BigLaw fishes for new clients - Blogs not the right bait?

Today Jones Day partner Mark Hermann outed his blog Drug and Device Law. 

Herrmann tells us that the blog has not proved to be the new-business development tool one might have assumed it would be.  After all, Hermmann and his co-blogger Jim Beck of Dechert deliver just-in-time analysis of issues in their niche in such a high quality way that their posts are frequently linked by top-tier media.  In addition, Herrmann is often interviewed in-person on breaking news in the drug and device category.

Herrmann opines that blogging is simply not the right bait for large law firms.  Instead they might be suited for smaller and mid-sized law firms as well as lawyers who fly solo.  If those firms put in as much effort into blogging as Herrmann does, they will gain tremendous exposure on the web.  That strategy has catapulted small Seattle-based law firm Marler Clark to be the go-firm one for lawsuits in food-borne disease.  Partner Bill Marler was a pioneer in digital marketing. Here is one of his multiple blogs.

The question then is: Why can't BigLaw go fishing with blogs as bait?  My hunch is that the prospects for their services are large organizations or powerful individuals.  Those two target markets are unlikely to spend considerable time on the Internet.  The analogy here is knowing Microsoft Office.  Leaders probably know of it and its capability.  But it's the subordinates who operate it. 

On the other hand the prospects for smaller law firms are likely hands-on with the Internet.  And when they have a problem, such as a divorce or a personal injury, they would tend to rely on both a name of a lawyer from friends and what turns up on Google.  Before they make the decision to actually call the lawyer, they can become acquainted through the human voice of the blog.

For my communications boutique, which employs 10 contract employees, for four years new business has come primarily through my three blogs - here and here are the other two.  Blogging has not only brought in diverse clients. It also has lowered the cost of client acquisition significantly. I wonder how any smaller business, no matter what its product or service, can make it in these perilous economic times without blogging.

Comments

[Kevin O'Keefe]

Big law can't effectively use blogs for client development? That's quite a statement based on what Hermann has posted. First Hermann says the blog has generated clients in 2 ways and that he has turned down other work generated by the blog.

Look at Pileggi at Fox Rotschild, Donaghue first at DLA Piper and now Holland & Knight, and many more firms using blogs as a client development very successfully.

Hermann and Beck could do much more with the blog to make it an effective client development tool than they have. However, client development has not been its goal. Goals have a way of coming to fruition.