Martindale-Hubbell, dealing with a crisis to a core element of their product offerings (lawyer ratings), showed the legal industry they are ill equipped to participate in social media. Martindale-Hubbell did respond to Internet discussion (blogs and twitter) that the company may be eliminating its l...

Fred Wilson has a wonderful post today on what can only be described as Digital Darwinism, a phrase coined by Evan Schwartz as the title for his 1999 book. The news is full of stories this year end about the impending bankruptcies of retailers, newspapers, auto manufacturers, banks, and a host of ot...

Social media and social networking is the all the buzz in the lawyer marketing world. Every place I presented this year on 'Social Networking for Law Firms' told me they had the largest attendance, or close to the largest, they've ever had. And it's not my looks. At the first few presentations I tri...

Two law firms this week suddenly found themselves in crisis mode. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison on Monday learned about the murder of attorney Anthony Ottaviano.   And today, Dreier learned that managing partner Marc Dreier  was arrested and charged with fraudulent impersonation...

Wired Magazine's Paul Boutin has some advice for those thinking of starting a blog. Don't. And if you've already got one, pull the plug. Writing a weblog today isn't the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been...

I've been having an ongoing conversation over the past week with an attorney about attorneys referring business to one another, and here's what she told me today: My experience is most attorneys will do whatever walks in the door regardless of experience or expertise and also will only refer if they...

Most (if not all) email programs include a feature which will allow you to customize your email 'signature' - the information at the bottom of your outgoing emails. Your email signature can be a great marketing tool. Is your email signature pulling its weight? Here are some things to consider incorp...

Who would have thunk a professional social networking site could overtake a long standing lawyer directory like Martindale-Hubbell? But look at the growth in traffic (unique visitors per month) to LinkedIn, Martindale.com, Martindale's consumer-small business lawyer directory, lawyers.com, and FindL...

MSN Money has come out with its 2008 Customer Service Hall of Shame "winners." Times are tough and everyone is stretched to the limit. Many of the companies on the MSN list are probably suffering from the effects of the economy as well, and cutbacks have resulted in a loss of customer serv...

Differentiating professional service firms is enormously difficult to get firms to do. Off the top of my head, it would seem there are only four main ways to differentiate a professional service firm: 1) Specialize. Specialize in a narrow market niche where word of mouth is sufficient, or in a broad...