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Here are a few tips on speaking up and being heard. Please see some of our tips and tactics below. - In addition to getting published to establish credibility and generate awareness, you can feed your interests while generating potential business by speaking at business forums, industry conferences, bar association meetings, seminars, universities and continuing legal- education programs.
When you speak on a topic of interest, you are positioned as an expert in your field and can demonstrate rather than “sell” your knowledge, just like writing articles.
- Often attorneys are just as stumped for a speaking topic as they are for an article subject. If that is the case, Take what you’ve written about and use those same topics to create something valuable to say. For every article you write, you can create a topic to speak about and vice versa.
For more important tips on using PR by speaking up and being heard, read Chapter 5 in Everyday Public Relations for Lawyers. Excerpt from Everyday Public Relations for Lawyers, Copyright 2007. Furia Rubel Communications, Inc. To purchase the book, click here.
Come to PR For Lawyers on July 24 - Philadelphia
Today is my first day back to the office after a 10-day vacation. It was so nice to spend time with my family. It’s amazing how quickly we get back into the groove of work. So with that, I want to invite any of you who may be in the Philadelphia area on July 24, 2008 to join me at The Philadelphia Bar Association on July 24, 2007 at 12:00 noon for my presentation: EVERYDAY PUBLIC RELATIONS FOR LAWYERS: THE NO NONSENSE STRATEGIC APPROACH TO GETTING NOTICED.
The details follow below.
Location: Philadelphia Bar Association, 11th Floor Conference Center, 1101 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA.
Speaker: Gina F. Rubel is an attorney and legal-industry communicator who speaks nationally on topics of marketing, public relations, ethics and business development. In her presentation, Everyday Public Relations for Lawyers: The No Nonsense Strategic Approach to Getting Noticed, Gina reveals the secrets to law firm communications success
Gina’s program will inspire, challenge and energize attendees. Her interactive and lively approach keeps attendees wanting more.
Based on her latest book, Everyday Public Relations for Lawyers, Gina explains why in today’s competitive marketplace, attorneys can no longer afford to ignore the power of public relations. This straightforward and thorough presentation covers everything that seasoned and new lawyers alike need to know about promoting themselves, their law firms and their practices.
Rubel provides hands-on advice on all aspects of public relations, from the do’s and don’ts of media relations to controlling your message to harnessing the power of the Internet.
To Register: go to www.philadelphiabar.org or print this page, complete the form items below and return it with payment to:
Solo and Small Firm/Marketing/Bar-News Media – July 24, 2008 – Luncheon Program
Philadelphia Bar Association, 1101 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107-2911
The cost of lunch is $7.50 per person and will only be prepared for those that have made reservations and paid in advance either via check or credit card. Checks should be made payable to the Philadelphia Bar Association. To secure your reservation, please complete the from below, including credit card information, unless a check has been included. All reservations that are not canceled 24 hours prior to the event will be subject to a cancellation fee of $7.50. To cancel, please contact Dawn Burger at 215-238-6367 or dburger@philabar.org.
____Yes, I will attend and buy lunch.
____Yes, I will attend but bring my own lunch.
Name:
Firm/Company:
Address:
Phone:
Fax:
Email:
Credit Card #:
Expiration Date:
Signature:
Please check one:
____Amex
____Visa
____MasterCard
My colleague Rich Klein of Beckerman Public Relations (Hoboken, NJ) wrote an insightful article about the online reputation of law firms in the June 2008 issue of Strategies, The Journal of Legal Marketing. One good point he makes is that some attacks on a law firm's reputation online might end up offline, in print newspapers and on television and radio. Managing your online reputation is critical in the Web 2.0 world.
If you're a young lawyer (or your firm employs young lawyers) in the Philadelphia market, here's a progam that you will find beneficial next week.
Philadelphia Bar Association Young Lawyers Division
presents
Crafting and Marketing Your Image:What Every Young Lawyer Needs To Know
Tuesday, June 3, 2008, 12:00 p.m.
Philadelphia Bar Association1101 Market Street, 11th Floor Conference Center
How do you know if your professional image is working for you? Join us for a candid discussion on the do's and don'ts of building your own personal "brand," and learn the secrets of professional persuasion from the experts. Discover how to edit and tailor your own image to "impress for success." From creating your own style, to attire, speech, and developing a realistic, workable marketing plan -- learn the "hot-button" issues and walk away knowing what today's potential clients and business contacts expect. Featuring Panelists: Gina Furia Rubel, Esq. President/CEO, Furia Rubel Communications, Inc. Brian Lipstein Henry A. Davidsen Master Tailors and Image Consultants Jennifer Smuts, Esq. Director of Marketing, Woodcock Washburn Maggie Suender, Esq. Director of Associate Development, Pepper Hamilton LLP Moderated by: Natalie Klyashtorny, Esq. Nochumson, P.C. ********** Detach Here ********** Please print this page and return to: YLD, Crafting Your Image – June 3, 2008 – Luncheon ProgramPhiladelphia Bar Association, 1101 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107-2911 - Fax (215) 238-1159 or register online at http://www.philadelphiabar.org/. The cost of lunch is $3.00 per person and will only be prepared for those that have made reservations and paid in advance either via check or credit card. Checks should be made payable to the Philadelphia Bar Association. To secure your reservation, please complete the from below, including credit card information, unless a check has been included. All reservations that are not canceled 24 hours prior to the event will be subject to a cancellation fee of $3.00. __Yes, I will attend and buy lunch. __Yes, I will attend but bring my own lunch. Name: Firm/Company: Address: Phone: Fax: Email: Credit Card #: Expiration Date: Signature: ___________________________ Please check one: ___Amex ___Visa ___MasterCard
Here are a few tips on making your tip sheets valuable. Please see some of our tips and tactics below.
Tip sheets don’t always need to be produced in lists of 10. It’s acceptable to have less or more, but when you exceed 19, think about breaking the list into two lists of 10. If you surpass 25, then move to the section in this chapter that addresses writing a book.
Tactics that will help add value to your tips sheet:
1. Make tips available on your Web site.
2. Include tips in your corporate leave-behind.
3. Send tips to customers and prospects via e-mail.
4. Include tips in your corporate newsletter.
5. Create a tips postcard that can be sent to prospective clients.
6. Leave a copy of the tips in your lobby.
For more important tips on using PR when creating effective tip sheets, read Chapter 4 in Everyday Public Relations for Lawyers. Excerpt from Everyday Public Relations for Lawyers, Copyright 2007. Furia Rubel Communications, Inc. To purchase the book, click here.
This week in California, the hot topic in the legal industry is whether a prosecutor’s consulting with the makers of a major motion picture “Alpha Dog” based on a criminal defendant’s story creates a conflict sufficient to require recusal. Gina Rubel published her two cents on this topic on The Legal Intelligencer’s Blog.
Details about the court case can be found in Dan Slater’s article Are Books and Movies the Right Venue for Prosecutors’ Cases? of the Wall Street Journal. Slater writes that matters such as this continue the “age-old debate over whether it’s proper for prosecutors to try their cases in the news media.”
Adam Liptak of the New York Times also writes on the case in his recent article, When Literary and Prosecutorial License Collide. He writes about the Hollywood case and a second decision this week where Santa Barbara prosecutor Joyce Dudley published a novel with similarities to a rape case that she was trying. The appeals court also disqualified Dudley, but the decision of the same Supreme Court reversed that.
As Gina said in her blog for The Legal Intelligencer, “I believe that as long as we abide by the guidelines set forth in the various rules of professional responsibility and attorneys conduct strategic and solid voir dire, then the public has a right to know. In this case, Hollywood was a fugitive. Telling his story in a movie is no different than telling it on ‘America’s Most Wanted.’ In fact, the movie may have helped lead to his capture.”
Here are some forms of public relations writing that you can use to generate a buzz about you and your business.
- The Authoritative Article - When an article is published and you haven’t paid for the space (as opposed to placing an advertisement), you immediately establish credibility with your target audiences.
- The FAQ Response Method - keep a notebook next to the telephone and keep a log of topics such as client management, legal issues, etc. and write down every question you are asked by a prospective or current client.
- The TOC Review Method - review the table of contents (TOC) of the last six issues of a publication that your audiences read and keep note of trends and reoccurring themes.
For more important tips on using PR writing to create a buzz, read Chapter 4 in Everyday Public Relations for Lawyers. Excerpt from Everyday Public Relations for Lawyers, Copyright 2007. Furia Rubel Communications, Inc. To purchase the book, click here.
A Furia Rubel colleague and International Productivity Expert, Neen James, will be sharing real-life systems and strategies to increase your firm’s bottom line at the Pro-Networking™: Productive Practice Development Luncheon hosted by the Philadelphia Bar Association on May 28 from Noon to 2pm.
This high energy and interactive program will:
- Establish systems to increase productivity
- Leverage everyday communication tools
- Demonstrate strategies to grow your book of business
- Communicate how to build a productive practice development action plan.
This workshop is valuable for attorneys wanting to increase their practice development activities. For more information or to register on-line, go to www.philadelphiabar.org.
Daniel A. Cirucci, a public relations professional and former associate executive director of the Philadelphia Bar Association, recently wrote an article titled the Sad tale of Philly lawyers in the Philadelphia Daily News.
Cirucci discusses how a well-known Philadelphia-area magazine cover recently posed the question, “Who killed the Philadelphia lawyer?” Cirucci takes a moment to disagree with the cover by demonstrating how neither greed, mergers nor ego have killed the Philadelphia lawyer. “To the contrary, legal business in the city and the region appears to be booming. There are nearly 16,000 lawyers in Philadelphia now and the magazine points out that one in five Center City offices are occupied by law firms.”
Cirucci goes on to address a laundry list of falsities and realities within the Philadelphia legal realm. Cirrucci concludes the article by reminding his readers, “Don't worry about Philadelphia lawyers. They'll be around as long as humans are imperfect. And that's not such a bad thing. In fact, it's good for the city because, for better or worse, these lawyers are vital to the local economy. Without the tax revenue that the lawyers, their employees and their firms generate, the city would probably go under.”
This article is a must-read - check it out!
Neen James tells attorneys how to be more productive when using e-mail. First, she tells us to “avoid answering email first thing in the morning.” Ah – I need to follow her advice. She also says that if you apply these strategies, you will get back some of the time you are spending on e-mail each day.
Just some of the things Neen tells us to do are: - Unsubscribe (I’m great at this one)
- Use the Out of Office Reply (Ah – this is a life saver)
- Filter SPAM (But please check your SPAM filter too)
- Be short and to the point (Yes, brevity is best)
- Use and e-mail signature (Not having one is my biggest pet peeve!)
- Be polite (Ever get one of those e-mails with all CAPS and !!!!!!!!!)
- Spell check (and re-read aloud)
- Remove distractions (and please turn off the backgrounds…)
- Delete (But as an attorney, I say, not always….)
- Avoid BCC (It’ll come back to haunt you)
- Avoid FYI (Okay – so I need to follow this one more too)
Tom Kane's post, Which is Better: Advertising or Public Relations?, on LegalMarketingBlog.com hits the nail on the head.
I couldn't agree with Tom more when he says, "until a firm has done the basics involving strategic marketing planning, [advertising, public relations,] or both could be a total waste of money."
He is so right.
I regularly encourter law firms who still take an ad hoc approach to their marketing efforts. They advertise in the XYZ magazine supplement because they're getting a "discount" or at least a perceived discount. They hire a consultant or service to "issue a press release" and then don't leverage the value of the news or coverage. They purchase a directory listing upgrade because the sales person said they should. And the list goes on.
The bottom line is that law firms need to approach their communications the same way big businesses have for decades. It's about strategic planning. They need to identify what their trying to accomplish, who they're trying to reach, the messages they want to deliver, the time-frame within which they need to act, the best vehicles for success (advertising, marketing, interactive technologies or public relations) and how they will measure the success of their efforts.
On Tuesday, April 22, Gina Rubel will serve as a moderator for the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Bar-News Media Committee's “Meet and Greet Your Legal Beat Reporters” Luncheon held at the Philadelphia Bar Association at 1101 Market Street, 11th Floor Conference Center at noon.
The purpose of the “Meet and Greet Your Legal Beat Reporters” event is to provide a quality and diversified educational program that address regional media opportunities and help build relationships between members of the bar and members of the media.
Panelists for the event include:
- Jeff Blumenthal, Legal Reporter for the Philadelphia Business Journal
- Mike Dunn, City Hall Bureau Chief for KYW Newsradio
- Chris Mondics, Legal Reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer
- Gina Passarella, Staff Reporter for The Legal Intelligencer
Lunch tickets are optional and available at $7.50 per person. For more information or to register contact the Philadelphia Bar Association at (215) 238-6300 or register on-line at www.philadelphiabar.org. All reservations that are not cancelled 24 hours prior to the event will be subject to a cancellation fee of $7.50
In a Law.com article titled, Legal Directories: Valuable Resource or Waste of Time?, Michelle Madsen of Legal Week looks the corporate counsel’s view of directories. Do in-house attorneys use directories such as Chambers and Partners, the Legal 500 and Lawdragon or are they “a self-perpetuating marketing arena for law firms, or a useful tool for clients?”
Madsen concludes that “A sensible attitude to the directories would seem to be to regard them as a resource, a tool to be drawn upon and, compared with other sources of information, not as a substitute to personal contact or knowledge. As such, they need to be judged critically but, on balance, it would seem they have earned their place on the shelves of most general counsel.”
In my latest book, Everyday Public Relations for Lawyers, I provide a short list of such directories which also includes:
• American Lawyer AMLaw 200
• Best Lawyers in America
• Euromoney Expert Guides
• Global 100
• Leading Lawyers
• Legal Experts
• Martindale-Hubbell
• Multicultural Law Top 100
• National Law Journal 250
• Of Counsel 700
• PLC Which Lawyer? Yearbook
• SuperLawyers
• The Vault
• Who’s Who Legal
You can find more comprehensive lists in Leigh Dance’s Global Guide to Law Firm and Lawyer Directories and the companion book compiled by Deborah McMurray, North American Guide to Law Firm and Lawyer Directories.
Chapter 4 - Tip One
Writing an authoritative article to garner positive publicity:
Writing authoritative articles is one of the easiest and most effective ways to garner valuable publicity—especially if you like to write. When an article is published and you haven’t paid for the space (as opposed to placing an advertisement), you immediately establish credibility with your target audiences. It positions you as an expert without you saying, “Hey, look at me, I’m an expert on this topic.”
Keep tuned for more information on how to garner positive publicity along with rules of ethics where you will see that calling an attorney an expert can get you into hot water.
We have posted several articles on the benefits of utilizing on-line networks such as LinkedIn. You may have checked it out, or even signed up for an account, but have you capitalized on any of the opportunities of networking on social media sites?
If not, here is an informational article to jump-start your on-line networking capabilities, Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn. The author, Guy Kawasaki, is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Forbes.com.
In this article, Kawasaki provides the following “how to” tips on on-line networking:
- Improve your connectability
- Increase your visibility
- Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks
- Gauge the health of an industry
For more information, check out this article on-line.
Today, in my blog for The Legal Intelligencer, I wrote about a Lawyer Reprimanded for Fashion Choice where a Milwaukee County courthouse, state prosecutor Warren Zier was reprimanded by Judge William Sosnay for wearing an ascot to court. His rebuke has garnered media attention from the Wall Street Journal to the Chicago Sun-Times -- which I'm sure was not his intention when he tied his ascot that morning.
To read the full post at The Legal Intelligencer Blog - go to http://thelegalintelligencer.wordpress.com.
What does “pitching” the media consist of:
“Pitching” a reporter or producer in public relations is akin to throwing a ball to the batter to see if she’s going to hit it and, if so, how far. Even though the commonly known terminology is “pitching,” think of it more as the art of communicating and having a conversation. There is no single way to pitch the media. Understanding some of the nuances of the media will help you become a better communicator in the long run.
An important aspect to consider when reaching out to the media:
Be memorable – Reporters receive hundreds of calls, phone calls, e-mails and faxes every week, so it is important that your story stands out from the rest. Be familiar with articles that the reporter has written in the past and, if you can, tie one of them in with your pitch. Be specific and brief—this will show the reporter that you are not wasting her time.
For more important tips to understand when reaching out to the media, read Chapter 3 in Everyday PR for Lawyers. Excerpt from Everyday Public Relations for Lawyers, Copyright 2007. Furia Rubel Communications, Inc. To purchase the book, click here.
I recently met Mark Beese through the Legal Marketing Association and LinkedIn. He is the "marketing guy at Holland & Hart, a law firm in the Rocky Mountain West (www.hollandhart.com)." He maintains a blog focused on helping lawyers become better leaders at http://www.leadershipforlawyers.typepad.com/. He has great content on his blog - I highly suggest reading it!
To recap on why we encourage every firm, no matter how big or small, to have a written media policy, is because law firms and their attorneys can and should control all messages provided to the media. Several reasons include managing your messages, ethics and, in the cases of trial publicity, to protect the clients’ best interests.
The following media policy tips are issues that your firm’s media policy should address:
- How you handle calls about specific firm clients and/or cases
- How you handle calls for third-party commentary on specific cases or legal issues
- Crisis communications procedures
- The ethics of dealing with the media
For more tips and advice from the Everyday Public Relations for Lawyers guide, stay tuned!
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