The Fundamental Shift in Thought Leadership That Attorneys and Legal Execs Can’t Ignore Wayne Pollock
Lead Scoring for Law Firms: Using Engagement Data to Prioritize BD Targets
Robyn Addis
Value Billing is Coming and Will Reshape the Legal Industry
James J. Stapleton
Law Firm of the Month
Bryant Dieringer Wilson, LLP
What Makes a Law Firm Business Development Plan Effective?
Steven M. Bell Lead Magnet Ideas for Law Firm Marketing
The Modern Firm
AI and Law Firm Recommendations: What are LLMs Actually Crawling? Katie Hollar Barnard
Serving Orange County
“When Elders are Harmed, We Fight Back—And Win”
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Hollar Barnard
California Case Summaries New California Civil Cases
by Monty A. McIntyre, Esq.
These recent case summaries were provided by Monty A. McIntyre, a mediator, arbitrator and referee at ADR Services, Inc., and come from his online publication California Case Summaries™ (https://cacasesummaries.com), which helps California civil lawyers and law firms win more cases by always knowing the new case law in their practice areas. At ADR Services, Monty handles cases in the areas of business, employment, insurance, probate, real property and torts. To schedule a matter, contact Monty’s case managers, Rachael Boughan, rboughan@adrservices.com, (619) 233-1323, or Haward Cho, haward@adrservices.com, (213) 683-1600.
The California Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal’s decision, which had reversed the trial court’s order denying defendant’s motion to compel arbitration in an employment case. The trial court denied defendant’s motion to compel arbitration, finding the employment arbitration agreement was unconscionable based on a very high degree of procedural unconscionability (including the agreement’s tiny, blurry print and rushed presentation) and a low-to-moderate degree of substantive unconscionability (including a perceived one-sided carveout tied to later confidentiality agreements). The Court of Appeal reversed and directed the trial court to grant the motion to compel arbitration, reasoning that illegibility goes only to procedural unconscionability and that, properly construed, the confidentiality agreements did not create substantive onesidedness. The Supreme Court held that format/legibility generally does not itself establish substantive unconscionability, but concluded the Court of Appeal erred by using a proarbitration interpretive presumption and by directing an order compelling arbitration rather than remanding. The California Supreme Court reversed and remanded for further trial-court proceedings (including consideration of unresolved validity/assent and related issues) consistent with the clarified unconscionability framework. (February 2, 2026.)
CALIFORNIA COURTS OF APPEAL
Attorney Fees
Chong v. Mardirossian Akaragian LLP (2026) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2026 WL 63123: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order granting defendant law firm’s motion for summary
judgment, ruling that although the firm lacked the client’s consent to settle when the settlement was entered, the client later ratified the settlement and that ratification related back, entitling the firm to its full contingency fee (with prejudgment interest). Defendant was awarded $2,761,380.29 in attorney fees plus $522,770.90 in prejudgment interest. The Court of Appeal affirmed, holding there were no triable issues of material fact that the client’s ratification was involuntary (including no sufficient showing of duress or loss-minimization), and also upheld the denial of a motion continuance and the award of prejudgment interest. (C.A. 2nd, January 8, 2026.)
Employment
Spilman v. The Salvation Army (2026) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2026 WL 35953: The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s order granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment in plaintiff’s action alleging wage and hour issues. The trial court granted summary judgment for defendant, holding California’s wage-and-hour laws did not apply because plaintiffs, who performed full-time “work therapy” while enrolled in defendant’s six-month residential substance-abuse rehabilitation program, were volunteers rather than employees due to the absence of any express or implied agreement for compensation. The Court of Appeal disagreed and reversed, holding that while nonprofit volunteers can fall outside the wage laws, the trial court had applied the wrong standard. When the question is whether a nonprofit organization has properly classified a worker as an unpaid volunteer rather than an employee, the nonprofit must establish that (1) the worker freely agreed to work for the nonprofit to obtain a personal or charitable benefit, rather than for compensation, and (2) overall, the nonprofit organization’s use of the volunteer labor is not a subterfuge to evade the wage laws. (C.A. 1st, January 6, 2026.)
Torts
Fisher v. Fisher (2026) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2026 WL 538717: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s judgment for
plaintiff Todd Fisher, following a jury trial, in a wrongful death action related to the death of his brother Wade Fisher. Plaintiff and his brother Wade had been engaged in a feud with their brothers Brittin and Kent Fisher over the division of their parents’ estate. Plaintiff alleged that Brittin and Kent Fisher falsely reported their mother was missing, even though they knew she had died of natural causes, with the intent to cast suspicion on Todd and Wade, and this act was very upsetting to Wade Fisher who had been sober for 15 years. After this event Wade relapsed and drove his motorcycle drunk with marijuana in his system without a helmet and he crashed and died. The jury found Brittin and Kent liable for negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and they conspired to make false statements to SDPD requiring law enforcement intervention, and acted with malice, oppression, or fraud. The jury found defendants’ conduct was a substantial factor in causing severe emotional distress and harm to Wade. They awarded about $5.1 million to Wade’s estate and $4.3 million to Todd, including $80,000 in punitive damages against each defendant. The Court of Appeal affirmed, concluding that defendants’ intentional infliction of emotional distress could be a legal cause of Wade Fisher’s relapse and subsequent death, and it rejected defendants’ other appellate challenges (including claims regarding curtailed cross-examination and damages). (C.A. 4th, February 26, 2026.)
Trial
Jogani v. Jogani (2026) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2026 WL 508478: The Court of Appeal affirmed in part (conditionally affirmed and modified in part, and dismissed in part) the trial court’s judgment, following a five-month jury trial, in favor of brothers Shashi Jogani, Rajesh Jogani, and Chetan Jogani related to their claims of ownership in the family’s diamond and real estate partnerships, awarding declaratory relief and compensatory damages, punitive damages, prejudgment interest, and related relief totaling about $6.85 billion against Haresh Jogani and related entities. The Court of Appeal ruled that defendants failed to show reversible error on most issues raised on appeal. However, it concluded the trial court abused its discretion in admitting an undisclosed damages-expert opinion regarding approximately $1.98 billion in alleged lost profits, so it conditionally affirmed the judgment and ordered through remittitur a reduction of economic damages relating to the real estate partnership for the purported $1.98 billion in lost investment profit. If any of the prevailing parties do not agree to the reduction, then the Court of Appeal reversed and remanded for a new trial as to that individual’s economic damages arising out of the real estate partnership and his punitive damages. The Court of Appeal otherwise affirmed the judgment. (C.A. 2nd, February 24, 2026.)
For decades, the billable hour has done more than price legal work. It has protected the legal profession from scrutiny. It has allowed firms to monetize effort rather than outcomes, to reward labor intensity rather than efficiency, and to postpone a harder conversation about what clients are actually buying. That conversation is now arriving. Artificial intelligence, workflow automation, better knowledge systems, and increasingly sophisticated legal operations functions are beginning to reduce the time lawyers spend on many tasks. Once that happens, the hourly model becomes awkward. It reveals too much. It exposes how quickly some matters can now be completed, how unevenly firms are progressing technologically, and how vulnerable certain economics may be.
That is why value billing, alternative fee arrangements, fixed fees, subscriptions, success fees, and hybrid pricing models are no longer side issues. They are becoming a strategic necessity.
Many firms will describe this transition in elevated terms. They will say value billing aligns incentives, improves predictability, rewards innovation, and better serves the client. All of that may be true. But let us also acknowledge the less-advertised reality: value billing gives firms a way to avoid disclosing just how much less time some work may now require.
This shift will not simply alter pricing. It will alter competition, client behavior, law-firm economics, business development, and perhaps even the profession’s structure.
Below are ten trends likely to accompany the rise of value billing.
1. Firms will migrate to value-billing in part to conceal the shrinking time needed to do legal work.
As AI and process improvements reduce the number of hours required to execute legal tasks, firms will have a strong incentive to move away from time-based billing. Under an hourly model, efficiency can reduce revenue. Under a value-based model, efficiency can expand margins.
That is not a subtle distinction. It is the entire game.
The billable hour worked well when firms could plausibly sell time as the core unit of value. But when time becomes easier to compress, it also becomes more dangerous to display. Value billing allows firms to monetize results, judgment, and certainty instead of exposing the diminishing labor required to produce them.
2. Firms with a history of AFAS will market that history aggressively.
The firms that experimented early with AFAs will use that history as a competitive credential. They will describe themselves
Value Billing Is Coming And Will Reshape the Legal Industry
by James J. Stapleton
as forward-thinking, client-centered, and operationally mature. They will argue that they have already learned how to scope matters, price risk, and align incentives.
Some of those claims will be fully deserved. Some will be marketing retrofitted as a strategy. Either way, firms with a prior record of fixed-fee or hybrid pricing will trumpet it loudly, because in the coming market, pricing confidence will signal management confidence.
3. “Value for fees” will become a much more important competitive measure.
For years, many law firms have preferred to compete on reputation, expertise, relationships, and rates, while leaving the phrase “value for fees” somewhat imprecise. That will change.
Once clients become more accustomed to fixed or scoped pricing, they will ask sharper questions. What exactly am I getting? What degree of certainty is being provided? What assumptions underlie the price? How is risk being shared? What process advantages enable this firm to deliver the work at this price point?
In other words, “value” will become less rhetorical and more comparative.
4. AI maturity will create real pricing disparities among firms.
Some firms will be well ahead of others in their use of AI, automation, knowledge management, and matter design. Those firms may know far more about their own delivery economics than their competitors do.
That matters because firms with stronger internal systems can price with greater confidence. They may choose to retain the spread as profit. They may selectively pass savings to clients. Or they may use aggressive pricing to win market share in strategic practices or industries.
Whatever path they choose, unequal AI maturity will produce unequal pricing power.
5. More legal projects may move forward because pricing certainty lowers the client’s resistance.
One underappreciated consequence of value billing is that it may stimulate demand.
Clients often defer or avoid legal projects because the final cost is uncertain. A fixed-fee arrangement lowers that barrier. It makes spend easier to budget, easier to explain internally, and easier to approve. The matter that feels too risky under an open-ended
hourly structure may suddenly become manageable when the price is scoped and known in advance.
In that sense, value billing may not merely reprice existing work. It may bring additional work into the market.
6. Client legal planning will become more important.
If firms are going to price work based on value rather than simply recording time after the fact, they will need a much deeper understanding of what is coming. That means more dialogue with clients about business priorities, legal risk, likely projects, timing, staffing, and budget sensitivity.
The accounting and consulting professions learned long ago that periodic client planning conversations were essential. Quarterly meetings with the client in the room were not ceremonial. They were part of the commercial infrastructure.
Law firms will need more of that discipline. Client planning will no longer be optional relationship maintenance. It will become a core input into pricing, staffing, and growth.
7. Consolidation will continue and likely accelerate.
If AI and value billing reduce the legal labor required to handle certain categories of work, the threshold volume of work needed to support existing firm structures may decline. That has consequences.
The accounting profession offers a cautionary analogue. Major market shifts, increasing process discipline, service-line evolution, and relentless client pressure contributed to dramatic consolidation. Law will not follow the exact same path, but it would be unwise to assume immunity.
As value billing expands, firms with better systems, stronger brands, clearer sector positioning, and better cost discipline will gain a relative advantage. Weaker firms will find it harder to sustain margins, justify headcount, and compete for premium work. Consolidation, combinations, and strategic mergers are therefore likely to increase.
8. Marketing and business development investments will rise.
If firms can no longer rely on the passive monetization of lawyer time, winning the work becomes even more important. That sounds obvious, but it has profound implications.
Firms will need sharper market positioning, better industry narratives, more disciplined key-client programs, stronger client listening, more sophisticated pursuit strategies, and better crossselling. They will need professionals who understand pricing, growth, client experience, and sector-based differentiation. This is already happening. The firms that view marketing and business development as overhead will be at a disadvantage compared to those that understand these functions as essential to revenue capture in a more competitive, more transparent market.
9. The in-house versus outside counsel balance may shift in both directions.
AI creates a more complicated sourcing question than many assume.
Some legal departments may pull more work in-house because technology gives them greater capacity and lowers the cost of handling repeatable matters. Others may push more work outside because firms with better systems, specialized talent, and scalable delivery can handle that work more efficiently.
The result may not be a simple move in one direction. Instead, work may migrate toward whichever provider—law department, law firm, or alternative legal services provider—can best combine expertise, speed, process, and price certainty.
10. Yet many legal departments may still resist disciplined bidding and continue to “lead-pipe” work.
For all the rational arguments in favor of disciplined sourcing, legal buyers often default to trust, familiarity, and speed. General counsel and senior in-house lawyers frequently send work to firms they know, especially when the stakes are high or the time frame is short.
That tendency may persist. It may even intensify in a period of uncertainty.
So, while value billing may increase pricing sophistication, it may not immediately produce a correspondingly rational procurement culture. Many legal departments will continue to rely heavily on established outside counsel relationships, even while saying all the right things about competition and discipline.
Additional Trends Worth Watching
Three additional developments seem likely:
First, strategic pricing will become a more important leadership capability. Pricing will no longer be a finance-side afterthought. It will become part of the competitive strategy.
Second, legal project management will matter more than many firms currently believe. Under value billing, poor scoping, and sloppy staffing do not merely annoy clients. They destroy profitability.
Third, some legal services will become more productized. Subscription compliance packages, workflow-based regulatory support, managed services, and modular offerings will become more common, particularly where the work is recurring, dataheavy, or operationally repeatable.
Conclusion
The biggest misconception about value billing is that it is just a different way to send an invoice.
It is not. It is a different way of thinking about the product, the client, the economics, and the firm itself. It shifts the focus from effort to outcome, from activity to predictability, from hours to judgment, from internal timekeeping to external value.
Some firms will thrive in that world. They will know how they create value, how they price it, how they deliver it, and how they explain it. Others will struggle because the billable hour has long concealed weak process, weak planning, weak pricing discipline, and weak business development.
The billable hour did not merely measure legal work. It hid a great deal. Value billing will expose it. n
James J. Stapleton is the Managing Principal of Client Sciences and the creator of the Sector Leadership Index™. With more than three decades of experience building AmLaw 100 law firms and global professionalservices firms—and advising on more than 7,500 law-firm transitions— Mr. Stapleton brings a data-driven, client-centered perspective to the assessment of industry expertise, market positioning, and sector credibility. Learn more at www.clientsciences.com.
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There’s a new audience reading the thought leadership produced by attorneys and legal industry executives. The sooner they realize that and plan accordingly, the sooner they can take advantage of the opportunities this new audience offers.
Attorneys and legal industry executives write their thought leadership for human readers.
Makes perfect sense, right?
Even with search engine optimization (SEO) driving how certain types of online content are written, attorneys and legal industry executives write thought leadership because it’s an effective way to position themselves as authorities. Thought leadership is about demonstrating knowledge and wisdom and providing insights to other humans. It’s not about writing content around specific keywords or trying to get to the top of Google search results.
But times have changed. Today, the readers of thought leadership are no longer just humans. AI systems are now consuming thought leadership content at a scale that no human audience ever could.
They’re evaluating our expertise, ranking our authority, summarizing our insights, and deciding whether our names and perspectives should appear first, fifth, or not at all when someone asks an AI platform to tell them who the “best” people are who do what we do, or asks questions that our published content could answer.
And because of that, the legal industry’s traditional approach to publishing thought leadership is no longer enough.
AI Platforms Are a New Thought Leadership Middleman
One of the reasons thought leadership is and has been an effective marketing and business development tool is that no middleman filters its substance. Whether the thought leadership appeared in an email newsletter, a blog post, or a contributed article in a third-party publication, it was discoverable and digestible in its original form.
When clients and referral sources discovered and digested thought leadership, they used it to evaluate the author’s expertise. They used it to determine who was knowledgeable and wise about the topics they covered in that thought leadership. They used it to decide whom to trust.
The Fundamental Shift In Thought Leadership That Attorneys and Legal Execs Can’t Ignore
by Wayne Pollock
They used it to decide whom to work with.
But now AI sits between thought leaders and their audiences. It’s the new thought leadership middleman.
It decides which content gets surfaced, summarized, or sidelined. AI platforms are shaping the visibility of attorneys, legal industry executives, and other professionals in the eyes of people using those platforms to find them.
But many law firms and organizations that serve the legal industry don’t seem to realize what’s happening.
They need to wake up, or they risk becoming invisible to AI platforms, leaving them invisible to clients, referral sources, and other target audiences.
To be fair, searches on AI platforms pale in comparison to searches on Google. As of when I’m writing this, Google processes roughly 16.4 billion searches daily, while ChatGPT handles roughly 800 million AI searches. The latter’s share of searches is small (i.e., 4.9 percent).
But an October 2025 Pew Research study found that users click links in search results 47% less when AI Overviews appear in Google results (8% click rate with AI Overviews vs 15% without). More concerning is that 26% of users end their browsing session after receiving AI-generated answers. That’s 63% higher than the 16% who end their sessions after a search when there are no AI Overviews.
And therein lies the rub. Even though AI searches account for a relatively small (but growing) share of online searches, they often provide answers without citing the original source.
Compare that to Google’s results, which, even when they display an AI overview at the top of the search results, will show a user links to other websites. If the user is searching for an answer to a question that’s answerable by thought leadership, the user could visit the websites where particular pieces of thought leadership live, consume that content, and find “new to them” thought leadership content creators whom they then followon social media, subscribe to their email newsletters, and/or generally become a new fan of.
A New AI-Imposed Structure on Thought Leadership
Much of the thought leadership published today is not structured in a way that AI will interpret as expert-authored. That’s not because the ideas in the thought leadership are weak; it’s because
traditional thought leadership wasn’t designed to be evaluated the way AI platforms evaluate it today.
AI penalizes vague structure, shallow analysis, and recycled summaries—traits that many pieces of thought leadership exhibit.
AI rewards clarity, original insights, organized reasoning, and signals of genuine authority and expertise. In other words, AI is rewarding attorneys and legal industry executives who produce true thought leadership content—content that’s clear, original, organized, and shows that the author knows what they’re talking about.
When we discuss structuring thought leadership on AI, we should briefly cover AEO, GEO, and AIO.
AEO is “Answer Engine Optimization.” It’s the process of writing and structuring content so it’s easily understood by search engines’ built-in AI, which then summarizes it in the “AI Summary” section of its search results and, hopefully, includes a citation so users can see the content’s source.
GEO is “Generative Engine Optimization.” It’s the process of writing and structuring content to increase its visibility in AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude.
And finally, AIO is “Artificial Intelligence Optimization.” AIO is similar to GEO. It’s the process of writing and structuring content so AI platforms can more easily digest and understand it, and serve it up in answers to users’ questions.
AEO, GEO, and AIO offer opportunities for law firms and organizations serving the legal industry to be first movers. The firms and organizations that produce thought leadership that appeals to both humans and AI platforms will be the ones that AI models reference in their results.
The models will recognize the firms’ and organizations’ attorneys and leaders as trusted experts, cite their content more frequently, and recommend them as leaders in their fields more frequently.
Time for Attorneys and Legal Industry Executives to Get in the Game
Today, thought leadership has two audiences: humans and AI platforms. If an attorney’s or legal industry executives’ thought leadership doesn’t speak to both, they’re leaving visibility, credibility, and new business opportunities on the table.
But these attorneys and executives can’t play the AEO, GEO, and AIO game, let alone the “produce thought leadership for humans to consume” game, if they’re not consistently producing thought leadership.
They need to understand that, in today’s world, where AI is increasingly part of our everyday lives, building their authority—and perhaps a book of business—requires being seen as authoritative by both humans and AI platforms.
The most effective path to getting there is by regularly publishing thought leadership, whether by taking the time to write it themselves, working with an associate or another colleague, or hiring an outside ghostwriter. n
Wayne Pollock is the founder of the Law Firm Editorial Service. The Law Firm Editorial Service sets free the knowledge and wisdom trapped inside Big Law and boutique law firm partners by collaborating with them to strategize and ethically ghostwrite book-of-business-building marketing and business development content. Learn more at: www.lawfirmeditorialservice.com.
A well-respected law firm CMO asked me recently: “What makes an effective business development plan for a lawyer?”
At first blush, that seems like a simple question, but the more I thought about it, the less simple it became. I’d be curious to hear others’ views, but I ultimately landed here: An effective business development plan acknowledges the complexity of law firm sales and sweats the details. Call it sales management.
To understand why detail-management matters so much, it helps to look at how sales experts define what we’re dealing with. Miller Heiman, one of the pioneering professionalservices sales organizations, defines a complex sale this way (my paraphrasing): it unfolds over months or even years, involves multiple stakeholders, and requires hundreds of interdependent actions. Those actions must be identified, sequenced correctly, and completed on time. Miss or delay one step, and the pursuit can stall. Miss steps often enough, and the whole effort can crater. That’s why, in my opinion, accountability in complex sales must be binary. Every participant is given defined responsibilities, and for each, performance is judged simply by this: You had a task. Did you do it, yes or no?
Consider some of those hundreds of interdependent actions. Did you:
• Make the phone call?
• Complete a business and competitive intelligence dossier?
• Schedule the conference room?
• Notice and share information about an industry development?
• Monitor the client’s stock price today?
• Give to the client’s favorite charity?
Each task is small on its own. Together, they create a level of complexity that demands expert management. No matter how capable or motivated they are, most lawyer ... and, candidly, most professional staff under current firm structures ... don’t have the bandwidth, specialized expertise, or temperament required to oversee undertakings of this scale. But it would be wise to understand and emulate how parallel organizations have addressed the need.
For years, the Big Four accounting firms and major management consulting firms have employed client-facing senior sales managers whose sole job is to oversee complex pursuits and client expansions. These are not junior coordinators, but rather
What Makes a Law Firm Business Development Plan Effective?
by Steven M. Bell
seasoned professionals who design pursuit strategy, sequence actions, assign responsibilities, and enforce deadlines.
Under this scenario, partners, as owners of the business, remain responsible for the legal work and for the overall pursuit, but execution is tightly managed by sales experts and business administrators.
Law firms are now edging in the same direction. Some have invested in client or pursuit managers or senior BD leadership. Others are experimenting at the practice-group level. The direction of travel is clear: complexity demands professional management.
What Most Firms Can Do Right Now
Most firms don’t have Big Four-style sales leadership, and likely won’t anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean they’re stuck. Firm leadership can dramatically improve outcomes by introducing structure and discipline through four practical steps.
First, appoint a pursuit owner. Every major opportunity should have one person responsible for execution: someone who sweats the details and tracks tasks, deadlines, and dependencies. And, if possible, that person should be someone other than an attorney, given the client-service responsibilities that only lawyers can provide and which can create bottlenecks impairing the entire pursuit.
Second, standardize pursuit playbooks. Define required steps for complex opportunities: research, stakeholder mapping, content development, internal reviews, and follow-ups. Make them mandatory and uniform across the firm so that all personnel speak the same sales language.
Third, make accountability explicit. Tasks should be assigned to named individuals with deadlines and measurable outcomes that can be answered “yes” or “no.” No shared ownership. No ambiguity.
Fourth, review every major pursuit. Not just wins and losses, but process shortcomings and successes. Of course, examine what didn’t work: missed steps, unclear ownership, stalled momentum. Then, make room for celebration of what DID work: timely internal reviews, strong cross-practice collaboration, early client engagement, or crisp follow-up execution.
This last point deserves emphasis: professionals involved in the grueling nature of large campaigns can become discouraged during long pursuits. Recognizing successful completion of interim tasks
(even seemingly the smallest ones) and moving one step forward at a time creates positive energy, builds momentum, and reinforces the belief that a signed engagement letter, even if still months away, is achievable. Process reviews aren’t just about fixing problems; they’re about sustaining the human beings doing the work.
The Outsourcing Option
Increasingly, firms are outsourcing parts of this work. Standard pursuit components, such as research, competitive intelligence, pitch coordination, CRM hygiene, and even door-opening and pursuit management, can be handled by external specialists. For firms that cannot justify full-time senior sales leadership, outsourcing provides access to the same discipline, absent the headcount. It allows firms to professionalize their sales execution before making permanent investments. And it allows resource-constrained firms, especially small and middle-market firms, to compete effectively as never before.
Artificial Intelligence tools are accelerating this trend. External partners can now leverage AI to accelerate research synthesis, improve consistent competitive monitoring, and streamline CRM maintenance—tasks that once required significant staff time. However, the strategic judgment calls—which opportunities to pursue, how to position against competitors, when to escalate client engagement—still require experienced human oversight. The firms seeing the best results are those combining AI efficiency with seasoned pursuit management, whether in-house or outsourced.
Why BD Plans Fail
Understanding what makes plans effective means recognizing what makes them fail. The most common failure modes I’ve observed include pursuit ownership that’s shared (which means no one owns it), playbooks that exist but aren’t enforced, accountability structures that allow “partial credit” rather than demanding yes-or-no answers, and reviews that only happen after wins or losses rather than continuously throughout pursuits.
The bottom line: the most important component of business development effectiveness is understanding the complexity of law firm sales efforts and ensuring that pursuits and client expansions are guided by discipline and management. The specific mechanism—whether Big Four-style sales leadership, the pursuit of owners with standardized playbooks, or outsourced specialists supported by AI—matters less than the commitment to professional execution.
I’d be interested in other perspectives. What, to you, characterizes effective business development planning? What makes it work…or not? n
Steven M. Bell is a pioneer of law firm Sales and Business Development, in 2001, Steve created one of the legal profession’s first sales functions at Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice (now Womble Bond Dickinson) and has consulted with professional services firms around the globe on establishing and operating sales departments, navigating ethical requirements, and designing compensation systems for professional services salespeople. Learn more at www.LawVision.com.
“When Elders are Harmed, We Fight Back—And Win”
by Dan Baldwin
Bryant Dieringer Wilson, LLP is built on several guiding principles: focusing on elder litigation in both probate and civil courts; maintaining a commitment to zealous advocacy, integrity, and professionalism; handling complex, highstakes cases; and collaborating with other attorneys through referrals and joint ventures.
“People are living longer, and that presents a longer time frame for them to be taken advantage of, either physically by a nursing home or financially by fiduciaries, family members, or financial companies like life insurance companies. As a result of elders living longer, there remains a significant amount of wealth concentrated among elders, which makes them prime targets for financial elder abuse, particularly,” says Joel Bryant, Founding Partner of Bryant Dieringer Wilson, LLP.
Bryant points to a representative assisted living elder abuse case involving a 72-year-old grandmother with early-onset dementia who had been cruelly abused by her caregivers. She had been overmedicated, confined to her room, sexually assaulted through inappropriate touching by a male staff member, and had developed pressure sores after lying in bed for weeks without proper care. “We get a lot of tragic cases like this from other attorneys who are contacted by a potential client with a problem outside their practice area. We want other attorneys to think of us first when referring elder litigation cases. When they’re confronted with clients needing will and trust litigation, nursing home litigation, financial elder abuse, and related matters, we have expertise from years of representation of clients in these matters, and so we want them to think of us,” Bryant says.
Joel Bryant and partners, Rob Dieringer and Jessica Wilson, who have worked together for more than a decade, recently left their previous firm to form Bryant Dieringer Wilson, LLP. Their practice focuses on the intersection of civil litigation and probate litigation. They frequently accept cases referred by other attorneys whose matters have not settled and are heading toward trial. The firm currently includes four attorneys, three paralegals, and staff members.
Bryant Dieringer Wilson, LLP handles highstakes elder abuse, trust, and probate disputes across civil and probate courts—delivering trial-ready expertise when cases matter most.
Rob Dieringer, Partner; Jessica G. Wilson, Partner; Joel R. Bryant, Partner; and Madison Miller, Associate
Joel R. Bryant, Partner
Wilson says one of the firm’s goals is to become the goto resource for colleagues in the legal community who encounter cases that require elder law litigation expertise, as well as cross-over elder litigation in multiple forums.
“We want to be outward-facing to our contemporaries and let them know that if they’re looking for someone who has the requisite knowledge base and track record in this arena, we litigate in civil and in the probate division, we can do both. I believe we are unique because of our knowledge base, experience, and skill set, and the number of referrals we get supports this belief,” she says.
Dieringer explains that the partners’ decision to form their own firm was driven by a desire to concentrate their practice on elder litigation. “We wanted to focus all our efforts on doing what we do best: elder litigation. Joel and Jessica are truly hardcore litigators, and I’m an elder law specialist. It’s a very powerful combination.”
Wilson previously practiced corporate litigation on the defense side. She says her perspective changed after learning more about elder abuse litigation. “When I met Joel and learned about these types of cases, it really struck a chord with me. I thought this was a very important area of the law that might be underserved. I feel a connection to this work because what we’re doing really helps people and families directly.”
The firm’s clients typically include elders and their surviving family members or heirs, trustees, beneficiaries of wills or
trusts, and other interested parties. Typical clients also include families of dependent adults—elderly or not—who are under the care of another person or healthcare provider. Under California law, elders and dependent adults are protected equally. The Legislature provides a framework for litigating elder abuse cases that often includes enhanced remedies for nursing home and assisted living cases; this is designed to assist and incentivize litigators to take up this important cause.
The team recalls another representative case, this one involving trust and real estate matters and the son and daughter of an elderly man who had been taken advantage of financially by his girlfriend. When the children arrived to visit their father, they discovered he had been placed in hospice. Even more surprising, the girlfriend announced that she had married him—something the family had never heard before. Their father could barely talk and appeared heavily medicated. The children contacted the police, and their father was taken to the hospital. While at their father’s house, they discovered he had signed a will only a few days earlier, giving his house to his new wife. BDW obtained a restraining order preventing the wife from contacting the father, moved him closer to his daughter, obtained a conservatorship, and contested the trust. The case lasted more than a year and involved testimony from doctors, lawyers, neighbors, and family members. Ultimately, the father was taken off hospice and lived for several more years, spending his final days where he belonged: with his children and grandchildren.
In other undue influence cases, caregivers responsible for an elder’s physical and mental care have persuaded patients to sign deeds over their homes or grant access to funds and other resources. The typical fact patterns seen are expanding to crossover cases, which involve exploitation of finances in combination with a failure to provide adequate care for persons under the defendants’ care and custody. BDW attorneys have seen situations where an elderly person was unsupervised, eloped from the facility, and was severely injured outside in the rain or freezing weather, with no response for hours from caregiving staff.
“We represent extreme cases. If I had one message for the legal community, it’s that we are the people to go to when an elder has been abused, seriously hurt or killed, or had millions of dollars stolen from them,” Dieringer says.
Wilson adds that the firm’s narrow focus benefits both clients and referring attorneys. “Because we’ve taken this approach to a niche area of the law and dedicated our time to be on the cutting edge of this practice area, people can feel good about making referrals to the right attorneys. We bridge probate litigation, civil litigation, financial elder abuse, and nursing home elder abuse together in one place,” she says.
Team Work
All three partners graduated from the University of San Diego School of Law and have longstanding personal and professional roots in San Diego’s legal community. Associate Attorney Madison Miller joined the team in 2022 and serves as an integral member, bringing a balance of enthusiasm and a fresh perspective, along with an innate ability to understand and address complex legal issues. Together, the BDW attorneys bring more than 75 years of combined legal experience to their clients.
“During the decade we worked together at another firm, we discovered not only a real passion for representing elders and protecting the legal rights of this vulnerable population, but we also bonded over a commitment to integrity, perseverance, and winning for our clients,” Bryant says.
Dieringer says the partners’ complementary strengths contribute to the firm’s success. “Joel has been litigating in San Diego for 36 years; there is nothing he hasn’t seen. He was the first attorney in San Diego to regularly handle both financial elder abuse and nursing home abuse cases. Jessica has substantial prior litigation experience, including on the defense side, enabling her to accurately anticipate what strategies our opponents are likely to pursue. She has the technical aptitude to defeat any kind of motion. If an opponent thinks they can overwork and exhaust us with technicalities, they’re mistaken. We’ve been there and done that with tried-and-true results, and we repeatedly find success for our clients.”
Rob Dieringer, Partner
Dieringer adds, “And I’m the certified specialist. I know the Probate Code forward and backward. Prior to joining Joel and Jessica, I handled estate planning, probate administration and trust administration matters. That transactional experience uniquely positions me to successfully litigate disputes in probate court involving wills, trusts, and related matters.”
Bryant summarizes the firm’s role in the local legal landscape. “We are the premier elder litigation firm in San Diego, regularly handling complex litigation in probate and civil court. I’m not aware of any other firm in San Diego that is equally versed and comfortable litigating cases through trial in both civil and probate courts,” he says.
“Our family faced an issue we never expected. Our beloved mother, Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother was declared incompetent, moved out of her home, and all of her accounts were frozen. All of this by one other family member. We were all at a loss as to what to do until we found Mr. Bryant. He was a true advocate for our family. He was with us every step of the way and truly fought for us, never wavering in his commitment to our cause. A very resourceful and creative thinker, he explored all options and avenues to strengthen our case and bring about positive results. Mr. Bryant saw this case through to the very end, and now Grandma is back in San Diego and doing great. Forever grateful.” —Former Client
The firm regularly litigates disputes involving real property, business interests, and substantial estates. These cases frequently involve fraud, insurance-related issues, and other procedural complexities that accompany elder abuse litigation. The BDW attorneys also systematically handle cases involving parallel proceedings in probate and civil courts, coordinating strategy across both forums. Their experience navigating overlapping jurisdictions allows them to pursue cohesive litigation strategies involving tort claims, statutory elder abuse claims, breaches of fiduciary duty, and trust and estate disputes. A collaborative approach can be vital in these complex elder and probate matters, and the team often joint ventures cases with other firms with niche subject matter expertise. Whether handling a case in-house or jointventuring with other San Diego specialists, BDW attorneys secure the best combination of resources and strategies to maximize client results.
The firm prioritizes clear, efficient communication with both clients and referring attorneys. Bryant Dieringer Wilson handles cases on an hourly basis and on contingency,
including probate contingency matters. This approach allows clients with meritorious claims to pursue litigation even when they cannot afford high upfront legal costs.” Any time we can give voice to an elder or dependent adult who has suffered serious physical or financial injury, those cases speak directly to the goals and values of our practice,” Wilson says. Looking ahead, the firm plans to continue refining its specialized practice. The partners intend to build a concentrated litigation boutique devoted to elder abuse and trust and probate disputes, while serving as a resource for attorneys and clients confronting complex matters at the intersection of probate and civil litigation. n
Contact Bryant Dieringer Wilson, LLP
402 W. Broadway, Suite 2700 San Diego, CA 92101 619-693-4900
Madison Miller, Associate; Joel R. Bryant, Partner; Jessica G. Wilson, Partner; and Rob Dieringer, Partner
Your ideal client opens ChatGPT and types in “Make me a short list of the best lawyers for [your specialty] in [your location].”
Will you show up? It’s a complicated answer for many reasons:
• The longer one uses a given LLM, the more it tailors responses—and incorporates assumptions about one’s preferences.
• It’s only a matter of time before the companies behind these tools monetize the results. Google AI Overviews are already doing it.
• LLM responses are incredibly inconsistent, even within the same platform. Research shows that there is less than a 1 percent chance that ChatGPT or Google AI will give you the same list of brands in any two responses. Claude is the consistency leader at a whopping 1.65 percent.
• There is a considerable Big Law bias that will challenge many small firms.
All of this while experts predict everything from a deflated AI bubble to Skynet becoming self-aware.
At best, assessing AI visibility right now feels like being a meteorologist on the local news: I can tell you the current conditions and look about ten days out. (But a thunderstorm may still pop up tomorrow.) It’s dangerous to rely on sweeping one-size-fits-all “get seen on AI” advice. I saw a statistic last week claiming that something like 96 percent of AI results come from earned media; that’s not accurate.
To understand what the LLMs are looking at—right now—let’s take a look at an actual boutique law firm for which I did this analysis. To eliminate bias, we use special software that rotates IP addresses daily; to provide reliable trend data, it runs thousands of queries.
While every law firm’s context is different, this can help you see the sources LLMs use to recommend lawyers and law firms.
AI and Law Firm Recommendations: What are LLMs Actually Crawling?
by Katie Hollar Barnard
We set up an exercise based on this law firm’s practice areas (i.e., What are the best law firms for XYZ litigation?), and tracked the sources. This shows not only what resources the LLMs rely on, but also how different their outputs can be.
ChatGPT
Favorite source: Wikipedia. ChatGPT referenced law firm pages on Wikipedia in 35.6 percent of queries. No other source topped 9 percent.
Runner-up: Large law firm practice pages. Among the top 20 most frequently cited domains, 16 were law firms, and eight of those were AmLaw 200 firms. On these websites, the LLMs are crawling practice pages, not lawyer biographies or educational content. (This is a marked difference from human habits; your carbon-based lifeform clients will look at biographies more than anything else.)
Rankings: ChatGPT does not rely on rankings. It references Chambers in 4.1 percent of queries, the only lawyer ranking to make the top 20 most frequently cited sources. Legal 500 surfaced in 2.7 percent of answers, and Best Law Firms and Martindale both showed up in 1.4 percent.
Earned media: ChatGPT isn’t bullish on traditional news, either. It referenced a regional legal trade publication in 6.8 percent of answers; a national newspaper in 2.7 percent; and a global news site in 1.4 percent. These were the only three “earned media” sources cited in the top 100.
Wild card: ChatGPT loves lurking on Reddit. It was the No. 11 most-cited source. To be sure, some of the pages ChatGPT cited were dedicated to kvetching about associates, but in this LLM’s eyes, Reddit is a reliable source.
What I’d recommend: If you want to prioritize ChatGPT, I’d tell you to prepare to play a long game and earn a Wikipedia page. For a shorter turnaround and simpler actions, you should align your practice pages to accommodate both humans and robots (and that’s another article).
Perplexity
Favorite source: Awards and rankings, and it’s not close. Perplexity cited Super Lawyers in just more than half (50.7 percent) of all answers. Right behind it: Best Lawyers, with 45.2 percent, and Chambers, with 38.4 percent.
Runner-up: Law firm practice pages. Among the top 20 most frequently cited domains, 12 were law firms. The bigfirm bias is a little less pronounced on Perplexity: just three of the 12 were AmLaw 200 firms.
Rankings: As stated above, Perplexity favors rankings more than any other source. The platform tends to steer people toward resources that help them scout law firms on their own, rather than explicit recommendations. Other rankings and roundups in the top 20 include Avvo (27.4 percent); BTI Consulting’s client recommendations (20.5 percent); and Vault (17.8 percent).
Earned media: The only traditional earned media cited was Law360 (in 1.4 percent of answers).
Wild card: Perplexity also likes Reddit; Reddit chats surfaced in 17.8 percent of answers. Unlike ChatGPT, there were zero citations for Wikipedia. What I’d recommend: For Perplexity, work on your rankings game. I would prioritize Chambers department rankings in the practices and regions that matter most. Keep your lawyers active in Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers voting, and explore paid placements for your most lucrative niches.
Google AI Overviews
Favorite source: There’s a slight edge to law firm websites, but it’s less pronounced than the favoritism shown by the other LLMs to their preferred sources. Among the top five sources, three are law firms; one is Chambers; one is Vault.
On Google AI overviews, small law firms with smart SEO fare better. Of the 13 law firms cited most frequently, only two were Am Law 200 firms. One firm was a sole practitioner. Google AI overviews are more democratic— and reward firms that play Google’s original game.
Runner-up: Legal reference pages took three of the top 10 spots. This includes Vault (31.9 percent) as well as law firm lists maintained by BCG Search (16.7 percent) and BTI Consulting (16.7 percent). Like Perplexity, Google AI overviews often direct users to resources that help them scout lawyers themselves.
Rankings: Google AI overviews rely less on rankings than Perplexity does, but Chambers was the second-mostcited source, appearing in 36.1 percent of all answers. Other industry accolades that appeared: Super Lawyers (15.3 percent); Legal 500 (11.1 percent); Best Lawyers (5.6 percent); Best Law Firms (1.4 percent).
Earned media: Google AI overviews cited earned media more than the other LLMs. Law360 appeared in 22.2 percent of answers, ranking seventh-most-cited, but usage dropped afterward. The ABA Journal, Law.com, and a specific regional legal trade were each cited in 1.4% of answers. (Note that this is the LLM with the highest use of earned media, but it doesn’t approach the apocryphal claim that 96 percent of LLM answers use earned media).
Wild card: Pay-to-play newswires. Google AI overviews treat press releases posted on PR Newswire and EIN Presswire as “news.” Savvy law firms used this to announce rankings in Best Law Firms and major case results.
Interestingly, there were no Wikipedia citations, and Reddit was cited only once.
What I’d recommend: Specific to Google AI overviews, look to build a well-rounded online presence—just as you would for traditional Google results. Consider using paid newswires to share major accomplishments and rankings.
The Bottom Line
There is no magic answer to AI visibility, but this actual case study shows the sources each platform tends to favor. Without getting into tactical takeaways (which should be based on your firm’s context), here are the two primary lessons:
• While there’s no silver bullet to top all of the LLM charts, a well-rounded online presence will help you rise across all of them. Many of these pieces work together; for example, we know that Google AI likes earned media, but ChatGPT favors Wikipedia. What helps you get a Wikipedia page? Earned media mentions.
• If it’s worth saying, it’s worth repeating. LLMs pull from varied sources. If your firm ranks Band One in Chambers, it will obviously appear on that site, but it should be on your practice page and run as a newswire item. Demonstrate your firm’s strengths consistently and frequently across a variety of outlets. No one, human or bot, is scanning just one source.
A comprehensive approach and consistent messaging: These fundamentals have been key to effective law firm marketing long before generative AI, and they will be instrumental to your firm’s success with it. n
Katie Hollar Barnard is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer for Firesign to help legal industry clients attract, win, and retain business. She draws upon more than 10 years of experience at two of the nation’s largest law firms to build brands that connect and business plans that deliver. Learn more at www.firesignmarketing.com.
Most B2B law firms have a prioritization problem.
Marketing teams create content, host events, and track engagement. Business development professionals cultivate relationships, respond to RFPs, and pursue target accounts. But in too many firms, these functions operate in parallel rather than in unison, leaving valuable intelligence stranded in marketing’s domain while BD makes outreach decisions based on disconnected information, rather than insight.
This isn’t news to anyone who’s worked in legal marketing. Marketing handles brand, content, and events. BD supports partners in client acquisition. The two functions intersect at necessary intervals, then retreat to their respective silos. The result: marketing struggles to demonstrate ROI because it’s removed from the revenue engine, and BD operates without the engagement intelligence that could sharpen their focus.
Lead scoring offers a bridge between these worlds—not by qualifying inbound leads, but by helping marketing surface which targets, clients, and prospects deserve BD attention right now.
Reframing Lead Scoring for Law Firms: The B2B Reality
The opportunity for B2B law firms lies in using engagement data to prioritize where BD should focus proactive outreach, not just who responded to a campaign. Think of it as turning static target lists into dynamic priority queues.
Three use cases make lead scoring valuable for B2B legal marketing: prioritizing target prospect lists, identifying cross-sell opportunities with existing clients, and flagging dormant relationships ready for reactivation. In each case, marketing contributes concrete intelligence that BD can act on immediately.
What Data Can Marketing Actually Access?
Before building a scoring model, take inventory of the signals you can realistically track. Most firms have more data than they realize—it’s just scattered across platforms and disconnected from BD workflows.
Lead Scoring for Law Firms: Using Engagement Data to Prioritize BD Targets
by Robyn Addis
Website engagement shows who’s visiting, what pages interest them, and how often they return. Your CRM captures relationship history, past matters, and current touchpoints. Email platforms track opens, clicks, and replies across campaigns. Event management systems record attendance and session interests. And increasingly, optimized intake and CRM systems can consolidate these signals into actionable intelligence.
The key isn’t having perfect data. It’s aggregating what you have into patterns that BD can act on.
Building a Lead Scoring Framework for Target Prospects
Start with the list of companies your firm wants to pursue—the targets BD has identified as ideal clients. Without engagement data, that list sits static because there’s no systematic way to know which targets are showing interest right now. Lead scoring transforms that static list into a dynamic priority queue by layering engagement signals on top of firmographic fit.
Engagement Signals Worth Tracking
Not all engagement carries equal weight. A prospect who visited your homepage once matters less than one whose team members keep returning to your Intellectual Property practice page and downloading transaction-related content.
Consider weighting signals like this:
• Multiple website visits from the same company domain (+15 points)
• Practice area page views aligned with your capabilities (+10 points)
• Content downloads, especially bottom-funnel assets like case studies (+20 points)
• Webinar or event attendance (+15 points)
• Multiple individuals from the same company engaging (+25 points—this signals organizational interest rather than individual curiosity)
• Industry trigger events like M&A announcements, leadership changes, or regulatory developments (+20 points)
The specific point values matter less than the relative weighting. High-intent behaviors—actions that suggest genuine interest in hiring counsel—should count more than passive engagement.
Firmographic Fit Criteria
Engagement alone doesn’t make someone a good prospect. Layer firmographic fit criteria into your scoring model to ensure high scores represent genuinely valuable opportunities:
• Company size and revenue band matching your ideal client profile (+15 points)
• Industry alignment with your practice expertise (+10 points)
• Geographic footprint you can serve (+10 points)
• Known legal needs or challenges in your wheelhouse (+15 points)
Negative scoring matters too. Subtract points for disqualifying factors—too small, wrong industry, known existing counsel relationship—so your hot list stays focused on realistic opportunities.
Prioritizing Existing Clients for Cross-Sell Opportunities
The data consistently shows that revenue concentration is both the strength and vulnerability of most law firms. As industry research indicates, 80% of revenue often comes from 20% of clients—yet most firms leave substantial cross-sell opportunities untapped.
The challenge isn’t recognizing that cross-selling matters. It’s knowing which clients are ready for expanded conversations and when to initiate them. Marketing can surface these opportunities by applying the same engagement intelligence used for prospects.
Signals That Indicate Cross-Sell Readiness
When a client who works with your employment group starts engaging with content from your corporate practice, that’s a signal worth noticing. When new contacts from different departments at the same client organization begin visiting your website, something’s happening in that company that might require additional legal support. Watch for these cross-sell indicators:
• Engagement with content outside their current practice area relationship (+20 points)
• Website visits to practice pages they don’t currently use (+15 points)
• New contacts from different departments engaging with firm content (+25 points)
• Industry news suggesting new legal needs—regulatory changes, expansion plans, transaction activity
• Billing data showing matter completion, which creates natural timing for “what’s next” conversations
The goal isn’t to bombard clients with cross-sell pitches. It’s to ensure that when a client has emerging needs outside their current practice area relationship, your firm is positioned to discuss solutions before they start looking elsewhere.
Reactivating Dormant Relationships
Former clients and old prospects represent untapped opportunities precisely because they already know your firm. The relationship may have gone quiet due to timing, budget constraints, or a shift in their legal needs—not necessarily dissatisfaction.
Lead scoring can identify when dormant relationships show renewed interest, creating natural opportunities for reconnection.
Reactivation Triggers to Monitor
A prospect who ghosted 18 months ago, but just downloaded your data privacy and cybersecurity guide deserves fresh outreach. A former client whose successor started engaging with your content might be reconsidering their counsel relationships. Track these reactivation triggers:
• Website return visits after extended inactivity (+15 points)
• Content engagement after dormancy (+20 points)
• Event registration from a contact who went cold (+15 points)
• New stakeholders from a dormant account engaging (+20 points)
• Industry changes affecting their business that create new legal needs
The difference between a cold call and a warm re-engagement is often just a matter of timing. Lead scoring helps you identify the right moment.
Making This Work Without the Perfect Infrastructure
Most law firms don’t have enterprise marketing automation platforms. Many run on disconnected systems—one CRM (often underutilized), basic email marketing, Google Analytics, and maybe an event management tool. That’s okay. Lead scoring doesn’t require sophisticated technology. It requires intentional data collection, consistency, and discipline.
Start with what you have. CRM data, combined with Google Analytics and your email platform, provide meaningful engagement signals. Even a spreadsheet-based scoring model adds value if it surfaces actionable priorities that BD can act on.
The goal isn’t perfect data science. It’s giving BD a weekly or monthly “hot list” of prioritized targets based on observed engagement—replacing intuition-based outreach with signalinformed prioritization.
Lead Scoring for Law Firms: A Simple Implementation Path
If you’re starting from scratch, take it step by step:
Step 1: Define 5-7 engagement signals you can actually track today with your current tools.
Step 2: Assign point values, weighting high-intent behaviors more heavily than passive engagement.
Step 3: Overlay scoring on your existing target list and client roster.
Step 4: Generate a prioritized report for BD on a regular cadence—weekly or biweekly works for most firms.
Step 5: Track outcomes. Did BD follow up on the hot list? Did those follow-ups lead to conversations or opportunities?
Then iterate based on what actually predicts success. If certain signals consistently correlate with new matters or expanded relationships, weight them more heavily. If others prove meaningless, deprioritize or eliminate them.
Bridging the Marketing-BD Gap
Lead scoring gives marketing something BD values immediately: prioritized intelligence that sharpens outreach decisions. That’s different from brand campaigns or thought leadership initiatives, which require longer timeframes to demonstrate impact.
Regular “hot list” delivery creates a feedback loop. BD reports what worked—which targets responded, which conversations progressed—and marketing refines the model accordingly. Over time, this builds the case for deeper marketing-BD integration based on demonstrated value rather than theoretical alignment.
The firms that thrive are those that move from siloed functions to shared accountability for pipeline growth. Tracking marketing ROI becomes possible when marketing contributes intelligence that directly influences revenue-generating activity.
Lead scoring won’t solve every alignment challenge between marketing and BD. But it provides a concrete starting point—a deliverable that demonstrates marketing’s value to business development and creates opportunities for ongoing collaboration. Start with the data you have. Focus on the signals that matter. Deliver intelligence that BD can use. The sophistication can come later. The value starts now. n
As the Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer at Legal Internet Solutions Inc., Robyn Addis leads the strategic direction and execution of marketing communications, events, and business development efforts for their agency and its outsourced legal marketing services clients. Learn more at www.legalisi.com.
Monty A. McIntyre, Esq. Mediator, Arbitrator & Referee ADR Services, Inc.
To schedule, contact Haward Cho: (213) 683-1600 and (619) 233-1323 or haward@adrservices.com
Short summaries (one-paragraph), organized by legal topic, of every new published CA civil case, helping CA attorneys save time, win more, and make more money. Monthly, quarterly, annual, and annual practice area publications are available. Subscribe at www.cacasesummaries.com
Generating business is a priority for almost all law firms, especially small and solo practices. Sure, it’s nice for your website to get lots of views, but the end goal of your marketing efforts is to help the people you can best help connect with and become clients of your practice.
It’s frustrating and disheartening to prepare for a scheduled consultation only to have a prospective client cancel at the last minute, or worse, simply fail to show up. Lead magnets can improve lead quality by educating prospective clients beforehand and building trust.
When a prospective client has learned something useful from your firm, even before speaking to you, a consultation feels like a continuation of the value they’ve already received. That’s likely to increase their commitment and follow-through.
What is a Lead Magnet?
A lead magnet is something of value that you offer in exchange for the person’s contact information. It’s not a sales pitch or promotional material; it’s something your audience perceives as a benefit. Ideally, a lead magnet is genuinely useful content that answers a specific question or solves a problem.
If you’ve ever been online and clicked a button to get a free downloadable guide or eBook, you’ve been attracted by a lead magnet. Chances are that the offer addressed a particular need, interest, or pain point of yours. You can do the same for the people you hope will become your clients.
Seven Effective Law Firm Lead Magnets
When someone is facing a legal issue, they are often navigating uncharted territory. The legal knowledge you have can help them feel more in control of their situation. A lead magnet allows them to “sample” your knowledge with very little investment, boosts your credibility, and encourages them to come back for more. Some of the most effective law firm lead magnets include: eBooks: An eBook is an in-depth electronic guide that covers a legal topic, such as “Everything You Need to Know About Filing for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy” or “A Guide to Estate Planning for New Families.” eBooks are designed to educate, often for a broader audience, and are good for building awareness and credibility.
Whitepapers: Structured and research-driven, whitepapers analyze a legal issue in depth. They often provide statistics,
Lead Magnet Ideas For Law Firm Marketing
by The Modern Firm
data, and citations and are geared toward a more sophisticated audience. Whitepapers are good lead magnets for firms that want to demonstrate thought leadership, especially in technical or regulatory practice areas.
Downloadable Guides: Downloadable guides are similar to eBooks but tend to be shorter and narrower in scope. They are often built around a specific problem or decision, e.g., “What to Do After a Loved One’s Death.” While an eBook generally says, “Here’s what you need to know,” a downloadable guide says, “Here’s what you need to do right now.”
Downloadable Checklists: There’s a certain satisfaction in checking items off a list, especially for people facing an unfamiliar legal problem who want to know they’re on the right track. Checklists like “Documents to Bring to Your First Estate Planning Appointment” or “Seven Things to Do Before You File for Divorce” help users feel organized and in control.
Exclusive Webinars: Whether live and interactive or prerecorded, webinars are a popular and effective lead magnet. Many people appreciate learning by video, and actually seeing and hearing the attorney humanizes them and helps build trust. People also tend not to attend webinars unless the issue is timely for them, so webinar attendees may be higher-intent leads.
Case Studies: A case study is an account of a real matter (often with identifying details changed) that describes a legal issue the client faced, the strategic decisions the firm made, any obstacles encountered, and how they were addressed, and the outcome. Case studies signal experience with certain scenarios and reassure prospects that the firm has successfully handled cases like theirs.
Templates: When used properly, downloadable templates can be highly effective lead magnets. They work best when they help leads organize information and identify areas of concern, such as an “Incident and Timeline Organizer.” Templates are best as lead magnets when they help prospects identify knowledge gaps and the need for an attorney’s help to move forward.
The right lead magnets for your law firm depend on your goals, practice areas, and target audiences. It’s likely you will want multiple magnets in play for clients with different needs or people at different stages of the sales funnel.
Paige Silver-Dunn, Director of Marketing for The Modern Firm, counsels attorneys to put themselves in their clients’ shoes when planning lead magnets: which topics and formats would they likely take the trouble to download?
Getting the Most Out of Your Lead Magnets
Unlock the full potential of your lead magnets by observing these best practices:
Pay attention to both form and substance. Naturally, your lead magnets should provide genuinely helpful information; otherwise, the people who downloaded them won’t see the value in contacting you for more. But don’t underestimate the value of having an attractive, well-designed document or infographic bearing your law firm’s logo and branding. A polished appearance makes the lead magnet feel more valuable and makes your firm look more legitimate and trustworthy. Make access easy. How many times have you gone to take an action online, only to give up because you were asked to take one too many steps or provide more information than you were comfortable sharing? It’s the same for your prospective clients, so don’t make it inconvenient for them. Ask only for the minimum information you need, and make it convenient for them to provide their information.
Nurture the leads you’ve gathered. The purpose of a lead magnet is to attract high-quality leads; don’t just let those leads languish! Keep in touch through appropriate lead nurturing. Lead nurturing keeps your firm top-of-mind for prospects early in the sales funnel, and continues to build trust and showcase your knowledge for those who are closer to hiring a law firm.
Segment your contact lists. Your lead magnets may attract different pools of potential clients. An estate law firm, for example, might get contact information from young families making their first estate plan, older couples who need to update a plan, and people facing probate.
Segment contact lists so targeted messages reach the right people. Not only would an email about “securing your baby’s future” be irrelevant to an elderly widow, but it also comes across as insensitive, signaling a lack of understanding of her situation and needs.
Switch up your lead magnets. Lead magnets, like many aspects of law firm marketing, aren’t “set it and forget it.” It’s important to refresh your lead magnets from time to time, because stale or repeated content loses impact. Updating your materials ensures that your offers stay relevant to your target audience and ultimately attract prospects who are better matched and more committed to following through with services.
Key Takeaways
• Lead magnets motivate prospects to share contact information in exchange for value
• A lead magnet is not a sales pitch; it’s a useful resource to attract potential new leads
• There are a variety of options for lead magnets, from downloadable checklists to eBooks to webinars
• Once you’ve acquired leads from this marketing avenue, be sure to nurture them n
This article was provided by The Modern Firm, a website design and online marketing company that has worked with over a thousand small law firms, providing a one-stop shop for everything a small firm needs to succeed online. Learn more at www.themodernfirm.com.
