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By Madison Johnson, Esq. | Manager, Large Markets
Law firm marketing professionals are under the gun more than ever in today’s legal industry landscape. A report presented at last year’s Law Firm Marketing Summit found that almost two-thirds of marketing and business development teams are spending more time dealing with urgent problems than with developing strategic initiatives to drive revenues.This daily pressure to extinguish fires distracts from the time these law firm leaders can invest in staying ahead of the curve and implementing pro-active business development plans. But one powerful automated tool that can enhance business development efforts with minimal time investment is within grasp of every firm.
A news monitoring service will track media coverage on topics of interest to the lawyers in your firm and provide reports that enable your professionals to quickly surface breaking news developments about your clients, various industries, competitors and your own law firm. These tools are working 24/7, monitoring for news reports worldwide in every possible media format, and serving up timely content for you to review.
All that your lawyers and business development team members need to do is establish specific keywords, industries or geographic regions that you wish to monitor. This will ensure the service delivers relevant news alerts to the individual user. In addition to traditional news sources, you can monitor social media platforms to uncover breaking news and emerging legal issues.
There are a number of specific ways that a news monitoring service can drive law firm business development:
All successful business development starts with doing a great job for your existing clients and growing those relationships. Law firms can not afford to learn something about a client from a competitor law firm’s blog post. News monitoring tools ensure that you learn that information in real-time so you can be pro-active in engaging with the client about any timely needs.
The prospecting pipeline is a crucial aspect of any large law firm’s business development efforts. News monitoring tools can surface breaking news related to a target client so you can identify any developments that may trigger need for outside counsel in an area in which your firm is well-qualified.
It is more important than ever for lawyers and law firms to actively promote their brands and be viewed as industry thought leaders. News monitoring tools can identify emerging topics on which your lawyers can provide commentary in the public square, amplifying their personal expertise and showcasing the firm’s credentials in that niche.
The law firm turf has become more crowded as corporate legal departments have pro-actively reduced the number of firms on their “preferred provider” lists. News monitoring services can help your business development team track media coverage on your peer group firms so you are apprised of their investments in new offices, news practice groups or other new strategic initiatives.
The legal industry of 2024 bears little resemblance to what the profession looked like as recently as 10 or 20 years ago. News monitoring tools empower law firm leaders with the ability to track hot topics in the legal industry, important regulatory developments affecting lawyers, and changes to various professional codes of conduct in burgeoning areas such as the use of generative artificial intelligence.
Potential corporate clients are most focused on identifying law firms that employ the top legal talent for their specific needs. This competitive battle for the best lawyers in key practice areas has never been more intense. News monitoring services can help law firm leaders identify the top lawyers who work in target areas of practice, as well as up and coming young legal talent who may be well-aligned with the firm’s strategic direction.
By effectively utilizing a news monitoring service, law firms can enhance their business development efforts, improve client relationships and stay ahead of the competition.
Nexis Newsdesk is a media intelligence tool from LexisNexis that monitors media coverage on topics of interest and provides reports that enable legal professionals to quickly uncover critical insights about your firm, competitors, clients and overall market landscape. Newsdesk has won multiple CODiE Awards for its innovative technology and user-friendly delivery of information.
The Nexis Newsdesk service works around the clock, tracking media coverage worldwide, and serves up news, trends and analysis on a firm’s clients, prospects, competitors, practice areas and industry trends. Learn more or sign up for a free trial of Nexis Newsdesk. Also check out all of our business development solutions.