Lawyer Advertising on the Web

At the June 25 meeting of the Sacramento Lawyer Computer Users' Group (SLUG), 1994 Hastings Law graduate and Web service vendor Kevin Lee Thomason spoke on how best to use the World Wide Web for lawyer advertising, which has been a form of speech protected by the First Amendment since Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350 (1977).

When Thomason asked whose firms have or are planning to get a Web page, four-fifths of the attendees responded affirmatively. Thomason presented ten tips for attorneys advertising on the Web. Here they are, in his words, with some editorial notes:

1) Make sure that you are listed in the right Yahoo category. Yahoo [the best-known of the "search engine" Web sites] has categories for law firms. See http://www.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Companies/Law/ to get an idea of how Yahoo organizes things. If your firm practices in a specialized area of law, make sure that you are not shoved into the generic Yahoo "Firms" category. [See Thomason's item 4, below, for elaboration on how you might assert one specialty.]

2) Make your site interactive. Make sure that people can contact you easily. Every page at your site should have your phone number and e-mail address. This is for visitors who print out pages. On a hard-copy printout of a web page, a link that says "press here to send us feedback" doesn't help. Create feedback forms that people can fill out [and include your e-mail and postal addresses and your telephone numbers on the form]. Create an e-mail newsletter that goes out to interested site visitors.

3) Your site should be search-engine-friendly. You should use "meta-tags" [invisible text seen by search engines] when appropriate, and design your pages so that internet search engines may index them easier. Visit http://www.submit-it.com/subopt.shtml to learn how search engines index and "weight" web pages. If you don't know what a meta-tag is, visit http://www.infoseek.com and click on the "Add a Site" link. They have an excellent explanation of the meta-tag.

4) Your site should have a reason for existing. Don't make a web site just because you heard that you should have one. Try to think of something that you could do that would be interesting for potential and current clients. If you have expertise in a given area, exploit it. A web site entitled "The Car Accident Page" is much more interesting than a site entitled "Sally and Joe's Law Firm."

[Thomason said that a separate "car accident" informational site, with useful non-legal and legal information on car accidents, can generate more interest than your law firm page. Creating such a site will, of course, require some thought and research time. After investing that effort, don't forget to put at least one appropriate link to your firm's page on each page of the "car accident" site.]

5) Do not trust your own sense of layout and design. [Thomason said he engages a graphic artist on some projects to help him with visual design.] Have present and potential clients look at your site. Get their opinion on design, functionality, ease of use. [This is cheaper than the marketing professional's tool of "focus groups."] Something might seem obvious to you as a lawyer, but very mysterious to a potential client. By having people from your target demographic look at your site, you assure that your message is understandable by the people you want to reach.

6) Your site means nothing if the right people do not see it. What really matters is whether or not your target demographic is being attracted to your site. Everybody "knows" that links from other sites to your site are how you build traffic. But if these links are on the wrong sites, the traffic they generate to your site won't do you any good.

For example, say you have created a great "Car Accident" page. You've got tons of information about car accidents, personal injury. Now what you need to do is to contact online consumer sites, automotive enthusiast sites, medical sites. Ask these folks for a link to your site. You will be wasting your time if you seek links from, say, a site that specializes in quilt-making.

However, if your firm focuses on elder law, you may wish to contact that quilt-making site. It's all demographics.

7) Don't waste your time with a poor ISP (internet service provider).

You have probably spent a lot of money and time on your site. In the Bay Area, one company offers to host your website cheaply, for $30 a month. But try visiting your site during the peak hours of 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. If people can't get to your site once, they may never try again.

8) Consult your Bar rules re: lawyer advertising. Some states appear to consider law firm web sites as advertising, some do not (yet). See www.legalethics.com for more information on this. [Peter R. Krakaur, a presenter at SLUG's January 1997 Saturday Seminar, runs the LegalEthics site.]

You may wish to read the following articles: Attorney Sites Can Avoid Violations of Ethics Rules, by Jeffrey Kuester; Ambulance Chasers on the Internet: Regulation of Attorney Web Pages, by Mark Hankins; and Web Pages As Lawyer Advertising, by Keith Forkin.

9) Promote your site in the "real world." Your site is part of your marketing strategy. Integrate it. Make sure your URL appears on your letterhead, your business cards, your press releases, internal and external memos. If you run radio, television or yellow-pages advertisements, make sure that your URL appears in these as well.

10) Keep up on the "culture" of the internet. Read internet magazines, visit sites that deal with "cyberculture" (an example is "Suck"--see http://www.suck.com), hang out in newsgroups if you've got the time. By understanding internet "cyberculture," you are in a better position to craft your message to appeal in this new medium.

How much?

Thomason was asked what he charges for his Web site design, maintenance and marketing services. His fees are between $75 and $100 per hour. He also hosts Web sites, using Sun servers on a T3 (very fast) line.

But does sex sell?

When Thomason referred to one of the Internet's many sex-oriented sites, one alert attendee, Jim Sandison, obtained the URL. It is www.naughty.com (representing another form of speech protected by the First Amendment against portions of the Communications Decency Act, see Reno v. ACLU, ___ S. Ct. ___, 65 USLW 4715, 1997 WL 348012 (June 26, 1997)).

SLUG news

SLUG chair Stuart Home announced that the Sacramento PC Users Group has a new relationship with SLUG. Although SLUG originated as a SIG (Special Interest Group) of SPCUG, it is financially independent of SPCUG. To maintain its nonprofit status, SPCUG must control its SIGs' finances. Responding to SLUG's request, SPCUG created a new category, "Affiliate Computer Organizations," or ACOs, for allied but financially separate groups like SLUG. SLUG looks forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship as an ACO with SPCUG.

Home also announced that SLUG is on holiday during July and August. This column's coverage of legal technology topics continues during SLUG's hiatus.

SLUG meeting information

SLUG meets on the third Wednesday of each month, at noon at the Sacramento Capitol Club, 400 Capitol Mall, Sixth Floor. Check the County Bar's on-line calendar at http://www.sacbar.org for meeting topics and any date changes. Dues-paid SLUG members may pay $17 by the Monday before the meeting. The cost after then is $22. Non-members add $2.50. Mail your check (payable to "SCBA") to Tonya Mathews, Office of Administrative Hearings, 501 J St., Ste. 230, Sacramento 95814, 445-4926. You must reserve and make a menu choice with Ms. Mathews. For information about SLUG, or to suggest meeting topics, call SLUG chair W. Stuart Home III at 447-7771.

Reference

Kevin Lee Thomason, J.D., The Seamless Website, 300 Montgomery St., 4th Fl., San Francisco 94104, (415) 732-5600, fax (415) 732-5606, web page http://seamless.com