“New rules governing lawyer advertising that took effect in New York on Feb. 1 cannot be enforced because they violate the First Amendment right to free speech, according to a ruling issued today by a federal court in New York.”

Feel free to read my previous lengthy post on New York Advertising Rules for Lawyer: A Trench Fight Instead of Rising Up to Lead.

To recap, we need to improve the professionalism of lawyers. Making rules is not the answer. Yes, it is what we know how to do best, but it is not what we should be doing. Instead we should be focusing our efforts on creating a new brand and image. Fostering creativity and encouraging ideas should be our goal.

Yes, some firms will look shady if they are not provided rules to adhere to. Those same firms are still going to bend the rules and look shady no matter what. Every industry has its “crazy uncle” that you laugh at and feed under the door. However, it is always the leading companies that define the image for an industry, or in this case, a profession.

Instead of allowing firms to rise up and become that leader, we continue to handicap and bring everyone into the trenches over minutia rules.

My advice, pick one web site and make it your best. If you still feel the need to develop multiple web sites, then answer these simple questions:

• Do you want a blog, web site, or both?
• Do you have an increased time and budget to manage multiple web sites?
• Do you have enough content for multiple web sites?
• Do you have different practice areas?
• Is your existing domain non-existent in the search results?

If you answer yes to all these questions, then you should consider multiple web sites. If you answer yes to a few, then you may want to consider. If you answer no to all of these, then just pick one web site and make it the best.

Blog, Web site, or Both?
We all know that a web site is a collection of your firm’s information on the web, usually in individual pages. A blog is a web site, with three main additional features, a comment system, reverse chronological order of posts, and a content management system. There are minor other issues like trackbacks and pingbacks, but those are the main differences.

Of course, the lines are blurring: not all blogs allow for comments, a lot of web sites have a news area that posts info in reverse chronological order, and a lot of web sites have a content management system. Blogs can be topic focused, but so can practice portal areas. Web sites sometimes have more adverting style copy, but so do some blogs.

In any event, since there is no reason why any firm should not include a blog, news or communicative device in their main site, then the line between the two is more semantic. If you have a good voice, want to communicate and have time to write, then definitely consider a blog or good content system that will allow you to post information.

Semantics aside, pick a designer and software system who can give you what you need, namely a professional appearance, structure, and usable web site. If you plan to update the site a lot, then consider a content management system and/or a blog. From this point further in the analysis, I will collectively refer to blogs and web sites, as well . . . web sites.

Time & Budget
The more sites you have, the longer it will take to design, build, populate, and maintain; and of course that directly leads to costs. If you are on a small budget, then consider starting with one web site. Whether that is a blog or web site, it does not really matter. Just make it the professional image of your firm and put all your resources into that web site.

If you have a larger budget, then you can consider having multiple web sites. However, be prepared to buy multiple domains, web hosting accounts, and depending on your how you are positioning the firm online, multiple designs of the web sites.

Unique Content
If you are going to create multiple web sites, then be prepared to write unique content. If you are simply putting out niche sites on a variety of topics and changing the content slightly, you are definitely going to receive a penalty from Google, not only for the topical sites, but perhaps your main site too. Sure a few of your contact and about pages can reiterate the same information. However, if you go too far, you will run afoul of Google’s duplicate content check.

The key is unique content. So if you are going to go the route of multi-sites, then write unique content and write it geared with search in mind. If you do not have the time to write unique content for an entire web site, then consider simply putting a few pages under your main domain. If your main domain does well in the search results, then most likely your new content will too.

Different Practice Areas
The main reason firms choose the multi-site route, always comes down to differing practice areas. This is usually the case when a firm practices in odd groups, such as criminal, family, and oh . . . termite law. Or when a firm tries to play both sides and act as a defense firm and personal injury firm.

If a firm’s practice groups do not logically flow together, then its time to think about multiple web sites. If you are trying to act as professional advisers to competing interests, (Defense vs. PI), then yes, create multiple web sites. If your practice areas are simply a listing of your firm’s services, then a corporate web site will work. In this instance, a topical blog and/or web site can also serve well, as it will allow you to direct traffic to that area.

Domain & Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Before we talk about domains, I think we need a quick refresher on search engine optimization. Web sites, blogs or niche sites can all rank high. The main search results for Google are not based on whether a page is on a web site, blog, or practice area. In fact, if you have a blog, web site and practice area portal, they will all rank separately.

The search results have many, many data factors, but typically the main factors include:

• Content of the Page / Web Site
• Links to the Page / Web Site
• Title Tag
• Age of the Web Site

Now there are a variety of data that make up those two main factors, if you want to get specific, here is a nice list provided by SEOmoz ranking research report:

• Keyword Use in Title Tag
• Anchor Text of Inbound Link
• Global Link Popularity of Site
• Age of Site
• Link Popularity within the Site
• Topical Relevance of Inbound Links
• Link Popularity of Site in Topics
• Keyword Use in Body Text
• Global Link Popularity of Linking
• Topical Relationship of Linking
  

Web sites, blogs and practice portals can all rank high. So long as they are properly coded to allow for search indexing, then it all comes down to the content on the web site, the number/quality of inbound links, the use of the Title tag, and the age of the web site.

If your web site talks about the search term, then you will rank higher. If you are cited as a reference by other sites, then you will rank higher. If your web site is older, it will generally rank higher. If your web site uses good Title Tags, it will rank higher, and so forth.

But keep in mind, your search rankings are directly related to that web site and domain. Simply putting another web site online does not mean that it too will rank high. In fact, often it may be several months or longer, before you can crack the search results.

So this begs the question, if we have to devote all this work, time and money to get one site to rank high, why would I want to duplicate efforts? Good question. In fact, this is often the deciding factor of when to launch multiple sites.

If you already have a top ranked site, then it will be easy, cost-effective, quick, and powerful to simply add more unique content to your site. Don’t use sub-domains, as they can be treated as different sites, but simply add more content to your site, perhaps in a new directory, and make sure it is linked from your menu system. Google will index that new content, and soon it will most likely rank high too.

If you don’t have a top ranked site, then perhaps you can go ahead and setup multiple web sites. Of course, it better be based on the fact that you need them because your practice areas are diametrically opposed and you have a large budget. This is because you are going to have to now optimize two different web sites and write content for them.

Conclusion
In general, make one web site and make it the best possible web site. Include all your information in one domain, in a good structure, and you will reap rewards. Include a blog if you have the time, have a voice, and want to communicate with the online community. Definitely put forth a professional image in your web site and optimize that one site for top rankings. If you do all that, your web site can be a success and bring in new clients.

Attorney Adrian Philip Thomas is the managing partner in a boutique, six-attorney law firm that concentrates its practice on representing clients with estate, will, trust, and probate issues. In addition, Adrian Philip Thomas, P.A. represents clients who are prosecuting or defending estate litigation, will contests, probate litigation, undue influence, guardianship disputes or lack of mental capacity lawsuits.

Mr. Thomas has a Master of Laws in Estate Planning from the University of Miami in Florida and has the requisite experience and knowledge to represent individuals, heirs, beneficiaries and family members adversely affected by an honest mistake, by a misunderstanding, or by outright fraud or dishonest behavior.

Navitsky, Olson & Wisneski LLP is a firm conceived to help people who have been hurt in countless ways or who have been unfairly treated and need the protection of the law. They believe that the legal system should be accessible to everyone. That’s why they do not charge for their services unless they are successful in obtaining a recovery for their clients.

The lawyers at Navitsky, Olson & Wisneski LLP have over 40 years of combined experience successfully representing people who have been injured by medical malpractice, hospital negligence, nursing home neglect, and automobile accidents.

]]> http://www.paperstreet.com/blog/index.php/archives/353/feed http://www.paperstreet.com/blog/index.php/archives/342 http://www.paperstreet.com/blog/index.php/archives/342#comments Tue, 14 Nov 2006 19:12:39 +0000 Raúl José http://www.paperstreet.com/blog/index.php/archives/342 The South Florida online marketplace has just become a lot more competitive now that the new site for Miami1Stop has been launched by PaperStreet. The new site is accessible and easy to navigate so that customers can find the best deals! Check it out below!

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Peter posted on June 17th 2006 an extensive analysis explaining the connotations of this new proposal by the NY Administrative Board of Courts. The fact that his posting was picked up and used in an important publication within the legal community is an example of the type of exchange of ideas legal blogs and websites provide. Ironically, when these new rules are in place, this, more than likely, will not be the case.

We have contacted all the various email aliases for both web sites and will see if Bob Hendrix, President & Web Designer, and Laura Wright, Web Designer & Graphic Artists, will do the honorable thing by removing our content from their infringing web sites.

This is getting tedious and this time its scary as Bob seems to have the exact same life as mine (i.e. they even copied my own bio!).

I guess the price for a high ranking web site is that people will steal your content.  The only defense is a good offense.  Once again, many thanks to Copyscape - www.copyscape.com.

To give you a sample of the coming trend, here is one of the new rules.  A lawyer may not “depict the use of a courtroom or courthouse.”  I guess we are going to have all lawyers in a grass meadow now, playing on harps. Read more rules, theories and comments below.

. . . . .

THEORY OF LAWYER ADS
We need to improve the professionalism of lawyers. Making rules is not the answer. Yes, it is what we know how to do best, but it is not what we should be doing. Instead we should be focusing our efforts on creating a new brand and image. Fostering creativity and encouraging ideas should be our goal.

Yes, some firms will look shady if they are not provided rules to adhere to. Those same firms are still going to bend the rules and look shady no matter what. Every industry has its “crazy uncle” that you laugh at and feed under the door. However, it is always the leading companies that define the image for an industry, or in this case, a profession.

Instead of allowing firms to rise up and become that leader, we continue to handicap and bring everyone into the trenches over minutia rules.

The stated goal of the advertising rules is to insure that attorneys act in a more professional manner. The understated goal is to limit advertising, so that entrenched firms will not have to compete against start-ups with new ideas and new ways of doing business. However, limiting advertising only has negative effects.

The rules create more litigation about the rules.
Time and effort will be wasted over these rules. I have no data to back this up yet, but suffice it to say many lawyers are going to infringe these new rules. Many lawyers will complain about them (including me, though I am not directly effected), and this will all waste time. Why not instead have everyone involved offer pro bono services to the poor? Heck, why not just have them pick up trash on the side of the road; it will be more professional and help everyone. It will be a better use of time.

The rules cause lawyers to not be able to advertise professionally.
Creative ideas come from professions where there are no rules. The reason why we all laugh and respect companies such as Apple, FedEx, eBay, Ford, and Budweiser is that they can do anything in their advertisements. They hire the best ad agencies to create a brand for them. Law firms should be allowed to do the same. Lawyers have the worst respect of any profession. We could use some creative advertising to reshape this image. Instead, we get rules geared towards curbing creativity.

It creates a system whereby less information is considered better.
When is less information ever better?

. . . . .

THE RULES - WHERE THEY APPLY
Enough of my ramblings on the theory of the rules. They are going into effect in November. Read them if you practice in New York and/or have a web site in any state. Why anywhere? Because New York now claims that any:

“(m) “Computer-accessed communication” means any advertisement or solicitation that is disseminated through the use of a computer or other electronic device, including, but not limited to, web sites or pages, search engines, electronic mail, banner advertisements, popup advertisements, chat rooms, list servers, instant messaging, domain names, or other internet presences, and any attachments or links related thereto.” http://www.nycourts.gov/rules/1200-1.pdf

Moreover, they later claim that:

“A lawyer not admitted in this jurisdiction is also subject to the disciplinary authority of this state if the lawyer provides or solicits any legal services in this state.” [Emphasis Added] http://www.nycourts.gov/rules/1200-5-a.pdf

So in essence, if you have a web site and it can be viewed in New York, then you need to follow the rules.

. . . . .

THE RULES - THEY SOLVE EVERYTHING - INSTANT PROFESSIONALISM
Now that New York has claimed jurisdiction over the entire web, they want everyone to abide by their rules. All of this is pulled from http://www.nycourts.gov/rules/1200-6.pdf. The rules are in bold, my short comments are not. The rules say a lawyer’s ad may not:

(1) include an endorsement of, or testimonial about, a lawyer or law firm from a current client;

We wouldn’t want happy clients talking about their lawyer. Let’s give the public absolutely nothing to evaluate good lawyers from bad.

(2) include a paid endorsement of, or testimonial about, a lawyer or law firm;

This one seems fine, as paying for endorsements is always a bit shady.

(3) include the voice or image of a non-attorney spokesperson that is recognizable to the public other than the voice or image of a former client as permitted under subdivisions (e)(3) and (f) of this section;

We wouldn’t want to create actual good television ads. You know what, we should make the presidents of Apple, Ford, Nike, eBay do all their voiceovers. They will look sharp, creative and compelling. No one trusts and respects those companies anyways, so let’s go in the polar opposite direction of what they are doing.

(4) include the portrayal of a judge, the portrayal of a lawyer by a non-lawyer, the portrayal of a law firm as a fictitious entity, the use of a fictitious name to refer to lawyers not associated together in a law firm, or otherwise imply that lawyers are associated in a law firm if that is not the case;

This is just plain silly and worded badly. Why not just say, “Only Lawyers of the firm can appear in the advertisement.” Again, no other profession or industry requires this.

(5) depict the use of a courtroom or courthouse;

I guess we are going to have all lawyers in a grass meadow now, playing on harps. WTF? Seriously, WTF? Sorry but someone needs to call out the committee who drafted these rules using some abrasive language. Lawyers go to court. Lawyers work in courtrooms. Why would you not put them in their natural environment?

(6) include a portrayal of a client by a nonclient or the reenactment of any events or scenes or pictures or persons that are not actual or authentic;

This one is good, but it is already covered by the fact you cannot do anything misleading.

(7) be made to resemble legal documents;

Again, this is already covered by the fact you cannot do anything misleading.

(8) utilize a nickname, moniker, motto or trade name that implies an ability to obtain results in a matter.

If someone comes up with a creative name for their firm, then good for them.

(e) Absent compliance with subdivision (f) of this section, an advertisement or solicitation may not contain the following:

1. statements that are reasonably likely to create an expectation about results the lawyer can achieve;

Again, we would not want anyone to evaluate lawyers.

2. statements that compare the lawyer’s services with the services of other lawyers;

We wouldn’t want any competition. Competition is bad. Why does the committee hate America, competition, and freedom?

3. testimonials or endorsements of former clients; or

Again, again, we would not want any way to evaluate one lawyer from another.

. . . . .

THE DISCLAIMERS - THEY ALSO SOLVE EVERYTHING
As we all know, disclaimers solve everything. The new rules go on to make sure that all communications need to have the following. Note that these are paraphrased, but you can bet that all websites will now need to have this silly language on the home page. That will make the web sites look great and professional with all these footers!

“Prior results cannot and do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter, including yours, in which a lawyer or law firm may be retained.”

Television or radio advertisements, or recorded solicitations, shall be preceded or followed by a spoken statement that the advertisement or solicitation contains “an advertisement for legal services.”

“Attorney Advertising” on the first page.

Any packaging utilized to transmit the advertisement or solicitation shall be labeled “Attorney Advertising” in red ink. If the communication is in the form of a self-mailing brochure or pamphlet, the words “Attorney Advertising” shall appear in red ink on the address panel of the brochure or pamphlet. In the case of electronic mail, the subject line shall contain the notation “ATTORNEY ADVERTISING”.

You will also need to not do the following:(i) A lawyer or law firm shall not utilize:

1. a pop-up advertisement in connection with computer-accessed communications;

At least they didn’t ban pay-per-click advertisements and search engine optimization. Most likely, they simply did not know about the effectiveness of them.

2. meta tags or other hidden computer codes that, if displayed, would violate a disciplinary rule.

This is fine too. Meta tags are practically worthless now. Technically the Title Tag (which is the most important tag on a web site), is NOT a meta tag. While the Title Tag might fall under the category of hidden computer code, I would argue that it might not. So again this just shows that the committee who drafted these rules is fully abreast of the technology.

(j) All advertisements or solicitations shall include the name, office address and telephone number of the lawyer or law firm whose services are being offered.

You should already have your office address on every page of the web site.

(k) All computer-accessed communications must disclose, in addition to the information required by subdivision (j) of this section, all jurisdictions in which the lawyer or members of the law firm are licensed to practice law and all bona fide office locations of the lawyer or law firm.

You should already put where you are located on every page.

(l) Any words or statements required by this rule to appear in an advertisement or solicitation must be clearly legible and capable of being read by the average person, if written, and intelligible if spoken aloud.

Sounds fine.

. . . . .

RECORDS, PAPER & THE LOVE OF LAWYERS
Lawyers love paper. So it is typical that they want electronic communications stored on paper. You must now also keep a printed copy of your web site on hand for one year (printed ads for three years). Again, this just shows the ignorance of the committee. Either that or they are tree-haters. Most good web sites are updated daily. Some web sites are updated every minute with news and events. The volume of paper that this will create will be staggering. Moreover, not a single web site prints exactly as it appears on the web. If they really wanted to accomplish their goal, they would allow for the web site to be burned to a CD or backed up nightly in a database. It would be much easier and more useful.

. . . . .

YOUR DOMAIN - OUR SHOULD I SAY YOUR NAME
Yes, you can still have a domain. However, they are really trying to limit the firms to only using their firm name. This rule is ambiguous as it does not define whether you can use part of your name, hyphenated names, or an acronym. Moreover, what qualifies as practicing law through your web site? If your domain name does not have your firm name, then you must make your logo the largest type size on the web site AND you cannot engage in the practice of law using the domain. See http://www.nycourts.gov/rules/1200-7.pdf

. . . . .

PART VI - OTHER RULES
Moving on, computers, the internet and web sites are also considered solicitations. So you must abide by those rules as well. Yes, only in the legal world is there a difference between an advertisement and a solicitation. There are also some more rules to stop personal injury lawyers from making a living. You cannot also contact victims within 30 days of their accident. There are some other rule changes in this area, but mostly minor. See http://www.nycourts.gov/rules/1200-8.pdf and http://www.nycourts.gov/rules/1200-41-a.pdf

. . . . .

WRAP UP
We need to improve the professionalism of lawyers. Making rules is not the answer. Yes, it is what we know how to do best, but it is not what we should be doing. Instead we should be focusing our efforts on creating a new brand and image. Fostering creativity and encouraging ideas should be our goal.

Yes, some firms will look shady if they are not provided rules to adhere to. Those same firms are still going to bend the rules and look shady no matter what. Every industry has its “crazy uncle” that you laugh at and feed under the door. However, it is always the leading companies that define the image for an industry, or in this case, a profession.

Instead of allowing firms to rise up and become that leader, we continue to handicap and bring everyone into the trenches over minutia rules.

Copyscape - http://www.copyscape.com/ - is a service that will search your site and then search it’s index of sites to see if there are any matches (it seems to kickback results similar to Google, so its probably using its API / index).
We have already busted two competitors of using our content verbatim.

The first offender is DigitalLawyer - digitallawyer.ca. They copied our entire site text and put it in their design, including various product pricings, sales pitches and more. After a quick email to their parent company Unexia Interactive Inc., they have removed the entire web site and claimed that they would research where the offending copy came from. Since this company did not even have a design portfolio online, then hopefully no damage to our reputation was done and they did not profit from this stealing.

However, a second search unveils that another site Crystal Clear Designs - crystalcleardesigns.com - is also copying our content. Ridiculous. This company has a portfolio online it is seems pretty decent, so it is suprising that they would copy our content. An Internet Archive search shows that they had different web site up to at least March 6, 2005. So sometime in the past year, they decided to change their look and copy our content. We are contacting them today to have them remove the offending content. We will keep everyone posted.

[UPDATE: Crystal Clear Designs agreed to pull the content after an internet archive search indicated that the our content was online since 2003, way before their new site launch.]

If you have a site that is highly ranked in the search engines and has good content, then more likely than not, someone has copied your work. I suggest you check out their free and possibly their paid service.

Two weeks ago, one of their sales people just wasted their time and ours by trying to get our “super-secret double-probation” pricing information. LawFirmSites . com emailed several times and called once using the fake name “Robert Walter”. If I have ever heard of a fake name, that is one of them. Luckily, we have caller ID and track IP addresses of all incoming sales inquiries, so we were able to give him bogus information about our company and pricing.

Typically fake inquiries like these can be spotted instantly. They always ask for pricing information upfront without any introductions. They always use a free email account from Google, Hotmail, Yahoo, or AOL. They cannot provide a legitimate lawyer web site that they use now. They don’t know what practice areas they practice in, or they mix up crazy practice areas (criminal law firm practicing in estate planning too). They never want you to call them and finally they seemingly cannot be found in any Martindale.com, Google, or FindLaw search as a practicing lawyer.

In the LawFirmSites . com inquiry, a quick Martindale.com check indicated there was no Mr. Walters in all of Utah. He wanted us to compare and quote out how much it would take to build two identical sites done by . . . . LawFirmSites . com. He used a GMail account and wanted only email contact. In fact, he was so adamant about email contact, that when asked to call us, he lied and said he had already tried to call us three times, even though our caller ID had no records of any calls from his area code. Since the caller ID came from a small town in Utah called American Fork, I knew something was amiss. We have received about one inquiry in the past five years from any law firm in Utah. I was just a bit surprised at Mr. Walter’s aggressiveness at needing our services.

After calling “Mr. Walters” back using the web site phone number, and asking how much they charge for web sites, he was finally busted.

If you are still reading and want the proof, here it is!
Note, If you do an IP trace for 67.138.240.6 you will see it is in Salt Lake City, Utah. Eventually, I will upload a screenshot of my caller ID.