Nick Jervis bangs the law firm marketing drum

By and large I am met with a lot of mild interest and a general realisation that they know they should be doing more, but it seems that, while things are ticking along nicely, it is not a priority for the majority of lawyers.

Seismic shift

Within the last six months this position has shifted and shifted significantly. Firms now understand what I have been saying for years; namely, that if you keep doing what you have always done, rather than getting the same results, you will now achieve diminishing results. So, it is perhaps not surprising that, as the bread and butter work for solicitors has been drying up steadily in the conveyancing and personal injury sectors, I am regularly hearing the statement: “We have to do something.”

It pleases me immensely to hear this because it is so very true. You have to put in place marketing systems and processes that protect the future of your law firm and ensure that you have a steady flow of new client instructions week after week and month after month.

“But that sounds like hard work, Nick, we just want the work to come straight through our door rather than to have to do any marketing, so we are going to join an umbrella legal brand.”

That is of course an option. There are all sorts of legal brands popping up offering this promise, from Face2Face Solicitors to High Street Lawyer. The promise of a brand can look attractive, and indeed it might be a good match for some firms, but subject to this one major proviso: you should only consider joining an umbrella brand when you have had a really good go at marketing your law firm yourself.

Shock tactics

If you are simply joining because you think it will provide you with all of the work you will ever need, you will be in for a major shock. Yes, they may well help and top up your supply of new client enquiries, but it will take them months or years to reach the critical mass required for their name to actually mean anything to the public, and there is no guarantee that they will ever succeed in the way that you might hope.

I understand you did not enter the law to become an expert in marketing. Yet at the same time I promise you this: unless and until you accept that marketing is the most important aspect of your legal existence, you cannot hope to have a successful practice in this economy, with or without a legal brand behind you. You can be the best lawyer in the world, but if you have no clients to look after, you will be a lawyer who is closing their office down for good.

So, marketing has to be your most important job. If you accept this, I have some great news for you, some brilliant news actually. Learning marketing is far easier than learning the law and, once you start doing it, it is far more entertaining. There are people like me offering you free tips on how to improve your marketing, there are countless books about the subject and there are all sorts of videos that you can watch.

Cliff face

The important point is to stop looking for a quick fix that will solve all of your problems and realise that it is only you who can provide this solution. Isn’t it better that you are in control of the destiny of your law firm rather than someone else? Isn’t it better that I am telling you that you can have as many clients as you want if you just take some consistent action and do a little light reading?

If you were hanging off the edge of a cliff, clinging on for dear life, and you were offered the choice of relying on a passerby to pull you back up or being provided with a piece of rope for you to do it yourself, which would you choose? I would choose the rope every time. I would back myself to succeed and I am sure you would too. So why wouldn’t you back yourself to succeed in generating more client instruction?

Do something for me and for you before anything else: set yourself a task of doing 30 minutes a day for 30 days of marketing your law firm. At the end of the 30 days tell me if you still believe that the answer to the question “We have to do something” is to join an umbrella brand. I bet you that it won’t be.

Nick Jervis is a solicitor (non-practising) and the managing director of Samson Consulting, a law firm marketing consultancy