Law And More

For Whom The Moving Van Comes: It Comes For Thee (over-50 staff, lawyers, law professors)

Relocation for the over-50 has become increasingly an issue. And an urgent one. That's especially the situation for aging legal staff, lawyers, and (highly paid) law professors. Everything law is in play. 

Even before the current COVID-19 unemployment crisis research documented that the aging worker can bet on losing that good job and, even worse, not landing a replacement which pays comparable compensation. Currently, that probability has increased exponentially.

The bottom line: Those aging living in pricey metro areas and suburbs likely can't afford that lifestyle any more. Relocation is a have-to. That applies:

If you throw in the towel and retire

Decide to semi-retire

Resolve to keep working by establishing a new identity where aging bias isn't so severe such as in Arizona

Launch a business geared to another geographical location. It could be all you need is another $35k. And you can live well.

For you, that relocation, after the decision is made to do it, might seem like a simple transaction: Sell the house or fulfill the lease, pack or sell the material belongings, and go. Enjoy the adventure, right. 

That's not the way it plays out. The process is complex. And, believe me, not an adventure.

My relocation, which finally ended with my move to Toledo, Ohio, has been a strange journey.

That kicked in during April 2014. The writing was on the wall: It was impossible to make ends meet in the New York Metro area. Simultaneously it was increasingly possible to operate my two boutiques remotely. They were and are communications and coaching services. 

I chose Tucson, Arizona. The trip there, the apartment, and the establishment of telecommuting businesses all went according to plan. My fixed expenses dropped more than a half. Emotionally and spiritually it was a relief to be away from the careerism of the Northeast Corridor.

Then a very strange thing developed.

The past, by way of former college classmate Kathleen Huebner, became an unwanted presence.

It arrived in the positioning and packaging labeled "concern." My my. There is that old-fashioned adage that advice is criticism delivered in a velvet glove. 

Perhaps Huebner et al., who had been a mover and shaker in the field of vision impairment, had regretted retirement and buying a house in a retirement development.

Perhaps Huebner and the rest had a festering resentment against me. In itself that's a major reason to duck creatures reaching back from the past. 

Or maybe they were just bored. 

That shouldn't have derailed the relocation train. But it did.

Huebner was the only person I knew in the Tucson metro area. Made vulnerable by the move, I was excessively shaken. Lesson learned: Be totally protective of yourself when parachuting into a new geographical location and lifestyle. You have been stripped of your usual defenses. 

The next lesson learned during this unusual journey is that none of us, at least once over-5o, is as flexible as we assume in our heads to be.

Within 6 months of the transition to southwest AZ, I was homesick for east. But at the same time I couldn't afford The East I had known.

Internet research turned up that I could get back to 4 seasons at an affordable price (and leave the ghost of Huebner behind) in Youngstown, Ohio. Nice try, but, as the cliché goes, no cigar. In Youngstown, there was not enough to do and even less so once the economy tanked after GM shuttered the Lordstown plant.

The lesson learned there was this: Be willing to tweak a decision.

OH was okay. But not Youngstown.

I did, though, hang out there too long, not willing to admit there needed to be one more uprooting.

Since September 2019, I have been based in Toledo, OH. It's perfect. Even more affordable than Tucson and Youngstown, with a world-class museum, several top universities within an hour, and people so much like the ones I had to leave in 2014.

What I am celebrating this month is plenty. Here are just a few things on the Hurrah List:

•  I got out. "Everyone said" I would lose my earning capability if I left the New York Metro area. Yet, I was able to bypass the oppressive opinion of everyone. Yesyesyes, the answers are all within ourselves.
•  I had the insight and strength to ditch Huebner and the rest of the members of the Class of 1967 who were indeed so eager to help me out. There doesn't have to be any loyalty to those who had been in our little lives at a very different time. Maybe the college diplomas should have a disclaimer: These people can be hazardous to your growth. 
•  I surrendered to the reality of aging that adjustment is a tough nut to crack.
•  I forgave myself for errors of judgment along the way. Self-forgiveness is everything. Among the monsters of the mind is regret. Don't go near that hell.
•  I paid off all debt, piled funds into an investment portfolio, and rolled back my medical-test number to "healthy." 
•  It was smart to drive back to New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut twice. I had to get it that all that had changed, without me. Those locations were no longer "home." At least, no longer mine. 
•  Somehow, an inner peace I hadn't experienced since childhood took hold of me. As Don Draper from "Mad Men" articulated in the Kodak pitch, the transition from being a child to an almost-adult is fraught with pain. So many of us, like me, hadn't shaken the pain. The strange trauma of relocation made it necessary to take the leap into who I was now. The pain lifted. 

In the new Post-COVID-19 world order, the moving van will cometh for more and more of us. What we need to put it in is the willingness to develop a fresh understanding of who we can become and what we need to start on the next phase of the journey. It's not what we expect. 

Coaching, lecturing, and writing/ghostwriting thought leadership content on human resources and careers.

For individual coaching – sliding scale fees. Complimentary initial consultation. The special area of expertise is the displaced over-50 professional. Please contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.

Associate Layoffs - That Shoe Finally Drops in Legal Sector

Junior lawyers and the JD Class of 2020 were holding their breath.

What they feared was that reductions in force (RIFs) would creep over from administrative staff (not needed in remote times) to lawyers.

Well, on Abovethelaw.com, Kathryn Rubino reports that the shoe has dropped. This is the first time during the coronavirus crisis that a major law firm has had a RIF involving associates. 

That law firm is Womble Bond Dickinson.

Yes, it's really happening. Those let go are entering a marketplace as bad or not worse than that of 2008-2009. That's why they don't have the luxury of denial.

Severance and unemployment will run out soon enough. So will their savings, as junior lawyers discovered in The Great Recession.

The lucky ones back then figured out the doc review game, that is how to land, hold, and move on to better assignments in that niche.

Under the pen name "Alex Rich," one former BigLaw lawyer chronicled the how-to on Abovethelaw.com. Later it was discovered that the lawyer-turned-journalist had been Rubino, who is now employed full time at that legal news site. 

In addition, also from the get-go, the in-touch ones were reimagining how they could leverage their education, knowledge base, and skills for making a good living in the longer term. That might be in legal or related to legal. Or, it might not be. For a number of them it turned out to be in compliance, real estate, and marketing communications.

Likely, during this upheaval in their careers, those lawyers who are displaced will have to focus on getting access to all the help, financial and otherwise, that is available.

Once source for that is Paul Weiss' Coronavirus Relief Center. Even before the pandemic became serious in the U.S., Paul Weiss Chairperson Bard Karp saw the future.

In it a lot of people, probably for the first time in their lives, would need to have centralized a kind of UX system where they could speedily and seamlessly get what they needed during the crisis.

Did Karp realize that lawyers themselves would be using the Relief Center? That's irrelevant. What counts is that he was able to mobilize hundreds of lawyers to pull all-nighters pro bono to set up this unique help zone. 

The RIF for associates is only a part of Womble's cost-cutting strategy.

In addition:

•  Some employees have been furloughed
•  Graduated pay cuts across the board for those still left standing. For employees earning more than $100K that will be 10%.

The founder of this blog Jane Genova has extreme empathy for those let go. We are our jobs. When we lose them we lose a piece of ourselves. Grief is appropriate.

Smart global ghostwriting, with SEO and social networking know-how. Emergencies welcome. Complimentary consultation (pressure-free) janegenova374@gmail.com.

Law Firms - The Bad Politics of Layoffs

Man the Political Animal has replaced Economic Man.

At least in the corridors of power. And, much of the media and on Main Street.

Therefore, for law firms, layoffs are not a wise way to manage a 2008-like crisis. Especially if those reductions in force impact the Little Guy. The Little Guy can include both staff and junior lawyers. 

Essentially that was the message from the Law.com podcast focused on two issues:

1) Is the legal sector sliding into another steep downturn, much like or worse than that of The Great Recession?

2) If so, what might be the emerging best practices? Beware, the old ways could get law firms branded as The Enemy. 

The guests were Bill Brandt, founder of DSI, and Keith Wetmore of Major, Lindsay & Africa. 

The layoff issue is filled with complexity. 

On the one hand, the current situation of across-the-board remote work makes most of administrative staff not needed. In addition, as those following the business of law firms know, there had been lots of hiring of lawyers during the recovery. Overcapacity is a reality.

On the other hand, both government leaders and the media have made it their business to highlight the tragedy of workers who have lost their jobs because of the coronarvirus. The pain is beyond money. In America, we are our jobs. That's that.

On PBS, thought leaders have pointed out that in other nations such as Denmark the approach during this crisis was to do whatever was/is needed to keep businesses open and people employed.

In the U.S., businesses frequently had no choice but to shut down and let workers go. Post-crisis, it will take time for those businesses to rebuild. Anyone who has naively taken a break from a career gets it: Re-entry is tough, maybe impossible.

The alternates to layoffs are many. They range from requesting extensions of lines of credit to instituting furloughs. Through the latter, workers can collect government-funded unemployment compensation in the interim. That expense is not on the law firm. Then, when the timing is right, they can circle back to their jobs.

I would add that, once back on the job, they can be trained to perform the functions that the new normal demands. Both Brandt and Wetmore hammer that the legal sector will never return to what it had been before COVID-19. The scope of this assault on business-as-usual is driving law firms to rethink all their processes.

Interestingly, in The Atlantic, Ed Yong presents the post-pandemic world order. He envisions the overall shift to be so profound that babies born today will be entering a whole new chapter in the history of mankind.

Consequently, they should be labeled "Generation C." What the world is after the coronavirus is all they know. The analogy is  Generation Z, digital natives. They never experienced an analog culture. As a result, just about every institution had to change to accommodate their reality. Generation C's reality won't be that of Q1 2020.

Another recommendation from the podcast, also related to the politics of The Time of COVID-19, is that law firms should be creating and transmitting positive messages.

Yes, the thought leadership kind.

Yes, both internally and to other constituencies such as clients.

Yes, law firm leadership should be picking up the phone and contacting clients on a very human level. Let them discuss their anxieties. Old-fashioned hand-holding? Corny? Probably, but really needed right now. Old is new again. 

Law firm Paul Weiss has already gone beyond that. It has moved to the next step: taking action.

Paul Weiss' Chairman Brad Karp created the pro-bono initiative Coronavirus Relief Center. 

The shorthand way of describing that is a kind of UX design that guides the public through the maze of what's available to help them during COVID-19. The configuration simplifies and streamlines.

Anyone who has struggled to resolve a billing issue, for example, with an insurance company or hospital, understands the extreme frustration.

Here is how Karp describes the initiative in his own words. 

How will the law firm be structured and what will be its values in the future? 

First the dust has to settle before even the experts on the business of law can speculate about that. 

Meanwhile, the 19th century guideline for law firms to embrace is the meme from the novels of Charles Dickens. No matter what ordeals his characters had to endure in the Industrial Revolution what got them through was what he called "the milk of human kindness." That held off despair, no matter what.

Sheltered-in-place, law firm leaders might download Kindle versions of Dickens' novels like "David Copperfield."

During this unique kind of economic upheaval, brands, including those of law firms, need to soften. Not harden. Generation C will be living in a very different kind of capitalism than dominated before COVID-19. That is beginning to configure right now.

Smart global ghostwriting, with SEO and social networking know-how. Emergencies welcome. Complimentary consultation (pressure-free) janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Lawyers (even those losing so much wealth) Can Do a Fire

"We're not even officially in recession yet, and already the prognosticators have begun that we're shortly going to see the end of the Fire movement." - Tanja Hester, MarketWatch, March 25, 2020.

During the bull market, the Fire (financial independence, retire early) dream became popular.

Yes, it was possible to bulk up an investment portfolio to the point that you never had to practice law again for income. If you wanted to do pro bono somewhere far away from the coasts, sure, that would be adequate to keep your hand in it. After all, there were/are many aspects of law you love. 

In addition, if you were good with money or simply lucky you could acquire other assets ranging from real estate to art. That gave you a shot at exiting what is called "the rat race." A linguistic cliche but the term still captures the mindset of flight from a professional level of intensity that is increasingly difficult to deal with.

That was then. And, lawyers who are experiencing more pressure than usual in this Time of COVID-19 might assume they have to let go of the Fire dream. 

It will take years for the wealth lost in the stock market correction (or crash, depending on your point of view) to come back. Those wonderful legal-sector jobs in which you can work X number of years and then retire early will be fewer, at least for a number of years. 

But, as the MarketWatch article points out, it's still possible to liberate yourself from doing work you don't want to do. Or, maybe can't emotionally do, not any more.

Fire doesn't necessarily mean not working any more. Instead the dream is not to have to do the kind of work, when, where, and how that you don't want to do. That could become the new understanding of Fire.

What it requires is establishing a stream of income which you can live on. No, it doesn't have to be large. It just has to be enough. Call that a form of minimalism. 

Think: enough.

For example, a former real estate lawyer had had it. During the real estate crash earlier in the 21st century he had lost mostly everything. But along the way, because of his gross earnings, the amount of what would be his Social Security payment grew.

At age 62, he opted to do a Fire by applying for Social Security early. He hunkered down in a part of the midwest where his rent, including utilities, would be less than $600. He developed low-cost sources of pleasure such as attending no-fee lectures and tech workshops. And he has never looked back. 

Before the Fire concept caught fire (pun intended), in pockets throughout the United States such as Tucson, Arizona, ordinary people were already able to shake off the need to work at what they didn't want to do. They did this by relocating from pricey coastal metro areas and doing radical frugality. Some were even able to ditch the expense of a car by choosing a city with good public transit. According to Nerd Wallet, the monthly nut for car ownership is $702.

Yes, there are those who embrace Fire who are working part-time or even full-time. But it's what they had dreamed about doing. For instance, the job could be receptionist at an animal shelter or designing crafts to sell online. They don't "need" the paycheck. That's what makes Fire Fire. The word "retirement" should be deleted from Fire.

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In The Time of COVID-19: Preoccupations of (some) 3Ls

So much has changed with the arrival of COVID-19 in the U.S., which hasn't even peaked.

At Law.com, Karen Sloan explored how those changes have affected three 3Ls. Maybe what's going on in their minds, hearts, and pocketbooks is typical of third-year law students or maybe not. Sloan also provides a more general overview of 3L concerns. 

Essentially, the preoccupation among 3Ls is what should have been a beautiful ritual: in-person graduation. They were looking forward to that rite of passage as a bridge from being in school forever to the Next. For two of them, there will be no traditional commencement ceremony. For one, there could be. 

It was that iconic "Mad Men" episode with Don Draper giving the Kodak pitch that captured the deep mourning which goes with the journey from one phase of life to another.

3Ls are in grief, which likely won't be reduced by ritual.

What else has Sloan turned up?

• Anxiety if the bar exam in the state in which they register will be postponed, preparing for it, and passing it.
• Traumatized by being ripped out of the classroom where discussion is useful to online instruction. Although professors have been accessible it isn't the same.
• Unhinged by having to leave their housing near the law school and having to spend the last months in some far away place.
• One is angry at university and law school administrators for chaotic and counterproductive policies dealing with COVID-19. An example is mandatory pass/fail grading. In other Law.com media articles some students feared the loss of an edge through the pass/fail system.
• Wondering if the jobs lined up will still be there.
• For those without jobs, fear of landing them if the crisis hangs on. 

Meanwhile, as has become obvious during the past few weeks, the layoffs at law firms have begun. Also there have been pay cuts for both lawyers and staff at Belkin Burden Goldman. Here is the coverage by Law and More. 

Darkness can fall fast over manpower issues.

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Contract Document Reviewers - Unique Suffering in Time of COVID-19, How to Reimagine Career Path

As has long been suspected, there is a rigid caste system among document reviewers. 

Those who are employees of a law firm may or may not be treated well. The odds are that if document review is just one among many tasks they will be treated okay. However they will likely be second-class citizens if that is their primary function. They are at the bottom of a food chain whose revenues come from strategy and interactive work such as courtroom trials and managing transactions.

Those who are not law firm employees but receive assignments on a contract basis from multiple outsourcing firms usually are treated poorly. That's just the way it is. They know it. They put up with it to earn the $28 to $33 an hour to pay their student loans, rent/mortgage, and food. 

But, as Staci Zaretsky reports in Abovethelaw, their suffering has become unique during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are some of the problems:

•  Unlike law firm employees, they cannot work from home.
•  If they do accept an assignment, they have to do the tasks either in an open-space setting with seating close together or in a small space, with everyone on top of everyone else.
•  Most of the assignments are in major metro areas, that is, hotbeds of the virus.
•  There is no choice: Either do it that way or don't work. 

Those in this contingent force of document reviewers probably regret the investment they made of time, money, and hope to matriculate at a law school.

But there is an exit ramp. Yes, there really is. That's the growing field of influence. Two of its sectors are public relations and marketing communications. 

Talented people in both only needed an undergraduate degree to land a job in a brandname agency. They had to be smart, though, about having the right internships. These are hands-on fields.

Soon enough they were and are making lots more than $28 to $33 an hour. Those who specialize in media relations and go freelance can bill at about $300 an hour. 

How can current contract document reviews parachute into the influence game?

Do volunteer work for politicos, budget-strapped nonprofits, unemployed professionals, and/or struggling small businesses. Offer to get them the right exposure pro bono. Learn the marketing communications game from researching how-tos on the internet and checking out a ton of books on that at the public library. The key in another line of work is to get down cold the terminology. Become fluent in the languages of public relations and marketing communications. 

A free online read where you can immerse in those languages is the bible of public relations: Odwyerpr.com. The editor-in-chief Kevin McCauley is always ahead of the curve in emerging trends. So, you get an edge. 

Since this is the era of influence, most of the fundamentals of messaging have become intuitive. Audit yourself for what you already know. Then play with that in how you can leverage your know-how and insight to get results (the term for that is "Call to Action") for those who need votes, funding, business, a job, or public understanding of an issue. 

Eventually, the former contract document reviewers will have the knowledge base, portfolio, references, and confidence to apply for full-time positions at public relations and marketing communications firms. Currently there is a lot of employee churn. That means openings.

Craigslist - Sites, Mediabistro, Pro Blogger, and Blogging Pro are among the online help-wanted platforms for full-time and contract work. 

Twice my niches on the communications continuum were no longer in demand. I reimagined my career path within that general field by knocking on the doors of small businesses and nonprofits pitching free help. Of course, they listened. As soon as I got results for them, I was back in business. One, in fact, lined up my first client. I also published articles in Odwyerpr.com. The exposure I gained on Odwyerpr.com brought in business I hadn't chased after. 

Place your sponsored content on this blog. Here are 6 tips for search engine optimization (SEO) in 2020. Coaching on SEO and Ghostwriting for sponsored content also available. Sliding scale fees. Please take advantage of a complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Comeback, Comeback, Wherever You Are - Should Megyn Kelly Do Expose on Former Employer Jones Day?

This is an era of measuring continually who's up, who's down and by how much.

So, it's predictable that Megyn Kelly's tweet is being carefully assessed.

******************

Here it is:

I’m so frustrated right now ... that we can’t trust the media to tell us the truth without inflaming it to hurt Trump ... that Trump has misled so many times we no longer know when to trust his word ... that even I as a journalist am not sure where to turn for real info on COVID.

9:34 PM · Mar 11, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

 

**************

It has been featured in the Twitter category of Trending Topics.

 

On the one hand, it has received, so far, 2.3K retweets and 15.6K likes. 

 

On the other hand, many pushed back with their own tweets. The criticism ranged from mild - you have access to the resources to find out what's what - to a questioning of her credibility.

 

Kelly kicked off her campaign to come back with an interview on Fox News. The viewership numbers were high. Part of that might have been because of gawking. It's fun to observe a fallen celebrity claw. 

 

There were positive reactions that if she got back into political reporting she might make it back. But that sandbox has new kids playing in it such as David Muir and the older ones aren't giving up the space they have let it be known they "own."

 

Had Kelly figured out a return strategy she would have been in the loop of many of the commentaries and interviews about Election 2020. Also, like Elizabeth Warren, Kelly sports a persona that isn't likable. That's why she couldn't engage on network TV. Fox was something different. It runs on ideology. 

 

Twitter can be a platform for extreme career success. Whether that will be in the cards for Kelly remains a question mark.

 

There is always the option to restarting her career practicing law. That's what she did after receiving the JD from Albany Law School. Eventually she wound up in BigLaw. That was Jones Day, where she labored in that unique organizational culture for 10 years.

 

Since Jones Day is much in the news because of gender litigation filed against it such as "Tolton, et al. v. Jones Day," she might angle for a comeback by doing an expose series on the law firm.  It was through the expose genre that Ronan Farrow made it back after not doing so hot on network televsion.

 

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Coronavirus Angst No Monolith - Life As Usual in Toledo, OH

Recovery meetings are going on as usual in Toledo, Ohio. At least right now.

So far, residents in this Midwest city are not in a panic about the coronavirus.

There is still food on the shelves. Lots of it.

Various hand-washers are still available.

No schools have been closed.

No organization I belong to has notified me that any special event will be cancelled.

So, it shouldn't have been a surprise that the daily meeting of a recovery group in West Toledo proceeded today at 1 P.M. ET. About 50 adults and one infant were in attendance. A middle-aged women coughed. No one freaked. No hand-wash was whipped out. The traditional ritual of joining hands and saying a prayer together at the meeting end also occurred. 

How long this business-as-usual will endure has, of course, no answer.

The only sign of the BigThreat hovering over the globe is that one of the women who lives on the second story of my apartment complex is wearing a protective health face mask.

Several days ago, when other residents spotted this, there was smirking. That response could shift to: Maybe we should do that, too.

Smart global ghostwriting, with SEO and social networking know-how. Emergencies welcome. Complimentary consultation (pressure-free) janegenova374@gmail.com.

Job, Nest Egg Gone - Circling Back to Student Lifestyle

It's obvious with coronavirus and equities markets meltdowns: The recession seems to be coming. The 10,000 lawyer jobs projected to be lost may be an estimate on the low side.

Simultaneously, as in 2008, nest eggs could be significantly depleted. For older displaced lawyers there might not be enough life years left for the investment portfolio to be rebuilt.

Things don't look rosy for aging lawyers who aren't well positioned in their law firms, in-house positions, government jobs, or solo practices. 

Even before the current slowdown in the world economy, there had been more than a 50% chance that older professionals would lose their jobs and only a 10% chance they would land a comparable one. Read here the research on that. The self-employed who are older also can be victims of bias.

One solution to that financial pickle is to fold up the tent and relocate to a university town. There the aging lawyer can jump-start joy. You bet, circle back to the wonderful lifestyle of youth. 

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Austin, Texas

Berkeley, California.

Those university towns have become upscale communities. For the majority of retirees/semiretired they are unaffordable. Even bunking a 30 minute drive away probably will still be beyond the budgets of the retired and semiretired.

But there are myriad other university towns in which the aging can enjoy plenty of free stimulating activities, be surrounded by youth, and remain on-budget.

Among them is Bowling Green, Ohio.

Bowling Green State University is a gold mine of things to do.

The public transportation system - for those who want to kick the car-ownership habit - is a hybrid. It offers low-cost on-demand curb-to-curb rides.

The location is 30 miles from big city Toledo and about an hour from even bigger city Detroit.

Apartments less than a mile from campus can be rented for about $500 a month. One which provides all utilities including heat, leases for about $600. That compares with about $1,500+, no utilities included, for Ann Arbor. 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is known for its brandname universities such as Carnegie Mellon but not as a university town. Someday it could be, if enough retired/semiretired relocate there. 

Shop around and a one-bedroom could be found for under $700. Some of those provide free heat. Medical facilities are world famous. Public transportation is the best around and it allows dogs which are in a carrier. Surrounded by waterways it's a delight for boaters. Nearby are the pleasures of rural areas and mountains. 

Tucson, Arizona has the University of Arizona. For those who shop around for rentals, there can be bargains. For example, a studio apartment a short bus ride away (public transportation is fantastic) can be leased for under $500. The downtown is vibrant. California is next door. Dental procedures cost peanuts to the south in Nogales, Mexico, only about a 90-minute drive south. 

Some universities allow seniors to audit courses for no credit for a low registration fee. That could be $5. Youngstown State University is among them. A trend is to actually rent on-campus housing to retirees but usually that's no bargain. 

For the semiretired or those doing a reverse retirement (bouncing back into workforce after retiring) university towns also have tons of survival jobs. Here, free to click open, is my book on how to land, hold, and move onto to better jobs, no matter your age Download Outwitting ageism.

Coaching, lecturing, and writing/ghostwriting thought leadership content on human resources and careers.

For individual coaching – sliding scale fees. Complimentary initial consultation. The special area of expertise is the displaced over-50 professional. Please contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.

Legal Marketing - 8 Reasons Your Videos Aren't Converting

It's all-good with video for marketing and sales.

For example, more than 50% of those in the loop have found the use of video to be generating the highest ROI.

And, about 80% documented that having a video on a landing page can boost conversion rates by 80%. 

But, producing (literally) those kinds of results means doing the video "right." 

"Right" means "not wrong."

And, "wrong" means not converting or converting at too low a rate to justify the resources being pumped into the marketing initiative.

Essentially, "converting" is the process of moving the prospect to respond to the call to action. That might entail clicking for more information, calling the lawyer for a complimentary consultation, donating to a social-justice cause, signing a petition, or purchasing a legal-vendor's product or service. 

There are many reasons why videos don't convert. Here are the eight primary ones:

Targeted at wrong segment. On the front end there has to be research who is the best bet for responding to the call to action. If it's residential real estate closings the target may be Millennial females in a relationship. Maybe not. Research will provide that data.

Educating v. selling.  Often the lawyers know so much about the issue that the get tangled up in TMI, that is, Too Much Information.

For example, the personal injury lawyer creates a video that is a tutorial about strokes per se. The message about the law firm's own track record in malpractice lawsuits on behalf of stroke victims is buried.

I advise: Ask yourself what business you are in. Are you in the online teaching business or the business of selling specialized legal services?

Too much, too long. To keep the prospect moving toward the call to action the focus has to laser-like. The mandate to capture that dynamic is: Get in and get out fast.

Feature only your best selling points.

Then simplify how to present them.

If the subject is complex, create a series of short videos. But make each a stand-alone. Many busy prospects, even if very interested, will only view one or two. 

Speak slowly. The template for that are the videos by American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron. Here is her talk about getting unstuck.

Not being in a rush sends the message that the speakers have confidence that what they are saying has value and will be of interest to the audience. Being in a rush screams a lack of confidence. If the speakers don't have confidence in themselves, why should the audience! In addition, too rapid speech is difficult to follow.

No call to action. The speaker doesn't ask for the sale. It's now okay to have multiple calls to action in the video or on a landing page. It doesn't have to be held off until the end.

Poor organization. A small financial firm of former lawyers developing vehicles to invest in climate change began with the history of investing. Since the appropriate targets are those who want to cash in on climate change, not lovers of learning for learning's sake, the tune-out rate was high.

The easiest way to organize is: Present the problem, then provide the solution. That can be headlined with "Do you fear losing it all in a divorce?" 

Tone-deaf. Given the current seriousness of the coronavirus threat as well as fears about equities markets and the global economy, the tone of current videos should be serious. Cute is inappropriate. On the other hand, in the best of times, doom-and-gloom can be a turn-off.

No testing. The smart approach to creating most videos is to consider your overall campaign a work-in-progress. Don't aim for perfect. Instead, concentrate on what you can learn, along with aiming for high conversions. So, yes, do A/B testing. That has to be forever because the variables continue to change.

What's the best way to get a feel for effective video-scripting?

Immerse yourself in watching commercial ones. Those will include both general selections and those of the competition.

Analyze what strategy and tactics pull and push prospects to responding to the call to action. Brainstorm with your team what might be effective for your law firm or enterprise serving the legal sector. Test that out. Repurpose the best. Not all videos will be effective.

Widely distributing the weak ones can be downright counterproductive, hurting the brand. That is a hard pill for prolific video producers to swallow. The reality is that great marketing campaigns leave most content on the editing floor. 

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