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February 15, 2007
Lamb: The "Disturbing Sameness of Law Firm Marketing"
The "disturbing sameness of law firm marketing and its disturbing ineffectiveness" is just one great money quote. Patrick Lamb, Chicago trial lawyer, and Blogfather of Client Service, has this fine post, "Is Culture Change A Prerequisite To Marketing Success?", at his In Search of Perfect Client Service. Recently, Pat and I were speakers at a law marketing conference, and two things, which are likely related, greatly surprised me: (1) many law firm marketing chiefs--some law firm partners, some CMOs--at the nation's largest law firms privately informed me that they were "second class citizens" (if not creative but troublesome peasants), and not often listened to; and (2) with very few exceptions, the marketing approaches taken by about 100 "top" American law firms were the same (i.e., fungible and generic plans and devices) and nearly impossible to differentiate from one another. All that talent and opportunity, all that sameness.
Posted by JD Hull at February 15, 2007 11:27 PM
Comments
Jd remarks on "all that talent and opportunity, all that sameness"
JD, very interesting and challenging statement
Moe had breakfast with two starving lawyers this morning who want to put up a shingle and prosper beyond their wildest dreams or hopefully at least pay off their student loans and avoid the poor house.
why they would want to listen to Moe is beyond Moe--yesterday was another of many black days in the Moe household.
I asked both what could they offer any client and they each admit their fear---they really have no "legal service" to offer. I told them all they could do was hustle, sell themselves, their personality, commitment.
When I look at the landscape, where firms like Cadwalader seem to thrive with lawyers whom no sane argument exists for hiring I can understand why a law firm marketing chief is disregarded.
I have about come to the conclusion that all this stuff about branding, etc., is doomed to failure because it is an attempt to describe irrationality with rationality---it cannot be done.
Years ago I heard Ezra Tom Clark say that the secret to a successful law practice was a paying client, for if the client paid you could quickly hire the skill and expertise to do the legal work and it really didn't matter all that much whether the legal work was done correctly, honestly, or ethically or not.
Posted by: Moe Levine at February 16, 2007 08:03 AM