Marketing of law firms, lawyers and their services

Legal Marketing

The Jurismus survey
This year Jurismus has done a survey about marketing of law firms, lawyers and their services. Marketing is a topic that pops up now and then and the idea of doing a whole day on marketing was born last year in Berlin at the Eurojuris Congress when Jurismus had a short session of marketing discussions. It became obvious then that it is a topic that concerns everybody and that there were big differences in the amount of time and money dedicated to marketing in different law firms and countries.

Purpose and participation
The purpose of the survey was to see if law firms/lawyers market themselves and if they do, to what extent and how. We also wanted to see if there were limitations for lawyers marketing their services in different countries and how these limitations affect the marketing of lawyer services.

The survey questions were sent out to all members/law firms of the network and we got 60 answers. The participating countries were Netherlands, France, Denmark, Italy, Germany, Norway, Austria, Spain, England, Belgium, Portugal, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and Finland. This means that almost all member countries were represented. Even though there can be quite big differences in marketing policy between two law firms from the same country they should be influenced by the same limitations or lack of limitations. It has therefore been interesting to compare the answers from different law firms from the same country to see if this is right.

Results
The results of the survey show quite a big variation of answers. Our first question was about the existence of restrictions, ethical or legal, for a lawyer to market himself and his services. Almost all of the participating countries have some kind of restrictions. As for England, Norway, Belgium and Netherlands the answers vary between yes and no, which could perhaps mean that the rules have changed recently or maybe that the rules are not very clear.
A majority of the participating law firms have a marketing policy. It’s particularly common among the firms from England, Norway and Italy. Not as many have a marketing group or similar but more than half of the firms have a marketing budget. The size of the marketing budget vary a lot, from 3 000 Euros per year to 500 000 Euros per year and some firms dedicate a certain percentage of their yearly turnover to marketing, between 1-5 %. The amount, of course, relates to the size of the firm but you can also see that some firms seem put a lot of money and effort on marketing regardless of size.

A small part of the firms measure the return on investments dedicated to marketing actions. It could be by client surveys or by measuring the profit gained from clients the firm has got thanks to marketing actions, but most firms just ask their clients how they found the firm and why they use just their firm. The outcome of these investigations show that most marketing actions work and what is most important is to be seen and heard in the right places. You can also see that doing good work always pay off since many clients go by recommendations. Many have the experience that personal contacts with existing clients and potential clients are more rewarding than for example advertising in newspapers.

The survey gives a lot of examples of marketing actions done by law firms and I cannot list them all but I will mention the most frequently used. A lot of the law firms which do market themselves, send out newsletters or client journals, organize lectures and seminars, participate in different kind of networks and advertise in professional magazines, newspapers or just the yellow pages. The answers show that these are the most common marketing measures. Larger firms also organize client dinners, cocktails, golf tournaments and outings and sponsor for example football teams, charity events and similar events.

Some firms use Internet banners and flyers to market themselves and some send out brochures. Not so many firms use TV and radio for marketing purposes but there are some, which give expert comments concerning legal topics and others, which do advertisements on TV or on the radio.

Even if a majority of the participating firms market themselves actively and have some kind of marketing strategy only a minority of the answering lawyers have a personal marketing plan. Despite not having a personal plan almost half of the participating lawyers does undertake marketing actions regularly. It could be everything from writing a newsletter to own clients, giving lectures and pro bono work to actually calling existing clients on a continuous basis to see how they are doing or telling them about an interesting legal topic or potential clients to see if they need help with anything the firm can offer.

Conclusions

The result of the survey shows that there are quite some differences in how law firms and lawyers market themselves. A majority of the participating firms do it very actively and spend a lot of money and time on marketing. But some do not even have a strategy or budget for marketing. You can tell by looking at the firms, which have chosen to participate in the survey, that many of the firms are quite big law firms. This could of course have influenced the result. It is possible that the firms, which do not market themselves actively, have chosen not to participate in the survey.
Since the size of the law firms vary and the number of participants from each country vary a lot it is difficult to draw any certain conclusions, but something that stands out is that the law firms from Norway and England seem to do a lot of marketing and tend to do more “aggressive” marketing while law firms from Belgium and Austria do much less marketing and in a more discreet way. The answers from the other participating countries are more diverse.
Since this is a topic that concerns all lawyers more or less; we all want to sell our services to both existing clients and potential clients, Jurismus will do a follow up on the survey. We have already dedicated a whole day on marketing at our congress in Brussels this year and it was a big success. Next up is our coming Newsletter, which will contain articles from some of the participants in the survey, and for the future I think the discussions will continue at our meetings.