Lawyers are the latest professionals to use their written work as marketing tools to attract clients.
JD Supra is a Web site that gives consumers legal information while helping lawyers raise their profile. The site hosts its members’ articles, court papers, legal briefs and other tidbits of their craft. Along with each document is a profile of the lawyer who wrote it. Thus, if you have a legal problem and want to do some online research, you’ll presumably find not only the information you want — but a lawyer who can help.
Says the New York Times:
Contributing lawyers get publicity and credit for the socially useful act of adding to a public database, and visitors get free information, said Aviva Cuyler, a former litigator in Marshall, Calif., who founded the business. “People will still need attorneys,” Ms. Cuyler said. “We are not encouraging people to do it themselves, but to find the right people to help them.”
It also levels the playing field in a competitive field. “The site puts solo practitioners like me on an equal footing with huge law firms, providing exposure that would otherwise be nearly impossible to get,” said Mitchell J. Matorin, a lawyer in Needham, MA, who launched his own practice last summer.