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Now That You’re AV Rated, Tout Your Accomplishment!

Philip Livingston — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:20:39 GMT

In my last post I wrote about the value of online reviews to help you grow your practice, including specifically how Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Ratings^TM work. Through our proprietary ratings methodology, select attorneys — judged by their peers as having outstanding legal ability and the highest ethical standards — are awarded an AV Preeminent^® Peer Review Rating. It's a distinction shared by President Barack Obama, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Guiliani and Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, to name just a few luminaries.

Each year thousands of attorneys achieve an AV Preeminent^® rating. If you too are among the elite, you should showcase your rating to the fullest and enjoy all the benefits of this honor.

Martindale-Hubbell actively promotes your rating so others readily understand your accomplishment. An exclusive agreement with ALM Media Properties, LLC will put AV Preeminent rated lawyers in front of more than 500,000 legal professionals across 30 different publications in 2013. An agreement with Fortune magazine and ALM highlights U.S. law firms with the highest percentages of AV Preeminent rated lawyers in its December "Investor's Guide."

We also display your ratings on martindale.com^®and Lawyers.com^SM . Lawyers.com alone makes your rating available to 34 million unique visitors annually. To locate the best of the best, visitors can fine-tune their search by rated lawyers only.

I strongly encourage you to proactively promote your AV Preeminent rating too. Display your rating in locations where clients, prospective clients and referring lawyers can find you: your website, your social media profiles (LinkedIn^®, Facebook^®, etc.), your business cards, at your office and elsewhere. Our associates at American Registry create elegant plaques, lapel pins, acknowledgements, ratings video and other recognition products, all designed to showcase your rating. You can find more information at http://www.mhur.com/.

Take the time to draw attention to your two favorite ratings' verbatim feedback by promoting it to the top of your ratings display on Lawyers.com and martindale.com. You also should take advantage of the one-time opportunity to comment on each peer feedback to give clients and prospects a better understanding of you and your practice. All of this can be easily accomplished in the Martindale-Hubbell Client Service Center.

For more than 140 years, Martindale-Hubbell has proudly facilitated the ratings process to highlight lawyers who are at the pinnacle of the legal profession. If you have questions about Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings or Martindale-Hubbell Client Review Ratings, visit www.martindale.com/ratings, email ratings@martindale.com or call 800-526-4902, option 4.

Online Reviews Can Be a Great Source of New Clients

Philip Livingston — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:11:53 GMT

You do it. I do it. We all do it — we check out product or service reviews online before we buy. Making an important decision like hiring an attorney is no different. Consumers and buyers of legal services greatly value reviews and recommendations from others. In fact, nearly 6 in 10 consumers seeking a lawyer check ratings and reviews online; of these, 65 percent state ratings and reviews were influential in their decision process.*

Here's an easy way for you to enhance and manage your reputation with reviews and ratings that affirm your expertise and skill: Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Ratings^TM and Martindale-Hubbell® Client Review Ratings. Combined, these two ratings give buyers of legal services confidence that they're making the right choice.

How Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Ratings^TM Work

For more than 140 years, lawyers have relied on Martindale-Hubbell to facilitate the review process with its tried-and-true ratings methodology. It's easy to get started and will take approximately 30 days to get rated.

All lawyers in good standing who have been admitted to the bar for at least three years in the United States or Canada are eligible to be Peer Review Rated. LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell initiates most reviews by a lawyer's peers. Or, to request a review, submit a minimum of 18 peer references that have personal knowledge of your ethics and legal ability in a specific area of practice to ratings@martindale.com or upload your list in the Client Service Center (https://csc.martindale.com/).

Peer references will receive a brief questionnaire to which they respond in complete confidence. References are asked to affirm the lawyer's ethics and to rate the lawyer on a scale of one to five in the following areas; the reference can also provide additional feedback:

Legal Knowledge
Analytical Capabilities
Judgment
Communication Ability
Legal Experience

LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell reviews the responses and facilitates the awarding of a rating, notifying the recipient via email:

AV Preeminent® (4.5-5.0 out of 5)
BV Distinguished® (3.0-4.4 out of 5)
Rated (1.0-2.9 out of 5)

How Martindale-Hubbell® Client Review Ratings Work

To establish Client Review Ratings, direct satisfied clients to your profile on Lawyers.com^SM or martindale.com® and have them complete a review by clicking on the "Submit a review" link. Or, nominate clients through the Client Service Center.

Clients receive a one-page survey that they will find quick and easy to complete. The survey asks which of the lawyer's legal practice areas they used. Then clients are asked to rate the lawyer on a scale of one to five in the following areas; a client can also provide additional feedback:

Communication Ability
Responsiveness
Quality of Service
Value for the Money

Reviewed lawyers receive notification of each Client Review Rating. Validated ratings and any feedback are displayed on martindale.com and Lawyers.com after 24 hours.

Full guidelines for both Client Review and Peer Review Ratings can be found at www.martindale.com/ratings.

*Based on a survey of 4,000 adult Internet users conducted by The Research Intelligence Group (TRiG), March 2012

Lawyers.com Profile Up to Date? New Edit Feature Makes It Easy

Philip Livingston — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 15:46:28 GMT

We know more and more people are online these days looking for an attorney — in fact three out of four consumers who sought an attorney in the past year used online resources (blogs, search engines, online directories, websites, legal advice forums, social media, and other tools) at some point in the process.* And millions of consumers visit Lawyers.com^SM each month. That's exactly why you want to be sure you keep your professional information current on your Lawyers.com profile.

It's now easier than ever to keep your profile up to date. Whenever you want to change or add information, you can do so right from Lawyers.com by simply clicking on the Edit this Profile button. And, once you save your changes, consumers can view them right away.

Key things to be sure to update are:

Your photo
Phone number
Fax number
Email address
Areas of practice
Experience and credentials (education, admissions, area[s] of practice, associations and memberships)

You can now also make firm-level edits from the profile to:

Firm statement of practice
Firm logo
Firm description

As soon as you save your changes, your updates are displayed right away on Lawyers.com. Changes will also copy through to your profile at martindale.com^®, usually within 24 hours. We hope this new feature makes keeping your profile up to date a little easier.

Check out this brief video on best practices for a great profile on Lawyers.com and how it can help attract more clients. Need help? Call our customer support team at 800.526.4902.

*The Research Intelligence Group (TRiG), "Attorney Selection Research Study," March 2012.

Facebook Moves To Make Search More Personal

Philip Livingston — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 20:09:24 GMT

Facebook announced on Tuesday it will let people test "Graph Search," a new feature.

What Graph Search will mean for lawyers looking to leverage social media remains to be seen. According to Whitson Gordon, editor in chief at lifehacker.com: "This is an awesome new feature for Facebook, not an awesome new feature for the internet. For anything not related to Facebook or your Facebook friends, you'll still be better off going to Google, or Yelp, or Amazon...." Others are predicting Graph Search will prove useful to people seeking lawyer referrals, lawyers looking for job opportunities, journalists needing legal SMEs, and more. We'll be watching the Graph Search launch with keen interest!

So what is it?

"It's going to cause people to do all kinds of searches they have never done before because you couldn't do these searches before," says Danny Sullivan, founding editor of SearchEngineLand.com in a story by the Los Angeles Times. In short, it adds another layer of possibilities for what you'll be able to search for and find on the site. As opposed to searching the Web, Graph Search takes place within Facebook. If it proves popular, it could mean users begin to spend even more time on the site.

According to Facebook, Graph Search will enable you to search using simple, specific phrases like "photos my friends took in New York City" or "restaurants my friends like in London." You can look up anything shared with you on Facebook, and others can find stuff you've shared with them. Each person sees unique results. If there isn't a match, it will show results from Bing.

"Web search is designed to take a set of keywords (for example: 'hip hop') and provide the best possible results that match those keywords," Facebook further explains in a press release. "With Graph Search you combine phrases (for example: 'my friends in New York who like Jay-Z') to get that set of people, places, photos or other content that's been shared on Facebook."

Graph Search is available now in a very limited beta. It is expected to launch publicly within the next few months. Stay tuned!

Use Chat to Engage with More New Clients

Philip Livingston — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 21:57:06 GMT

Let's chat for a second about chat: Are you using it as a means to engage with prospective new clients coming to your website? Lots of consumers prefer to chat before picking up the phone. For example, an ATG Global Consumer Trend study found that 90 percent of U.S. consumers ranked click-to-chat as "useful to extremely useful." Likewise, an eMarketer.com survey found that 63 percent of respondents were more likely to return to a particular website after conducting a live chat.

Live chat has real advantages for your website (and your new client intake process) as more customers these days are turning to the Internet to resolve their legal issues before they pick up the phone or start to draft emails.

Here are some more reasons to add chat:

Prospective clients still interact with a real person. You know it's genuine because live chat is real time — it's like a placing a phone call to your office and having a conversation without having to wait on hold or call back during normal office hours. (Chat can be offered 24/7.)

It's easy to use. Would-be clients just open up a dialogue box and start typing. And for some, it might be a little less intimidating to chat first about their legal matter.

It's immediate. Visitors to your website can quickly start the process of hiring you to represent them (or for inquiries that aren't bonafide leads, they too can be redirected, saving time for both you and the website visitor).

Some of our customers are already using chat to their advantage on their website. Dale A. Burrows, Law Office of Dale A. Burrows, P.C., states:

"I like the fact Martindale-Hubbell® Live Chat greets my website visitors and gives them the impression of responsiveness and that they will receive the attention they need, at a time when they may really need help the most. Live Chat helps more effectively screen leads we receive and allows me to get a read on what I am facing, before I face it. It gives me more information and a heads up before I contact the potential client."

Martindale-Hubbell Live Chat provides:

Chat functionality on your firm's website
A Live Chat agent located in the U.S. available 24/7
A legal-specific chat transcript related to the firm's area of practice, with the ability for your firm to customize the transcript
Transcripts of the chat emailed directly to you including the prospect's email and phone number

Our Law Firm Marketing Specialists stand ready to answer your questions and help you add Martindale-Hubbell Live Chat to your firm's website. Call 1.888.871.8813 or contact us online.

Think Mobile: Is Your Law Firm Website Mobile Ready?

Philip Livingston — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 18:38:57 GMT

Mobile search on the Web is exploding and by next year will become the most common way people access the Web.¹ This trend includes how people look for lawyers — in fact, in the past year, Lawyers.com^SM averaged close to 450,000 visits a month from consumers using a mobile device.²Unfortunately, many law firm websites today aren't mobile ready.

According to the Pew Research Center, half of all U.S. adults now have a mobile connection to the Web through either a smartphone or tablet, significantly more than a year ago. Specifically nearly a quarter of U.S. adults (22 percent) now own a tablet device — double the number from last year. And of those who don't have a tablet, about one in four plan to get one in the next six months. Some 17 percent of cell phone owners say they do most of their online browsing on their phone, rather than on a computer or other device. Most do so for convenience, but for some their phone is their only option for online access.

As a frequent traveler, I experience the daily frustration of trying to navigate websites that are not mobile-optimized on my cell phone. A mobile device's smaller screen and slower Internet speed require your mobile website to be streamlined — with simple features, trouble-free navigation and relevant information — to ensure a positive user experience. A poor mobile experience can also have a lasting negative effect on your firm. Sixty-one percent of mobile users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they've had trouble accessing and 40 percent will visit a competitor's.³

Here are some other important considerations when optimizing your law firm's website for the mobile Web:

Are you managing the content for both your primary and mobile websites to be sure your websites convey a message that's consistent and accurate — no matter which one consumers visit?
Be sure your mobile site provides the right navigation so users can quickly find relevant information. For example, a click-to-call feature allows visitors to call your firm at a click of the button. Another great resource to add is a "Find Us" feature that makes it easy for clients to find directions to your law firm. Mobile maps let users display a location map and find directions from their current location, all without typing.
Consider the needs of users of different mobile devices, such as iPad® or iPhone® which won't display Flash.

Don't want to wade through the mobile optimization of your law firm's website on your own? We stand ready to answer your questions and help you evaluate your Web presence — just contact our law firm marketing specialists.

1 Gartner, Inc. press release, January 2010

2 Self-reported LexisNexis Web statistics, September 2012

3 Google Mobile Ads Blog, June 2011

Consumer Reports Says Legal Do-It-Yourself Sites Are “No Match for a Pro”

Philip Livingston — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 22:13:00 GMT

With do-it-yourself lawyering, as with many things, you get what you pay for. Yes, legal websites that allow you to create your own will and other legal documents charge you less than what you would pay to hire an attorney. But, as Consumer Reports magazine discusses in its August issue, many consumers are better off consulting a lawyer.

Where do consumers start when a legal need is more complex than one might have thought, or there is a desire to preserve one's rights and prevent disputes? LexisNexis® Martindale-Hubbell® extensively studies behavior around how consumers approach legal issues and what we've found is there's a lot of uncertainty about taking the right steps to find a lawyer. Far outside their personal comfort zone, many don't know where to turn to first. People don't generally think about legal issues very often ... that is, until a situation develops where they must find legal answers fast.

We conclude that what most people want is an independent, trusted source, with reliable and accurate information, that makes finding a lawyer less confusing. No one should feel intimidated by the law, or paralyzed by the fear of taking the wrong step. With those ideals in mind, we have designed Lawyers.com to stand ready to help. With a simple search, consumers can get answers to pressing questions fast and get connected to qualified legal help.

We've tried to make getting started easy for consumers. Lawyers.com^SM covers a wide range of legal topics for nearly any legal issue one might be facing. Visitors can:

Learn more about legal situations using our Understand Your Legal Issue section or pose questions directly to attorneys in the Ask a Lawyer section.
Select lawyers whose experiences match their needs and choose attorneys that are in good standing.
Check out what other lawyers say about a selection using Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings^TM, and find out what other consumers say about their experiences with a particular lawyer with Client Review Ratings.

Remember, knowledge is power, and the more consumers have, the better selection they can make-and potentially the better prospects they are for you. We welcome your feedback about Lawyers.com at any time; tell us how we can make it better for you and your potential clients.

LexisNexis® Rolls out Newly Re-designed Martindale-Hubbell® Lawyer Index App for iPhone

Philip Livingston — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:32:00 GMT

Lawyers are becoming more and more mobile - working remotely, traveling to meetings, back and forth to court and speaking at conferences - so it is no wonder that applications which aid in productivity have gained enormous significance. For lawyers who are always on the go, LexisNexis recently released a completely redesigned Martindale-Hubbell® Lawyer Index app for iPhone to help them connect with other lawyers or referral sources.

The app provides direct access to the renowned Martindale-Hubbell database of more than 1 million lawyers and law firms so that legal professionals can quickly refer cases to an attorney in another jurisdiction, check out an opposing lawyer's credentials or search for outside counsel then quickly connect with the most appropriate person or firm. Its features include:

Options to search for lawyers and law firms according to Martindale-Hubbell Ratings, law school, name, area of practice and location
Ability to call a firm or lawyer directly from the search results page
Access to comprehensive profile listings with contact information, Martindale-Hubbell® Peer and Client Review ratings, bar admission details, website link, and more
Maps and driving directions to a lawyer's office
Ability to create and store notes on lawyers and law firms for future reference

"We developed this iPhone app with lawyers in mind and rolled it out quietly last year, so we were amazed when there were nearly 1,000 downloads of the app within weeks," said Len Gilbert, vice president, Customer Experience. "Since the initial soft launch, we redesigned the app to bring the user experience to the next level, including all-new screen images for easier viewing, location detection functionality and additional search fields for finding the right attorney or law firm. This app is a great mobile tool that allows legal professionals to find, evaluate and connect with the right lawyer while they're on the go."

To download the Martindale-Hubbell Lawyer Index app for the iPhone, click here or search for the app on the Apple iTunes app store.

Free Webinar to Walk Through Benefits of a Marketing Makeover

Philip Livingston — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:55:00 GMT

On Thursday, February 16^th, LexisNexis will present a free Webinar that should be of great interest to law firm partners and marketing professionals who are interested in learning about how they can enhance the online marketing of their firms.

Carol Eversen, Vice President of LexisNexis Marketing and Business Solutions, and Larry Bodine, Editor in Chief of Lawyers.com and Martindale.com, will co-host an online program that challenges participants to assess whether their law firms could use an online marketing makeover.

The program will focus on a real-life case study of one law firm -- Case, Rajnoha & Boudreau (CR&B), a three-attorney firm in the St. Louis suburbs that handles general practice matters such as divorce, paternity/child support, estate planning, probate, and minor criminal infractions. CR&B was the winner of the "Ultimate Law Firm Marketing Makeover" contest from LexisNexis, which offered small law firms an opportunity to work with a team of legal marketing professionals in order to dramatically enhance their online presence, provide for greater visibility and attract prospective clients to their firm.

As the grand prize winner, CR&B received a comprehensive suite of online marketing services from LexisNexis worth $50,000 that included web design, video production, search engine optimization, robust profiles on leading legal sites Lawyers.com and martindale.com, and more. In the Webinar, Eversen and Bodine will take a careful and critical look at the results of this makeover in order to help participants determine for themselves if they could potentially benefit from an online marketing makeover.

The program will concentrate attention on the three pillars of online marketing success -- Increasing Visibility, Demonstrating Credibility and Showcasing Personality - in order to teach participants:

How marketing experts determine which areas of a client's online marketing strategy can be improved
Recommendations to increase visibility, demonstrate credibility and showcase personality
Why it's important to work together with experts to implement a successful marketing plan
How to measure results and validate a marketing makeover plan is working

The goal is for attendees to learn how they can incorporate the marketing elements that will drive the lead-generating results they're seeking in their marketing plans, using the actual experience of one small firm's marketing makeover and how it changed the way they do business.

The Webinar will be held at 12:30 p.m. EST on Thursday, February 16^th. To register, please go to www.lexisnexis.com/webinar.

Social Media Visibility Launch Generating Buzz

Philip Livingston — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:53:00 GMT

This week's launch at LegalTech^® New York of the new LexisNexis® Social Media Visibility service - enabling solo practitioners and lawyers at smaller law firms to establish a successful social media presence - is stirring up quite a buzz.

A variety of well-respected online media sources shared the news within the first 24 hours of our announcement, including:

BtoB Magazine

LexisNexis introduces Social Media Visibility service

Law Library Blog (Stanford Law School)

LexisNexis Launches "Social Media Visibility"

MediaPost

LexisNexis Helps Law Firms Get Social

Reinventing Professional Services Blog (Video Featuring Samantha Miller, Director of Product Management, Website Services, LexisNexis)

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Perspectives from Legal Tech New York 2012 - A CODiE, Contracts, and Client-Centered Technology

The curiosity factor is high for a service designed specifically for helping lawyers leverage social media. The concept of tapping social media to increase online visibility and engage prospective clients is not new. However, our approach of making social media more accessible for attorneys has clearly struck a chord.

As we explained in our press release from January 31^st, we will help a law firm build a credible social media presence with engaging blog content and exposure on top social media sites. The service includes creation of a custom blog page, as well as assistance in crafting profiles on major social sites, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and then helping develop ongoing content for posting.

This service fully encompasses social media strategy, set-up and support, but along the way, the law firm maintains full control over anything that is posted.

With more consumers using social media to find lawyers and research legal topics, we are providing firm's with an effective strategy for leveraging these channels for lead generation. And what makes our offering particularly unique is that the service is delivered by specialists with social media experience that focus exclusively on the legal services marketplace.

For more information about this new service and why it is generating buzz, please visit the Law Firm Marketing Solutions site and let us know the best way to contact you.

An Invitation to the Conversation: LexisNexis Debuts Social Media Service for Law Firms

Philip Livingston — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:04:00 GMT

For the increasing numbers of legal consumers searching online for attorneys, social media matters now more than ever.

Research demonstrates that more consumers are turning to social media channels to inform their buying choices. For instance, 74% of consumers are using social networks in some way to guide purchase decisions, according to a 2011 study performed by digital marketing agency ODM Group.

Yet even as more consumers leverage social media for everything from researching legal issues to seeking opinions and referrals, fewer than 10% of law firms with up to 49 attorneys even have a legal blog for professional purposes, according to the 2011 Legal Technology Survey Report from the American Bar Association (ABA). And among those same firms polled by the ABA, fewer than 50% reported participating in online communities or maintaining a social network presence. (However, more than 72% of solo practitioners did report participation in social media.)

Understandably, leveraging social media in a meaningful way to increase thought leadership and generate new clients is challenging for law firms-given they are pressed for time and must navigate evolving state bar ethical guidelines for online marketing.

Still, as the number of social network visitors continues to rise, so does your opportunity to reach a broader audience.

Social Media Services Designed Specifically for Lawyers

Understanding how to leverage social media is critical to your firm's growth and longevity.

Responding to this market need, we announced today at LegalTech^® New York the launch of the LexisNexis^® Social Media Visibility service, designed to enable solo practitioners and lawyers at smaller law firms to establish a solid, comprehensive, and manageable social media presence. (Read the full release.)

This service encompasses social media strategy, set-up and support, delivered by specialists that focus exclusively on the legal vertical.

We will help your firm build a credible social media presence through engaging blog content and exposure on top social media sites. The service includes creation of an exclusive blog page as well as guidance and assistance in crafting profiles and in generating and posting appropriate content on major social sites, including Facebook^®, Twitter^®and LinkedIn^®. However, the firm always maintains full creative control of content posted.

Meanwhile, in addition to the release of LexisNexis Social Media Visibility, today at LegalTech New York we also announced the launch of a new portfolio of website products and services for law firms, called LexisNexis® Web Visibility Solutions, featuring search engine and mobile device optimization.

Each web product in the LexisNexis Web Visibility Solutions portfolio includes the features and optimization necessary for a law firm to compete effectively in specific practice and geographic areas.

These new search-engine optimized website solutions and social media services accentuate our robust portfolio of law firm marketing products. They deliver a powerful arsenal of tools to better enable your firm to project its unique reputation, strengths and personality and help you engage and win potential clients.

To begin developing your social media strategy, we offer free consultations and website evaluations for determining the capabilities you need-and those you don't. Please feel free to call us at 888.871.8813.

Learn more about the LexisNexis Social Media Visibility.

Learn more about LexisNexis Web Visibility Solutions.