverage of important topics.

This book will also be an excellent choice for lawyers who don't know anything about the Internet, but want to learn enough to judge whether an Internet site would help them. If they decide their firm could benefit from using the Internet, this book will give them a basis for evaluating and hiring a professional web site designer to handle the technical work of developing their law firm's site.

Too many attorneys who know a little about the Internet (and even a few who know a lot about it) suffer from the misconception that marketing on the Internet is synonymous with putting up a web site. One of the very best things about this book is the way it demolishes this erroneous and limiting notion. The authors do a masterful job of showing how other Internet tools, such as autoresponders, listservs, newsgroups and ftp sites can be integrated into a complete Internet law firm marketing plan. No other Internet book available can come close to matching this one for the clarity of its explanations or its emphasis on solving practical problems related to law firm marketing on the Internet.

Greg Siskind is a partner in the immigration firm of Siskind, Susser, Haas & Devine. The web site he designed and maintains for his law firm has been one of the most successful in the country, and the firm's e-mail newsletter has over 20,000 subscribers. Timothy Moses is a computer consultant with Telalink in Nashville.

Although this book is clearly designed with attorney readers in mind, I think there is also an important "hidden market" for it. There are a few web site design firms with expertise in handling web sites for law firms, but most general purpose design businesses have no idea how to approach developing a law firm web site. This book could somewhat level the playing field for these otherwise clueless businesses, by giving them a crash course on the unique concerns of law firms.

This book is a potential major league money saver and headache reducer. Siskind and Moses have a knack for condensing into one easily understood, pithy paragraph an issue that could take even an attorney who is fairly knowledgeable about the Internet hours to research. Do you really want to invest otherwise-billable hours in deciding whether your firm's logo graphic should be a GIF or a JPEG? Siskind and Moses provide the following advice: "A safe rule of thumb is to use JPEGs on photos and GIFs on everything else." This is exactly the answer I had reached to this surprisingly complex technical question some time ago, but not before I had spent a lot of time studying several computer graphics reference books. I only wish I'd had a book like this three years ago!

Here is another example of the book's common sense tone, from a section entitled "Tackiness, Excess, and Other Web Site Irritations":

A background pattern or color is useful as a finishing touch to a page. It can also distract from a page, make it take longer to load, and render any text unreadable. It is not worth sacrificing the content of a page just to add a background pattern. To be useful, a background pattern should stay in the background. It should consist of few colors that vary only slightly in shade and the file size should be kept under 3 K. Instead of a pattern, you can use a background color. It will load quickly and is fairly safe as long as the color is not close to the text or button colors.

There would be far fewer design monstrosities on the Internet if more attorneys had access to (and heeded) such guidance. Inappropriate backgrounds are one of the most common markers of poorly designed, ineffective law firm web sites. Here's more good advice, from the same section:

Under construction signs are extremely popular on the Web. They are used to indicate that a site has not been finished and that the site will be changing. A Web site should not be publicized until it is finished, just as a store is not opened until construction is completed. One of the main functions of the Web is to provide information that can be constantly updated, so by definition every Web page is always under construction. By placing an under construction sign on your page, you are giving the viewer the impression that you are either not open for business or do not have everything in order.

Siskind and Moses have given us a concise masterpiece that explains how attorneys can adapt to The Network Era. This book will be an exceptional asset for every law firm that would like to expand its client base over the next decade by professional, ethical and effective online marketing.

Price: $64.95

Order from Amazon.com.

Reviewed by Jerry Lawson