The vanity distortion in law firm marketing.

Doll, William

In 1909, the editors of "Editor & Publisher," the newspaper industry trade paper, concluded a long diatribe against nagging publicity agents this way: "And the lawyers! No class of men on earth know the value of publicity better than the New York lawyers, who, to let them tell it, are the best in the business."

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Imagine that--self-promoting lawyers, nearly 70 years before the U.S. Supreme Court's Bates v. State Bar of Arizona permitted lawyer advertising! This may not come as a surprise to law firm marketers, and it is probably not confined to members of the Empire State's bar. So the bane of self-promotion--seeking publicity, marketing and advertising to satisfy an attorney's vanity, rather than implementing the dictates of a productive firm marketing strategy--has been with us for quite some time.

Why is this "vanity" part of the law firm marketing mix? It will inherently fail to do little more than make the attorney feel good. By their nature, marketing and business development take time and planning. Bouncing from one possibility to another, seeking to showcase an attorney's visage, name or inclusion on a "best" list (one of publishing's own smartest money-making strategies ever) are one-offs that contradict the cardinal rules of marketing: analysis, planning, money and steady commitment.

Remember, the tortoise won, not the hare. Though the hare may have more press clips.

Bates, of course, at its core wasn't about lawyers promoting themselves at all and it wasn't about law firms advertising. It was about educating potential clients: "assuring informed and reliable decision making" by providing consumers "relevant information," Justice Blackmun wrote in the ruling.

What Ads Do

On the one hand, maybe law firm marketers shouldn't complain about creative interpretations of Bates to get one's name in print and face on screen. Finding ingenious ways to work within the rules to reach a client's goals is the point of doing law and some of its visceral kick for practitioners. On the other hand, vanity promotion distorts law firm marketing, distracts it from its true objectives of getting new business or branding the firm, frustrates marketing professionals and wastes money.

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Consider, for example, law firm advertising. With the exception of some large and sophisticated firms, advertising seems less about getting business than making the firm's attorneys (and their families) momentarily happy.

An effective ad campaign takes an ad budget beyond many firms' comfort level, along with clear objectives, creative thought, good design, the right media placement and with enough frequency to be remembered.

And, in the end, alone it won't get you clients. That's not the work that professional service ads do. Ads, including public radio spots, start the conversation before prospects meet you. Ads, op-eds, seminars and other marketing and public relations techniques can nudge the firm towards a recognizable identity in the marketplace. But the work of successfully dispelling marketplace anonymity takes time, care and money.

Firms often seem unaware how difficult moving beyond anonymity is. They throw money at one-shot ads to announce--with scores of others attorneys from scores of other firms--inclusion on some list or special section (which exist to lure such ads) on estate planning or bankruptcy.

Why? Vanity. A partner feels good. The practice group feels good--maybe even the marketing people feel good. But marketing feels good for the wrong reason: They know if their firm is not among all the other firms taking an ad, they may get flack. Alas, the ad will have a hard time standing out on a page of similarly dignified and unmemorable squares and rectangles.

Your partners will notice it, pleased that their ad is so much better than the competition--while the competition is smugly concluding the same about their own ad compared to yours.

This is not where your money, time and effort should be.

The same distortion infects media relations. As the 100-year-old "Editor & Publisher" editorial suggests, seeking to get one's name in the paper is nothing new for lawyers. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Walter Winchell-style celebrity column existed precisely to showcase names--it's safe to assume that lawyers were among them. Today, every beat reporter has become a potential Winchell, a target to hammer on seeking to be quoted on a legal matter or (if the gods are smiling) to be the subject of an article.

If the reporter is doing the calling, great. Mission accomplished. The slow work of building a reputation useful to the media is paying off. Other than that, though, it's a one-off; it's vanity, not business development. It feels good but it's quickly yesterday's--or in today's hyper-news cycles--this morning's forgotten news. You're building nothing.

None of this is to say that vanity is inherently bad. One-shot, scattershot, hit-and-miss vanity-powered exercises just do not build a practice. Rather, it is high-level human resources. Attorneys feel good seeing their name. Other attorneys in the firm (if they are not competitors) feel good about the firm's recognition. That rainmaking partner of inconstant loyalty may stay put a little longer. And a happy partner is a good thing.

Clients, too, may feel validated in seeing their firm in the media as experts. In short, stoking vanity is to some degree a necessary and economically useful function at a firm. So the question isn't, "Can you get rid of the vanity distractions at your firm?" Of course not. Lawyers are lawyers; people are people. And the vanity quest does offer some institutional benefits.

The goal is to manage these insistent urges so that your energy, creativity and budget can be focused on sustained, eye-on-the-prize campaigns to develop new business and markets. To some degree, these pleas for attention may diminish in larger firms or in those with more structured, insulated marketing arms.

In fact, the well-developed campaign itself may be your shield, if not a perfect one. "It's not in the plan" may end the discussion or slow things down, even if, like those New York lawyers of a century ago, your attorneys are "the best in the business."

William Doll is an attorney and sociologist who heads Bill Doll & Co., a professional service research and communications firm working with law firms since 1986. Doll can be reached at 216/721-2542 or doll@billdollco.com.

--Lindsay Griffiths, International Lawyers Network