A recent article article in Law Technology News (Is the Party Over for Social Networking?) and blog post by Martindale-Hubbell ('social networking – does not draw lawyers') reminds me of the same. Both write off lawyers use of social networking.

This at a time when LinkedIn, the leading professional social networking site, lists 118,000 profiles from those describing themselves in the practice of law and is profiling each of the largest law firms based on social networking at LinkedIn by their lawyers.

Interesting that many quoted in the Law Technology News story see the advantages and significant growth in social networking for lawyers. Nonetheless, the headline was couched to create the opposite impression.

And the headline certainly worked. New York Magazine citing the Law Technology reported 'News Attendees at the American Bar Association's ABA Techshow in Chicago have declared social-networking sites over.' No question the magazine put this in to laugh at our profession.

Martindale's position that social networking for lawyers is dead? Probably based on a combination of not knowing what is taking place and protecting their territory.

Rather than create sensational headlines to generate discussion or misleading lawyers to sell your products, let's give social networking time.

It's new. Social networking sites are still being perfected. Lawyers and legal marketing professionals are still trying to figure it out.

But like the Internet, social networking for lawyers is not a fad.

The basis of Martindale's claim is the 2007 comScore Media Metrix monthly reports measuring traffic patterns at competing online attorney directories. Per the press release, 'comScore reported more combined unique visitors to Martindale-Hubbell sites martindale.com(R) and lawyers.com(SM) than competing directories when seeking a lawyer.'

Nicholas Karrat, Sr. Director, Traffic & Alliances for Martindale, went on to say:

Consumers, small business professionals, lawyers, and corporate counsel seeking a lawyer or lawyer referral rely on online resources designed specifically for their needs, and the results of the comScore reports show that when these individuals go online to look for legal assistance, they turn to martindale.com and lawyers.com.

Google is the biggest competition Martindale-Hubbell has. I emailed LexisNexis PR Manager, Holly Michael, last Saturday asking if Google was one of the competing online attorney directories included in the survey results? No answer yet. Perhaps someone from Martindale will comment here providing an answer.

If Google is not included in the results, you have to question Martindale's assertion that when individuals go online to look for legal assistance, they turn to martindale.com and lawyers.com. The goal in issuing such a press release should be to provide lawyers an accurate picture of online searches for a lawyer, not to demonstrate you get more traffic than Findlaw.

If someone truly wanted to show lawyers where individuals and corporations go online to look for a lawyer, including Google in your report is a no brainer.

That's the word from John Lipsey, LexisNexis VP Corporate Counsel Services, at the Martindale-Hubbell blog.

Strange position to take when:

• There's 119,000 LinkedIn profiles from those within the 'law practice' industry per a Google search across the LinkedIn directory.
• A quick search for 'General Counsel" at LinkedIn draws the maximum of 500 search results. There's certainly many more.
• Like Doug Cornelius, who also found Martindale's position curious, I am seeing an explosion of lawyers adding profiles at LinkedIn.
• Legal OnRamp, a social networking site for lawyers in private practice and in-house started by Cisco general counsel Mark Chandler, has in its short history more than 175 companies signed up, including several leading U.S. banks and a clutch of major corporates.
• DLA Piper, the largest law firm in the country is using a Facebook-style networking tool for its trainees.
• Mike Dillon, General Counsel at Sun Microsystems and Executive Vice President of the company's legal department, finds wikis, social networking, mash-ups, virtual communities and blogs incredibly rich and powerful when it comes to knowledge sharing and communication.

I'll concede that most lawyers have not figured out how to effectively leverage social networking sites. Like the use of Google, Amazon, and other Internet services that no one was clamoring for but which we now could not live without, it'll take time.

Despite Lipsey's 'talking to a couple hundred corporate counsel,' the train is leaving the station on this one, we're not going back.

Read today on a listserv that Martindale-Hubbell, in trying to keep a 100-lawyer client in their directory, told the law firm that Martindale would be the new Facebook or LinkedIn for lawyers in due time.

Martindale is saying they will be the next LinkedIn? If that's true, it seems to be totally irresponsible statement.

LinkedIn:

• As of March 2008, LinkedIn had more than 20 million registered users, spanning 150 industries.
• As of December 2007, its site traffic was 3.2 million visitors per month, growing at an annual growth rate of about 485%.
• Founded by co-founder of Socialnet.com & leading exec at PayPal and funded by Greylock, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and the European Founders Fund, all tier one VC's funding Silicon Valley companies.
• Reached profitability two years ago.

Martindale:

• No management team that I know of that has experience with building social networking sites.
• Unique visitors to Martindale.com down 13.4% over last year per Compete.com.
• Struggling with the launch of a corporate blog, something much simpler than software infrastructure and management team needed for successful social networking site.

As far as becoming the next Facebook? Seems rather silly. Makes as much sense as Martindale saying we'll become the next place where all young lawyers will hang out to socialize online. Does anyone really believe that will happen?

Martindale has been a great company as a lawyer directory. But to try and create something that's vogue today by boasting that we're a new company that's introducing Web 2.0 solutions is irresponsible and is only going to damage to reputation of the company.

Then yesterday, Jonathan Lin, Martindle-Hubbell's Director of Product Management, links to a spam blog in his post responding to my post asking 'Will Google offer better search of lawyer directories than lawyer directory websites themselves?'

By spam blog, I mean a blog that just copies other people's content (in this case, mine and other law bloggers) and republishes it. It's done in hopes to generate a few bucks for law related Google adsense ads run on the spam blog.

Linking to spam blogs is as lame as it gets. I'd give Jonathan more credit if he was doing it to get my ire up. But I'm not sure that's it. I don't know if Martindale-Hubbell understands blogs and what it even means to blog.

Today, Jonathan, responding to others' criticism of the blog concedes he just wanted to get the blog up quickly and would make needed improvements on the fly.

I made the call to get something out there quickly to begin 2008, even with known limitations, so we could at least start the conversation with you all and then make improvements as we go based on real-time feedback.

That’s the web 2.0 way right?

Ironically, I suspect that if we took the other route and did extensive research and development until we were comfortable that we got everything thing figured out, we would have ended up launching in December. And, I bet along the way, we would be equally criticized for being slow moving and “not getting it.

That slower method is how we used to do business, and it’s what we are trying to change.

That may be the 'new Martindale-Hubbell', but to me it's nuts. Martindale-Hubbell is a legacy product that's been around for 130 plus years. As a practicing lawyer for 17 years, the Martindale-Hubbell name meant a heck of a lot.

You hold yourself out as a first class company working with leading lawyers. If Martindale is going to get into something, it's got to get it right. Or least get close. If you don't know what you're doing, get some help. Companies launch good blogs in weeks and months, not years.

To his credit, Jonathan did ask for suggestions today. Here's my quick advice.

• The blog needs to be outside the Martindale website. Keeping it inside the website makes it look like advertising no matter what you do. You lack credibility using a medium that's all about transparency and credibility. Your blog posts are also going to get cited very little, if at all, in blog discussion when you put something up in a very heavily branded website you call a blog.
• Create a proper user interface for the blog. You don't get to the home page for any blog or website via a link that's number four in a side navigation bar of 20 other links.
• Create a proper comments field. There is a reason you are not getting comments. You should not require registration. And in no case should you be attempting to collect demographic information of interest to sales people.
• Get rid of all the ads & links to your other products. There's at least 25 links promoting various services of Martindale and LexisNexis. A blog is your mouth in a conversation, not a billboard.
• Set up proper management of your RSS feeds. Best I can tell your feeds are not getting indexed at Google Blog Search nor Technorati, the largest blog aggregators. No one can call when their name, their company's name, or their url is mentioned in your blog. Until you do that, you are shouting in the middle of the forest, as opposed to engaging in a conversation.
• Create a proper software architecture for SEO. The present set up for title tags, headers, and more is not getting your content indexed properly at Google. Your posts will never be found on search.

You guys have other suggestions? Appears we have Martindale's ear.

Look at the below example for the Super Lawyers lawyer directory.

Internet users would not need to go to the Super Lawyers website to search for a lawyer. If I'm looking for an environmental lawyer in New York who went to Harvard, I just enter 'environmental lawyer New York Harvard' in the 'search superlawyers.com' box at Google.

Here's the first three results displayed - right in the Google interface without going to Super Lawyers - and in a fraction of a second. When I click on the result I go directly to the lawyer's page in the directory, skipping the website home page and any interim search pages.

Expect the Martindale-Hubbell, Avvo, and FindLaw lawyer directories to be next in line for the Google treatment.

What's the implication? For Internet users, there may be advantages. No limited text fields or 'drop-downs' for search such as by practice area and location, the type of things Martindale-Hubbell requires.

Google's search will allow us to do a search for exactly what we want - like I just did for the Harvard environmental lawyer in New York. I could have added an association or two that I wanted the lawyer to belong to limiting my results further. I'm not sure searches at lawyer directory sites themselves would allow me to do that level of search.

For lawyers, it may be great. People can search for someone matching my background and find me immediately. That's impossible if I'm displayed in a Martindale-like directory as one of 165 lawyers in an area of practice in a locale.

For lawyer directories? I think they'll be uneasy allowing Internet users to search their data without going to the directory's website. No adds displayed. No fancy user interfaces with pictures and the like. No branding of the directory. Lots of confusion with lawyers asking directory salespeople questions.

Where do you see this headed? See advantages for people looking for lawyers? See advantages for lawyers?

For you readers employed at legal directories - Martindale-Hubbell, FindLaw, Avvo, & Super Lawyers - what do you think of the development?

I agree [with Hubbard One] that web video can be extremely compelling. Sadly, Hubbard's video advocating the use of video is of such low quality it will probably discourage a lot of prospective clients.

For law firms, web video has to be extremely well produced and must deliver something of real value to clients and prospective clients. It can't just be eye candy. The law firm has to deliver really compelling and useful information and create a reason for website visitors to return, learn and ultimately hire the firm.

Video on law firm websites needs to offer useful information to lay people about the legal issue facing them. Otherwise, Hubbard One and Martindale-Hubbell, also hawking law firm video for websites, are just generating incremental income for themselves from their unknowing law firm customers who believe video will generate more legal business.

At least Martindale-Hubbell, which has not produced informational video that I know of, agrees with me that law firms benefit much more from video relevant to the law firm's clients needs.

Give advice; answer basic questions; describe what typically happens in relevant matters; provide value with timely commentary. As with all good marketing, if you can put yourself in the shoes of the buyer and empathize with them and give a little value, you're more likely going to win the business.

My guess is that if we're going to see informational video, it's going to come from the firms themselves using YouTube, as opposed to companies like Hubbard One and Martindale. Hubbard One and Martindale are likely to charge a hefty price for video. The result being not much video, video which will stay on the website for months or years, and video being focused on the law firm and its lawyers.

And that's not my characterization of law firm video. This from a marketing technology person at one of the largest firms in the country commenting on the mounting evidence that blogging really does work (nice coincidence).

As pressures increase, whether from competition or clients, the need to differentiate and offer value to clients becomes important. Rather than spending $75K on a video for your Web site, try a professional blog. Not only is it substantially less expensive, with one post per week it offers continuing relevancy.

A couple months ago Martindale-Hubbell and their public relations company, Ogilvy PR, announced Martindale's new video on law firm websites service saying in part:

Lawyers are increasingly embracing new ways to differentiate themselves and attract new business while consumers and small business professionals are eager to learn more about a lawyer or firm's philosophy and demeanor prior to hiring the firm.

Take a look at the video on this law firm website (believe its one of the Martindale ones). Does anyone really think a video of lawyers standing around talking at each other, a framed certificate of admission to the Supreme Court, what looks to be an yellow page ad, and some newspaper headlines is going to incent clients to call them?

Martindale is not alone in selling this type of video as 'Web 2.0' technology that law firms are ready for. Look at the video on this law firm website. The theory is that paying a few grand for a video of lawyers talking about the things they do in front of courthouse pillars gets people to stay on the website longer than another website that does not include video.

So what? People staying to watch a TV ad on the Internet. What's the value to prospective clients and people looking for legal information?

Video yes. But let's offer something of value. How about lawyers answering legal questions in their niche? What about doing that on a weekly basis? That's value. That's a real differentiator - lawyers showing they care by taking the time to help people for free.

Those type of video's will also have a viral marketing effect being talked about online, passed to friends, and even displayed on other websites and blogs if archived at YouTube.

Picked that up in an article in UK publication LegalWeek. After talking with inside counsel, they raised the possibility that legal directories are more a self-perpetuating marketing-arena for law firms, as opposed to a useful tool for corporate clients.

John Wallbillich, a former general counsel in the States who turned me onto the Legal Week article, calls Wiseman's a common (and thankfully honest) viewpoint.

These directories serve some purpose, but their influence is more like a citation from a Louisiana state court in a legal brief. It's better than nothing, but in my experience only in limited cases (such as a foreign jurisdiction or a minor matter for local counsel).

Last month John Lipsey, VP of Corporate Counsel Services for LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell, posted on the importance of legal directories to in-counsel in the lawyer selection process. John conceded personal referrals were twice as important to in-house counsl than Martindale, but still argued based on his survey that 40% of in-house counsel found Martindale as important in the hiring process.

I heard from multiple in-house counsel and lawyers in large law firms, that they didn't believe Lipsey's findings. They thought the survey was self serving and done to argue that Martindale remains relevant in the age of the Interet where referrals are an email or two away and so much information is freely available. Information too that's beyond the scope of a lawyer bio or firm profile. Information that provides a 360 degree view of a lawyer.

Ultimately law firms are going to make the call with their pocketbook. With large law firms leaving directories like Martindale-Hubbell or reducing their listings, law firms may already be making the call that legal directories are of declining value.

That's the word from an

Since 1868, Martindale-Hubbell has provided the largest library of lawyer and law firm profiles and ratings. Law firms across the country reflexively and dutifully subscribe to the company's hardbound volumes, placing them prominently in their libraries, confident they have taken the most obvious step to ensure clients looking for legal representation will find them. Just as important to such firms is Martindale-Hubbell's peer review and rating system, touted by the company as an objective measure of a lawyer's ethics and abilities. Receiving a peer review rating is a singularly egocentric moment for a lawyer, suggesting he or she had 'arrived' in a professional sense.......Today's Web 2.0 business models have completed the paradigm shift by eliminating the barriers to global publication and distribution of client opinions. Companies such as Avvo.com now give clients, as well as lawyers, the power to publish opinions about lawyers easily, instantly and without cost, in a medium that reaches a global audience. Harnessing the concept of 'collective intelligence,' there is now a totality of information about a lawyer available. Consumers can easily search for a lawyer and read what other lawyers and clients think about that lawyer. Lawyers are able to provide far more information about themselves, their practices and their experience than has ever been possible before. Some features provide a way for lawyers to communicate and interact directly with the public and showcase their understanding of the law and legal issues.

The new paradigm is: clients and lawyers rating lawyers for the benefits of clients and lawyers. As with all change, this new paradigm creates a great deal of fear and uncertainty among lawyers, who are by training risk-averse.

......A collection of hardbound volumes cannot generate the sort of interactivity and real-world information about lawyers and law firms that is experienced, contributed and compiled on Avvo every day. Information about lawyers is being shared by those who have first-hand experience, resulting in a searchable database of information that is accessible to prospective clients around the country and the world. If information is power, then Avvo effectively shifts the balance of power away from lawyers and law firms to clients, prospective clients and every other user of its Web site.

Campos' firm, a 20 lawyer commercial litigation and corporate securities boutique, is embracing the Avvo concept.

A comment about a lawyer posted on Avvo has the potential to reach a global audience, whereas the letter of gratitude sent to a law firm requires action on the part of the firm to publicize it. We decided to take advantage of the opportunity. We now display 'Avvo badges' on our Web site profiles of each of our lawyers, which link directly to each lawyer's profile on Avvo. Rather than fear what clients have to say about us, we embraced the possibilities created by empowering clients to weigh in directly on their experience working with a lawyer or law firm.

And clients of the law firm are using Avvo to the benefit of future clients and the firm.

Though certainly not true in every case..., clients will often post comments on the Avvo Web site shortly after the conclusion of a particular matter. Such comments generally provide considerable detail about the specific matter handled by their lawyer and their overall experience. When a client posts a review about a lawyer, Avvo's system asks how long ago the client used the lawyer's services. This kind of information is an invaluable tool for prospective clients seeking to gauge the most recent experience others have had with a particular lawyer. Not surprisingly, one of the more common uses of Avvo by clients is vetting word of mouth referrals.

And it's not only smaller firms embracing Avvo. Davis Wright Tremaine, an AmLaw 200 international law firm, claimed the Avvo Profiles of all 225 lawyers in their Seattle and Bellevue offices.

The Avvo concept is here to stay. Consumers of legal services who can get online reviews on dishwashers are going to demand, through their behavior, that comments about lawyers be freely available. Whether comments come from other lawyers or clients, the information is just too valuable.

Martindale-Hubbell has been suppressing this concept for years. They want a monopoly on lawyer ratings. Money to made there. Plus when you're charging law firms 10's and 100's of thousands of dollars to display their lawyers in a directory, you don't want law firm customers walking when they don't like what another lawyer or consumer has said.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Martindale-Hubbell dismissed Google as a force in clients finding lawyers. Now their own studies find Google is viewed as an important source in locating counsel by almost 20% of corporate counsel. And Google didn't exist 8 years ago.

Avvo does have the staying power issue. Though VC backed, significant revenue generation will be necessary at some point. There's money via sponsorships, premium listings, and services, but will it be enough, and will it come soon enough.

And there's always the question whether LexisNexis will pay to just put a concept like Avvo's on the shelf. Though that's a little harder today with web based systems costing so little to develop and user generated content from all over continuing to flourish.

Related posts from elsewhere:

• Disrupting the Lawyer Ratings Paradigm from Avvo CEO Mark Britton
• Avvo: Dinner is Served from Scott Greenfield
• Why Not Web 2.0 Reviews for Law Schools? from Carolyn Elefant
• Finding the right lawyer for you from Heather Sunderman

Lots of law bloggers in Seattle Sami. Me, Mark Britton at Avvo, Dan Harris of the very heavily trafficked China Law Blog, large law firm lawyers blogging from Davis Wright Tremaine and K & L Gates, as well as at least 30 more lawyer bloggers identifiable by search or in directories like Justia's Blawg Search.

Bloggers tend to be open to meet-ups on very short notice. I regularly post that I'm in a city or at a conference and would welcome meeting folks. I've received responses and met folks on each occasion.

If Martindale and its parent, LexisNexis, is truly interested in networking with bloggers and other participating in online conversations, it's employees have got to make the effort.

First it was The Yellow Book, The Real Yellow Pages and all the other phonebook directories.  Now it's the online attorney directories like LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell and Findlaw's attorney listing service that just may be the latest casualties of Google and the other search engines as more and more law firms develop websites and leverage pay-per-click and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. 

As recent as five years ago, it was a sign of success for a law firm to advertise on the back cover of the local yellow pages directory and have firm listings and attorney listings with LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell and Findlaw - and it made good business sense.  But the benefits of using these legal directories have been declining for the last several years with many law firms either reducing their spending on directory services or are canceling their agreements altogether.

And the reason per John,

The directories and their ala cart services are typically overpriced for the value they provide as client-acquisition tools, especially when compared to pay-per-click campaigns, banner ads and other web-based marketing efforts.

And it doesn't need to be banner ads or pay per click. Organic search results in Google may be readily obtainable by law firms.

If a law firm's website were optimized to be found on Google, not done with most law firm websites, traffic to the firm's site, practice area pages, and lawyer bio's from Google would far exceed the traffic coming from banners and sponsored links. Would also exceed the traffic coming from from FindLaw or Martindale.

No question such ads will draw traffic to the website. It will put a lot of wind in the sails of LexisNexis Martindale's salespeople calling on lawyers to retain their listings in Martindale-Hubbell, a requirement to be listed in lawyers.com, Martindale's consumer and small business law website. Also puts FindLaw in a difficult position as there's no way FindLaw is going to be running ads on its revenues which are far less than Martindale's.

Something strikes me as odd about the ads though. It would be like Google advertising for people to come to their online directory to do searches so Google could earn more money from ads.

Martindale is selling ads at lawyers.com in the form of directory listings and banner ads on directory pages. Martindale is now buying ads so they can get lawyers to buy ads.

Martindale may have already proven buying ads to sell ads is not a formula for success. Martindale used to do big buys at Google for lawyers.com so that when people searched for a lawyer a large lawyers.com link would display above the organic search results. Martindale appears to have abandoned that ad campaign.

Martindale may be better served by getting its directory of all lawyers indexed in Google, lawyer by lawyer, and do so with a search engine optimization wallop that only Martindale could bring. Lawyers would be lined up to pay Martindale for a listing then. But Martindale, as best as any one can tell, does not allow Google to index all the lawyer bio's and firm profiles that Martindale has.

Martindale has a huge asset. Its lawyer directory is the best in the industry when combining the number of lawyers and detailed biographical information on those lawyers.

At the same time, far more people go to Google for search than lawyers.com. Google perfects its search regularly to better provide what people are looking for, lawyers included. Lawyers.com is an outmoded directory using limited search fields as opposed to a full text search.

Rather than compete with Google (we've seen a lot of losers) why not leverage your asset in conjunction with Google's strength? Wouldn't Martindale be better off using the latest technology to get their lawyers' profiles fully indexed at Google? Wouldn't that be a win/win for Martindale and its lawyer customers?

What say you guys at Martindale?

I responded by asking if Martindale's informal survey of where law firms' marketing interests lied had something to do with the company's own interests and Martinadle's blog product failure. In addition to my suggesting an upcoming social networking function, I asked 'What do you bet LexisNexis will be or already is peddling online video at prices greatly exceeding blogs?'

A day later comes LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell's press release announcing 'online video at the Martindale-Hubbell professionally produced by TurnHere, Inc, a leading online video solutions platform.'

Offer video, that's fine. But to start a corporate blog on the premise you wish to create a dialogue with customers and the legal blogosphere, and to take such a two faced approach is silly. Blogging like that is only going to create more antagonists of Martindale.

LexBlog will have more complete data out in the near future. However, I felt compelled to respond to the cold water LexisNexis threw on blogs with its informal blog survey among attorneys and other legal professionals at LegalTech NY.

Finding only 10% of LegalTech attendees with their own individual blog and only 17% of the respondents' firms with a blog, Sami Hero, LexisNexis VP Open Web, said the results along with an earlier ABA study demonstrate a hesitation to "jump in."

17% of law firms with blogs is a pretty significant number. 2 years ago that number was probably 3 or 4%. We've seen a 300% growth in large law firm blogs since 2005. Hero would have to concede that's big time growth in the number of law firms blogging.

Could LexisNexis down playing blogs have something to do with the fact that the company is way behind the curve as to blogs? That LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell's blog product at their lawyers.com is a failure? Could it have to something to do with LexisNexis' impending launch of some sort of social networking solution at Martindale-Hubbell? After down playing blogs, Hero says the good news is that 'six out of ten respondents belong to a professional or social network and nearly 70% are considering adding online video to their firm's marketing mix.'

What do you bet LexisNexis will be or already is peddling online video at prices greatly exceeding blogs? And that a social networking feature at LexisNexis Martindale.com will be hawked as a reason for large law firms to keep paying Martindale-Hubbell hundreds of thousands of dollars a year?

Everyone's entitled to make a buck, but let's be straight with folks guys.

Though law firms realize that some general counsel may still be using the Martindale-Hubbell directory during the law firm selection process, the cost benefit analysis doesn't stand up. More law firms are finding Martindale-Hubbell costs too much when comparing the benefits received from a listing.

Larry first references the informal survey of Philadelphia firms by Delaware Valley Law Firm Marketing Group showing that 'more firms are eliminating or scaling back their Martindale-Hubbell's directory listing.' According to the groups founder, Stacy West Clark, having to pay by the word or 'unit' is causing 'enormous pain' for law firms.

Though formulating a list of law firms who have exited Martindale-Hubbell has been elusive, here's who Larry has confirmed as leaving the directory.

• Dechert - 1,000 lawyer firm with offices in Europe & US
• Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young - long standing 170 lawyer firm with offices along upper East Coast
• Saul Ewing - 275 lawyer Mid-Atlantic firm with nine offices
• White & Williams - 235 lawyer Mid-Atlantic firm with eight offices
• Flaster Greenberg - 60 lawyer New Jersey/Mid-Atlantic law firm with seven offices
• Baker & McKenzie - World's leading global law firm
• Weil, Gotshal & Manges -- 1,200 lawyers across the US, Europe and Asia

Word across the Internet and behind closed doors at law firms is that we're going to reach a tipping point on law firms using Martindale-Hubbell. Law firms, by and large, have found a Martindale-Hubbell listing necessary because all the other law firms were listed. When all the other law firms are not listed in the directory, a Martindale-Hubbell listing will no longer be needed. The pendulum will have swung.

Amazing part in Martindale-Hubbell's slide is their total lack of an effective Internet presence to combat this discussion. Martindale-Hubbell's internal people and outside PR professionals have done little, if anything, to stem the tide of the discussion eroding their very core. Martindale needs to become more transparent and enter into a real discussion with their customer base and the influencers of those customers.

Microsoft was once viewed as the evil empire by the development community and many of their customers. A thousand plus blogs from Microsoft employees made the company's methods and goals much more transparent. In addition, such blogs generated a discussion between Microsoft developers and customers leading to improved products (in same cases) and viral discussion about new launches. Customers feeling part of Microsoft's development plans were much more likely to purchase and use the company's products.

Google had significant problems, and still does, with privacy issues. A few years ago the company did not have an effective Internet presence. When a story broke across on the net about Google's caching impacting users privacy, all Google could do was issue press releases and hold a press conference. Despite the efforts of Google's PR professionals, the story broke very poorly in the Wall Street Journal and other main stream media.

No coincidence that Google now has probably 75 blogs published by various individuals and development groups in the company. When a negative story breaks, those bloggers, with a readership in the thousands, can respond with blog posts about how an issue or problem arose and how Google is addressing it at that very minute. In addition, those bloggers help frame Internet discussion on new products Google's working on. All of that blogged information is consumed by amplifiers of Google's message - other bloggers and the media (trade & mass media). Effective PR? You bet.

LexisNexis can choose to have their Martindale-Hubbell brand trounced in blogs, listservs, news websites, and offline trade publications. They're doing a nice job of it using PR methods of days gone by with expensive PR agencies monitoring net discussion, framing PR responses for the company, and dabbling on the side with a few bloggers.

But if Martindale-Hubbell is serious about saving themselves they are going to need to wholeheartedly endorse online networking through blogs. The outcome would be both a gradual pick up of allies along the way as well as learning how to improve their services from their very customers - law firms and consultants already taking part in this online discussion.

I am not talking 75 blogs mind you, but how about starting with one or two from people in leadership positions at LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell? When they work, add a couple from IT development and business development folks. Will there be some work in figuring out how to use blogs? Sure. Likely to stumble once or twice? Yep. But the down side of inaction will be the loss of a long standing product that's generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues year after year.

And bottom line doesn't it make sense for a company that says '...our innovation drives your success' to show a little innovation in saving the Martindale-Hubbell lawyer directory. It's a legacy product that deserves saving with the right services, pricing, and positioning.

Related posts

• Martindale-Hubbell's value to law firms in steep decline
• Martindale-Hubbell continues slide: Starts charging lawyers for 'Coveted Rating' service
• 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

Commenting on last week's court ruling that there was no basis for cracking down on Avvo's lawyer-rating Web site because some lawyers didn't like how they were rating, the Wall Street Journal endorsed the concept of lawyer ratings.

At a time when the judicial system is under increasing scrutiny, the courtroom performances and verdicts of its practitioners would seem a reasonable object of public interest. For those shopping for legal counsel, an online rating service might at least provide some measure of transparency in an otherwise opaque profession.

The site, called Avvo, does for lawyers what any number of magazines and Web sites have been doing for other professions for years. Magazines regularly publish stories that rank an area's doctors and dentists. There are rating sites and blogs for the 'best' hairstylists, manicurists, restaurants and movie theaters. Almost any consumer product or service these days is sorted and ranked.

Professional ego aside, it's hard to see why lawyers or judges should be any different.

Though not mentioning Super Lawyers by name, the WSJ certainly seems to endorse Super Lawyers practice of selecting the best lawyers and publishing the lawyers profiles in magazines and now the Internet.

Like it or not, the Internet may bring transparency to our profession yet.

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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