Articles Tagged with “Best Lawyers”

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ALI-300x108Of all the topics I have presented on in 22+ years of teaching law marketing ethics CLEs, my program on navigating the Three Rs—Ratings, Rankings and Reviews—may be my favorite. If you need your ethics credit, find your law firm often enveloped in dealing with the 3 Rs, or just enjoy the subject matter, join me for this live webcast on Tuesday, October 29, 2019 from 1-2 pm ET.

REGISTER NOW:  Ethically Navigating the Three Rs: Lawyer Ratings, Rankings, and Reviews

In putting together the ALI program, I was amazed not only by how much new information and materials were out there, but how much this area of lawyer advertising ethics had changed in recent years—sometimes for the better, often not. Ratings and Rankings have continued to grow exponentially—as if that was even seemingly possible. Outcries over the years to clamp down on the proliferation of businesses in this space have not only gone unanswered but have led to even more players in the space. There is simply too much money to be made, and plenty of egos to feed. But it is the impact of online reviews that have had the greatest impact among the three Rs. I get more audience questions after a CLE presentation about painful and problematic first-hand experiences in an attorney having to handle the impact of a negative review. On the flip side, many law firms are finding that the online review space is not only unavoidable but can be lucrative.

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LPcover_JanFeb2016.jpgIn the January/February 2016 issue of the ABA’s Law Practice Magazine, I was asked to put on my ethics attorney hat in authoring Struggling with Ethics Issues Surrounding Branded Networks. Issue Editor Nick Gaffney asked me to write this sidebar in a magazine dedicated to the theme of branded legal networks–a huge topic of discussion in law practice management.

There is not a more controversial area of lawyer marketing when it comes to interpretation and enforcement of the Rules of Professional Conduct (RPC) than the issues that arise from the ever-growing legion of branded networks in the legal profession. From Avvo and Justia to Best Lawyers and a slew of entities that may or may not be “lead generation,” the issues, rules and opinions vary from state to state. They remain…consistently inconsistent. One thing is for sure, these companies are not going anywhere. The question is where they end up fitting in the long term approach to business development among attorneys.

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2014-march-april-cover107x139_jpg_imagep_107x141.pngIn the March/April 2014 issue of the ABA’s Law Practice magazine, I address a law firm marketing topic that never seems to lose steam–the impact of lawyer ratings, rankings and reviews on the legal profession.

Of course, I should not really complain. The topic has proven to be great fodder for my Pennsylvania Bar Institute ethics courses; I’ve been quoted countless times in the media on the subject; in the ABA Law Practice Division, we led the “educational” charge with major panels (and participation from all the players in the business) for both the ABA Law Firm Marketing Strategies Conference and an ABA Annual Meeting. Last October, an ABA CLE Premier Speaker Series program on the subject attracted nearly 5,000 attorneys. Everyone always is interested and has an opinion.

It has been fascinating to watch the evolution of the industry over the last 15-odd years. To think, when I first became a lawyer, the only thing you really knew about was Martindale-Hubbell. Today, the brand struggles mightily with shifts from across the pond (the UK’s Chambers publication); from known ranking brands such as U.S. News & World Reports; from thousands of local-yokel attorney “awards”; and both legal and non-legal online reviews from the likes of Avvo and Yelp. The business has never stopped booming, but it has definitely changed–a lot.

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