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LEGAL MARKETING & PR
WEB, ONLINE ADVERTISING
AND SOCIAL MEDIA TRAINING
THE IMPLICATIONS OF
THE LEGAL SERVICES ACT 2007

WHY ARE LEGAL FIRMS UNDER THREAT?

BACKGROUND BRIEFING TO THE 'LEGAL DIGITAL MARKETING & PR BEST PRACTICE' 3 HOUR WORKSHOPS

The 2007 Legal Services Act (LSA) means radical change in the UK legal market with legal de-regulation and the introduction of Legal Disciplinary Practices (LDPs) and Alternative Business Structures (ABS).

The new regulatory framework replaces the previous framework the government had considered outdated, inflexible and over-complex.

Legal practices of all sizes face increased competition from each other and from new companies entering the sector.

With this increased competition resulting from the Legal Services Act, being distinctive, attracting new business and retaining the business of existing clients will become harder for anyone offering legal services and may threaten their very business survival.

However the Legal Services Act 2007 also means new opportunities for innovation, improved marketing and communications and business growth.

Law firms must compete against existing law firms investing heavily in new skills and marketing, and against new entrants to the market who bring with them considerable experience in service innovation, brand building, sales and marketing, business development and customer service.

These new entrants include AA, Allianz, Co-op, DAS, HBOS, More Th>n, RBS and SAGA and research suggests that consumers are very receptive to these new providers of law services, with 75% of consumers surveyed by Which? reportedly open to the prospect of new entrants (such as banks and supermarkets) entering the legal services space.

The introduction of the Alternative Business Structure (ABS), with its flexible business model and access to new sources of capital, will allow smaller law firms to reinvent themselves and compete more effectively, but the ABS may also tempt law partners who are close to retirement to leave law firms to set-up boutique law practices, creating even more competition and presenting new challenges for law firms in retaining both staff and clients.

Existing law firms that invest in marketing, PR and their brand image and new entrants that target niche areas more effectively and/or have an established brand presence will inevitably attract more work from clients, leaving less innovative law firms floundering with negative growth or facing closure.

Key to future survival and growth for law firms will be the way they market themselves and their readiness to adopt an open and transparent approach, communicating often and well, while managing costs and delivering added value.

Legal practices that are slow to exploit the opportunities for winning new clients and retaining existing clients through digital channels and platforms will lose business and may close, with Professor Stephen Mayson has predicted that 3000 of the 8500 law firms with less than 10 partners will cease to exist by 2017.

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HOW TO RETAIN CLIENTS AND WIN NEW BUSINESS POST-LSA

Used appropriately by law firms, LDPs and ABS, online marketing and PR communications can provide a range of inexpensive, highly effective technologies and techniques for attracting legal work and generating fees.

In this fast moving and challenging market post-LSA, those responsible for managing and developing law practices and associated legal services need to be aware of best practice and should be emulating it for their own benefit.

Partners, general managers, marketing and PR managers, business development managers, independent legal advisers and consultants… all should be involved in creating and implementing the digital communications strategy for the legal services they provide.

Legal practices that fail to innovate and invest in skills development and fail to exploit digital channels and platforms (or do so poorly) will not compete effectively post-LSA. As Professor Richard Susskind warned in an article in the Times ‘We will indeed witness the end of outdated legal practice and the end of outdated lawyers.’

Any law firms slow to respond to the situation may be shaken from their complacency by Eddie Ryan’s comments as Managing Director of Cooperative Legal Services (CLS), the legal arm of the Co-op launched in 2006:

“Many people feel that solicitors communicate with them poorly, use jargon that is confusing and don’t understand how services are priced. We believe that the presence of the Co-operative’s trusted brand in the marketplace, together with our combination of first class products and services, provides customers with both greater accessibility and better value for money.”

With more than 300 branches of Britannia and The Co-operative Bank in the UK and its easy access to millions of business and private customers, the Co-op’s efforts to bring legal and financial services under one roof may well threaten the survival of law firms on the same high streets.

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BOOK NOW

You will already have a website (or be planning one if setting up a new legal practice, LDP or ABS) and be using digital communications techniques in one form or another (perhaps email, blogging, social and professional media etc) but for all the investment you have made to date:

• Is your marketing and PR online as effective as it should be?


• How well do you understand digital marketing platforms and the opportunities available to you to communicate better with existing and new clients?


• Are you exploiting inexpensive but potentially very effective social media techniques and channels?


• Is your branding strong?


• Are your service offers and price etc clear and transparent?


• How easily can prospective clients access your legal services?


• Do you have a defined Digital Marketing & PR strategy and Social Media Policy and are they integrated with your off-line marketing and customer service?

Everyone in your law practice, from senior partners to junior staff, should be fully aware of what digital marketing and PR can do for your professional services business…

The inexpensive 3 hour Legal Digital Marketing & PR Best Practice workshops taking place around the UK in the Autumn 2011 provide a detailed, intensive overview of everything you should be doing online, a ‘health check’ on what you are currently doing and tips and techniques you can implement in-house at low cost to improve and extend what you are doing and make your business more competitive in the post-LSA world.

Please consider locations, dates and times and book your place(s) now by clicking on the link to view the main web page for our Legal Digital Marketing & PR Best Practice.

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