Re: Transactional Lawyer advertising

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I agree with Gordon. I tried advertising for real estate and
estate planning, obtaining only one client from my ads
(including yellow pages, newspaper ads, and real estate broker
brochures).

On the other hand, my bankruptcy ad produced a fair number of
clients, and while my landlord/tenant ad obtained zero
landlords, I received many tenant calls wanting me to take
their cases on a contingent fee (which I was never interested
in). It seems that the yellow pages works for a certain
market, which does not include the transactional clients.

The only marketing in this area that has worked for me has
been relationship-building with other business people and
existing clients, as they are the ones who refer lawyers. In
my experience, people will refer work to lawyers for one of
the following reasons:

1. The lawyer is a noted expert in a complicated field
(people will refer you whether they personally like you or
not);

2. They like you personally, you are efficient and you treat
clients right (works great for commodity work like real estate
closings and simple estate plans);

3. In the case of other business people, you refer work back.

In my case, as my practice grew, advertising became automatic
as my name became associated with different projects around
town.

FYI, I am located in Massachusetts.

Good luck.

On 5/05/05, sean wrote:
> Gordon:
>
> My experience is transactional lawyer advertising does not
> work. Typically, the clients that need a transactional
lawyer
> are better educated and have resources. I have spent alot of
> money in yellow pages and yielded no results. Trust is
> difficult to build with a more sophisticated market place
> unless they are referred to you.
>
> Sean
>
>
>> Has anyone had experience with advertising for small
>> business/estate planning/tax firms? What works and what
>> doesn't. Is it dignified and does it bring long term
>> clients