“With billions pouring into legal tech, 2024 will be the year everything changed, and it’ll be unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”

For legal marketing, 2023 was a tough year. We lost too many industry trailblazers. The passing of Richard Levick, Burkey Belser, and Monica Bay remind us about how unique our niche is, and sadly, how old.

Levick, “father of modern reputation management,” pioneered high-stakes litigation and crisis communications. Belser, creator of the nutrition facts label, was a Big Law branding visionary and brought law firms’ missions to life in ads. And Bay, who played a pivotal role in the intersection of law and technology, celebrated law firms’ innovative practices in her editorials at The Recorder and Law Technology News, which later became LegalTech News.

Their legacies live on in the individuals they mentored, many of whom are today’s leaders. Yet, as we stand on the shoulders of these giants, the legal —and legal marketing — industry is at the precipice of significant change and disruption.

With the release of ChatGPT in October 2022 to the release of Google’s Gemini this past month, 2023 served as a transitional year. With billions pouring into legal tech, 2024 will be “the year everything changed!” and it’ll be unlike anything we’ve ever seen:

Digital marketing will transform with the use of virtual and augmented realities. Already, courts have been experimenting with virtual reality to recreate crime scenes. Some of us are old enough to remember Second Life…that is like Pong compared to what’s coming — and the low-cost, high-touch engagement that new virtual realities will facilitate in the future.

AI tools will proliferate and profoundly change the way law firms serve and service clients. Many firms — and many individual lawyers — will create branded avatars and chatbots to scale their expertise and make it available 24/7. Similar to the new “all-AI” news stations, firms will broadcast their own news sections via attractive, multi-cultural “AI anchors.”

It was nice to see so many law firms come together to take a stand against antisemitism, and as the work product becomes more AI/tech driven (and performance becomes more commoditized), the personality of firms — their values and ethics, especially — will become even more important and integral to their brands, otherwise based on performance.

Our industry has evolved significantly, shaped by the visionaries who paved the way and the technology that promises to move us forward. As it continues to innovate and redefine itself, marketing success will require nuanced communication and continual, endless adaptation.

Have a very Happy New Year, and a successful 2024!

It’s been roughly three years since we first posted about Lil Miquela, a fabricated, LA-based influencer with 3.1 million followers, who makes an estimated $7,000 per post.

It’s coming sooner than we think. Will your firm be first?

Since then, a few Asian-based virtual stars have joined Miquela’s ranks. Bangkok Naughty Boo and Ai-Ailynn came on the scene in the midst of Covid-19 lockdowns. Generation Z users were immediately drawn to their personas due to the increasing popularity of metaverse (ahem, Meta).

What makes them so compelling?

Two key features: no-chance of walking away and the promise of being scandal-free.

In our Lil Miquela post, we’ve speculated about a future filled with outward-facing, branded, computer-generated lawyer spokespersons, who are owned and operated by their firms.

It’s coming sooner than we think. Will your firm be first?

Recently, Henry Kissinger opined in the Wall Street Journal on the future of humanity in a world of AI.

It caught my eye for a few reasons, not least of which is my curiosity about what a 98-year-old foreign policy expert would have to say about our technology driven future. As it turns out, he is pessimistic, which I’m not.

If you want to “institutionalize” your clients, you must “institutionalize” your talent.

Then, I read a review of Kissinger’s op-ed by John Tamny writing for RealClearMarkets.

I appreciated it not only because I agree with Tamny’s optimism, but in it he reminisced about Bill Gates’ commentary on the quest for human talent. And Tamny made the following unarguable point:

“Humans drive all progress… The best corporations more often than not have the best workers.”

This is why top firms pay top dollar and why the lateral market has been red hot for the past decade. Yet, so often firm’s see marketing as a client/prospect focused activity rather than a recruiting one.

Here are five articles from over the years arguing for the primary importance of talent and the strategic role marketing could play in firms’ recruiting efforts:

• Forget Your Firm; Market Your Partners!
• Marketing Plans for Lawyers
• Five Marketing Lessons From Howrey’s Graveside
• Law Firms of the Future Will Be the Lawyers of the Past
• Getting Busy Lawyers to Market

The formula is rather simple: If you want to “institutionalize” your clients, you must “institutionalize” your talent. In other words, attract great talent and keep them happy!

If you want to keep your talent happy, give us a call.

You may be sensing a theme here… In my last five blog posts, all relate to the coronavirus. In light of this pandemic, be sure to add a new “covid-19” prefix to all of your content offerings.

I have now been in quarantine due to the coronavirus outbreak for four full weeks (here in Cleveland, Ohio) and as I work from home and navigate our virtual world, I am quite impressed at how Americans have embraced this complete #teleprofessional life in a matter of one month.

I mentioned before that law firm partners should be active on social media, especially throughout this pandemic, so now is as good a time as any to revisit best practices to up your legal pros social media game.

If you’re struggling with utilizing social media, promoting your content, or getting your voice heard during the covid-19 crisis, contact us.

We have all witnessed countless events across the nation get cancelled or postponed. And while we are getting a bit fed-up with the onslaught of webinars, I thought it may be helpful to provide an alternative example of how partners can keep their talks in queue and successfully promote them across social.

With a little experimentation, your attorneys can showcase their expertise to their target audiences and repurpose their content the same way they would before, during, and after an in-person conference.

Let’s say you have a cybersecurity attorney, “Jane Doe” for all intents and purposes, who was slated to speak at a National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) conference in mid-May. Jane received a notification this week, informing her that the event is officially cancelled. She already prepared her presentation, which includes a PowerPoint deck, infographic, and handout. Rather than just let all of those materials go to waste, I recommend she give her talk as planned.

Jane is somewhat comfortable with social media and is a seasoned speaker, so she is on-board with speaking by way of Facebook Live. Rather than use her own personal account, she receives permission from NCSA to go live from their page which has almost 240,000 followers.

Leading up to the mid-May “live” presentation, Jane makes sure her Twitter and LinkedIn profiles are up-to-date and uploads a new picture to reflect her pandemic work environment and to bring a little more personality to her online presence. After all, it’s through these channels that she will ultimately promote her talk before the presentation date, post “live” updates and soundbites during the presentation, and share summaries of the content after the presentation is given.

(NCSA is also planning on promoting Jane’s talk prior to the event date across its Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram accounts.)

When sharing any presentation-related content, Jane tags NCSA and her law firm and includes the hashtags #NCSA, #cybersecurity, #staysafeonline, #coronavirus, #covid19, and #pandemic.

In advance of the presentation, Jane sends out an email alert to clients and target media with instructions on how to attend.

It’s now the day-of the presentation. In case of a lack of questions or technical difficulties, Jane prepares some potential questions for the Q&A portion and hands them off to one of her connections in attendance. Plus, she has a firm staffer join in to take notes.

When the presentation is all said and done, she returns to social media to re-share the top posts. And while the content is top-of-mind, she turns the staffer’s notes and her key takeaways into a brief summary to repurpose later.

Now, Jane is armed with this summary and her original presentation materials (all diversified content) to share with her network over the course of the next few months. 

Jane will continue tracking the conversations that come from this “live” event, which will hopefully prove to impact her bottom line. (Yes, even during the coronavirus pandemic!)

If you’re struggling with utilizing social media, promoting your content, or getting your voice heard during the covid-19 crisis, contact us.