This is a question that I often ask myself ahead of a meeting. Try to avoid having to ask yourself the question half way though a meeting though.

The Apprentice candidates on the BBC demonstrated brilliantly, the other week, how you can have a very busy diary, having wonderful conversations...... but with the wrong people.  People who probably understand exactly what value you bring to a situation and would advocate change and the implementation of new products or…

Should lawyers and law firms be online?

Should lawyers have a presence on the social web?

Should a lawyer tweet?

What about Facebook?

For the modern lawyer, these are the big questions.

Why social?

Because the economy has changed; digital is up; Whitehall is preaching a form of Anglican self-denying fiscal austerity; the legal economy is coupled to a depressed economy; and because lawyers are starting to get it: they get it that they need to…

Northern Ireland's largest independent law firm, Carson McDowell has been cooking up something special: their marketing and branding campaign really is something different.

While out and about in Northern Ireland I've come across a number of exciting and eye catching Carson McDowell advertising boards. This is new territory for lawyers in Northern Ireland. Such ostentatious acts were long beyond the legal establishment; the reserve rather of car dealers, global merchandisers, drinks…

The law’s fastest interview is back and this time Matt Baldwin, editor of Professional Services Marketing Group (PSMG) magazine, is in the spotlight.

Matt has worked with the legal profession for over 18 years including his roles as Head of PR and…

This is the law’s fastest cross-examination where the interviewee has to respond in fewer than 140 characters.

The latest interviewee to face our high-speed questioning is Deborah Scaringi, an Independent Marketing Consultant at Scaringi…

The leader of a branded networking membership group proudly announces that his is the biggest networking group in London. This post is about why the size of a networking group is not always an accurate indication of it's success or quality, why bureaucracy is a turn off and how networkers can rise above it.

Welcome back, or if you’re new here sign up using our…

We lawyers are an important lot. We are the grease that lubricates the wheels of commerce. We make the world go round. 

However with our status as the world’s lubricator there comes a problem: when the wheels of the real economy slow, the legal economy slows. This is the unfortunate reality for lawyers; that the real and legal economies are pretty much inseparable.

“Historically, the legal…

In partnership with the marketing agency Elephant Creative I've been nurturing an exciting interview series called, ‘Zero to 140: the Law’s Fastest Interview’.

Still in its infancy the idea of the project is simple: hunt out the law’s leading minds and interview them. Easy as that.

The only catch is that the interviewee has to respond in 140 characters or less - as per the title. It’s pretty much an interview over Twitter. And why…

As a newly incorporated company, and a consultant to professional service firms, I know the importance of having the right professional advice at an early stage. New businesses may find it hard to approach professional advisers and are sometimes struggle to ask the right questions or explain their business needs clearly. Sometimes it is easier to ignore these enquiries, particularly if they are not the right size or appear to be time wasters.

Marketing and business development…

I popped across the pond last week to Boston to attend Inbound12, the self styled biggest Inbound Marketing Conference in the world organised by Hubspot – 2800 attendees there or thereabouts.

As law firms, in England and Wales, we face huge disruption to our legal services market with the advent of…

Keywords are information words that search engines such as Google use to signify a topic online. By optimising your website and social media output around relevant, useful keywords you can maximise your search engine visibility and send more potential clients to your law firm’s website as a result!

Learning to define the most useful keywords to your firm is incredibly useful and should be the basis of any digital strategy or campaign.…

To build its search lists and evaluate a Google ranking for your website, the search engine embarks on a process called ‘crawling’.

Evaluating millions of web pages at a time, Google builds a list of websites it trusts and presents them to you when searching for keywords in the search bar. The process of gathering and judging such a huge volume of information on a daily basis is an immensely complicated process so what follows is a short introduction to the…

By developing a relationship with your potential clients over a period of time you stand the best chance possible of securing their business. Targeting these clients with relevant, useful email messages is one of the best ways of keeping your law firm at the top of their minds until they need your services.

Creating an opt-in email form for your website is one way to start building a list of potential clients that want to be kept aware of news and…

We are very pleased to congratulate Internet Law Experts for receiving its authorisation from the Solicitors Regulatory Authority. Internet Law Experts, headed by Yair Cohen, will now become the first Law firm in the UK to deal exclusively with all internet law related matters, including internet defamation, domain name disputes, internet positioning and PR, social networking strategies and internet reputation crises management.

Their law firm and website can be found …

I have recently been in touch with an SEO specialist who has recently started targeting the profession and claims that many firms using SEO services are essentially being tricked into paying for almost nothing (and in one case he showed me, precisely nothing was being done for a four-figure monthly charge).

He's really cross about what he sees as rip-off artists giving firms like his a bad name, especially the false claims he says many make about how SEO works and what is…

What have I got myself in for? 

Dilbert.com

Traditionally law firms haven’t had terribly much to do with their clients.  They provided a service – sometimes excellent, sometimes not – but whatever the client’s feelings about the level of service they were limited in telling their experience to whoever they would come across in person. Social media can provide peer…

ABS’s entrants may wish to procure an established online presence immediately.

This is where www.icomparesolicitors.co.uk can give you the edge over competition. Established back in early 2010 the site has gained an enviable reputation from some of its closest rivals. The legal arena is changing rapidly everyday and this opportunity will provide you with an established presence on all major search engines instantly.

Take…

Another day: another survey about shifting consumer attitudes to the provision of legal services.

Another survey, but the overwhelming evidence is that law firms who do not devote time and energy to their websites risk being overlooked altogether.

The latest survey released by LexisNexis in the US…

Linkedin profiles can do a lot of work for you. This post is about how LinkedIn can help you differentiate yourself, get that all important face to face meeting, and go on to seal the deal.

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