Lawyers who believe their profession is recession-proof have short memories. Although 2019 seems more than a decade away from 2009, the warning signs of a looming downturn are beginning to flicker. More lawyers are aking if content can make their law firm recession-proof.
The job losses that rocked the legal profession 10 years ago were, according to Above the Law, “brutal.” The blood-letting left about 6,000 attorneys looking for work. Big law bore the brunt but small law took a hit too.
The legal profession is more resilient than sectors like the building trade and retail. Lawyers are viewed as a necessity by many people, but they are not a vital necessity like doctors.
Peter Zeughauser, founder of management consulting firm Zeughauser Group told FindLaw.
“Clients will have legal needs in down times and have legal needs in up times — they may be different needs, but they’ll have them. As a service business, the legal industry is generally-recession proof.”
An ALM Media study is more sobering. It warns the next recession, expected after 2020, will likely result in the loss of 10,000 attorney jobs, potentially more than in the great recession of 2008-2010.
It noted a stark difference before and after the 2008 recession. Before 2008, all segments of the legal repression were growing. After the recession, in-house lawyer growth picked up while growth in the number of law firms ground to a halt.
It stands to reason that a recession will impact most law firms, large and small. During hard times, families are more likely to stay together and pool their resources than divorce. If they split up, they may work with mediators or seek to reach an amicable agreement rather than spend thousands of dollars they don’t have on family attorney fees. Although the clients of personal injury lawyers typically don’t have to pay upfront, a recession can leave them more desperate for quick cash and more likely to take a settlement from an insurance company even if they end up with less money.
Real estate lawyers are vulnerable to a downturn in the property market as well as those that work on big property deals. However, bankruptcy lawyers thrive in a downturn and immigration and criminal defense lawyers aren’t likely to lose their clients any time soon.
When a recession hits, it’s tempting for law firms to throw out the luxury items. Marketing is sometimes included in this category.
Although there is certainly a case for reviewing your marketing budget and trimming the fat, eliminating your marketing altogether can be a disastrous move that sends your company into a downward spiral.
While many law firms have embraced digital marketing without the attorneys completely understanding all it entails, others stuck with “tried and tested” methods of attracting clients. We are all familiar with that small-town law firm that appears unchanged since the days of Abraham Lincoln. The attorneys are Small Town Gods. They are pillars of the community who do very nicely on word-of-mouth business.
Although these firms rely on their reputation, they fail to realize the Internet is a great equalizer. History is not on their side. If you make a convincing case for business online clients will likely come to you. It’s important to fix your online presence before recession hits.
Can Your Law Firm be Recession-Proof With a Content Fix?
You can’t ride out the recession with good content alone but it can help. Law firms must have the basics in place including a solid business model and competent lawyers.
However far too many great lawyers lose potential clients by failing to sell themselves and not even setting up their stall in the most influential marketplace out there – the Internet.
It’s hardly a revelation that your website needs a good content strategy to be successful. However, I consistently encounter attorneys who believe they will attract clients with websites that contain a few basic practice areas with scant, ‘cookie-cutter’ content. There are no videos, client reviews, or pages that allow visitors to get to know the lawyers. The partners have hired a big firm to set up their website and failed to build on the bare bones. Alternatively, lawyers tried to write the site themselves and ended up doing what lawyers do best – writing long legal briefs intended to impress a judge but to generally baffle everyone else.
It’s no surprise that clients don’t warm to you if your website is as sterile as an operating room. Attorneys habitually fail to realize the chilling effect they can have on potential clients. People are often wary about lawyers. They only consider them in hard times. They associate attorneys with high bills, fast-taking, and arcane rituals in dusty courtrooms. Many websites fail to reassure potential clients by using language about plaintiffs and defendants and citing cases and stature numbers. Some attorneys seem to want their online presence to impress and intimate other attorneys by choking their websites with meaningless awards and accolades rather than trying to win over potential clients.
Here are seven tips for a content fix that will engage potential clients on your website and may help your firm to be more recession-proof in the process.
1 Tell Your Story – Lawyers are human like everyone else. Talk about your roots, your kids and even your dog;
2 Answer questions – use research and analytics to find the questions that people are asking and answer them on your pages;
3 Use your clients – Many lawyers are now acutely aware of the importance of online reviews. Your past clients are your greatest asset because they can reassure your potential leads. Use videos and in-depth stories about how you helped them.
4 Be local – About 60 percent of adults conduct locally-based searches. Make sure your content reflects places they are familiar with and specific incidents rather than being generic “cookie-cutter” content. Use the names of roads where accidents occur if you are a personal injury lawyer. Make local connections by writing about their safety record. Fill in your listings on a range of local sites to improve your local SEO.
5 Post regularly – Posting weekly or better still bi-weekly content makes search engines like Google pay attention to your website and will eventually help you site’s overall ranking.
6 Use video – The younger generation has grown up on video. Shooting videos gives you another way to be discovered. It can also help with the image issue I mentioned earlier. Potential clients are more likely to feel they know you if they see you on video. Shoot plenty of short videos of a professional, albeit not movie star quality.
7 Be visual and share – Use attractive images and infographics to tell a story. You are unlikely to get many clients directly via social media but it helps promote your brand and makes you seem more friendly ad approachable. Being visual in the legal industry can be a challenge as evidenced by all the dull images of hammers and the scales of justice on lawyers’ websites.
These tips relate to organic content. In layman’s terms, this is distinct from SEM or paid search in which you buy ads online and have to pay for clicks or impressions. Paid search will make you visible fast but it’s costly and you disappear again once your campaign is over. Growing your business through organic content is a slower process but it gives your online presence a foundation that you should keep building on. A content fix is not guaranteed to make your law firm recession-proof but it may help. Another way of looking at it is the firms that have a flimsy online presence are more likely to become victims of a recession.
Veritas Media LLC is offering a low-cost six-month content fix comprising two blogs or new web pages a week. We also shoot videos, write newsletters, and provide images, books, and social media. Please call or text me today at 757-582-1836.
David Macaulay has been a journalist for more than 30 years and a legal blog, page, and SEO writer for more than a decade.