Traits you look for in a legal marketing strategic partner
An email from New York this morning to Kevin McKeown, also a lawyer and LexBlog's VP of Client Development, reminded me what lawyers are looking for in a legal marketing strategic partner. And Kevin is the first to remind each prospective client not to look at LexBlog as a vendor, but as a strategic partner.
The email thanked Kevin for the time he took talking with them, and read in part, '...[Y]ou truly are an upstanding professional in a field where such traits are essential.' Full disclosure, the professional services firm decided to go in another direction than LexBlog in their communications strategy, but we made a friend and a business relationship, things that last a lifetime.
Yesterday Mark Meranda, President of Smart Marketing which provides marketing for law firms and financial professionals, explained his company's dilemna when finding itself in competitive selling situations with FindLaw, a company owned by the huge Thompson Reuters conglomerate (2007 revenues: 12.4 billion).
After hearing us tell [potential clients] how you build search engine ranking with a quality website and by adding significant content over time, potential clients will come back at us with: "FindLaw says they can get me to number one on Google in two weeks!"
Mark then goes to explain one of the reasons FindLaw was able to make such a claim, FindLaw was selling links from FindLaw's website to law firm websites.
Each link is a "vote" that your site is interesting and valuable. Buying or selling links, like buying or selling votes, is a big no-no. FindLaw is apparently offering to do exactly that, selling links to other law sites for $1,000 a month.
Mark wouldn't get involved in such a scheme of buying links or advise his clients to do so. It's wrong, gets you penalized by Google, and is considered unethical in the SEO industry. The reputation of Mark and his company, is their life blood. How could Mark expect someone in the legal profession to trust him if Mark was doing something that was wrong?
I can remember starting LexBlog out of my garage (literally) 5 years ago. I had faith law blogs would work for lawyers looking to enhance that reputation. But when you're getting one lead every 2 weeks and doing 7 blogs in the first year, you can feel like the farmer with a horse and plow doing one furrow at a time. Your faith in yourself and your service gets shaken every now and again.
Tim Stanley, the co-founder of FindLaw and who sold FindLaw to Thomson 7 years ago and who's now the CEO of Justia, told me to hang in there. Tim said we're different than the big boys like Thomson FindLaw and LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell. 'We care,' Tim said, 'That makes a big difference in the long run. Lawyers want to work with people who really care about the service being provided to them, and the lawyers themselves.'
Tim's the same as Mark. Same as a lot of companies whose leaders I have come to know. They do the best they can in helping lawyers and law firms, but are not going to step across the line and do something that's questionable.
In deciding what's stepping over the line, my guess is employees at good companies are guided by these types of questions:
- Have I considered and identified other options or alternatives?
- Is the action ethical?
- How will my decision affect others, including our customers, shareholders, employees and the community?
- How will my decision look to others?
- How would I feel if my decision were made public?
- Could the decision be honestly explained and defended?
- Would I be happy if my conduct were described on the front page of my hometown newspaper or online news source?
Want to know the irony here? Those questions were pulled from 'Thomson Reuter's Code of Business Conduct and Ethics.' (pdf) Yes, Thomson Reuters, the parent company of Findlaw, who pulled a rock by gaming Google and failing to disclose same to their lawyer customers.
'When you're faced with a decision or situation and you're not clear as to what action you should take, ask yourself the following questions,' the Thomson Reuters code says.
You can almost hear CEO of Thomson Reuters, Tom Glocer, saying that after reading his intro to the Code in which he says, 'As our reputation is critical to our success, Thomson Reuters will maintain the highest ethical standards in our relationships with customers, suppliers, each other and the communities in which we do business.'
I speak at a lot of conferences and am invited to do a lot of presentations on Internet legal marketing. As much as I have been impressed with Tom Glocer through his blog and his ideas on new media, it will be a long time before I could pull myself to use reputable business practices and Findlaw in the same sentence.
That's especially true with FindLaw ducking their selling links fiacso for over a week in the face of growing criticism from bloggers and lawyers across the net. Maybe that's because Findlaw knows their conduct cannot be 'honestly explained and defended.'
That's a shame when lawyers and law firms selecting a legal marketing strategic partner are looking for people who care and whom will act with integrity at moments of choice.
Related posts:
- FindLaw gaming Google, and possibly scamming lawyer customers?
- FindLaw SEO misconduct : Suggested course of conduct
- FindLaw selling links story is spreading like wildfire
- FindLaw selling links update : Dow Jones reporting FindLaw misconduct and lawyers questioning what FindLaw sold them
- FindLaw Linkgate : Former FindLaw sales rep blows whistle
I think the questions outlined that are the focus of good employees at good companies are spot on. I think those questions encompass the most important questions that should govern every employee.
Actually, the issue of selling links, I believe, is far more complicated.
Google sells links through its adsense program, and allows you to buy links through its adwords program.
Their business model doesn't allow these ads to pass pagerank, but their business model is not law.
A business may want to be paid for passing pagerank because it makes sense to them, and it is not spam.
In my opinion, it is on this issue that Google will eventually face an anti-trust problem.
Selling links to increase PageRank is the issue. Not the selling of links itself.
Google's adwords and adsense program is not really analogous. Adsense and Adwords involve links displayed as ads. And they do not pass PageRank from the website displaying the ad to the web page linked to.
FindLaw's links, at least some of the one's I saw, are buried below the footer of a web page in what is widely described as spam links. One FindLaw Web page had 100 firms listed in tiny text that these 52 year old eyes could barely read. That's called spam links by people in the SEO and Internet business, and I have to believe by the SEO people at FindLaw.
The real issue is this. Did FindLaw know they were violating Google guidelines? In my opinion, there's little question they did. Second, did FindLaw know that their conduct could be penalized by Google, with the penalty being a substantial decrease in the value of the PageRank being passed to the law firm websites Find Law was selling to? Again, my opinion is they did. Third, did FindLaw sales people disclose to lawyers that what they were spending $12,000 on something that could become worth far less because what FindLaw was selling was considered spam links and in violation of Google guidelines and thus the value of what they were buying could be greatly discounted? Not that I know of. And four, has FindLaw come clean with the lawyers they sold these links to and refunded their money now that it appears those links may not be worth as much after FindLaw appears to have been penalized by Google? Not that I know of.
Every lawyer knows that there's an obligation of good faith and fair dealing in every contract. There's also the obligation to disclose any material fact which could effect the other party's decision to enter into the deal. In my opinion, FindLaw failed on both accounts.
I'm surprised that there's an absence of outrage as to what FindLaw did. Maybe that's a reflection of how far business standards have fallen since I became a lawyer. Maybe it's the total failure of the legal press to do their jobs of reporting on this issue so we have an informed legal profession. Maybe it's because lawyers serving in the role of a blogger, reporter, editor, or legal services provider, are afraid to say what they think for fear that it may adversely effect their business or that their conduct will be called into question.
I don't know. But I do feel FindLaw pulled the wool over lawyers' eyes on this one and people commenting on peripheral issues to what FindLaw did are letting FindLaw off the hook. That's a shame. And it's a sad reflection on our legal profession. Don't we still stand up for what is right?
Kevin,
I don't think that you have really addressed the issue.
Google's business model requires that paid links not pass page rank.
Findlaw bucked this model - whether it was a good idea or not, I am not prepared to argue.
Google then whacked Findlaw for violating Google's policy - which I am pretty sure that any competent attorney would have known was a possibility.
But, where does Google get the legal power to devalue sites solely on the basis that somebody somewhere was a) paid to link to the site, and b) did so intending to pass on a vote to the site as link worthy?
Why shouldn't some people some of the time get recompense for passing on link love?
Why is it so horrendous?
Tom Glocer is no more than crook CEO by his questionable stock options. He did not understand company reputation is,due to lack standard of care or former crook lawyer.