Announcing LitigatorEdge Business Launch

The Internet is the great equalizer. Large plaintiff's law firms with huge networks and equally large budgets will find it increasingly more challenging to dominate lead generation. Blogs, social networking and strategic pay per click and search engine optimization campaigns are helping progressive firms capture a growing share of Internet lead traffic. Armies of smaller and more nimble firms will inevitably steal leads away, by being more strategic about their approach to online marketing.

LitigatorEdge was founded to help its clients stay ahead of the curve through cost-effective, high caliber online marketing capabilities. We are currently only accepting up to 5 law firm clients per metro area, due to competing keyword interests, but may accept additional firms that are only looking to target a niche case type or geographical location.

For more information please visit www.litigatoredge.com

Getting Started with Online Marketing

How do you decide what type of online marketing, if any, is right for your firm, or business?

The first two things you should look at are: (1) who your target customer is, and (2) how would they normally seek out your product or service. If the answer to #1 is a consumer, chances are pretty good that you would stand to benefit considerably from some form of proactive online marketing. Search engine optimization and pay per click are among the most common methods used to reach consumers and should generally be explored before any other types of online marketing. Content and link building are typically tactics that are directly tied to improvement of search results and increase the size of your company's net. As a result, many organizations leverage blogs and other online articles to increase their exposure.

In your company offers products and services to other businesses, the online marketing strategies that work to generate leads are typically less clear. For example, a firm that offers printing services may easily be found online, by a business customer seeking this particular service. However, if the firm offers a novel or unique service (for example, a cutting edge software application for tracking marketing leads), your target audience may not know to seek out this service.

If you are offering professional services to other businesses, as is the case with most defense firms, reputation plays a critical role and it is therefore not likely that a search engine approach would yield meaningful results. However, leveraging online networks to develop relationships and joining groups that your clients are part of may be highly beneficial to this type of firm. Blogging to establish expertise in a particular area of law and sharing this with your clients may also be a highly effective tactic.

If you are uncertain about the online marketing tactics that are best suited for your type of firm, ask an expert. Some tactics will be more effective than others and ultimately you may have to test a few in small doses to see what type of impact they can have on your business

Get Ready to Rumble...

As an early pioneer of Web assisted dispute resolution, I am very disappointed to inform that relationships between insurance companies and claimants have recently taken a turn for the worse and plaintiff's and defense lawyers may already be seeing the impacts of this shift toward an increasingly adversarial environment. Of course, the economic downturn is once again the main culprit.

So, what exactly is going on? The property and casualty insurance industry depends on premium investment earnings for a considerable portion of profits. There are many profitable carriers that do not have a combined ratio (losses plus expenses divided by earned premiums) of under 100. Translated in English, a carrier may spend $1.02 and earn $1.00. However, in good times, that $1.00 can generate an extra $.16 because it is floated, or held on to for a lengthy period of time.

As you can guess, insurance carriers are not very eager to part with their capital, while their investments earnings are at all time lows. Under normal conditions, insurance companies are driven by both the compelling need to satisfy policy holders and the financial reality that legitimate claims do not get cheaper as they age. However, given the market dowturn, carriers have started digging in and cash flow has become the new profit and loss.

Here's a link to an interesting Business Insurance article, where David Siesko of Siesko Partners elaborates on the carrier perspective and its current impact on relationships with policy holders.

What does this mean for litigation professionals and the vendors that support them?
This phenomenon is having a profound impact on the industry and the impact varies according to the perspective.

Let's start with plaintiff's lawyers and claimants. If you are a trial lawyer that handles a large volume of carrier settlements, get ready for protracted negotiations, and an increase in litigation due to less flexibility by insurers. An increasing number of commercial carriers will be following in the footsteps of auto carriers and taking an increasingly rigid approach to settlement. A year ago you may have negotiated a specific injury to a $45,000 settlement. Today, a carrier may offer you $35,000 and tell you to take it or sue.

"Mill" type firms, which are dependent on high volume, low severity claims, will see an increase in receivable cycles and likely a reduction in the amounts they are able to negotiate. This will ultimately cause many firms to rethink their existing business strategies. Plaintiff's firms will become increasingly dependent on litigation financing companies to help them navigate the peaks and troughs that will be created by this new environment.

Insurance companies will become increasingly dependent on defense firms, which is certainly a positive if you fall within this category. However, it is not all sugar and spice, as insurers have begun to scrutinize every dollar spent, in an uprecedented fashion. A number of carriers are hiring additional legal bill review experts to help them turn the heat on their defense firms.

Legal vendors will be impacted differently, depending on the type of business they are in. Litigation financing is a great place to be today - just have to make sure your investment is secured by viable cases, or that the firm you are lending to is very healthy financially. It is a different ballgame today.

Some vendors, particularly ones working with plaintiff's firms, may expect a delay in receivables. Firms will not be seeing settlements as fast as they once were and this is going to affect everyone doing business with them. It is a good time to be in the cost-savings business, but you will need to demonstrate an immediate and certain financial return, to win business consistently.

So a few tips to overcome this change in carrier practices: ensure adequate cash flow by learning about and leveraging the legal financial services available on the market, keep your own operations trim and tight to remain competitive and make sure to stay on top of the aging of your receivables.

Blogging Secrets... Revealed

The list of reasons why bloggers blog is fairly vast and some of the benefits may come as a surprise. When I first heard of blogging, I naively assumed that it was something that self-centered people with too much free time did... and now here I am... hmmm.
OK, should you consider a blog and if so why? My answer is... it depends... so why do bloggers blog?

1) Search Engine Traffic
According to search engine gurus the return on your marketing investment for natural search can blow pay per click away. Blogs promoting your business or law firm can dramatically enhance your search engine position listing. This one should be reason enough for many plaintiff's lawyers looking to cast a wide net for claimants. I managed search engine optimization for a law firm advertising company back in 1999 and had the opportunity to see how powerful of a marketing tool this was, even 10 years ago. Today, with the keyword price inflation of pay per click (particularly for terms such as "Personal Injury" or "Asbestos Litigation" or "insert harmful drug name here" - you get the picture Trial Lawyers...) Should you have a blog for this purpose? The answer is: the bigger your organization is and the more critical search is in your overall marketing mix, the more likely you will need to give blogs serious consideration, as part of your overall strategy.

2) Position Yourself as an Industry Expert
If you write enough about what people want to read, they will come back. If they come back enough, you may find that one day you will actually be seen as an expert in your field. In fact, I think my mother is fairly convinced that I am an industry luminary in the litigation marketing field and sends my blog to all her friends and co-workers, so if you happen see her, please let her keep thinking that I am important...

3) Social networking with a group sharing common interests
This one is fairly straight forward. Chances are you are probably reading this because you have some interest in the litigation world, or in getting some tips on improving your marketing.

4) Cost-effective Promotion
Web sites cost money - blogs are free. They are also very easy to use and do not require a high degree of technological aptitude.

5) Communicate Message to Broad Audience
You publish a post once and the content is there forever for anyone to find. Blogs are also cumulative. The more you post the stronger your blog becomes. 20 posts are 10 times more likely to be found than 2. It is virtually impossible to not see a considerable increase in traffic if you commit to posting on a regular basis.

There are many other reasons for blogging, but these are some of the most common. Remember, Tip: Blogging is highly cost effective, but you need to be persistent to see results. It's not for every organization, but it can make a huge difference in certain organizations. If you would like to know whether a blog is appropriate for your firm, e-mail me at jzissu1-litigation@yahoo.com