Gideon Legal Chatbot Software

Chatbot Software for Law Firms

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Marketing, Messaging

How to Talk to Legal Consumers Now, Underview: The Relationship of Legal Consumers to the Legal Industry

In our recent series about educating legal consumers for conversion, we reviewed the importance of being transparent with clients about fees (including the total cost of representation), clearly elucidating expertise (including in niche practice areas) and educating clients about the legal process.

But’s it’s also useful to talk about why these three aspects of client conversion are at the forefront of modern law firm marketing.  What a lot of attorneys tend to overlook or ignore is the massive experience and education gaps between lawyers and consumers as respects the legal industry.  Many consumers only utilize a lawyer once in their lifetimes.  It is the rare legal consumer (perhaps a small business owner) who is a serial user of law firm services.  There are, of course, a bunch of people who will never hire a lawyer, or will only hire a lawyer to create a will or buy a house, for example.  Given that reality, it’s not a surprise that legal consumers are looking for guidance, primarily, when they reach out to a law firm.  And, they’re seeking that guidance, at what may be the most stressful period of their lives.  The lawyer those potential clients choose will be a helpful resource, who can provide answers, as well as curing the chaos in what, again, is probably the most painful segment of that person’s entire life.  It’s important that practicing attorneys always keep that in mind.

Add to the general lack of knowledge about the legal process the fact that most legal consumers know very little idea about law firm pricing.  And, given that legal services are shockingly expensive, in comparison to almost everything else consumers pay for, that sticker shock has to be alleviated by some level of price certainty.  In point of fact, it’s very difficult to get someone to pay for legal services if their main comparison for pricing consumer services is a Disney+ subscription that costs less than $100 per year.  Making the argument that a legal consumer, especially an unrefined one, should pay more than 3 or 4 times that for a single hour of an attorney’s time, is a difficult and continuing sell.  Even on subscription services, law firms aren’t cheap.  Truly, then, every conversation a lawyer has with a client is a sales conversation.  How can you convince your potential client that these fees are actually and consistently reasonable?  How do you convince your clients that they’re still receiving value, when they get the bill . . . and, after a contentious meeting . . . and, when something does not goes as planned . . .  Fortunately, lawyers are good at making arguments: they just need to get better at making these sorts of arguments.

In the end, a law firm’s primary responsibility for lead conversion and client retention is the same: consumer education is paramount.  And so, it’s time for law firms to focus on what they can teach their potential clients, and so set the tone for the entire attorney-client relationship to come.

Marketing, Messaging

How to Talk to Legal Consumers Now, Part 3: The Legal Process

In this three-part series, we’ll discuss how lawyers should talk to today’s legal consumers across three primary areas of interest: money, expertise and the legal process.  These are the categories in which legal consumers have the most urgent questions.  And, it’s imperative for law firms to increase their chances to convert leads to clients by addressing each of these broad topics in ways that place the law firm in the most favorable light possible.  In part 1, we addressed how lawyers should talk to potential clients about money.  In part 2, we covered the methods by which attorneys should express their expertise to leads.  In this last part of our series, we’ll relay how lawyers are best positioned to cover legal process considerations with potential clients.

As we went over in Part 2 of this series, law firms have traditionally been excellent at displaying the expertise of the firm, as well as the expertise level of specific attorneys within the firm, including for niche practice areas — even if that tends to break down when one exits the law firm website, where the vast majority of that information exists.  But, even so: attorneys are becoming more aggressive about using social media to promote themselves, even if law firms at large have not necessarily caught on so well.  However, having expertise, on its own, delivers only limited value.  Attorneys have to also convince their clients that they can be their guide through the legal process.  In sum, lawyers can’t just be good at what they do: they also have to communicate to leads and clients what it is that they do, in a way that a lay person would understand.

Legal consumers, as it turns, don’t just want a good attorney.  They also want a good attorney who can explain the legal process to them.  Legal consumers don’t just want to know the destination; they require evidence of the steps it takes to get there.  They’re like FitBit addicts.  Nevertheless, attorneys are very reluctant to provide their leads with information about the legal process, because they’ve been conditioned for years to avoid giving consumers more than just a taste of how the sausage is made, and because they are concerned over legal ethics.  However, neither eventuality is insurmountable.

In terms of ethical obligations when speaking to leads (you can talk about pretty much anything you want, anytime you want, with existing clients), it’s all about keeping those leads apprised of the current status of the relationship; so, yes: this is very much like the early days of Facebook.  Just make sure you have potential clients click through or sign onto disclaimers before you speak with them about the legal process generally  — not their specific cases, or case hypotheticals.  Then, when the rubber meets the road, sign them up via an engagement agreement, or move on, and send a nonengagement agreement, to confirm that no attorney-client relationship commenced.  And, really, that’s what this is all about: making sure that the potential clients is consistently aware that there is no attorney-client relationship, and that that acknowledgment can be documented.

Most lawyers would not be confused with effective salespersons.  And, many lawyers think of the term ‘selling’ as an ugly one.  This is not entirely surprising, though, for a profession that has only been allowed to sell to the public for a little less than 50 years.  And, lawyers still adhere to the old tenet that you don’t give away too much, that you leave them wanting more, while every modern sales mechanism, especially content marketing via social media, is about sharing more and more discreet information about what businesses do.  The real fear for most lawyers, however, is likely those DIY client — the ones, they fear, who will represent themselves.  But, that’s probably an unrealistic fear, too.  If the attorney relays all of the complexities about what they do, a potential client is not going to say: ‘Awesome.  I’m just gonna go to law school now, and will let you know how all this went in five years.’  The far more likely scenario is that, if you do a thorough job explaining the legal process to your potential client, you will have cemented your expertise, and made it more likely that that potential client will ultimately choose you.  Plus, if you make what you do sound really difficult (which it is) your potential client is far less likely to try it on their own.  And, in any event, most legal consumers who actually reach out to a lawyer are substantially motivated to hire an attorney, and don’t manage their legal problem on their own.  They want help: the question is how willing you are to provide that help, and how soon.

Marketing, Messaging

It Won’t Take Too Long, It’ll Just Take Money: Selling Value

That’s a line from a song by the great (and extremely tall) Alan Jackson.  It’s worth a listen, as it’s a discussion between a mechanic and a songwriter about the relative values of their services, based on a consideration of need.

Most lawyers charge by the hour; they don’t charge based on the value, or perceived value, of their service.  But, all hours are not created equal.  And, all lawyers don’t maintain the same competency level.  And, all law firms don’t execute on customer service the same way.  If you can tell me that your call to a state administrative agency to inquire about a particular record is worth the same as another fifteen minutes spent managing a tense deposition, then your notion of value is off — even if your client’s isn’t.  It’s just not true that every hour is worth the same amount of money; yet, that’s the antiquated notion that most lawyers still abide by when setting rates.  But, the market knows better than that; and, your clients know better than that.  The lawyers who figure that out do a better job wringing revenue from their law firms, because they know when they can leverage a need, and when they shouldn’t.  In many ways, it’s a more honest way to run a business; and, there is additional cache drawn from a client’s knowledge that you, too, know what’s really important — and what isn’t.

Of course, most lawyers (and legal ethics investigators, too) like the simplicity of the billable hour.  But, clients of law firms view that model as a money pit for their hard-earned cash.  The reason you bill on value, then, is partly because your clients will appreciate that, but also because it helps you to practice at the top of your law license, and to ultimately earn more, just by dint of focusing on the most important, highest value work.  There is no better way to encourage efficiency and delegation at a law firm than by enacting a value billing model.

My good friend Alan Klevan tells the following story of an engineer who comes into a nuclear power plant where a meltdown is impending.  He calmly walks in, turns a screw, and walks out.  The management team then gets a bill for $1000, and complains to the engineer: ‘You were here for two minutes!  This is outrageous!’  But, the engineer says, ‘Right.  It was $5 to turn the screw; and, it was $995 to know which screw to turn.’

Getting at value is essential for all business owners; and, lawyers are starting to come around on how to build value into their law practice pricing.  And, step one is often dropping the billable hour model.