Very interesting piece in today’s edition of the New Lawyer (Australia) suggesting that In House Counsel are sick and tired of law firm…
email alerts…
Kate Gibbs writes..
Clients tired of law firm e-alerts
26 May 2009 | by Kate Gibbs
GENERAL counsel are tiring of the onslaught of law firm e-alerts, email legal updates and newsletters being sent to them by a law firms touting for work and good will.
Law firms picked up on the idea that they could feed their clients legal information, branding, expertise and insight via emails years ago. But since then the number of firms doing it, and the frequency with which they are churned out, have both grown dramatically.
“These things have mushroomed over time. Though they are often relevant and timely, when you get the same information effectively from six or eight law firms, a number of publishers and other sources, it becomes something of a flood,” said Peter Turner, CEO of the Australian Corporate Lawyers Association (ACLA).
Turner said he does hear from general counsel that the e-alerts they receive from law firms can be annoying. Sometimes they amount to 10 a day, from at least 6 or 7 different firms, and often on the same subject.
See the full article here http://www.thenewlawyer.com.au/article/Clients-tired-of-law-firm-e-alerts/482689.aspx
There are some fairly obvious reasons why this is happening .. lawyers traditionally have been fairly useless at marketing and in our opinion Australian law firms have some catching up to do with their UK & US counterparts. Secondly lawyers tend to amuse us, simply by the fact that they hate being marketed to, but at the same time expect their clients to suffer the same marketing techniques that they refuse to suffer.
Finally…. it’s a question of turf.. once a law firm has a marketing bod/department; that person or set of individuals is going to do their utmost to stay in a job and retain as much control over the firm’s marketing strategy as possible.
Thus, in our opinion, failing to look at new options to bring in new clients and retain existing ones.
With regard to email alerts .. it’s all about good editorial skills and understanding technology to provide a minimum amount of information with maximum benefit to the client or prospective client. Here at HOB we get the sense that law firms are still working with the drown them in info/branding concept… patently that’s not working.
