Ahhh, blogging. One of life’s joys – right? But what do you do when writer’s block strikes? Avoiding writer’s block may sound like an impossible trick but there are things the frustrated writer can do to ease the pain. First up, keep a list of potential blog topics. Not exactly rocket science this one but inspiration truly strikes at the strangest times. For us, it’s often in meetings – embarrassing no? When it does, whip out your Iphone (other models do exist) and stick it on a list. Alternatively, go ‘old skool’ and scribble it down somewhere. Having a stack of titles or ideas is great when you’re short of time or inspiration but want to write. Create a plan – when you were at school and had to write essays in exams, weren’t you always told to write an essay plan? Although your blog won’t be marked, it’s still sensible advice. A plan helps you to think through your content, and outline what you want to include and leave out. It should also help with flow. Here at LexRex we like plans. Use the news agenda as a springboard. There is very rarely a lack of news, and none of us lives in a vacuum. So keep track of what’s going on – and not just legal news – lifestyle and culture pages are also great for ideas, themes and trends. Allow yourself to get distracted. Obsessing about your lack of ideas, content or ability to write sensibly will not help. So do the washing, dig out the iron or mop the floor. In other words – take a break. On a similar note, get a change of scenery. Physically stepping away from your desk can really help. Try cheating… or in other words, build a collection of guest posts from your favourite bloggers. It is a real compliment to be asked to write as a guest, and common to swap content. So if you are struggling, ask for help and give yourself a rest – it’s not cheating really! So what did you think of our tips for avoiding writer’s block? Did we miss any? Let us know – opinions always welcome. By Victoria Moffatt
Halliwells, Dewey and LeBoeuf and now Cobbetts. Three high profile law firms who have gone bankrupt in the last few years. If I am honest, I am surprised that we don’t have more law firms on this list. Perhaps this is because, as my good friend David Tovey says, professional service firms don’t go under, they just merge! In fact, I am not alone, in September 2012, the association of Business Recovery Professionals (R3) predicted that just under 25% of law firms were at risk of going bust. However, if you look at big retailers who have gone into administration over the last few years, it is a sobering exercise. Companies with proud heritages and previously solid profit and loss accounts such as HMV, Blockbusters, Jessops, Clinton Cards, Woolworths, Habitat et al have all gone to the wall. Leaving behind them empty shop fronts and a dwindling sense of purpose for the UK’s high streets. There are many people, particularly in relation to HMV going into administration, who point the blame squarely at the on-line retailing giants such as Amazon. Or they point the blame at us, the consumer. How could we dare to let our high street die a long and slow death? Why have we chosen convenience and better customer service? My viewpoint on this matter is actually very different, these retailers failed to notice and act promptly when the internet changed the way we shop. In 2002 Philip Beeching, advertising executive who had held the HMV account for many years, told the MD and assembled directors in a pitch for their future business: “The three greatest threats to HMV are, online retailers, downloadable music and supermarkets discounting loss leader products.” The meeting came to a very abrupt end and Philip was chucked out of the building. The MD had dismissed his opinion as rubbish, saying that users downloading music from the internet was a passing fad. Consumers would always want to buy their music from a store. (For the full story see The Media Briefing blog article written by Patrick Smith.) It’s that unwillingness to look ahead and see the writing on the wall which, in my opinion, the high street law firm is suffering from at the moment. I am not a lone voice in this opinion. Take Richard Susskind in his recent article on legal futures where he says that there is no future for the high street firm. Interestingly the first comment on his article, says: “Susskind spouts alarmist rubbish in a vain effort to convince the wealth of doubters that he is worth listening to. He isn’t.” This comment neatly sums up where many of the partners in high street law firms are sat – head in the sand and like the HMV CEO, chucking out people who are trying to show they how they will need to change and adapt to remain in business. Cobbetts may have ultimately collapsed because of high debts, high overheads and two quarter’s disastrous trading conditions, but how much of their commercial woes are down to their inability to adjust to the changing legal market place? This was a firm with a very strong property specialism, which makes you wonder whether the partners just refused to adapt to the changing ways consumers are now buying legal services. Let’s look dispassionately, at the typical high street law firm. How many of them are acting in a truly client centric way? Very few (excluding the great work being done by Quality Solicitors in this space) I would suggest. Can you ring or speak to your lawyer about your house purchase outside of 9-5, mon to friday? I doubt it. Does your solicitor come to your house at a time convenient to you to help you with writing your will? It’s no wonder that we now have a thriving will writer’s industry all prepared to come to you and work with you at a time and a place convenient to you. How long will it take for us, the consumers, to vote with our feet and choose a legal service that’s transparent, efficient (after all the billable hour rewards anything but efficiency), client centric, and delivered in a way that convenient for us rather than the firm of solicitors. In ten years time, will we be moaning the end of the high street law firm and pointing the finger squarely at the Quality Solicitors, BT Legal, Rocket Lawyer, Co-op or any of the 450+ companies that applied to be an ABS in the last 12 months? Or will we be telling partners in law firms, you didn’t listen to us? Heather Townsend helps professionals become the ‘Go-To-Expert’. She is the author of the award-winning book, ‘The FT Guide To Business Networking’ and the co-author of ‘How to make partner and still have a life’. Over the past decade she has worked with over 300 partners, coached and trained over 1000 professionals from UK and international mid-tier and UK based professional practices. Heather regularly blogs at Partnership Potential, How to make partner and Joined Up Networking.
Of course, for lawyers, language is everything – writing clauses, interpreting phrases, arguing over construction and meaning; it’s all part of the day job, right? So why do I (Victoria) so often see boring law blogs or blawgs? Maybe I’m not the target audience, but having been a practising solicitor, I’m pretty certain I have the mental capacity to choose between an intellectually stimulating blog, with challenging or complicated legal concepts, and one which is frankly; RUBBISH. The point I’m making is that you can’t fob me off with the old ‘I’m writing it for other lawyers’ excuse sometimes given for yawn-worthy content. Much will depend on the audience you’re writing for. Hang on – you have thought about your audience, haven’t you? Or are you just writing, writing, writing without a second thought? If so; how are you getting along with the old reader numbers? It’s easy to sit down and ‘bash out’ a case report, client update letter or particulars of claim. What may need a little more consideration is your personal, or indeed firm’s blog. If you are trying to attract a loyal audience, you should think about the following: Why are you writing? Is it a hobby, to increase your knowledge and understanding of a particular area of law, or are you striving to become that ‘go to’ expert? Who is the blog aimed at? Is it clients or potential clients, is it other lawyers, is it your colleagues? What is the blog about? Is it strictly case law, criticism of LASPO, your journey to obtain a training contract? A blog featured on a specialist employment law firm’s website, written with the aim of attracting corporate clients, will (should) be very different to a blog discussing one man or woman’s personal crusade to find a job. So next time you sit down to scribble, have a think about what you are trying to achieve. By Victoria Moffatt
Well hopefully this week’s blog will provide a handy check list for those of you wanting to write and issue your own press release. A word of warning, a disclaimer if you will – we here at LexRex are not suggesting you should write or issue your own press release. At the end of the day, we’re the pro’s and we’re blummin’ good at our jobs. But, if you insist, these are our handy tips: 1. Get your title right. It must be interesting but to the point. Avoid using clichéd terms. 2. Get your facts right – there is nothing more embarrassing than grovelling to a busy journalist, begging them to change a spelling or add an extra decimal point. You’ll likely annoy the journalist and look a bit daft in the process. 3. Get your layout right – use a simple font, Arial will do. Apply a decent sized text, 12 is fine; and use 1.5 line spacing. It’s just what journalists expect to see. 4. A picture says a thousand words – it’s true, a nice image usually goes far. If you are going to send an accompanying pic, have it professionally taken. For the sake of £100 quid or thereabouts, it’s worth it. 5. Don’t waffle – keep it to the point, 300 – 500 words is fine. 6. Write a quote – and make sure it’s interesting and relevant. 7. Include contact details – if the journalist wants more information (generally acknowledged as a good thing), make it easy for them. Have we missed anything? By Victoria Moffatt
“I don’t want to blow my own trumpet..?!” Well we say – more fool you – and we’re very serious! Apologies if this comes across as a bit blunt, but if you don’t blow your trumpet, it will simply wait silently in the corner, forgotten about. The time has now gone for lawyers to sit back and wait for the work to come in. But wait, you know that – it’s the reason you network isn’t it? Our view is that networking alone, as powerful as it is, just isn’t enough. Your networking activities need to be supported by your reputation and brand. After a networking event, most people sift through the cards they have been given and make a number of decisions. These are usually along the following lines: Did I like this person? If yes, is it likely that we can help each other out in the future (or more commonly – can they help me out?) If the answer is ‘yes’ to both of the above, the next move is usually to look that person up on LinkedIn, perhaps also on Twitter, and Google their business. Consider this; if somebody liked you and thought there may be value in following up after that initial meeting, what would they think if there was no trace of you or your company on Google, LinkedIn or Twitter? Or what about if they tracked you down on LinkedIn – what would they think of your slightly crappy profile, complete with blurry photograph. How about if they found your dusty website, last updated 12 months ago and still showing contact details for long-retired partners. Well – we wouldn’t be impressed. We would probably think: This person isn’t serious about their business – will it still exist in 6 months’ time? How will we keep in touch if they don’t use LinkedIn? How can I find out more about their business when their website is so out-of-date? Are they actually doing any business at the moment? Are they struggling financially? Now we’re not suggesting you need to spend all your time shouting from the rooftops about how great your business is (although we do think it makes good sense to spend some time doing that) – we’re simply saying get the basics right. Ensure you have a good professional photograph on your LinkedIn page. Make sure your profile is correct, up to date and interesting. Try to make the person you are describing on your profile actually sound like you. Don’t be afraid to include a little personal information (not your birthday). Keep your website fresh; when people move on – take down their profiles, when you have news – announce it. Think about writing a blog or creating regular newsletters. For more tips on Legal PR, tune in next Monday. Before then, we would love to hear what you think. Do you agree with what we say, or do you have different views. All thoughts welcomed. By Victoria Moffatt
“I can’t write a blog!?” First up, why do you say that? If it’s because you truly are a terrible writer, then that’s fair enough and in that case STEP. AWAY. FROM. THE. KEYBOARD. Otherwise, you may be missing a trick. Done well, a blog can be a wonderful thing. It can be somewhere that you escape into the deepest depths of the most obscure case law, it can be a safe place to explore your opinions and thoughts on the demise of legal aid or the state of the PI market or simply where you deposit your thoughts on what it’s like to be a lawyer. All very interesting subjects. A blog can also be used to showcase expertise, explain difficult legal concepts or shout about good news. Written well, it can be something that clients turn to, in order to discover more about you and/or your firm’s personality and hopefully, like what they see. The good thing about legal blogs is that they can be whatever you want them to be. A firm blog can be used to talk about interesting cases, new instructions and that charity walk you did where you all wore matching T-shirts and raised £1,000. A personal blog could cover your fight to get a training contract, or even your day to day experiences. Done badly though, a blog can be a terrible, awful thing. Turgid, long-winded, pompous posts can be enough to send the most intellectual of us running for the hills in tears; blogs that have been left to moulder like Miss Havisham’s wedding breakfast, with the first (and last) post written 18 months ago; or posts that are shoddily written, with dodgy grammar and spelling mistakes. That said though, the point of this post is to celebrate the legal blog, or blawg if you prefer. If you have a passion for a particular area of law, trend or something else entirely then why not turn it into a blog? Our top tips for legal bloggers are: 1. Choose a topic you are passionate about 2. Try to keep posts to less than 1000 words 3. Blog as regularly as you are able 4. If it is a blog for your firm – mix up your content 5. Enjoy! – it’s supposed to be fun… By Victoria Moffatt
Some people want to do everything themselves, and that’s just fine. We also know that not everyone can afford to pay for external legal PR assistance. So here at LexRex, we thought we would put together a mini-guide to help you kick-start your PR. Essentially this guide can be broken down into three very simple steps: Consider what you are trying to achieve Define your target audience Get brainstorming and plan your campaign For more information on each, read on… Firstly, you need to think about what you are trying to do. Sounds obvious perhaps but consider whether you want to become a ‘go to’ expert for your particular specialism, or if you want to grow your business in a currently obscure sector. Maybe you simply have some great news that you want to shout about but don’t know where to start. Once you have decided upon the outcome that you would like to achieve, you need to think about who you need to aim your efforts towards; in other words, who do you need to speak to? This may be potential clients, referrers or even your colleagues. Next up, spend some time thinking about how you are going to get there. If your aim is to become that ‘go to’ expert, have a think about how you might achieve that aim. You could consider writing a blog specialising in your niche, or running a series of seminars; you could carry out research and write a white paper – there are lots of different things you can do, so put your thinking hat on. At this stage, try and involve other people, it’s often easier to come up with great ideas when there are a few of you. Have a look at what your competitors are doing on the PR front. Check out the things that you like, and those that you don’t. This research will help you to define your approach. Once you’ve decided upon a strategy, and come up with some clever tactics, you are ready to crack on. DO let us know how you get on, and whether this guide was helpful. By Victoria Moffatt
Legal blogger, Charon QC has stated on a number of occasions that ‘there are no rules on Twitter’. That’s the long and short of it, and here at LexRex, we tend to agree. However, we have created our own good conduct rules, which we try follow as a matter of course. So these are our rules: Be nice at all times. You wouldn’t be mean face-to-face, so why do it in cyber-space? Be yourself. As in real life, tweeps can spot a fake a mile off. Spell correctly and sort out your grammar, but don’t be afraid to throw in a few silly made-up words and emoticons. Why? Like with email, it can be difficult to read humour into 140 characters. A little silliness never goes amiss. Don’t shout, or rather, don’t broadcast (excessively – see point 5). You wouldn’t walk into a networking event and start shouting at the room. Don’t do it on Twitter – people will think you’re weird and rude. Not good. OK, a little broadcasting is ok – for example, if you want people to read your latest blog post. We try and stick to the 80:20 rule of 80% conversational and/or interesting content tweets, to a maximum of 20% promotional tweets. Don’t engage in arguments. If you disagree with something posted on Twitter, not a problem, but think long and hard before you enter into this sort of dialogue with a fellow user. Why? Everybody can see the argument, and it is easy to enter into a virtual slanging match. Uncool. Don’t pester people. If you @ mention them, and they don’t reply, that’s ok. Don’t challenge them about it – they may have put their phone or laptop down to make a cup of tea, or go to a meeting. Or they may have chosen not to reply. Respect their right to ignore you. We’re not suggesting that these are hard and fast rules, or that everyone should follow them, but we like them. All thoughts welcome as ever… If you are interested in Twitter, you may like to read this related post: LexRex founder, Victoria Moffatt, recently wrote about etiquette around ‘following back’ when you gain new followers: http://www.vicmoffatt.com/2013/01/tweet-tweet-to-follow-or-not.html By Victoria Moffatt
