The Oklahoma Bar Journal December 2023

Today’s wisdom, based on studies, is that it is fine to tout the attorney’s credentials, edu cation and accomplishments if your target audience is corporate general counsel. But if you are seeking clients in the people law sector, you will improve results if the focus of the website is the most common legal problems your firm addresses and your approach to empathically serving clients. Another interesting item from recent studies is that potential new clients often leave phone messages that are not returned by the law firm. With all the effort and expense law firms invest in marketing, it is hard to understand how they fumble the last step. Set up processes to make certain your firm is not guilty of this marketing mistake. If lawyers are not available, a trained senior staff member should return these calls within 15 or 20 minutes, offering to schedule an initial consultation in the office or a phone appointment with a lawyer within a few hours. FIRM MISSION STATEMENT OR MOTTO What is the primary purpose of your law firm? Certainly, all law firms should be about serving

the building be larger? Consider having the office phone number on your signage. Have you considered lighting the sign during the eve nings? And even though you may know people who can create sig nage, hire a professional. This may sound expensive, but compare the costs to a nearby small billboard or advertising on a bus stop bench. Like many marketing efforts, the return on investment for this effort will probably never be iden tified. It’s unlikely a new client will volunteer that they hired you because they liked your signage. But a lot more people in your area will know where your law office is located just from lighting efforts. And this one should only take a few weeks to accomplish. The law firm website is still the basic tool of online marketing. Although something else will likely be needed to drive sufficient traffic to the site ( e.g. , setting up your free Google Business profile and some social media marketing). Your website needs to be updated regularly, including adding new profile pictures of all attorneys. IMPROVING YOUR ONLINE IMAGE

clients’ best interests in a profit able way. But what makes your law firm unique, and what com mon traits do your lawyers share? This may sound a bit philosoph ical, but I have had lawyers report that determining their mission statement was one of the lasting benefits of a law firm retreat. In private law practice, the goal is certainly to make money. A mis sion statement or motto provides aspirational guidance for other goals beyond profit. These may inform marketing or other law firm operations. Maybe a goal is to support local community projects or to do other projects that advance improvements in the law relating to your primary practice areas. If your extracurricular projects require volunteer time, then select a project where everyone would enjoy working on the project. A law firm motto is not required. Many firms already have one. They just haven’t formalized it. CONCLUSION Some of the above suggestions may give you ideas for your law firm’s upgrade. Or they may not. A discussion with all employees and lawyers may yield better ideas. But as a business owner, you have to regularly invest time in improv ing your law business operations because those improvements are one important way great law prac tices are built and thrive. Mr. Calloway is the OBA Management Assistance Program director. Need a quick answer to a tech problem or help solving a management dilemma? Contact him at 405-416-7008, 800-522-8060 or jimc@okbar.org. It’s a free member benefit.

ENDNOTES

1. https://bit.ly/46bBIrS. 2. https://bit.ly/3QWW1oz.

48 | DECEMBER 2023

THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL