Doing "Good Work" Isn't a Form of Marketing for Attorneys

Many lawyers think that simply doing "good work" constitutes marketing for attorneys.  In today's marketplace, that philosophy isn't enough.  Doing "good work" for clients is simply a baseline that does not generally differentiate an attorney in his or her marketplace.  There are lots of lawyers who produce excellent work product.  While doing good work can provide referrals and some word-of-mouth business, it is not a form of marketing for law firms.

According to survey results reported in an October 21, 2008 article on The Am Law Daily blog on AmericanLawyer.com (http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202425401301&rss=newswire), corporations' spending on outside law firms fell by 9.1 percent last year.  A good portion of the money saved on outside counsel has been funneled to compensation for in-house attorneys.  The prediction is that the amount of money corporations are spending on outside law firms will continue to decline.

As the amount of legal work available to law firms decreases, the necessity of doing more than relying simply on "good work" increases.  The time is now for law firms and lawyers to implement new media marketing for attorneys, social networking for attorneys, and internet marketing for attorneys into their marketing mix.