Law Firm Marketing Teams Up with Hospice Trade Group

Here’s a great idea which should serve a springboard for marketing ideas for small or larger firms.

One law firm’s creative relationship with a hospice trade group — (the group is marketing the law firm’s legal “toolkit” to its members) — is helping the law firm develop a national hospice practice. The law firm has some 200 attorneys.

Reinhart Boerner, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based law firm, has created so-called toolkits to help hospices handle typical legal issues. The firm’s toolkits include sample contracts and summarize key legal issues hospices might face, including regulatory and reimbursement issues.

“We have hundreds of hospices who are not our clients but are buying our toolkits,” said Mary Michal, a shareholder who leads the firm’s hospice and palliative care as well as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act attorney teams. “That’s the model we thought would get the most useful information into the hands of the most hospices.”

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What Happened to the Paperless Office?

Remember the digital era forecasts? Offices of the future were supposed to be nearly paperless.

It’s no secret to you tha they’re not. The ease with which one can get, write and copy information in the digital age has sheets of paper multiplying at a landfill-choking clip.

It’s a prevalent problem across all industries. Aside from say, publishing, probably no field rivals law when it comes to producing reams of pages.

A recent survey of law firms found that each attorney generates up to 100,000 sheets a year. Assuming a 2,000-hour work year, that’s 50 pages an hour. Almost a sheet a minute. Enough paper laid end-to-end to wrap around the U.S. Supreme Court Building 66 times.

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Internet marketing budgets continue up

Twenty-five cents of every dollars in today’s advertising budget is spent on internet marketing, says a new report coming out of Great Britain.

This includes search engine marketing, search engine optimization, online advertising and affiliate marketing in Great Britain.

This is up from 11 per cent of budgets from two years ago and the average company has doubled its spending on internet marketing in the last few years, according to the report’s author Dr Dave Chaffey.

The rapid growth rate is not expected to sustain itself but “For later adopters, spending could and probably should double over the next three years, particularly with the economic climate encouraging investments into more accountable, direct response digital media like paid search.”

At any rate, according to the latest reports, spending on internet marketing is continuing to grow, despite budget cuts in other areas of advertising.

Legal Help Websites

Of course, the best legal advice comes from well selected lawyers. But sometimes, professionals need to jump start their search for legal information. Looking for a start on info on forming an LLC? patents? copyright? wills? contracts? leases? Nolo.com is a site you may find helpful: Check out Nolo.
Nolo is the leading online and print book publisher of legal information for consumers and small businesses. Nolo’s site offers 1000s of pages of consumer and business content. And Nolo is one of the highest trafficked legal Web sites in the World. Nolo is “pro-lawyer” persistently encouraging site visitors to use the services of legal professionals.

Using “Surveys” as a Marketing Tool

A survey can be used as a marketing tool for your practice. For example, you could conduct a survey on hiring practices or performance management programs. Be sure to include current and prospective clients among those surveyed. Share the results with prospects and current clients for whom you wish to do more work, reminding them of your services and distinctive competencies.

Teamwork Quick Start

One of the most obvious but most neglected ways to get a feeling of “team” is to establilsh a bonus pool based on the results of the team. Try this with a specific and significant project with short timeline and unambiguous measurement of the team’s results. Be sure to focus the team on the project outcome (results).