Constant Content : Legal Ghostwriting & Content : Janet Raasch : Copy for Lawyers & Attorneys, Law Firm Business Development

Lawyers and law firms often consult with outside writing consultants – or ghostwriters -- for important projects.  The lawyer provides legal expertise and the professional writer contributes speed, news context and clear, persuasive style.

A ghost helps lawyers meet deadlines.  Most lawyers are decent writers.  Given enough time, they can compile the law and the facts and pull together an acceptable article.

But lawyers are not always given enough time.

The article, chapter or white paper opportunity that seemed like a great way to enhance your reputation three months ago starts to spark panic attacks as the deadline looms.  You know what you want to say, and have a file-folder full of notes and research, but “real” work obligations are pressing and you simply lack the time to pull it all together.

When deadlines loom, a ghost can be a rescuing angel.  A good professional writing consultant can interview the lawyer, review the notes and research, and pull together a good draft in very little time.  The draft goes back and forth until the lawyer is completely satisfied that the final product accurately and ethically represents his or her knowledge, opinions and professional voice.

A ghost helps lawyers select topics and venues.  A professional writer keeps up with legal news and can help you choose (or fine-tune) a topic so that it will catch the attention of print and electronic publishers – along with clients and potential clients.  Most ghosts are trained and experienced journalists.

A good ghost reads the major national newspapers each day and uses an online aggregator to follow important legal blogs and online legal news sites.  The ghost uses this information to provide clients with story ideas regarding both breaking news and emerging trends, or to provide an attractive “news peg” for an article in progress.

A ghost helps lawyers translate into clear, persuasive language.  Lawyers are schooled in Bluebook style, which sets the rules for legal communications.  Professional writers are schooled in the AP Style Manual, which set the rules for virtually all business and consumer publications – and many legal publications as well.

Often, the greatest value a ghostwriter provides is “translating” a draft from legalese into a clear, persuasive article that will resonate with mainstream publishers and their audiences.  Publishers are much more likely to accept an article that complies with their style guidelines (especially length guidelines) right from the start and saves them the task of heavy editing.

Publishers want articles that relate to a breaking news story or a relevant trend.  They want articles that focus on providing useful information to their readers rather than “puffing” about the author.  They want articles with short, active sentences and paragraphs, broken into sections with interesting headlines and sub-heads.

Finally, publishers want articles with plenty of interesting and timely examples that illustrate abstract concepts in a clear and compelling manner.

 A good ghostwriter does not create a lawyer’s article from scratch.  A good ghostwriter works closely with a busy lawyer to quickly “translate” legal expertise into clear and persuasive language that resonates with publishers and their readers.

(A version of this article first appeared in Attorney at Work.)

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Part three of a three-part article, based on a presentation made by Kent Zimmermann of Zeughauser Group.

Law firm partners resist CSIs for many reasons.  In particular, they erroneously think that they know everything there is to know about the client, they are in denial (they don’t want to know if a client is unhappy) or they don’t want others in the firm to now that the client is dissatisfied.

“It is important to position CSIs correctly,” said Zimmermann.  “Do not position them as a ‘checkup’ or ‘report card’ on any given lawyer.  Rather, position them as a way to provide better service, acquire intelligence on competitors and find new work.

“In Zeughauser Group’s experience, general counsel like to participate and find CSIs very therapeutic,” said Zimmermann.  “At the end of an interview, we often hear ‘I hope you will be coming back to do this again next year.’”

The CSI should not be conducted by the relationship partner.  “The client will not be as candid with this person,” said Zimmermann.  “CSIs can be conducted by the firm’s chairman or a senior partner – someone whose attention will ‘honor’ the client and whose authority within the firm will ensure compliance with feedback.”  Alternatively, CSIs can be conducted by a skilled outside consultant.

There are five stages to an effective CSI pilot program:

Design for success.   “Initially, work only with partners who understand how this process can bring them more work,” said Zimmermann.  “Never twist the arms of reluctant or hostile partners to make them participate in your pilot.  They will just drag you down – along with the entire process.”

Start with just five clients.  “Do not try to do too much at first,” said Zimmermann.  “Aim to do a focused job with five clients rather than spreading yourselves too thin with many clients.”

Use a tiered system.  “Consider putting the firm’s clients into three tiers,” said Zimmermann.  “Tier one might include clients that are largest in terms of revenue.  Tier two might include satisfied clients with potential for growth.  Tier three might include clients with known issues – troubled relationships that the firm wants to get back on the rails.  For your pilot, choose clients from tier two.”

Sell your success.  “Empirical and anecdotal evidence of success (from your carefully selected, tier-two, low-hanging fruit) should be shared throughout the firm,” said Zimmermann.  “Use this evidence to demonstrate how the CSI process works and the value it provides – and to sell the initially wary partners.”

Get ready for business.  “Once you have demonstrated success with your pilot program, expect a second wave of interested partners to line up at your door,” said Zimmermann.

Because of the challenging economic environment, general counsel are expecting much more from their law firms – and are much more likely to abandon firms that do not take active steps to meet those expectations.  CSIs are a best practice among successful law firms -- and part of the bedrock of any solid client-care and loyalty program.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Part two of a three-part article, based on a presentation by Kent Zimmermann of Zeughauser Group.

Not surprisingly in this economy, cost has dominated the conversation between legal departments and law firms.  According to Inside Counsel magazine, 46 percent of general counsel agree that reducing costs is essential to improving law firm relationships.  Only eight percent of law firms see this issue as important.

“According to the Association of Corporate Counsel, the single most important thing a law firm can do is to provide alternative fees and value-based billing options,” said Zimmermann.

“Clients like to see retainers, for example, because this arrangement offers predictable cost from month to month.  Hourly rates will endure for bet-the-company work and more specialized, high-value work, but general counsel increasingly want to see alternative fee arrangements proposed for commodity work.  They might not always opt for alternative fees, but they like to see them offered.

“Rate discounts can be actual or they can be illusion,” said Zimmermann.  “General counsel need to be able to show their bosses that they are taking steps to control costs.  Some general counsel will tell you to visibly show discounts on your bills.

“One general counsel I interviewed asked that the firm show the rates of its top partners in New York with a discounted rate calculated on the bill for other lawyers who were performing the work,” said Zimmermann.  “Long story short – you want to help the general counsel look like a star to his or her superiors.”

Staffing can be another disconnect – especially when it comes to associates.  “You have to understand that the average first-year associate earns as much as an in-house lawyer with ten years’ experience,” said Zimmermann.  “In many cases, in-house lawyers are resentful -- and many are explicitly refusing to pay for work performed by first- or second-year associates.

Client satisfaction is a critical measure of a law firm’s success.  In many cases, a client will not volunteer dissatisfaction unless asked.  The conflict-averse client will not ‘fire’ a lawyer overtly, but will simply stop sending any new matters his or her way.

“Asking clients the right questions, listening actively to their answers, and turning feedback into consistent, meaningful actions are the cornerstones of client service – inspiring client satisfaction and loyalty,” said Zimmermann.   “Conducting effective CSIs can help you get in front of a problem before it’s too late – and discover opportunities for new business.

“A Bay Area client for which I did CSIs, for example, did about $1 million in legal work for an energy company in Texas that long had an external spend of $3 million,” said Zimmermann.  “The law firm was confident that it was handling about one-third of this client’s work.

“When we interviewed the client on the firm’s behalf, we found that they were indeed satisfied with the law firm – but that the client’s legal spend on the type of matter at issue had tripled over the years to $9 million.  Because the client had a misperception about the law firm’s ‘depth,’ it had been farming this work out to a number of small Texas boutiques.  Armed with intelligence gained from the CSIs, firm leadership flew right down there and secured a significant amount of new work.

“Many partners simply do not understand what clients think of them,” said Zimmermann.  “In an often-cited study by Inside Counsel magazine, outside counsel gave themselves pretty good grades on client satisfaction.  Nearly 43 percent said that they deserved an ‘A’ and 50 percent said they deserved a ‘B.’

“Clients strongly disagreed,” said Zimmermann.  “They gave an ‘A’ to just 17 percent and a ‘B’ to 72 percent.  There is a strong disconnect between what clients want and what outside counsel are giving them.  The only way to uncover this is to ask.”

For the full article:  Client service interviews help law firms keep clients close.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Part one of a three-part article, based on a presentation by Kent Zimmermann of Zeughauser Group.

Economists may have declared that the Great Recession is officially over, but many businesses and their legal service providers would probably beg to differ.

Over or not, the Great Recession has dramatically changed the traditional relationship between legal departments and outside counsel -- in ways that are likely to continue even as the economy improves. Longstanding grievances have risen to the surface.

Businesses and general counsel understand the parameters of this new relationship, but many law firms and lawyers do not.

After years of immunity from corporate cost-cutting efforts, 85 percent of general counsel are now being asked to cut their budgets. Only 26.2 percent of them believe that outside counsel are sensitive to their budget constraints.

To control costs, general counsel are bringing more legal work in-house and, in many cases, using non-traditional providers of legal services. For example, they are turning to cost-effective legal process outsourcers for much of the work previously done by young law firm associates – and asking their law firms to work with these alternative providers for services like e-discovery, document review and even depositions.

For work that requires a law firm, general counsel are moving some matters from costly big national firms to reasonably priced mid-sized regional firms.

“General counsel are facing unprecedented pressure to control costs,” said Kent Zimmermann. “They are demanding discounts, more-predictable alternative fee arrangements and better service from outside counsel.”

“If general counsel do not get what they want in this buyers’ market – they are more than happy to shop around,” said Zimmermann. “Despite the common misperception within law firms, only 13 percent consider their current law firms ‘indispensible.’ More general counsel than ever are switching their primary providers.”

Zimmermann discussed this volatile new marketplace at the monthly educational program of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Legal Marketing Association (www.legalmarketing.org/rockymountain), held October 12 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in downtown Denver.

Zimmermann is a general counsel, former CEO and management consultant with Zeughauser Group (www.consultzg.com), a leading legal industry consultancy.

“2008 and 2009 were challenging years for law firms,” said Zimmermann. “During the first half of 2010, there was reason for optimism for many firms – but demand has been unsteady at best, and performance across the industry continues to be mixed.

“In this highly competitive market, where general counsel have more choices and are less loyal than ever before, lawyers and law firms must do everything it takes to retain and expand their existing client relationships – especially by investing wisely in client-care programs,” said Zimmermann.

“One of the best ways to try to ‘bullet proof’ clients (and expand your relationships with them) is to invest in an ongoing and systematic program of client service interviews,” said Zimmermann.

“Marketing professionals understand the value of CSIs, but many partners do not,” said Zimmermann. “Longstanding ‘disconnects’ between client and lawyer expectations have been amplified by the market challenges facing the legal industry. CSIs are one of the most effective ways to discover (and remedy) these disconnects -- before it’s too late and they destroy an important relationship.”

For the full article:  Client satisfaction interviews help law firms keep client close
  

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

As my regular readers know, I believe that most attorney biographies are a waste of valuable online real estate that only hit on one persuasive cylinder -- and not very well at that.

Marketing tools (and I include bios in this category) work best when they demonstrate three qualities (first outlined by Aristotle in his Rhetoric)  -- intelligence, good character (shared values) and friendliness (concern for the client).

Most attorney bios attempt to demonstrate intelligence through a boring list of credentials, and totally ignore shared values and client-centricity.  Intelligence can be further enhanced and client-centricity demonstrated by the use of good "case stories" (more than simple case citations) that show how you solve problems for clients.  Shared values can be demonstrated by personal quotes that demonstrate your personal and professional character.

Lawyer and consultant Larry Bodine elaborates on this subject in an excellent recent article, "Turning your bio into a magnet for business."

Smart lawyers turns their bios into a marketing magnet that generates leads, as opposed to a mere resume or a CV, which recites only your education and epxerience.  The trick is to turn a feature of yourself into a benefit to the client.

Bodine continues:

You may have a great resume, but it will just list all the place that you worked.  But when you go into practice, your bio should answer these questions:  What have you done for people?  What have you accomplished?  How have you helped people?  Can you give me some examples?  Writing a bio is completely different from a resume.  it really requires a mental shift.

I agree completely.  Invest in the re-writing of your attorney bio as a persuasive marketing document -- and then post this "profile" not only on your firm Web site, but also on the full range of relevant social networking and content sites.  By doing this, you can easily and inexpensively "own" the first page of search results for your name.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

As a rule, I try to keep my blog professional and my posts tightly focused on the subjects of content writing, lawyer and law-firm marketing, and the marketing uses of social media.  This post falls under the "proud parent" exception to the rule!

My daughter, Caitlin Raasch O'Connor, is a Licensed Naturpathic Doctor and a Certified Professional Midwife.  She graduated from Bastyr University, a five-year accredited program that included a two-year internship treating patients in the school's Seattle clinic, and recently completed an additional family practice residency at National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, Oregon.

Last month, after six years of school and residency, Dr. Caitlin O'Connor returned to her home base of Denver.  She opened her own practice in the Highlands neighborhood and her own blog at All Families Natural Health.  She focuses on women's, children's and general health.  For more information about Dr. Caitlin O'Connor and/or naturopathic medicine, please visit All Families Natural Health.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

I can't tell you how many e-mails I receive each day from lawyers and consultants that are signed with nothing more than the sender's name.  That's OK if I can respond by hitting "reply," but it is a real pain when I need to respond with a phone call or some mailed materials, or when the person is setting up a face-to-face meeting.  I have to take the additional step of looking up the phone number (direct line, please!) or the address.

Don't do this to your clients!  Sending an e-mail to a client without a comprehensive, useful signature block does not make it very easy to do business with you.  It is very easy to create a very simple signature block in Outlook that it is automatically appended to each e-mail.

In addition, each e-mail you send can reinforce your brand and your position in the marketplace -- for free!  It can also provide a link to much more information about you -- your Web site or blog, your social network profiles, or your Twitter address.  Give it a try.  Here's what I use:

Janet Ellen Raasch

jeraasch@msn.com

www.constantcontentblog.com

Strategic Writing and Ghostwriting

774 Saint Paul Street

Denver, Colorado 80206

(303) 399-5041

(303) 919-4465 (cell)

http://www.linkedin.com/in/janetellenraasch

http://www.jdsupra.com/profile/janetellenraasch

http://twitter.com/jeraasch

Janet Ellen Raasch works with lawyers and other professional services providers

to help them achieve name recognition and new business

through creation of keyword-rich content for the Internet

as well as articles and books for print.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link