Chuck Newton

Having Trouble Closing The Sale With Prospective Clients?

It happens.

There has been a disagreement in the area of consumer bankruptcy for a good number of years concerning whether law firms should employ non-lawyers to perform the initial interview or consult. Initial interviews can tie up most of the attorney's time, most such consults are free, and  half of those interviewed do not retain. Therefore, it is argued that the initial interview is not the best use of the lawyer's time. Personally, I do not believe that analyzing debt and finances is necessarily legal advice, and I can assure you law schools do not teach it. It might result in the need for legal advice, but not at this level. The lawyer can come into the picture when the client elects to retain the law firm.

On the other hand, there are any number of consumer bankruptcy lawyers that like to lead off their marketing with the fact that consumers will always meet with a lawyer. I say big deal. Lawyers assume that meeting with them is a priority for consumers. The priority is figuring out the possibilities to solve a financial situation. I also doubt that in reality that the initial interview is a priority for the attorney, and it often shows in the lawyer's close rate.

Besides, unlike most regular people that make up those financial analyst trained to handle bankruptcy consults, most lawyers are inherently bad at closing the deal or sale after determining that bankruptcy is a reasonable option. It is true in consumer bankruptcy, and it is true in most or many other areas of law.

Here is why lawyers tend to have so much trouble closing a sale:

Arrogance. Let us face facts. There is a degree of separation that occurs from regular folk in the process of attorneys obtaining law degrees and passing bar exams. Also, because attorneys feels the direct pressure to put new cases on the board, they tend to be pushy. They use hard sales language and grim realities, and most potential clients see right through hard sales tactics. Most are not natural, they are rehearsed, and their presentations come across like dire, buy now infomercials.

Rambling. Lawyers, God help us, just cannot make a definitive statement without a mile of disclaimers. They will not cut to the chase and the message gets lost. The answers to questions need to be succinct and quick least most people take away that lawyers do not know of what they speak. Potential clients have to feel comfortable with their decision, and rambling does not make them comfortable.

Boring. This happens when you act passive, use legalese, and are overly technical.

Not Believable. In this day and age, potential clients know when a lawyer is making pie-in-the-sky claims, and they are turned off by them. Sometimes lawyers have trouble coming across as transparent, open and honest because they are always hedging their bets or attempting to blunt the bad news. A lawyer promising the moon in marketing and then disclaiming it in the consult stage leads most to think of the old Joe Isuzu ads.  (Oh, that reference probably dates me).

Putting the cart before the horse. This is simply trying to sell legal services before the lawyer has spent the time with the potential client to fully understand not only the problem but the perceptions of the client. It could also be called a failure to listen. The problem occurs because time is an issue, and the tendency is to map out the course of action, get through the disclaimers and take control of the interview. Hence, nobody actually listens or attempts to discern what the potential client actually saying or asking.

Not making sense. Lawyers have to remove from their conversation the legal jargon and the buzzwords that the potential client will not likely understand. Lawyers forget what they come to sound like when they speak. It does not translate well.

Remember, when you interview a prospective client the lawyer is in essence interviewing for a high paying job. The question is whether the attorney leave the client feeling comfortable in making that decision to retain that lawyer.

People Want To Buy From People

I do not normally look at my junk mail. But, the other day I looked at my local Chamber of Commerce mailing showing all of the glossy pictures of the new business openings. Most were just individual guys and gals opening their little nail shops, heating and air services, remodeling and repair shops. It hearkened me back to when we knew that economies were local and transactions were face-to-face and personal.

Well, maybe many businesses, including the practice of law, are not a face-to-face as they once were in days gone by, but that does not mean that we should strive to make our practices feel anonymous.

I tend to think we lose sight of the people element as we get detached during law school and working in government agencies or larger law firms. Then we start law practices and we strive too hard to make our practices feel larger than they are -- or "professional" using bar-tender speak. We get use to buying from the big boxes and online, we get wrapped up in all of the globalization stuff, and before you know it the image that you are presenting is nothing but a big, boring, anonymous blob. And, I do not happen to thing it is good for business. (Opps, I called the practice of law a business again).

The simple truth is that people want to buy from people. At least they want to feel a connection of some sort, and most lawyers and most solos are missing that boat. They are neglectful of their personal stories, making themselves front and center, getting away from the staged shots, putting up anything but stock photos and template websites, keeping to and not exerting themselves, and not giving the public a feel of of who you the lawyer really is.

Realtors by and large understand this. Oh, most of them are a little too slick, but they picture themselves.

Wal-Mart fights against this by placing personal greeters at their doors. Their ads in the past have been about their people.

People want to meet the people who make the products they buy. For lawyers that product is the law or legal representation. And, where getting to know the lawyer first might not be possible, it does not mean that your method of marketing and your website should not come close.

Think about Facebook for a moment. It connects because it is the online equivalent of getting know someone. You have their status, what they do, their thoughts free of legalese, and pictures that a generally homemade and natural. The point is that Facebook is all about promoting you generally. Lawyers need to promote themselves a little more like Facebook. This does not mean you should not be indiscreet -- just personal.

I think you can do this a number of ways.

First, if your practice is based upon network marketing, getting out and meeting people who can refer you business, then this will take care of itself.

Second, get rid of all of the assumed names and law firm concoctions. I do not want to go to the "Smith Law Firm". I want to be represented by "Jane Smith" or "John Smith". Even in Big Law much of the business is built around individual rainmakers.

Third, get rid of the Madison Avenue look or your perception of it. The website templates, get rid of them. The professional photography, let it go. The stock photos and clip art need to be removed.

Fourth, let the people know how you roll, your personal story, how you are really one of them, understand the process in ways that are not sales speak or boilerplate, and include natural and ordinary pictures of yourself, your staff, your offices, etc.

Presenting the more unvarnished truth will likely result in more people clicking through and calling in need of your legal services.

The 10 Hardest Law School To Get Into According To The Huffington Post

Here they are:

• Yale University Law School
• Stanford University School of Law
• Harvard University Law School
• University of California -- Berkeley, Berkeley Law
• University of Virginia School of Law
• University of Pennsylvania Law School
• Columbia University School of Law
• Northwestern University School of Law
• University of Chicago Law School
• UCLA School of Law

 

If you have the ability to get into these fine law school it is worth your effort to do so. If not, it is still worth your effort to get into law school. Ultimately, most people do not ask and do not care were you went to law school. They care about what you can do for them. There is something to say for personal achievement, but ultimately the question is whether or not you want to be a lawyer. I am often asked, "What law school should I go to". I most often say, "To the one that accepts you".

 

Massachusetts School of Law Starts Its Own Undergraduate Feeder College

Usually it is the other way around. It is the undergraduate school that starts a law school.

Massachusetts School of Lawl has always been perplexing to me. One, I am not sure I would recommend someone to apply to a non-ABA law school, just because of the restrictions it causes with licensing upon graduation. There is also something to be said for supervision. On the other hand, at least one of the missions of MSL is to provide an affordable law school education. There is no doubt that many of the ABA rules on accreditation are simply antiquated and are extreme costly. This, along with ranking concerns, drastically increases tuition much further than it needs to be. Should MSL obtain ABA approval, it is pretty certain it will not be educating lawyers for $15,000.00 a year.

And, you cannot argue with MSL's' results. It has a good name, it accepts 70% of those apply, and yet 79% of their first-time takers passed the Massachusetts bar in 2009.

Unconventional is MSL's trademark. In that regard, in a kind of reverse engineering, the law school has started the American College of History and Legal Studies in Salem, New Hampshire as a feeder school.

ACHLS is as unconventional as is MSL. The law school provided the funding for ACHLS for the purpose of funneling students to it. It is essentially a senior college campus. Students who do well in their first year at ACHLS can combine their last year of undergraduate work with their first year of law school.

The college grew out of Dean Lawrence Velvel's concerns about students entering law school with weak writing skills and a near-total lack of American history knowledge.

The college is no-frills and consist currently of a half dozen offices and classrooms in an office building. Classes are held from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. three nights a week. The students merely sit at folding tables, there are no lectures, only Q&A, and lots of assigned reading.

The entering class consisted of only 5 students and ACHLS is not yet approved by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/nation/in-unique-step-massachusetts-law-school-starts-its-own-undergrad-feeder-college-in-nh-104664984.html#ixzz125WjNeeC

Pretty Much Describes Most Law Firms

 

Glasses-Free 3-D HDTV

It is a mouthful, but Toshiba should get compliments on the hyphens.

I do not cover tech that much, but I think this is significant. Toshiba has unveiled the first 3-D HDTV in which the viewer does not need to wear glasses.

I have been skeptical of the 3-D trend. It is too expensive to watch, I hate the glasses, most movies are not suited to it, I do not understand why newspapers and magazines are playing with it. And, I still share most of those sentiments. But, I also remember when I first fully transitioned to HDTV in the right way to enjoy it. I bought a large HDTV set to mount on the wall, with a premium sound system, and I got rid of Comcast, which turns out had the worst HDTV quality. Not only were movies and football games unbelievable, but just watching news shows and HGTV on HDTV was more enjoyable. It seems to me that true, effortless 3-D HDTV could be the next epiphany, even for those who only watch Glenn Beck scratching on his chalkboard.

This is not to say that I am going to go out and buy any of these units presently. There are too many problems. First, they are apparently rolling these units out in Japan initially. Second, they are just too small. Third, they are just too expensive. Fourth, there is not enough 3-D programming to make it worth having.

But, all of these arguments miss the bigger point. As millionaires and billionaires spend their tax cuts on these products, and they become more universally accepted, there will be even more competition an innovation. The technology will become invasive, and it will begin to creep its way into consciousness and our tech. When it creeps into our tech, it will creep into our law practices.

It seem like it has taken forever, but that is what HDTV has done. It has had an effect on almost everything, and this might be true for this technology as well.

Timber, Forestry Or Logging Law Niche

I lover trees. I love timber. I grew up in the piney woods of Northeast Texas, not far from the Big Thicket. Although I now live near Houston, I stay firmly planted in the tall pines of EastTex, outside of the coastal plains of the big city in a place called The Woodlands. Growing up, there was not a day in my life that I dot see a truck pulling a pole trailer full of regulation length softwood with that red flag nailed to the back. If not a trailer of trunks, I was fascinated by skidders and skidding. I hated clear cutting, but I loved to see someone fell a tree.

When Chapter 12 bankruptcy was first (and temporarily) adopted, I was one of the initial attorneys to argue that timber harvesters fit he "family farmer" status Congress should have considered. We won that argument because Texas registered rigs as agricultural vehicles. It proved to be a powerful device for those in the trade when the paper mills quit buying timber from time to time to force down the price, so those in the trade would have to sell what they harvested to vulture investors, who could afford to hold the timber underwater until the prices increased. Unfortunately, then Congress continued to allow Chapter 12 to lapse. This has now been corrected.

There is a joke in East Texas that asks what is the difference between a developer and an environmentalist? The answer is that a developer is one that wants to build a house in the woods. An environmentalist is one that already has a house in the woods.

Regardless of where you stand, my larger point is that the laws and regulations dealing with timber or forestry are deep and complicated. At least in East Texas, the criminal penalties, as a result, for taking the timber of someone else are stiff. Where you have laws and regulations, you have a legal niche on which a practice can be built.

This blog has covered the Tree Law Niche before, but we concerned ourselves primarily with disputes between neighbors or damages caused by fallen trees. This is certainly important, but the Timber, Forestry, or Logging Law Niche concerns itself with business law, real estate, OSHA, contracts, and injuries. It involves timber leases, clear cutting issues, and financing issues that reach up to over a million dollars even for simple harvesters. This practice area is purely commercial.

All of those timber contracts and timber deeds have to be negotiated by someone. There are a ton of timber disputes that have to be resolved. There are forestry and logging regulations with which everyone must comply. There are untold financing agreements for land, timber, natural resources and equipment with which some lawyer must deal. As stated there are defaults that have consequences. People are indicted every day for disputes over timber. And, do not forget all of the personal injury lawsuits and workers' comp matters that result from injures on the job or in collisions with timber trucks.

As always, if you want to investigate whether Timber, logging or forestry law is right for you, you should surf the Net first. Look at the lawyers that are doing what you want to do. You can, with careful study, take so much away from their sites.

Some examples on all sides of the divide you can start with the Reese Law Firm, WatsonBennett, Washington Forest Law Center, KeanMiller, and Segal Law Firm. It is a defused area, but there is a ton of information on the laws and the conflicts.