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The Lawyer's Guide to Marketing Your Practice,
Second Edition
Edited by James A. Durham and Deborah McMurray
American Bar Association, Chicago, 2004
Paparback, 297 pages plus CD-ROM, $89.95
Reviewed by David M. Freedman
This is
a terrific book. It covers a wide range of law marketing topics, presented
in a fairly logical sequence. Each chapter is written by one or two
experts on the topic – 19 authors in all – and most of the chapters are
very good to excellent (see table of contents below with my ratings of the
chapters). The editors have stitched the chapters together in a consistent
style.
Although the editors don't
identify the intended audience for this book, it seems to be marketing
professionals and managing partners at mid-size and large corporate law
firms.
The authors are all marketing
consultants, except for one who is a staff counsel at the ABA. If you
regularly read the mainstream law marketing literature, you'll recognize
many of the authors' names.
The accompanying CD-ROM
features some useful forms, checklists, and sample marketing plans in
Microsoft Word format, so you can adapt them to your practice. (I couldn't
read the CD on my Windows 98 computer at home, but it worked fine on the
Windows XP computer at the office.)
Here is a list of the
chapters and their authors, with my ratings for each chapter (excellent,
very good, mediocre, and crummy) in red, and some comments:
1. Overcoming Objections and
Obstacles: Persuading You Pessimistic Partners, by Terri Pepper Gavulic
and Susan Raridon Lambreth. Excellent.
2. Strategic Marketing
Planning, by Hollis Hatfield Weishar. Very good. A bit superficial, needs
examples throughout the chapter.
3. The Client Feedback
Program, by Linda LaBrie. Excellent.
4. Public Relations for
Lawyers, by Richard Levick and Elizabeth Lampert. Crummy. Superficial,
self-serving, somewhat confusing; written mainly for very large firms.
5. Developing Your Visual
Image, by Burkey Belser. Excellent.
6. Marketing with the Written
Word, by Roberta Montafia. Very good if you're already a strong writer.
But no clues for the weak writer.
7. Marketing Through the
Spoken Word: Conversations and Public Speaking, by Robert N. Kohn and
Lawrence M. Kohn. Excellent.
8. Proposals and Responding
to Requests for Proposals, by Suzanne Donnels. Excellent.
9. Using Win-Win Pricing As a
Marketing Advantage, by Felice C. Wagner and Peter D. Zeughauser. Excellent.
10. Let Strategy Drive Your
Internet Marketing, by Deborah McMurray. Mediocre. The author presents a
lot ideas and examples, but doesn't evaluate their effectiveness.
11. Weblogs, by Richard P.
Klau. Mediocre. Technically informative, good info on how to attract
people to your blog, but little guidance on what the blog's ultimate
objective is, what action or response you want from visitors when they
visit, or what kinds of blog content (hello? content?) are most effective
in spurring visitors to respond or take action.
12. Business Development,
Sales, and Marketing Training, by James A. Durham. Very
good.
13. Ethical Aspects of Client
Development, by William E. Hornsby, Jr. Excellent.
Appendix. Research: The
Foundation of Intelligent Marketing, by Mark Greene and Ann Lee Gibson.
Excellent (although it should be a chapter, not an appendix).
About the editors
James A. Durham is president
of the Law Firm Development Group in Dedham, MA. He is the author of The
Law Firm Marketer's Guide to Survival. www.lfdg.com.
Deborah McMurray
is a principal of Deborah McMurray Associates in Dallas. She is coauthor
of The Lawyer's Guide to Marketing on the Internet (ABA).
www.deborahmcmurray.com.
About the reviewer
David M. Freedman is a Chicago-based writer and media relations consultant, specializing in the fields of law and finance.
Dave won a Your Honor Award in 2001 from by the Legal Marketing
Association (LMA) for excellent
public relations. He is a coauthor of The GET GOOD PRESS Series for
Lawyers (www.getgoodpress.com).
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