Martindale - Hubbell's value to law firms in steep decline
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Ten years ago, a rite of passage. Five years ago, a tradition. Past two or so years, of questionable value. That's how law firms view Martindale-Hubbell per Gina Passarella of ALM's Legal Intelligencer.
Highlights from the Passarella article include:
- An informal survey of Philadelphia firms by Delaware Valley Law Firm Marketing Group founder Stacy West Clark found more firms than not saying they were either eliminating or scaling back their use of Martindale-Hubbell's listing services.
- Although firms realize general counsel may be using Martindale-Hubbell to find outside counsel, cost-benefit analyses just aren't convincing marketers at some of the area's largest firms.
- Firms view the cost of Martindale-Hubbell listings as very high compared to the value received.
- Firms are re-investing marketing dollars previously pegged for Martindale for other interactive marketing efforts.
- In-house counsel turn to Martindale-Hubbell generally after they have the name of a lawyer or firm from elsewhere.
Per Barry Solomon, LexisNexis vice president of client development, LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell has been rolling out new products so as to become "indispensable" to corporate counsel who are looking to choose outside counsel. 'That, in turn, could cause law firms to realize the necessity of providing information to the service.'
The problem for Martindale-Hubbell is that they move slow - on new services of value and in adopting pricing models that make sense to law firms. Solomon even concedes Martindale's transition period is a long-term process that is a work in progress.
On the other hand, innovative marketing solution providers can be swift and nimble. They don't have an age old publishing model, and its revenue models to protect. New marketing solutions developed by innovative entrepreneurs can offer immediate value to law firms at a fraction of the price. By the time Martindale-Hubbell catches up, leading law firms may have moved on.
Take Fox Rothschild, a 400 lawyer law firm with 14 offices coast to coast, for example. Their Chief Marketing Officer Jim Staples told Passarella that Fox Rothschild is "firmly undecided" when it comes to how it will use Martindale-Hubbell. Though Marindale-Hubbell has been very cooperative in listening to the firm's needs and offered different options, Staples knows Fox Rothschild won't continue with Martindale-Hubbell as it has in the past by paying six figures annually.
Staples went to explain that on the table with other options is doing away with the Martindale-Hubbell service or to minimizing its current use. "The cost coupled with Google and firm Web sites has caused firms to rethink their commitment to the [Martindale-Hubbell] service."
The article does cite some in-house counsel who value Martindale-Hubbell. And frankly, there's no question Martindale offers value.
The question law firms appear to be asking is what is the ROI for such a large investment each year. Other interactive marketing vehicles costing a fraction of Martindale and of long lasting value are looked at by many firms as possibly offering a far higher ROI than Martindale.
As way of full disclosure, Fox Rothschild is a LexBlog client. It's nine blogs include:
- Education Law Blog
- Employee Free Choice Act Blog
- HIPAA Health Law Blog
- PA Brownfields Environmental Law Blog
- Pennsylvania Family Law Blog
- Pennsylvania Physician Law Blog
- Tax Litigation Blog
- Wage & Hour: Development & Highlights Blog
- Delaware Corporate and Commercial Litigation Blog
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- Martindale-Hubbell still not indexing for Google : Disservice to its lawyer customers
- Martindale-Hubbell ads claim its lawyers.com directory has the 'Best Lawyers?'
- Martindale-Hubbell to be replaced by Google as leading lawyer locator?
- Lawyers.com not worth the money : leading writer on solo and small firm practice
We feel it's a very exciting time for Martindale-Hubbell. As Barry mentioned to Gina Passarella in her article, Martindale-Hubbell is focused on helping more law firms connect with buyers of legal services, whether corporations, consumers, or other lawyers.
Martindale.com and Lawyers.com focus on the needs of the buyers of legal services, providing decision-support content and tools to help the buyers find the right attorney or law firm for their needs.
In addition to user-friendly tools and functionality on both Martindale.com and Lawyers.com, Martindale-Hubbell will be rolling out ROI tools for its subscribers, new law firm website offerings and services, law firm videos, and more throughout 2008.
Happy Holidays
Sharon L. Lubrano
VP & Product Champion, Lawyers.com
That sounds great Sharon, and you're a fine person. But leaves me, and I suspect many others, wondering what's really coming of value.
My concerns:
* Your comment sounds like standard PR and marketing spin. With so many law firms questioning the value the Martindale directory, Martindale needs to get out and engage its users asap. Surveys Martindale pays for and press release sound bites are not going to cut it anymore.
* Martindale does not have a good track record on delivering in regard to innovative tech marketing solutions. Take Martindale's blogs. Martindale conceded earlier this year that its blog offering was short of what's required to qualify as a blog, but would be making changes later in the year. Nothing done as far as I can tell, but Martindale is still representing that what it's offering is a blog. You may have the only blogs in the world without an RSS feed, something you can't be disclosing to your customers.
* Long discussion this year on law marketing listservs about whether Martindale is fully indexing lawyer and law firm bio's for Google and the other search engines so that law firms would receive the full benefit of paying for a Martindale directory listing. Rather than continuing to discuss the issue, Martindale ignored continuing discussion.
It's great that you're commenting on the news of law firms leaving Martindale. But Martindale needs to offer greater value for the prices being charged to stem the growing discussion on the Internet that Martindale is no longer worth the investment.