Attorney Journal, Orange County, Volume 136

ORANGE COUNTY

Volume 136, 2017 $6.95

4 Reasons Prestige Doesn’t Justify Your Rates

Chris Sant

How to Create an Email Law Alert and Email List

Trey Ryder

4 SEO Tips Law Firms Can Implement Today

Jacob Maslow 8 Sure-Fire Tips for Enticing Readers in Your Marketing Materials

Tom Trush

5 Tips to Improve Back-Office Processes

Sales and Marketing Are Not the Same

Eric Wangler

Mike O’Horo

McIntyre’s Civil Alert Organized Succinct Summaries

Monty McIntyre PROFESSIONAL PROFILE OF THE MONTH

Brian Chase, Newport Beach Mixing It Up

Attorney of the Month

Gregory Clement, Rare Breed of Business Lawyer

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ORANGE COUNTY LOS ANGELES SAN FRANCISCO SILICON VALLEY SAN DIEGO

2017 EDITION—NO.136

TABLE OF CONTENTS 6 How to Create an Email Law Alert and Email List

by Trey Ryder

8 Eight Sure-Fire Tips for Enticing Readers in Your Marketing Materials

by Tom Trush

10 Five Tips to Improve Back-Office Processes EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER Brian Topor EDITOR Wendy Price CREATIVE SERVICES Skidmutro Creative Partners CIRCULATION Angela Watson PHOTOGRAPHY Chris Griffiths

by Eric Wangler

by Chris Sant

14

SUBMIT AN ARTICLE Editorial@AttorneyJournal.us OFFICE 30211 Avenida De Las Banderas Suite 200 Rancho Santa Margarita, CA 92688 www.AttorneyJournal.us ADDRESS CHANGES Address corrections can be made via fax, email or postal mail.

by Karen Gorden

ATTORNEY OF THE MONTH

18 Gregory Clement, Irvine Rare Breed of Business Lawyer

CONTRIBUTING EDITORIALISTS Trey Ryder Tom Trush Eric Wangler Chris Sant Karen Gorden Monty McIntyre Mike O’Horo Jacob Maslow

ADVERTISING INQUIRIES Info@AttorneyJournal.us

PROFESSIONAL PROFILE OF THE MONTH

14 Brian Chase, Newport Beach Mixing It Up

STAFF WRITERS Jennifer Hadley Bridget Brookman Karen Gorden

WEBMASTER Mariusz Opalka

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12 Four Reasons Prestige Doesn’t Justify Your Rates

by Jennifer Hadley

24 McIntyre’s Civil Alert Organized Succinct Summaries

26

by Monty McIntyre

26 Sales and Marketing Are Not the Same

by Mike O'Horo

30 Four SEO Tips Law Firms Can Implement Today

by Jacob Maslow

Editorial material appears in Attorney Journal as an informational service for readers. Article contents are the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of Attorney Journal.

Attorney Journal makes every effort to publish credible, responsible advertisements. Inclusion of product advertisements or announcements does not imply endorsement.

Attorney Journal is a trademark of Sticky Media, LLC. Not affiliated with any other trade publication or association. Copyright 2017 by Sticky Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Contents may not be reproduced without written permission from Sticky Media, LLC. Printed in the USA

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How to Create an Email Law Alert Powerful Marketing Tool Replaces Printed Newsletters

by Trey Ryder

T

hanks to email, you can now write and distribute a weekly Law Alert without buying a single postage stamp or sacrificing even one tree. What’s more, you can email your Alert to prospects and clients anywhere in the world in minutes.

Here’s how to design and promote an email alert that attracts new clients and referrals:

PURPOSE Email Law Alerts are secondary marketing documents. You should deliver your primary marketing message through your information packet, brochure, seminar and website. Then your Alert should support your message by highlighting and reinforcing the most important points. As a result, your Alert does not need to contain your entire message. Still, your Alert’s contents should be well planned so within a certain period—for example, three months—you have delivered your full message.

In addition, your Alert should clearly state various offers and create urgency so your prospects act sooner rather than later.

Here’s a sample masthead for a business lawyer: • New Sexual Harassment Rules • Reduce Vendor Lawsuits • Decrease Payroll Taxes in the Issue of the Julie Bowman’s BUSINESS LAW ALERT Your complete source for information that affects your liability and profits.

Provided as an educational service for friends and clients

by Business Lawyer Julie Bowman, who welcomes your questions and comments at 123-456-7890.

(Issue Date) © Copyright 2017 by Julie Bowman, P.C. All rights reserved.

CONTENT

The frequency at which you send your Alert is much more important than the amount of information you deliver. I suggest you send your Alert at least monthly. More often is better. I send my Education-Based Marketing Alert (almost) every week.

In a weekly Alert, focus on one or two subjects. If neither subject interests some readers, they will receive another Alert in just seven days. In a monthly Alert, include news items and short articles on at least three or four subjects. This way you help ensure that every recipient finds something of interest.

The more readers profit from your Alert, the more likely they are to forward copies to their friends and colleagues, who may request their own subscriptions. Also, make clear to your readers that you provide services that prevent, mitigate or solve the problems you discuss.

FORMAT

QUESTION/ANSWER SECTION

Send your Alert within the email document itself. When you involve attachments, you soon discover that some recipients can’t open them. Plus, your email takes longer to send. But when you send your Alert completely inside an email, you make the process easy.

Include a commonly asked question with your answer. One question and answer are enough. If you have room, include more. Invite readers to ask questions for future issues.

FREQUENCY

MASTHEAD This is the area at the top of your Alert that identifies your document. Design your masthead to seize your reader’s attention so he can’t stop reading. To attract attention, your masthead might include a descriptive title, a descriptive subtitle, topics in this issue, your name and phone number, your reason for publishing it, and the date and copyright notice.

6 Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017

SEMINAR SCHEDULE Feature the title, time, date and place of upcoming seminars.

Include a list of teasers that relate to your program’s content.

“At this fact-filled program, you’ll discover how to (subject), three ways to avoid (subject), why you should never (subject), seven steps to (subject), and more.” Teasers that promise specific information dramatically increase attendance, so write and use as many as you can.

BIOGRAPHY Include details about your education, qualifications, certifications, professional memberships, and courts to which

you’re admitted. You can include charitable and civic activities, too. Even hobbies, if you like. The more prospects know about you, the more comfortable they feel.

SERVICES Make sure your prospects and referral sources know the services you offer. If you provide only a general description and hope your prospects will fill in the blanks, you’ll be disappointed.

Prospects check your list to see if you provide the service they need. If you don’t include a specific list, prospects could easily conclude that you don’t perform that type of work. The services you list directly affect the services prospects and clients request.

OFFERS The more offers you make, the more likely you are to attract new inquiries and referrals. Consider these: Offer educational articles (listed by specific title) that you will send by email. Offer an initial telephone consultation without charge. Offer to add names of readers’ friends and colleagues to your email list. Offer to answer a question submitted to you by email. Offer to answer prospects’ questions in your Q&A column. Offer to speak to groups that include your prospects.

ADD/REMOVE

you will (1) explain legal principles, (2) provide helpful tips, (3) interpret court decisions, (4) discuss proposed legislation, (5) review actual case histories, and (6) invite readers to upcoming seminars. To receive your Alert, ask readers to send you their name and email address.

• Offer to email specific educational articles, listing their individual titles. After readers give you their name and email address, add them to your email list so they receive all your marketing communications, including your Alert.

Step #4: Offer your alert.

• Direct mail. Send a letter or post card to everyone on your mailing list. Explain that on (some future date) you will phase out the printed newsletter you send by regular mail.

Explain that you're starting a new Alert, which you’ll send by email. Next, reassure prospects. Then invite them to send you their name and email address. (You can also use direct mail to offer individual articles.)

• Website. On various pages throughout your site, invite prospects to receive your Alert by email. Next, provide reassurances. Then insert “submit” forms where prospects can type in and send you their name and email address.

Include simple instructions for new readers who want to subscribe and for those who want off your list.

• Social media. On pages, messages, podcasts and blogs, offer your free educational articles and your free Alert.

How to Build an Email List

• News releases. Send them to editors at publications read by your target audience. Offer prospects your free educational articles and your free Alert.

Step #1: Identify the people you want on your list. They should include past, present and prospective clients, as well as past, present and prospective referral sources. Then, if you don’t already have one, compile a list of their names and email addresses.

Step #2: Write your email list reassurances. When you invite people to give you their email addresses, you may find they are skeptical. This is because they don’t know how you might use their email address. Immediately their thoughts jump to the worst-case scenario.

When I started compiling my email list, I discovered that some lawyers assumed I would charge them a fee to stay on my list. As a result, when I invite professionals to give me their email address, I reassure them in three ways. My copy reads as follows: You’ll be glad to know that this email list is ...

FREE: You pay nothing to be on this list.

CONFIDENTIAL: I will never provide your name or email address to anyone for any purpose.

OPTIONAL: If you ever want off this list, just say the word and I will promptly delete your name and email address.

I suggest you reassure prospects to overcome whatever obstacles they might have to joining your list.

Step #3: Create attractive offers. After you have reassured prospects, you can collect new addresses as follows: • Offer your Alert by email. Tell readers that in your Alert

• Advertising. Run classified or small display ads in publications where your target audience will likely see them and respond.

• Articles. When you submit an article for publication, put a biographical note at the end that provides prospects with your email address and offers your free educational articles and your free Alert.

• Inserts. When you send mail to prospects and referral sources, slip into the envelope an insert offering your Alert.

Invite them to request a free subscription by email.

• Forward. Invite recipients to forward your Alert to friends and colleagues.

The faster you build an email list of prospects, clients and referral sources, the sooner you’ll benefit from your Alert’s high impact and low cost. My weekly Education-Based Marketing Alert has brought me more new clients than any other method I have used. I hope you enjoy the same success.

Till next time, I wish you the best of everything! n Trey Ryder shares his marketing method with lawyers through a wide range of publications. In addition, he writes and publishes his free e-zine, The Ryder Method of Education-Based Marketing. And he maintains the Lawyer Marketing Advisor at www.treyryder.com. He can be reached at trey@treyryder.com.

Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017 7

8 Sure-Fire Tips for Enticing Readers In Your Marketing Materials

by Tom Trush

B

ecause I’m a copywriter, my opinion is likely a little biased, but I truly feel the power of the pen is mightier than the spoken word. When listening to someone, the words we hear are rarely repeated—unless requested—and they don’t have the same “staying power” as a phrase permanently placed on a piece of paper. In addition, the written word has the potential of reaching a wide audience; whereas spoken words are limited by the number of people listening to you.

For these reasons, law firms that put a consistent effort toward their writing often see better results with their marketing strategies than others that treat content creation as just another trivial task. When it comes to putting together ideas for creating an effectively written document, there are numerous ways you can increase the likelihood of generating your desired response.

Here are eight sure-fire tips you can use in your legal marketing literature to transform readers from uninterested to enthusiastic.

1. Offer something for free.

No matter how many times you use it, “free” is the one word that will attract attention, regardless of the type of marketing literature you use it in. So offer your readers something they view as valuable as an incentive for meeting your desired outcome. For example, write a legal report with information on a topic your clients would find useful. Even better, provide some type of information that would solve a common problem your readers can relate to (see tip #4). You can even offer a discount on a future service or a complimentary giveaway that promotes your practice. The bottom line is that you want to make it as easy as possible for your potential clients to collect your free information.

2. Make the situation a win-win.

Stephen R. Covey summed it up in his best-selling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, when he stated, “With a Win/Win solution, all parties feel good about the decision and feel committed to the action plan.” Obviously, you benefit if a reader reacts to your call to action, but what incentives are you offering to encourage this response?

Once the emotional basis for hiring your law firm wears

8 Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017

off, your client will seek rational reasons for the decision.

So reward your reader with reasons that validate using your legal services.

3. Stroke the reader’s ego.

Who doesn’t enjoy receiving unexpected compliments? This technique is especially effective when trying to attract high-end clients. People feel good when they’re recognized for achieving a special milestone or status. What makes the sensation even greater is when someone unexpectedly recognizes the feat.

4. Offer a solution to a problem.

Applying this tip involves more focus on your customer and less attention on your legal services. Any successful law firm flourishes because it solves issues clients view as important. Write your text so it focuses not on the magnitude of the problem as determined by society as a whole, but the importance of the issue as decided by an individual. Try visualizing a person’s mindset prior to using your legal services and then write your text so it satisfies that reader's needs.

5. Demonstrate your credibility.

Not only do people prefer doing business with attorneys they know, they also want confirmation that the person they’re working with has the capability of doing the job well. Validate your credibility through testimonials or your track record with similar cases—and be specific. If you’re marketing your services, cite detailed examples of how they have benefited others. For best results, demonstrate success with something your target audience relates to. It should go without saying, but always be prepared to back up your statements. (Testimonials are not allowed in some jurisdictions, so make sure you check your rules of professional conduct.)

6. Show the value in your legal services.

Just about everyone enjoys the feeling of finding a bargain. So demonstrate to readers how your legal services save time or are more beneficial when compared to the competition. Your goal is to provide enough free information so your readers believe they are getting more than originally anticipated.

7. Leave the reader guessing.

Great writers know the exact statements and questions to ask so readers feel they must contact you to get the answers. This is another area where you want to be specific with your writing. Which of the following titles do you think would attract more interest?

• Discover the 7 Mistakes You Must Avoid to Win Your DUI Case • Learn How to Fight a DUI Most people find the first option more appealing because the statement offers an exact result (winning the DUI case) and causes them to wonder if they have made the same mistakes. Often it’s difficult for readers to ignore their curiosity, so use this to your advantage.

IS YOUR LAW FIRM MAKING THE BEST IMPRESSION?

8. Stress urgency.

The longer you let someone wait to take action, the less likely it’ll happen. Encourage immediate action throughout your marketing materials and, if you’re drafting a letter, reiterate to the reader the importance of acting quickly in the postscript (P.S.). You may have to offer some kind of incentive (see tip #1). n Tom Trush is a Phoenix, AZ-based direct-response copywriter who helps entrepreneurs and executives craft lead-generating marketing materials.

Pick up his latest book, Escape the Expected: The Secret Psychology of Selling to Today’s Skeptical Consumers, for free (just cover shipping) at www.writewaysolutions.com/blog/free-book-offer.

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View our portfolio at skidmutro.com Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017 9

5 Tips to Improve Back-Office Processes

by Eric Wangler

Are you contemplating streamlining, centralizing or outsourcing some or all of your law firm’s back-office functions? It’s an idea worth exploring. Improving basic processes and using the right technology can help you and your staff minimize frustration and save time, which ultimately benefits your clients.

If you’re wondering where to begin, here are five practical ideas to help improve turnaround times, leverage the resources you already have, and allow everyone to work together more efficiently.

1. Start by Homing in on What Your Firm Needs Say you have a relatively straightforward task that must be turned around by the end of the day, like formatting a document. It seems easy enough to give the file to your assistant via email, with a short note about what you need. However, free-form email requests almost always lead to questions about instructions or deadlines, with a series of back-and-forth messages ensuing. The next thing you know, it’s nearly 5 p.m., the document hasn’t been finished, and everyone is frustrated.

One idea is to implement a simple form in your firm’s system that lawyers complete before sending tasks on to support staff. While completing a form to request a job may seem like overkill, it will ultimately eliminate confusion and wasted time.

2. Know What’s in the Firm’s Queue Even in a small firm, you may not always know what your partners and associates are doing, who they’ve assigned their work to or the deadlines. By putting a transparent, officewide workflow system in place, all of these questions can be easily answered. A good automated workflow system will allow you to see the status of all work in the system. This type of information can be invaluable in determining whether backoffice work can be done more efficiently by centralizing more functions, training more specialists or outsourcing. Simply, it can help the firm determine if they have the right people in the right place.

3. Get the Right Work to the Right People Once you’ve figured out where work is coming from and where it’s going, the next step is to look at which staff members are

10 Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017

at capacity and who might have more availability. Learn who is particularly good at some tasks and who may need more training or who would be better off focusing in other areas.

Also, be sure to have a process to pass work off smoothly when staff members are out of the office or over-capacity with other work.

4. Keep Work Moving When You’re Not in the Office Even when you are in court or meeting with clients, you are still likely drafting briefs, dictating or have other work that needs assistance. There is no sense letting that work pile up waiting for your return to the office. With a good system and mobile tools in place, you can avoid email and frustrating calls and texts. You can securely send your work to staff as you complete it from any location, and even prioritize the work. That means staff can get started immediately so they don’t need to hurry up and wait for your return.

5. Don’t Make It Harder Than It Has to Be Standardizing and automating and a few tasks can go a long way toward saving time, money and frustration for you and your staff. For example, one simple step is to use Styles in your documents. Styles are automated instructions that allow users to format different parts of documents, such as titles, numbering and headings. By using a few predetermined styles, you can create and update documents quickly and consistently.

Streamlining back-office processes can have a significant payoff. Consider one regional firm that implemented workflow automation software and centralized back-office work. By redirecting tasks and allowing for a more flexible work environment, the firm saw a 68 percent improvement in turnaround time. n Eric Wangler is president of the North American business units at BigHand, and has over 15 years of experience in the legal industry.

In addition, Eric led the acquisition of Esquire Innovations (now BigHand Office), a leading provider of Microsoft Office integrated practice management software and services for the legal market. He can be reached at eric.wangler@bighand.com. Previously published in Attorney at Work.

KA

Keller/Anderle LLP BUSINESS TRIAL LAWYERS

4 Reasons Prestige Doesn’t Justify Your Rates Your Law Firm Proposal Needs Better Differentiators by Chris Sant There you are, in your office, the night before your proposal is due, cursor blinking on your screen. And you’re staring at questions 1 and 2 of the Request for Proposal.

Q1: “What are your hourly rates?”

Q2: “How do you justify your hourly rates?”

When I consult with legal clients about their proposals, differentiating themselves is always the hardest part for them.

Experience? Great results? Happy clients? Attorney bios? Yeah, they have it, but so do all the other large firms that they’re competing against. So how do you stand out? How do you get the client to choose you? Most importantly, how do you justify those rates?

Without a structured process, most clients simply give up. You cite the same things everyone else is citing, hope for the best and then dabble on a little of that magical Biglaw cureall: prestige.

Ah, yes. What is prestige going for these days on the spot market? Can you buy a bucketful?

Does it work this way? Not at all. But every RFP that gets sent out gets back a dozen proposals going on and on about the history of the firm and how prestigious it is.

To the proposal writer, this makes perfect sense. After all, who is the client to say what is and isn’t prestigious? It’s a matter of opinion.

Think about that, though. Is your unverifiable, untestable opinion a solid foundation on which to justify hourly rates in a proposal to the very person who you want to pay them?

And is it something you even want to claim? To me, there are six very good reasons why you should banish this word from your legal proposals.

Can’t We Just Slap Some Prestige on It? A proposal is a sales document. So, what you say in it does affect the opinions that the reader has of your firm.

And a proposal can heighten the dignity of an otherwise excellent firm in the eyes of the client. In the end, though, for a proposal to ring true at all, it needs to reflect the actual character of your law firm. Now, a law firm can certainly enhance their prestige if they’re willing to pay the price to do so. But trying to claim the mantle without paying the price will be quickly found out. Moreover, the client will not appreciate you passing off averageness for the pinnacle of quality. It’s a sham.

There are firms that have become recognized as prestigious 12 Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017

through decades of unsurpassed results, the highest standards and excellent customer service. And there are firms that have entered the club in a much shorter amount of time, spending what it took with tables at charity dinners and soirees and Monets and other forms of advertising that the legal world considers acceptable. A hundred years on one hand and ten or twenty on the other.

Well, heck, if those guys can consider themselves prestigious, why can’t we? We can use the same heavy paper in our Christmas cards and serve the same fancy wine at parties for clients.

The problem, though, is that prestige is a specific choice.

And if you haven’t been making that choice all along, you can’t justify your rates by citing it now. Nobody will believe you. Why?

You Really Aren’t Prestigious Expensive, yes. Prestigious, no.

The sorts of clients who are using RFPs are not stupid. They are Fortune 500 companies. They pay their executives very well.

They know what prestige is.

Some attorneys argue that they can claim to be prestigious by virtue of their rates. This gets it all backwards, of course. But, even more critically, these sorts need to realize that they really aren’t actually willing to pay the price for prestige.

Prestige isn’t measured by how many partners you have who claim to bill $1,000 an hour. It’s found in a culture of adherence to the highest standards, even when nobody is looking. It’s a willingness to forego profits now for the sake of goodwill later.

It’s ensuring that even your newest associates and paralegals understand that there is no such thing as routine. No routine email. No routine phone call. No routine filing.

The price of prestige is the way the receptionist answers the phone, the way even the UPS guy is greeted in the lobby. It’s the way a young litigator interacts with opposing counsel at the courthouse.

In other words, the price of prestige is doing everything it takes to earn prestige. Hourly rates are not part of that equation.

Your Clients Don’t Want Prestige Still, some lawyers want to run prestige up the flagpole and waive it around for clients to justify their rates. Is that even a good choice?

If you choose to present yourself in your proposals as prestigious, does that mesh with the clients you’re trying to win?

Does it harmonize with their businesses, values, goals, hobbies?

Not likely. When I ask training participants to name some prestigious companies, the same one always come up first. Try it yourself. Who do you think of?

The company most people mention is Rolls Royce.

Most people, even wealthy people, do not have a Rolls Royce.

Why not? Wouldn’t they like one? Sure. But they have many, many things they want to accomplish before they get around to buying a Rolls Royce. They’d rather have their kids go to the best possible schools. They’d rather have a beach house as a place the family can go have fun together. They’d rather splurge on tickets to take their buddy to the Super Bowl. But a Rolls Royce? They’re happy with their Lexus or BMW or other luxury car. The extra that a Rolls Royce provides—prestige, essentially—just isn’t that valuable to most people.

And that’s with their own money. If they rarely get a Rolls Royce for themselves, you can be sure that they absolutely do not buy Rolls Royces for their business. Does Home Depot use Rolls Royce as a company car? Does Staples?

So why would you want to sell yourself as the Rolls Royce of law firms when you answer an RFP? And yet a Google search for “prestigious law firm” turns up over two million hits. Clearly, firms are doing just that.

This is not to say that you cannot justify your Biglaw rates.

But if your clients are pickup truck people, you will not wow them with a Rolls Royce. Instead, you’ll just make them think, 1) you are very, very different from them, and 2) you waste a lot of money on stupid stuff. Does a client want to pay for stupid stuff through your sky-high rates? No way. He’ll pay for quality, results, experience and a lot of other things, but prestige isn’t one of them.

Prestige Isn’t All It's Cracked Up to Be I remember appearing before a judge on a pro bono matter I was handling as a young associate when I was at Simpson Thacher, generally considered one of the most prestigious firms in the world.

I had been before her plenty of times before. But this particular time, the things she said made it clear she had no idea we were representing our client pro bono. Now, our client was a sweet, little old lady who had been forced out of her house by unscrupulous predatory lending. And here she was represented

by Simpson Thacher, behemoth international law firm, goto counsel for investment banks and brokerages and insurers.

It was all so obvious. (Not to mention it was written on the front of all our pleadings, but judges reading papers is another topic entirely.)

At that moment, it became incredibly clear that she had never heard of us before. To me, this was eye opening. Green as I was, I just assumed that judges came from elite schools and students at elite schools knew about elite firms.

Nope. The firm name meant squat to her. If it meant squat to her, did it have any value to clients? Maybe at the appellate court level. Maybe in federal courts more than state. But not nearly as

much as most Biglaw lawyers wish it did. And that’s for a firm that’s survived at the top of the New York legal community for a hundred years. Who are those other two million Google hits talking about?

Finding Other Ways to Justify Price There is a vast chasm between a Ford Festiva and a Rolls Royce.

This is the area in which you can honestly and proudly describe the character and value of your firm. The critical task in your proposal is to justify your rates by representing your firm well, not by misrepresenting it. This means your rates need more tangible benefits to rest on. Client-centered benefits include your: • Responsiveness • Clear communication • Quality assurance • Project management skills • Operational efficiency • Speed • Alternative fee structures • Experience with their specific industry • Experience with that specific customer type • Expertise • Added value Of course, you need to be able to actually back these up when the client asks for details. If you can’t say something like, “Yes, all our attorneys and paralegals undergo three hours of training in project management, an hour of training in management, two hours of training in quality assurance, and two hours of training in clear client communication,” then you can’t list them in your proposal as aspects that justify your prices.

The reality is that most firms get by on their experience alone and they can do that because everyone else is doing it too.

But as big clients are moving towards using RFPs, they’re also becoming much more willing to take chances on smaller firms who are willing and able to deliver value in other ways. And as more law firms wake up to the value of a persuasive proposal, fewer competitors will be left playing the me-too game with your firm. In other words, the days of Biglaw rates being justified by experience and a whitewash of prestige are clearly at an end.

Prestige has its uses, but very few firms are needed to satisfy the occasional Sultan or Blue Blood. It’s time for you to find a better way to sell your legal services.

You need to win more business. For the sake of your firm’s profits per partner, your job, and your family, you need to be more successful. n Chris Sant helps firms maximize market share and increase profitability.

These strategies and techniques increased our Fortune 500 clients’ win rates by an average of 39%. One Fortune 500 client had previously had a 20% win rate: after implementing these strategies, they won 10 of the next 12 multimillion dollar deals. Materials written using these strategies have resulted in over $30 billion in deals—that’s more than the GDP’s of Iceland and Jamaica combined! Learn more at LawProposals.com.

Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017 13

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P U T I MIXING Brian Chase keeps defendants on guard in traumatic brain injury, consumer class action, employment class action, and catastrophic personal injury cases as firm continues to deliver outstanding results in expanding practice areas.

by Karen Gorden

F

or decades, Brian Chase has been the trial attorney no auto manufacturer wants to face off against. Known for his relentless pursuit (and capture) of hundreds of millions of dollars in auto defect cases, suffice it to say, Chase is truly in a class of his own when it comes to obtaining justice for victims.

Time and again, Chase has faced seemingly impossible odds, yet come out on top, even when battling some of the biggest manufacturers and corporations out there.

14 Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017

But in the last few years since Chase was first featured in Attorney Journal Orange County, he’s made a concerted effort to apply that tenacity and trial advocacy talent to fight for victims of other egregious injuries, including those suffering from traumatic brain injuries, classes of workers wronged in employment matters, and mass tort litigation against some of the biggest pharmaceutical and other consumer products.

Simply put, the results he’s getting for clients are nothing short of spectacular.

A Lifelong Dedication to Preventing Auto Defect and Accident Injuries One of Chase’s biggest recent victories yielded an astounding $24.7 million jury verdict for Jaklin Romine, who was rendered a quadriplegic after her seatback collapsed when she was rear-ended. However, as jaw-dropping as the verdict was, the case did much more than just provide Chase’s client with the lifelong care she would require. “It also became the only published opinion upholding the jury’s verdict, with a defect finding based solely upon the consumer expectation test,” says Chase.

Indeed, in Romine v. Johnson Controls, Inc. 224 Cal. App.4th 990, 998, (2014), Chase says, “If Johnson Controls used their other seat design, a seat design that is much more structurally sounds, Jaklin would be walking today. They had the know-how to build safer seats for over 20 years but chose to put profits before the safety of consumers.

The appellate court’s decision is a tremendous victory not only for our lawyers at Bisnar|Chase, but for consumers.

The appellate court upheld the consumer expectation test, which means that consumers have a reasonable expectation of safety from a product. Auto makers and manufacturers of other products do not want to be held up to that test.

They’d rather have a battle of experts and confuse the jury.

Thankfully, the court held up the consumer expectation test which is a win for consumers,” he adds.

This latest published opinion is certainly not Chase’s first. Other notable published opinions include Martinez v. Ford Motor Co., 185 Cal.App.4th 9 (2010), Hernandez v. Department of Transp., 114 Cal.App.4th 376 (2003), and Schreiber v. Estate of Kiser, 22 Cal.4th 31 (1999).

However, the courts aren’t exclusive in publishing the results of Chase’s tireless efforts to keep consumers safe.

An author himself, this year, Chase’s book, Still Unsafe At Any Speed: Auto Defects That Cause Wrongful Deaths and Catastrophic Injuries is being re-released, after updating and revising the original book, which was released in 2009.

A New Role and New Focus on Expanding the Bisnar|Chase Brand Though Chase has no intention of straying from auto defect cases, since his longtime partner John Bisnar retired, and Chase has taken the reigns as both Managing Partner and Senior Trial Attorney, the firm is intentionally expanding some of its other areas of expertise. “We’ve done Traumatic Brain Injuries, and all catastrophic injuries for years; our auto defect success just seemed to make the headlines more often,” Chase says.

In fact, one of the firm’s largest recent wins resulted in a $16.4 Million settlement, for a young man who was

left with permanent brain damage after an unsafe road intersection resulted in him being struck by a moving van.

Speaking of Christopher Chan vs City of Hanford, Chase says, “The intersection in question was considered a 'trap' because drivers approaching the intersection could not see pedestrians or bicyclists crossing the street there, and there were no warnings or signs to warn of the danger. The city had knowledge of the dangerous condition but did nothing about it. Our client will require care for the rest of his life.”

In another recent Traumatic Brain Injury case, Bisnar|Chase also won a multi-million-dollar jury verdict for a victim who was struck by a car, while trying to rescue his friend’s dog who had been hit by a car in Long Beach. In Joseph Butenhoff v. Bautista, Chase recalls that the insurance company’s final offer was just $100,000. In that case, the jury delivered a $3 million verdict, for the victim’s moderate brain injury. “Gavin Long of our firm tried that case,” says Chase.

Moreover, Chase says that the firm’s Employment Class Action group is also gaining well deserved recognition for success in advocating for employees who were shortchanged on overtime, were not given proper meal and rest breaks, and who were not paid wages due upon termination. In a class action against RPM Mortgage, Bisnar Chase successfully recovered unpaid wages of $2.5 million for approximately 1,800 former and current employees. Similarly, the firm’s Employment Class Action group has stepped up for other victimized employees, such as those employed by Lifetime Fitness, in another class action wage and hour suit.

Presently, Chase is also involved in mass tort litigation against Johnson & Johnson, representing some of the more than 1,000 women and their families, who have alleged that Johnson & Johnson has covered up a link between its talcum and baby powders and a heightened risk of ovarian cancer.

“Johnson & Johnson knew in the early 1970s about this deadly link between genital talc use and the risk of ovarian cancer,” says Chase. “But company officials did nothing to warn consumers about these risks. In fact, they stepped up their advertising effort and aggressively marketed these products to women, particularly African American women who formed a major market.”

Continuing, he says, “Countless women, who have used talcum powder or baby powder products and have been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, face tremendous challenges in the form of medical expenses, wages lost as a result of undergoing treatment for cancer, hospitalization and surgery costs, expenses relating to medications, pain and suffering and emotional distress. There have been heartbreaking, tragic cases, of course, where some of the women diagnosed with ovarian cancer due to talcum powder use have died.

The families of these victims, in addition to the grief and mental anguish, face tremendous financial burdens as well.”

Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017 15

Brighter Days Ahead for Injured Victims; Busy Days to Come for the Firm Clearly there’s no slowing down for Chase and his awardwinning team. But the team continues to work together like a well-oiled, and incredibly powerful machine, fighting to make the world a little brighter for injured victims, and a whole lot safer for the rest of us.

The firm has been named one of the Best Places to Work in Orange County for the past five consecutive years, which certainly helps the team of more than 40 put forth their absolute best each day. As the team’s leader, Chase is committed to leading by example, in service to victims, and the legal community as evidenced by his work as past President of the Orange County Trial Lawyers Association, and past President of the Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC). He’s been the recipient of three distinct Trial Lawyer of the Year awards, and his colleagues are following suit, amassing their own individual recognitions for their own accomplishments.

So where do Chase and his team go from here? They plan to continue fighting the good fight, beginning with representing injured police officers who have suffered carbon

monoxide poisoning because of defective SUVs in use in their departments—a case which has already landed Chase on CBS Los Angeles, and Good Morning America.

But for Chase, regardless of how much publicity his cases gain, it’s just business as usual, and the future will hold more of the same. “We are going to continue to use our talents and our efforts to help injured people obtain justice from big corporations, when they manufacture dangerous products, or government entities and municipalities when they are negligent in protecting consumers, or companies which choose to abuse employees. That’s what we’ve always done, and what we will continue to do.” n Contact Brian Chase Bisnar|Chase AttorneyReferral@BisnarChase.com Bchase@BisnarChase.com ChasePersonal@BisnarChase.com www.bestattorney.com 949-561-4887

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16 Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017

Rare Breed of Business Lawyer Burkhalter Kessler Clement & George LLP’s Partner Greg Clement is hard-working, dedicated, insightful, and brings a wry sense of humor (and delightful accent) to the practice of business law.

by Jennifer Hadley

“

My clients have businesses to run, and they want to focus on their business. They come to me because they need help with legal obstacles. They don’t generally care what the law is per se; they just want to know what they should do. They’re not interested in getting a 10-page memo, they’re coming to me to help them decide should I do A, B, or something else, or how do I get out of this awful contract?” Too many business lawyers forget to step back and realize that business owners just want practical, workable solutions to their legal issues. That’s where I come in,” says Gregory Clement, AV-Rated Attorney and Partner at Burkhalter Kessler Clement & George LLP. Along the way, Clement says that a bit of levity during stressful situations can go a long way, and he jokes that he doesn’t charge extra for providing a modicum entertainment value, which he attributes to his dry and irreverent British humor. “My hourly rate includes not just excellent legal advice, but some laughter, as well.”

Clement’s noticeably down-to-earth demeanor stems from growing up in post-industrial Britain, before moving to the U.S. in 1985, right after graduating from Aston University in Birmingham, England, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and French. “My mother was from Philadelphia, and was a successful and well-known singer, entertainer and radio celebrity on the East Coast in the 1950’s.

My father was an introverted, clever British mechanical engineer who was a career Ford man. They met at an Auto Show in Chicago where my mother was a car model, and my dad was attending as an auto industry executive. I thank my lucky stars I got my mother’s personality and my father’s intellect and not the other way around,” he jests.

18 Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017

Journey from Across the Pond to J.D. in America Clement says that the opportunities and choices afforded by the U.S. led him to move to Philadelphia after college. “There was a lot of strife in Britain during these Thatcher years and things seemed pretty grim. I remember always wondering why in the U.S., you had Baskin-Robbins, with its 31 different flavors of ice cream, yet in Britain we only had chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.” This desire for more opportunity led Clement to emigrate to Pennsylvania, and obtain a real estate sales license, following in the footsteps of his maternal uncle and grandfather who were real estate brokers there. Clement worked as a full-time real estate agent for several years, but kept encountering clients who were unwilling to take action without their lawyers’ approval. “I began to see the role that a business/real estate lawyer could play, and it appealed to me more than my original plan, which was to continue on to get my MBA.” Thus, he applied and was accepted at the National Law Center at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he served on The George Washington Journal of International Law and Economics. Before graduating with honors, he also confirmed—through a powerful experience that still makes him emotional—that his goal in life was to help others.

“In law school, I participated in the only immigration clinic in the entire Washington, D.C., area. While working there, I helped a Burmese man facing imminent deportation and an Ethiopian immigrant who had been persecuted and tortured by the Communist military junta then in power, to obtain political asylum. This experience enabled me to see how the work

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Joshua A. Waldman, Amanda V. Dwight, William C. George, Alton G. Burkhalter, Rosamund M. Lockwood, Daniel J. Kessler, Gregory M. Clement, Suren N. Weerasuriya, Michael Oberbeck, Amber M. Sanchez

of a lawyer can have a profound and truly meaningful effect on someone’s life.

“It imbued me with a real sense of purpose and a burning desire to use my legal knowledge and skills to help others. It also made me realize the massive difference that even a little legal advice can make to the outcome of a situation, whether it be personal or professional,” Clement says.

Confident that he’d chosen the right career, Clement admits that his timing was less than ideal, due to the East Coast legal market tanking in 1990, with many firms on a hiring freeze. “My parents were considering moving to California from the U.K. at the time and I knew that the California Bar was reported to be the most difficult so I decided to take it fresh out of law school before taking the Bar in Maryland. After I was admitted, I started working for a sole practitioner business litigator in D.C. until my girlfriend at the time—she’s now my wife—was offered a job at the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, which inspired me to “Go West, young man.””

A year later, Clement was working for the business litigation firm of Whitcombe, Makin & Pentis, in Long Beach, but within just two years, an opportunity would present itself which Clement couldn’t pass up.

“My father-in-law wound up sitting next to the owner of a trucking company on a flight. The company had been a victim of insurance fraud and the owner was desperately looking to hire an in-house lawyer to handle the resulting undefended personal injury lawsuits. My father-in-law volunteered my services, actually called me from the plane, and I ended up getting the job,” Clement recalls with a chuckle.

The opportunity to help the business owner in a hands-on capacity immediately appealed to Clement. He became General 20 Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017

Counsel for Golden Eagle Express, Inc., a regional transportation company based in Pomona with offices in multiple states. In this role, Clement was responsible for managing all contractual, litigation and employment matters, along with insurance and risk management. All told he spent five years at Golden Eagle on the management committee and the experience proved invaluable, giving him in-the-trenches experience of the hard day-to-day dilemmas that business owners face. “My job was to keep the company out of legal peril. They didn’t want to know all of the legal stuff, they just needed to know how to proceed,” Clement explains.

Suffice it to say, Clement solved those problems, which was incredibly fulfilling, especially getting an insurance company to pay out on a $1 million commercial general liability policy to settle a vehicular accident injury claim, even though he admits he ultimately worked himself out of a job. “I was hired to solve these problems, and I did. Once I had done so, there really wasn’t enough legal work for me to do to justify my salary as in-house counsel.”

The experience was nothing short of invaluable. Clement had a clear vision of how he wanted to practice law, and sought to find the right venue to be able to do so. A stroke of luck, or perhaps serendipity would provide the perfect opportunity in 2000.

Chance Encounter Leads to Right Fit in Right Firm “There was an opening for a transactional lawyer advertised in the Daily Journal. I applied, and Alton Burkhalter contacted me. His background and firm intrigued me, and we hit it off

right away. My previous in-house experience allowed me to see how my business acumen, coupled with my analytical abilities and writing skills, could help businesses to make smarter decisions and avoid legal pitfalls.”

Clement found he immediately fit in at the firm, in which he would ultimately become a name partner. Certainly, his adeptness at bringing in business didn’t hurt his elevation from associate to partner, and he credits a lot of that to his diverse network of friends, contacts and associates. “My circle of friends range from people with multiple degrees to two childhood friends who drive taxis in London, I get on well with people from all walks of life.

I started helping restaurants I frequented. My daughter’s swim school needed help. I knew how to cost-effectively help small businesses minimize their exposure to risk, and Alton trusted my judgement,” he says.

As the first attorney in the firm to be elevated to partner through the traditional route of working his way up, Clement has watched BKCG continue to evolve, and differentiate itself from other firms, thanks to firm traditions and policies the partners developed and still adhere to today.

“Our typical clients include professional service providers, and diverse business with annual revenues typically in the $5-$25MM range, who have transactional needs, including contracts needing to be drafted or reviewed, or those with potential business, real estate or employment disputes,” Clement says. However, Clement explains that the firm goes above and beyond to ensure that each client feels more like a friend or a family member than a client.

“We are hyper responsive to our clients’ needs and maintain scrupulously transparent, fair and reasonable billing practices.”

“We treat our clients’ money like our money and this guides and directs everything we do. We are very business-minded and practical, even if that means sending a client to another lawyer or professional because that person can do something that we could do ourselves, but perhaps more efficiently or cheaper, without

sacrificing quality. We won’t take on a transaction or a lawsuit unless we genuinely believe we can do an outstanding job for the client. We keep top of mind the fact that our clients have businesses to run and their goal in hiring us is to assist them with that, so the solutions we offer to them must be pragmatic and achievable. Far too many business lawyers lose sight of that key fact,” he says.

To that end, Clement is specific in ways the firm insists on going the extra mile while providing value to clients. “We only charge for time actually billed, to the second, and we don’t charge for any items under six minutes. The last thing we want is a client to be afraid to call with a question because they are worried about how much a quick call will cost them. We also pass through out-of-pocket costs, without a markup, and we do not charge for in-house copies. We further cap lawyer time at 12 hours per day, even during trial when our lawyers regularly work more than 12 hours. We even take it upon ourselves to reduce our bills without being asked, if we didn’t set our clients’ expectations properly. As a result, we lose virtually no clients due to billing issues.”

Instead, Clement says, “Our clients have us attend their Board meetings and often become our friends. Many of us socialize with clients outside of work, and are considered good friends by our clients, and not just their lawyers.”

By way of example, Clement recounts a client who came to BKCG with an unsolicited stock buyout offer from his 50% business partner, complete with a purchase agreement and a professional appraisal, all of which looked to be in order. Rather than merely reviewing the documents and approving them, Clement says his team took the time to go further and delve more deeply into the client’s familiarity with the company’s finances.

“Our client said that he had access to everything, but he was the sales guy, and he deferred to his partner, the financial guy, who had an MBA, whereas our client had no post high school qualifications. We advised him to make himself a copy of the Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017 21

© christopher TODD studios

EXPERIENCE

company’s QuickBooks file, and we referred him to a highly competent CPA to review the file. The audit revealed that his partner had skimmed hundreds of thousands of dollars of profit off the top of the company over several years, to pay personal and household expenses, which he had disguised as business expenses. Not only was he skimming the company money for personal use, but the business had been appraised lower due to the reduced profits. It was a double whammy. The discovery resulted in our client obtaining a sale price for his shares for nearly $500,000 higher than he had originally been offered, and was ready to accept when he first came to us.”

With results such as these, it is no surprise that BKCG, LLP also receives many referrals from fellow attorneys. “We punch well above our weight in both the litigation and transactional areas. We regularly take on—and beat— large national and regional firms at trial, and litigate complex business cases super efficiently, using up-to-the-minute technology, at a cost perhaps 1/3 less than so-called ‘big firms.’ In short, we make the lawyers who refer to us look good.”

The Firm’s Future With 10 attorneys, several paralegals and legal assistants, Clement expects that the firm will grow cautiously in the coming years. “We may add 2-3 partners, and probably a maximum of 5 more associates. The quality of our practice, and having the right collegial mix of lawyers and staff, is far more important to us than pure growth. We have something very special at our firm, and maintaining that specialness is paramount to us. When we expand, we will do so carefully. We stick with the things we do well and aren’t afraid to tell clients if we can’t meet all their legal needs.

We are honest, and we always put our client’s best interests ahead of our firm’s interests.

As for the present and immediate future? Clement is happy with his role as a legal problem solver, especially in the case of clients who are working on innovative projects in online sales and marketing. “I’m drafting all sorts of unique agreements dealing with business relationships of first impression, which is fun, and challenging,” he says.

In his spare time, he spends time with his family, including his two daughters (ages 17 and 20), and his wife who has been a career prosecutor in Riverside County. He’s also a runner, and hiker, who has completed several half-marathons. Incidentally, he also happens to have been a teenage table tennis prodigy in England, which he admits isn’t necessarily the first thing one thinks of when they think of a business lawyer. Likewise, he has no shame in admitting he is an “unabashed lover of British 80’s music.”

All told, Clement is having a ball, as Partner in a highly reputable firm, doing what he loves to do. “My goal is to help my clients identify, understand and conquer their business-related legal risk. If I get to make them laugh along the way, so much the better.” n Contact Gregory M. Clement Burkhalter, Kessler, Clement & George LLP 2020 Main Street, Suite 600 Irvine, CA 92614 949-975-7500 gclement@bkcglaw.com www.bkcglaw.com 22 Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017

» EDUCATION • George Washington University National Law Center, Washington, District of Columbia • J.D. – 1991 • With Honors • L aw Journal: The George Washington Journal of International Law & Economics, Member – 1989–1991 • Aston University, Birmingham, United Kingdom • B.Sc –1985 • With Honors • Majors: Business Administration, French

» HONORS & AWARDS • Martindale Hubbell AV Preeminent® rating, the highest rating attainable, in the Business Law category, 2017

» PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS & MEMBERSHIPS • State Bar of California – Business, Labor & Employment Law Sections, Member, 1991–Present • Maryland State Bar – Business, Real Estate, Labor & Employment Law Sections, Member, 1992–Present • District of Columbia Bar – Member, 1992–Present • Association of Transportation, Law, Logistics & Policy, Los Angeles Chapter, Former Board Member

» LANGUAGES • French • English • German

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McIntyre’s Civil Alert Organized Succinct Summaries

by Monty A. McIntyre, Esq.

Monty A. McIntyre has over 30 years of experience as a mediator and arbitrator. More than 35 years of experience as a civil trial lawyer representing both plaintiffs and defendants in business and commercial, bad faith, brain injury, construction, land use/CEQA, medical malpractice, personal injury, real property and wrongful death cases. To schedule a meeting with Monty A. McIntyre contact Kelsey Hannah at ADR Services, Inc. at 619-233-1323 or kelsey@adrservices.org

CALIFORNIA COURTS OF APPEAL Appeals Chango Coffee, Inc. v. Applied Underwriters, Inc. (2017) _ Cal. App.5th _, 2017 WL 2302170: The Court of Appeal dismissed defendant’s purported appeal from the trial court’s order denying its renewed petition to compel arbitration under Code of Civil Procedure section 1008(b) because an order denying a renewed motion or application under section 1008(b) is not appealable.

(C.A. 2nd, May 26, 2017.)

Arbitration Heimlich v. Shivji (2017) _ Cal.App.5th _, 2017 WL 2351269: The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s order confirming an arbitration award but denying defendant’s request for Code of Civil Procedure section 998 costs. The trial court had determined that defendant had failed to make a timely section 998 claim to the arbitrator, but the Court of Appeal disagreed.

It held that defendant was not required to present his section 998 cost request to the arbitrator during the arbitration hearing because an offer which is not accepted “cannot be given in evidence upon the trial or arbitration.” (Section 998(b)(2).)

In the request to confirm the arbitration award, defendant established that the arbitrator had refused to hear any evidence of plaintiff’s rejection of defendant’s section 998 offer. The Court of Appeal concluded that defendant had timely presented his 998 claim to the arbitrator, the arbitrator should have reached the merits of that claim, and the arbitrator’s refusal to hear evidence of the 998 offer warranted partially vacating the arbitration award. (C.A. 6th, May 31, 2017.)

Attorney Fees Kinney v. Clark (2017) _ Cal.App.5th _, 2017 WL 2131382: The Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal of a post judgment award for attorney fees on the basis that it was frivolous. Plaintiff had been contesting attorney fees since 2008, and had been declared a vexatious litigant by the Los Angeles Superior Court, the Second District Court of Appeal, and the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The Court of Appeal imposed 24 Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017

an expanded prefiling order, under Code of Civil Procedure section 391.7, requiring plaintiff to obtain leave of the presiding judge before filing new litigation (including any appeal or writ) against defendant or her attorney in a court of this state, even when he is represented by counsel. (C.A. 2nd, May 17, 2017.)

Settlements Krechuniak v. Noorzoy (2017) _ Cal.App.5th _, 2017 WL 1967796: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order entering a stipulated judgement for $850,000 pursuant to a memorandum of settlement. The settlement called for payments totaling $600,000, and included a stipulated judgment for $850,000 in the event of a breach. In his appeal, defendant contended that the stipulated judgment amount included a liquidated damages penalty of $250,000 that was unenforceable under Civil Code section 1671, but he did not make this argument in the trial court. The Court of Appeal ruled that defendant had forfeited his contention. The determination of whether a contract provision is an illegal penalty or an enforceable liquidated damage clause is a question to be determined by the trial court and, on review, appellate deference to the trial court’s factual findings is required unless the facts are undisputed and susceptible of only one reasonable conclusion. (C.A. 6th, May 12, 2017.)

Class Actions Bartoni v. American Medical Response West (2017) _ Cal.App.5th _, 2017 WL 1476182: In a wage and hour class action case, that also alleged violations under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA), plaintiffs appealed the trial court’s denial of the motion for class certification. The Court of Appeal denied defendant’s motion to dismiss the appeal because the PAGA claims remained and it deemed plaintiffs’ appeal to be a petition for writ of mandate. The Court of Appeal concluded the trial court’s denial of class certification rested in part on an incorrect legal assumption about the nature of rest periods and therefore granted the writ and ordered the trial court to vacate the portion of its order denying class certification for claims regarding the failure to provide off-duty rest periods. (C.A. 1st, filed April 25, 2017, published May 24, 2017.) n

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Sales and Marketing are Not the Same

by Mike O’Horo

There is an understandable confusion among lawyers about the difference between Sales and Marketing.

First, lawyers still struggle to understand marketing, as demonstrated by the fact that most lawyers’ marketing considerations are limited to one of marketing’s four P’s: marketing communication and other forms of Promotion.

Law firm Marketing departments still have little or no role in defining the other three P’s, i.e., what services (Product) the firms should/will offer, how they will Price them, and how best to distribute those services and go to market (Place).

In either context—individual lawyer activity or institutional business function—selling remains the new kid on the law firm block. Many lawyers still have difficulty getting the “S” word out of their mouths, preferring the less culturally threatening euphemism, “marketing” or “business development.” Even lawyers who aren’t burdened by these concerns innocently use the two terms interchangeably.

When I ask lawyers to differentiate the terms, their answers reveal a gut-level appreciation that marketing is somehow broader, more diffuse, while selling is more focused and has more to do with immediacy and closure. (I have no idea what percent of lawyers share this visceral perception. Perhaps it’s just a characteristic of those who opt for sales training.)

So, for law firms, is the difference between marketing and sales merely semantic and, therefore, unimportant? I’ll argue that the difference is both meaningful and important.

26 Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017

Marketing Defined I define marketing as a continuous, closed-loop leadgeneration process: 1. Define demand, 2.

Profile and identify specific groups most likely to experience and act on that demand; 3.

Understand the language that those profiled use to articulate a) the business problem, opportunity or other basis for their need or desire and b) their basis for preference among competing offerings.

4. Translate our understanding of demand and preference into desirable products and services that enjoy competitive advantage within their categories and markets; 5. Price those offerings to sell profitably; 6. Distribute and otherwise bring those offerings to market efficiently; 7. Communicate all of the above to profiled buyers through trusted channels; 8. Communicate qualification information to sales to help guide their decisions about how they will allocate scarce sales time and resources; 9. Obtain feedback about sales receptivity or resistance, competition, usage and satisfaction from sales channels and buyers; and 10. Use that feedback to inform Step 1 and begin another cycle, continuously improving.

Sales Defined By contrast, I define sales as a continuous, closed-loop leadconversion process: 1. Make contact with receptive members of the profiled market segment; 2. Test the buyer’s willingness to acknowledge the demandtriggering problem or opportunity cited in marketing communication to this buyer group; 3. Investigate this stakeholder’s perceived cost of doing nothing, i.e., the presence or absence of a compulsion to act, e.g., the perceived strategic, operational, economic and emotional consequences of the demand-triggering problem or inability to exploit the opportunity; 4. Discontinue sales investment if the cost of doing nothing is low enough that the buyer has the option to delay or avoid action; 5. Identify all other decision stakeholders and facilitate aligning them behind a smart, self-interested business decision whether or not to commit to invest in a solution and take action; 6. Relate our solution offerings to the business situation, needs and limitations; 7. Obtain agreement that our solution will produce the desired outcome, and that our collaboration will be successful culturally; 8. Define the mechanisms by which the buyer prefers to implement the action decision; 9. Monitor solution implementation and client satisfaction; and 10. Feedback all of the above to marketing for inclusion in their process.

Law firms need to define these functional roles in a way that separates their responsibilities clearly, and brings a hard business approach to the three major areas of acquiring and retaining clients: Marketing, Sales and Implementation. All three of these areas have tactical, strategic and competitive dimensions, which we can classify as follows: • Tactical: Issues relating to “product,” including features, advantages, benefits and differentiation.

• Strategic: Issues relating to specific business and industry applications.

• Competitive: Issues relating to relationships between you and the client or the competition.

One critical element is knowledge of the client’s business and industry. To allocate the firm’s resources efficiently and minimize duplication of effort, the firm should focus on the differences among sales, marketing and implementation rather than their similarities.

Marketing’s Focus Marketing’s focus should be on service offerings and organizations. Targets include industries, market segments and demographically defined clients. A marketing campaign

should include the strategy and tactics involved in identifying and qualifying opportunities, while simultaneously positioning your services. (By positioning we mean: 1) Mind share— your identity in the client’s mind. 2) Competitiveness—your position in relation to competitors.)

Marketing’s responsibility is to differentiate you clearly from competitors and offer reasons for clients to think of you first in your field. Marketing bears the front line responsibility of identifying who you are, what you do and what opportunities exist in the marketplace. Marketing must also establish a connection between prospective clients and you. It’s best if you can develop an actual dialogue with potential clients.

On the other hand, Marketing must make the initial decision about who you want to select as potential clients. That is, which opportunities represent the best chances for mutual success and an estimation of general need and desirability as a future client.

This also includes, at the tactical level, information regarding your services, the firm and benefits of choosing you.

Finally, Marketing must present the unique business value of your services, and differentiate the firm apart from its products and services. This is where value selling begins. The result of good marketing should answer four questions: 1. Who are you?

2. What do you do?

3. Why are you different?

4. Why should I care?

Sales’s Focus Sales builds on the foundation laid by marketing to answer a fourth question: Can you win the business? The focus is on the intricate fit to the specific business and the political realities that determine your chances of future success.

Sales realities include developing enough understanding of the client's business to be able to determine whether the problem under discussion is sufficiently important to require any decision and, if so, on what basis the prospect would find your solution more desirable than the competition’s.

Sales must also determine if strong enough relationships of the right type exist at various levels of the buying organization to offer a realistic opportunity for success. Will your influence and relationship survive the inevitable problems of a business marriage? This means that sales must understand the political nature of both organizations and their potential compatibility during the initial engagement and throughout the hopedfor life cycle of the business relationship. Otherwise, serious account development will be very difficult, producing a shortterm, low-yield account.

Sales must also gain access to and get to know the people who can articulate the prospect’s business problem in terms meaningful enough to enable a decision, and be able to facilitate alignment of the decision stakeholders around an optimal decision that allows each to succeed personally and organizationally. Sales must also determine mutually acceptable Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017 27

terms and conditions upon which to base the business transaction with that account, and enable favorable terms for future business.

Finally, sales must determine if this is a good use of sales time and resources now. Is there a compelling reason for the client to make a decision in a defined time period?

Implementation’s Focus The final phase of client acquisition focuses on how to measure the client's success with your service solution. Notice that the focus is the client’s success. The terms and conditions agreed to by sales should ensure your success. Now it is time to perform on our commitments to the client.

The implementation team develops the relationship at the service, business, company and political levels. This means that they continue to grow with the account by fulfilling the role of a resource provider at the business and personal level.

Not only are services’ success essential, but to become a valued resource you must also ensure you are doing your part to promote the individual success of each client.

In the competitive dimension, you must team with your allies within the account to anticipate, resist and isolate competitive attempts to take business away. Once you are the visible supplier you become everyone’s target. Client retention

is an area where many good sales and marketing efforts fail.

Statistics show that it is cheaper to keep profitable business (not “any business”) than to replace it. This requires an emotional commitment to your client. You must care about keeping them.

A proactive approach to ensuring continuous instant success is essential to a high level of client retention. As you did throughout the sales decision process, after the sale you must reinforce your position as a consultant or advisor, committed to knowing their business even better, helping identify and solve problems, being innovative in supporting clients’ success and continuing to help them grow. Constantly update the political map and make adjustments to your strategy if the political or business climate changes.

Conclusions Despite the cavalier use of expressions like “my client,” no individual “owns” an account. It is everybody’s responsibility to acquire and retain clients. Everyone in the firm owns stock in every account and must do their part to ensure its increasing value.

Often, some individuals perform parts of all three elements (sales, marketing and implementation) of client acquisition and retention. It is prudent to remember that you are performing three distinct functions. Otherwise, it becomes increasingly likely that one or more of them will be done badly.

Let’s summarize marketing, sales and implementation: Marketing – focus on positioning • Establish your identity • Defines products/services • Communicates benefits • Establish general or categorical need • Pre-qualifies opportunities • Differentiates you from competition Sales – focus on business and decision issues • Determines business fit • Tailors to specific needs • Establish business value • Develop terms and conditions of doing business • Creates business relationship • Establish political alignment with client Implementation – Focus on facilitating client success • Fulfills commitments to clients • Performs activities necessary to make client successful with your services • Develops lifetime business relationships that create future business n For 20 years, Mike O’Horo has been known by lawyers everywhere as The Coach. He trained more than 7,000 of them, generating $1.5 billion in new business. Mike can be reached at mikeohoro@rainmakervt.com.

28 Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017

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Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017 29

4 SEO Tips Law Firms Can Implement Today

by Jacob Maslow

L

aw firms need clients to survive, and the Internet has changed the face of business forever. However, there are some aspects that have remained the same over time. The in-person attorneyclient relationship isn’t in jeopardy, but it does require you maintain a strong local presence.

Follow these quick and easy-to-accomplish tips to drive traffic to your site:

1. Localize Your Landing Pages If you want to rank locally, you need to localize your landing pages. Anyone can make a generic service page, but it doesn’t stand out enough to give you the leverage you need to rank above other local competition.

A prime example of a landing page done right is this community page for Peoria.

A quick glance over this page shows that the personal injury attorney can now leverage: • Keywords based on the local market (i.e. West Valley and North Peoria) • Evergreen content based on the location • ZIP code information to help rankings • School district information More importantly, the content shows that it was well researched and is valuable to the reader. This is the content that ranks above the competition in the search results.

2. Leverage Online Review Sites Online review sites are a gold mine for traffic. Yelp has over 73 million unique mobile visitors, 84 million unique desktop users and 26 million unique mobile app users every month. There are over 127 million reviews on the site, and users age 18-54 make up the majority of the site’s users.

Local businesses can’t ignore review sites.

Your business needs a profile on all of the top review sites: • Yelp • Angie’s List • Google Reviews • Avvo Focus on niche-based review sites as well as the most popular review sites mentioned above. A staggering 68% of consumers say positive reviews help them trust a business. If there are no reviews for your business or just bad reviews, you’re missing out on the potential trust factor that’s important in every business life-cycle.

3. Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly Consumers and clients demand mobile-friendly websites. The time of just having a desktop version of a website is long gone.

30 Attorney Journal Orange County | Volume 136, 2017

There are more mobile device users than desktop users browsing the Internet, and it makes sense.

People are always connected thanks to smartphones and mobile devices.

There were over 2 billion mobile users in 2016, and if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, these users will click off and go to the competition. Google provides a mobile-friendly test that you can use for free.

Type in your URL and run the test.

You’ll quickly find out if your website is mobile-friendly and will also be able to open a mobile usability report.

Follow Google’s recommendations, make the necessary changes and hire a web designer, if needed, to make sure your site is mobile-friendly. More importantly, make sure your site is responsive so that your site visitors are able to view your site across any platform.

This will ensure that your site is ready for any future viewing and resolution changes.

4. Follow Best Practices If you want to succeed with driving local traffic to your website and business, you need to follow the best practices. A lot of these practices are basic, but many business owners fail to implement them properly—or at all.

A few of the very basics that are a must-have include: • Perform keyword research.

• Build local citations.

• Create and maintain a social media presence.

• Measure your traffic using Google Analytics.

You’ll also want to create a blog that discusses your profession, answers potential client questions and acts as another source of driving traffic to your website.

When you follow the best practices and the tips outlined above, you’ll build a strong foundation that forces your site higher up in the search results and gets noticed by potential clients and customers.

It takes some work to get everything you need done in order, but it’s worth the effort for sustained, organic traffic to your website and law firm. n Jacob Maslow is a marketing consultant at Consultwebs.com who uses his experience in link building and content creation to enhance the visibility of our clients’ websites. A goal-centric individual, Jacob works behind the scenes to ensure that clients grow their leads and ROI every quarter through innovative approaches and routine testing. He focuses on his clients’ biggest concern: Quality content.

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