Category: News Feeds

The legal profession has been put through the wringer in 2020 thanks to the pandemic. Now that the fall is almost upon us, dozens of firms that cut salaries to combat the economic turmoil that COVID-19 brought with it have now either partially or fully rolled back those reductions. At other firms, the news is a little less celebratory: attorneys are being laid off.

This may come as a shock to some, but Baker McKenzie is conducting layoffs. The Biglaw behemoth has over 6,000 attorneys worldwide and was recently ranked by Am Law as the fourth highest-grossing firm in the country with $2.92 billion in revenue in 2019. If you recall, back in April, coronavirus cuts came to the firm, with salaries slashed by 15 percent for all U.S. attorneys and business professionals making over $100,000, while those in Canada sustained a 10 percent reduction to their salaries.

Yesterday afternoon, sources let us know that cuts were underway at the firm, and that midlevel and senior associates were the subject of layoffs across several offices. We reached out to Baker McKenzie for confirmation, and received this statement:

As a global firm, Baker McKenzie has felt the impact of increased market and business disruption around the world. Over the past seven months, we’ve been quick to maneuver and adapt by staying close to our clients as we realign to meet their changing needs.

As such, we can confirm that we are reducing the size of our workforce in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. This reduction includes lawyers, other timekeepers and business professionals.

To say this was a hard decision is a massive understatement. We are deeply aware of the human impact of these decisions, and are treating our people fairly and with dignity. But having considered the full array of options, we are confident that this is the best path forward.

It is unknown at this time how many people lost their jobs at Baker McKenzie, what their severance packages look like, or what other kinds of assistance the firm will offer to those who now find themselves without employment.

On the bright side, the firm’s salary cuts will be a thing of the past in 2021. “Looking to the future,” a firm spokesperson said, “we can also confirm that the current salary reductions announced earlier this year in the U.S. and Canada will end on December 31, 2020.” Coupled with the layoffs announced in the very same statement, these salary cut rollbacks now seem like they’re some sort of a consolation prize.

If something like this is happening at an elite firm like Baker McKenzie, it must be worrisome for other firms that weren’t as financially well off in the first place. Best of luck to all those who are affected by the layoffs at Baker McKenzie.

If your firm or organization is slashing salaries, closing its doors, or reducing the ranks of its lawyers or staff, whether through open layoffs, stealth layoffs, or voluntary buyouts, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477).

If you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Layoff Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the layoff alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each layoff, salary cut, or furlough announcement that we publish.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Americans going through fertility challenges in the United States might be jealous of those in the United Kingdom and their access to universal healthcare. The United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) provides medical services free of charge, and that even includes fertility treatments. Brits love their healthcare so much that they even celebrated the NHS — through dance — during the 2012 Olympics’ opening ceremonies. But a report published earlier this month, might temper that trans-Atlantic envy.

Recently, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) used freedom of information laws to obtain the policies of England’s 135 clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), the regional rulemaking bodies as to which patients are eligible to receive fertility services and which are not. The discrepancies between the different regions’ rules were jarring and have led to essentially a postcode (the equivalent of what we Americans call a ZIP code) lottery. One patient might not be eligible for services that she would be eligible for, if only she were to live in the next shire over.

No Partner, No Treatment

Among the more disturbing of the discrepancies are the varying relationship requirements of the different regions. Almost half (48%) would not allow single women to obtain treatment according to their criteria. But of those, over 20 regions allowed for unmarried women to receive treatment, but only so long as they were able to prove they were in a “stable” relationship. Even within those regions, the definition of “stable” relationship varied. One region required evidence of three years in a relationship, another two years and proof of being “financially interdependent.” Wouldn’t financial independence be, like, better?

The varying — and frequently offensive — criteria did not end there.

Ageism. Fourteen of the regions refused to provide services for women over the (extreme geriatric) age of 35.

Weight discrimination. Over 96% of the regions would not provide treatment to women with a body mass index (BMI) of over 30.

Secondary infertility-ism. It is not uncommon for a person to experience infertility after having a child. This is referred to as “secondary infertility.” These patients were largely out of luck when it comes to eligibility for treatment in the varying regions. The study showed that most regions were only willing to provide treatments to those who had not had any children.

Smoking-ism. 116 of the regions (86%) deny treatment if either the patient or her partner smokes. Actually, I guess if you have to ration fertility care, maybe that one isn’t as bad.

Attorney Louisa Ghevaert, a leading UK fertility and family law specialist, described how the “current NHS IVF postcode lottery creates inequality, discrimination, unfairness, and misery for many, and that this needs to change.”

Should We Be Throwing Stones?

That’s a lot of discrimination! Good thing we live in the United States. Right? Well, maybe not.

First, of course, we do not, for the most part, have a system of socialized medicine. Instead, we rely on insurance to make medical services, including fertility treatment, affordable. Here, whether you have insurance that will provide some level of coverage for fertility treatments is also partially a lottery, based on who your employer is. If you work for Starbucks, Google, or Facebook, you’re in luck!

Additionally a growing number of states (19 so far) have passed fertility care access insurance mandates requiring that insurance providers in the state — that are subject to state law (a majority are governed by federal law under ERISA) — provide some level of fertility coverage. My home state of Colorado managed to squeak through a fertility access bill this last session, right before shutting down the legislature due to the pandemic.

Those Americans not provided fertility coverage through their employer or state mandates are generally out of luck. And that’s a majority of Americans. The options then are to pay tens of thousands, or more, out of pocket, or consider medical tourism, traveling to another country to find more affordable treatment. Either way, access becomes sharply limited along socio-economic lines.

The (Start To) An Answer

Given the declining fertility levels and high demand for fertility treatments, Ghevaert proposes a multistep solution, including the formation of a dedicated Ministry for Fertility to provide future direction specifically for the fertility sector. (Like a federal Department of Fertility; not like the Ministry of Magic, unfortunately.) This would bring greater cohesion, promote and prioritize the fertility space, and overcome the current fragmented approach.

Also, she explains, the “UK would be well serviced by a top level multidisciplinary strategy group to drive change and innovation, as well as identify and mitigate risk with joined up thinking between the technology, science, healthcare, fertility, education, economic and other sectors.” She proposes that such a strategy group should operate on a continuous basis, and be made up of strategic thinkers outside of the elected political elite. That sounds bloody brilliant (as the Brits would say). Can we get one of those too?

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Ellen Trachman is the Managing Attorney of Trachman Law Center, LLC, a Denver-based law firm specializing in assisted reproductive technology law, and co-host of the podcast I Want To Put A Baby In You. You can reach her at babies@abovethelaw.com.

* A group of fireworks companies has agreed to dismiss a lawsuit involving New York’s COVID-19 restrictions. Guess the litigation didn’t start off with a “bang”… [New York Law Journal]

* President Trump has won a motion to temporarily delay the release of his tax records. [Fox News]

* A new lawsuit alleges that McDonald’s discriminates against black franchisees. [Reuters]

* A new global settlement plan has been advanced to dispose of claims accusers have against Harvey Weinstein. [Hollywood Reporter]

* A 105-year-old woman is leading a lawsuit seeking reparations for the 1921 Tulsa Massacre. [Guardian]

* Kanye West is suing to appear on the ballot for president in Wisconsin and Ohio. Maybe Kim K can put her law classes to good use… [Business Insider]

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Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

Ed. Note: Welcome to our daily feature Trivia Question of the Day!

According to American Lawyer’s Midlevel Associate Survey, which breaks the rankings out by specific offices, the Atlanta office of which international Biglaw firm is ranked best in midlevel associate satisfaction for the southern city?

Hint: The firm got a 4.644 out of 5 in overall satisfaction for their Atlanta outpost, which is one of 68 offices the firm has worldwide including its European headquarters.

See the answer on the next page.

This week, I continue my written interview with Nikki Breeland of Breeland Law, regarding her path to making her mark on the legal profession post-law school and clerkship. Please see below for Nikki’s answers to my second and third questions, focused on the mission of her new law firm and her advice to law students looking to gain a foothold in the face of the current challenges.

As usual, I have added some brief commentary to Nikki’s answers but have otherwise presented her answers as provided.

GK: 2) Why was it important for Breeland Law to have a clear mission statement in terms of the work you want to do for clients?

NB: From the first “personal statement” I wrote to apply to law school five years ago, I have maintained that my dream job, and the reason I became an attorney, is to protect the creators and artists that intricately weave a culture around us. When asked about my career path, I usually jokingly mention my time in the performance arts, and how I knew that while I loved dance, music, and the theater, my talent did not necessarily measure up, so I had to come up with something that allowed me into this space that I love. While mostly true, it doesn’t quite capture the passion I have for creators. When I grew up, I watched my dad come up with a new invention every week. I watched my mother excel at graphic design and painting, selling her work at flea markets. As an adult, I’ve seen my parents start their own publishing company. My uncle, my late grandmother, my sister, my mother, my dad, and my husband are published authors. I’m amazed at my family’s creativity and passion for creating, for making the world a more beautiful place. So, naturally, I became the attorney. Influenced by the small business owners in my life (my father-in-law owns a law firm, my mother-in-law owns a property management business, and my dad owns a retirement planning company), I became the one who desperately wants to make sure that creatives like artists, designers, musicians, authors, and entrepreneurs have a safe place and competent legal advice, so they can worry more about their art than their legal obligations and concerns. I aim to be a one-stop-shop — I want clients to be able to come to me with any problem they may have arising out of their position as creatives, and trust that I will do my very best to serve them.

Having a clear mission statement that serves as a beacon to the creative community was extremely important to me. I want anyone who visits my website to know I have a passion to serve the creative community. It acts as an anchor, and also as a promise to myself that this crazy venture will stay true to my dreams: to practice in entertainment and intellectual property in New York City representing the individuals who make our days a little brighter.

GK: As a lifelong NYCer, I can say without reservation that the creative community contributes tremendously to New York City’s standing as an irreplaceable place to live and visit. At the same time, the creative community — along with many of New York City’s small businesses — has been hit very hard in the current pandemic. If there was ever a time that members of that community could benefit from an advocate like Nikki, that time is now. For their sake, and for the sake of keeping New York City as vibrant as it can be, Nikki’s efforts are sorely needed. As such, it is great she has such a clear picture of the client base she wishes to serve. Moreover, it is always important for lawyers, no matter their career stage, to evaluate whether they find fulfillment in their practices. If the answer is no, but financial or other considerations mandate that a career pivot won’t work, it is worth considering whether pro bono can help fill the happiness gap. I suspect it can, especially if the pro bono efforts are undertaken in an area of law that is of personal interest, or in the service of a community whose needs are important to the lawyer offering the help.

GK: 3) What advice would you offer ambitious law students facing the daunting prospect of finding work in this pandemic?

NB: My biggest piece of advice for law students has always been to find a way to write every paper assigned by tying it into their desired area of practice and publish it. For example, in law school I took an Internet Law course, for which we were supposed to write a paper. So, I wrote my paper on Internet radio, and how the Music Modernization Act would change the way we listened to streaming music. This was just a run-of-the-mill paper I already had to write for class, and it is one of the publications I have now. Always, always, always, submit your class papers for publishing. Publications are often underutilized ways for law students to stake their claim as thought leaders in the professional world. By submitting articles for publication, you are going up against other law students, law professors, and law practitioners. To receive an offer of publication is personally gratifying, but it also has professional repercussions. In every interview I have had since law school, my publications have been brought to the forefront of the conversation. It is something that sets you apart, and it is something that requires almost no extra work.

My second piece of advice is to learn as soon as you can in law school what type of law you want to practice. I don’t necessarily mean the specific subject matter (like personal injury or intellectual property, although that will help a lot), but the people who are the most prepared for the job market are the ones that know whether they want to be litigators or transactional attorneys, and have stacked the experience needed to land a job doing what they want upon graduation.

Jumping off that, law students should make connections with attorneys who work in the type of law they want to work in. I’m not talking about the awkward “networking” that career services offices tend to suggest. I’m talking about starting and maintaining actual relationships with practitioners. This might look like keeping in touch with an attorney you grew up knowing, or even an internship/externship supervisor. It could also look like cold calling for coffee, but one-off meetings like that rarely do anything for you. I want to be clear that this is NOT a way to ensure you have a job. I feel like professional networking has a rap of being the answer to students’ job search problems. It’s not. What this does is it gives you resources for mentorship, people to bounce ideas off of, attorneys you can ask questions, and yes, maybe they can connect you with opportunities. But I feel like career services offices these days are throwing law students at practitioners like we can invent jobs for everyone with whom we speak. Use attorney networks correctly, and you can get so much more than a job.

Lastly, get rid of imposter syndrome. Everyone has it, which means no one needs to. Know that once you have a license to practice law, no one can stand in your way of doing just that. If job offers don’t come pouring in, entertain the idea of going on your own for a while and gaining experience. One way to feel more stable in this area is to take as many “practical” courses as you can: clinics, externships, drafting courses for aspiring transactional attorneys, trial advocacy for aspiring litigators, and stints in customer service and client intake will also help you prepare to be a successful attorney.

The legal practice has enough mercenaries. Be attorneys who employ empathy, critical listening skills, thoroughness, passion, honesty, and forthrightness, and you will find much more success with your interpersonal relationships with clients and opposing counsel. Be brave. Be caring. Be you.

GK: If you are a law student or considering law school — read the thoughtful, helpful, inspiring answer above. Take it to heart, act on it, and create the opportunities you need to have the career you want.

My thanks to Nikki for the insights and cooperation, and I wish her unbridled and lasting success with her new firm. It is always a privilege to hear from someone who represents both the present and future of IP practice, and I thank Nikki for agreeing to this interview. I am always open to conducting interviews of this type with other IP thought leaders, so feel free to reach out if you have a compelling perspective to offer.

Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.

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Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique, and Markman Advisors LLC, a leading consultancy on patent issues for the investment community. Gaston’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.

That no one, aside perhaps from Eddie Lampert, likes or respects Steve Mnuchin is pretty much a matter of record at this point. Not his boss, not his colleagues, not the Senate Minority Leader or anyone else in Congress, not his underlings (however few of them there are), not the companies he purports to regulate, not the Europeans, not high-end real-estate buyers, certainly not lower-end real-estate buyers, not college kids, not anyone who’s actually looked in to the things he’s done as Treasury secretary, not Ray Dalio, not Mike Novogratz, not even his father or his wife. That all being said, the animosity towards him within his own family goes much further and deeper than even people who’ve had the misfortune of meeting Mnuchin could have possibly imagined or hoped.

If you’re in the process of hiring a law firm SEO agency, or you work directly with an SEO provider that your law firm is currently engaged with, this post is for you. 

It’s 2020 and most law firms need not be convinced of the value of search engine optimization (SEO). That is to say, most divorce lawyers understand the value of showing up on Google’s first page of results when someone in their city searches “divorce lawyer.” 

Nevertheless, law firms tend to be really bad at hiring and working with SEO agencies effectively, as is evidenced by significant churn in the legal SEO space. At my company, Juris Digital, a full 70% of our current clients came to us after leaving one or more previous legal SEO agencies.

While you may be tempted to blame this huge level of churn on shoddy SEO providers (and there are more than a few), I have come to find that law firms frequently get crucial things wrong when they invest in SEO, whether it be their choice of provider, their expectations, their workflow, or their process for closing new leads that SEO generates. 

These mistakes lead to frustration, churn, and most importantly, a poor return on their SEO investment. 

For this post, I’ve drawn on my 10 years of experience winning SEO business, losing SEO business, and succeeding and failing at executing effective law firm SEO campaigns, to help you hire the right SEO provider, and get out of the way of your own success once you do.

How to Avoid Losing Money on Your SEO Investment

1. Hire a legal SEO agency that doesn’t suck.
2. Don’t tell your SEO agency what you want them to do; tell them what you want to achieve.
3. Treat your SEO provider like a partner, not a vendor.
4. Have a system for effectively responding to and signing up new leads.
5. Understand that your SEO investment should be made from a position of stability, and your expectations shouldn’t be insane.
6. Before firing your current SEO provider and hiring a new one, escalate your concerns.
7. Know that you don’t have to spend the same amount on SEO forever.

Hire a legal SEO agency that doesn’t suck

While I was drafting this post I really wanted to skip over this point, because “no sh*t,” but it’s crucial so I had to keep it in.

Here’s a secret: There are a lot of good SEO companies out there who are capable of succeeding for your law firm. One of the central arguments I am submitting here is that, more often than not, a law firm can ensure the success of their SEO investment by avoiding crucial mistakes, regardless of what agency they hire.

Then again, there are some law firm SEO agencies out there that just aren’t capable of getting the job done. To weed them out, look for the following in the legal SEO companies you interview:

• They can clearly articulate what SEO success will look like for your law firm
• They can clearly articulate how they actually generate that success, without using words like “ninja” or “secret sauce” or “juice”
• They take a consultative approach to selling rather than trying to cram you into a one-size-fits-all campaign
• They can provide multiple happy-client references 
• They can point you to real-world examples of their work, and you are impressed by the quality
• Their website is of a high quality and ranks well in search engines for relevant keywords
• They have more than a few positive online reviews
• Their prices and promises aren’t too good to be true

This checklist will help you know whether a given SEO agency is up to the task of succeeding for your law firm. However, it won’t help you actually identify quality lawyer SEO agencies to consider.

The best way to find a good SEO company for your firm is the same as the best way to hire an attorney; get a personal referral from someone you know who works with an SEO agency that they’re happy with. 

If that’s not an option, use the second best option (hopefully, the option your potential new clients will soon be finding you): Google it. Once you find a few strong candidates, speak and get proposals from them, and then compare your experience with each against the checklist above.

Don’t tell your SEO agency what you want them to do; tell them what you want to achieve. 

[ Source ]

Lots of attorneys know just enough about SEO “to be dangerous.” One of the biggest red flags for me is when a potential new SEO client reaches out and tells me what specific SEO work they want me to do. For example:

I want you to build 20 EDU links

I want you to write 30 practice area pages

I want you to build 100 local citations

I want you to optimize my page titles

I want you to write 5 blogs per month

When I go to the dentist, I don’t tell her to do a root canal. I tell her that my tooth freaking hurts, and that I’d like it to stop hurting. Because I’m not a dentist and she is.

I am quite sure that most DUI attorneys wouldn’t be thrilled if a client dictated to them the specifics of what their defense strategy ought to be.

As you work with an SEO partner for your law firm you should get in the habit of communicating what outcome you’d like to achieve rather than attempting to dictate the strategy and tactics for getting there. For example, here are some great goals to communicate with your legal SEO provider:

I want more divorce cases involving business owners

I want more business litigation matters involving shareholder disputes

I want to improve my website’s conversion rate on mobile devices 

I want to bring in leads from a new geographic market

Now, this is not to say that there is no room for collaboration with your law firm SEO provider; there is! 

If you’re a personal injury lawyer, you know that your client has information that can help tremendously in presenting a compelling argument for damages. You know that open communication and information sharing between you and your client is essential. But you also know that you don’t need them to dictate the specifics of the demand letter or the prose in your closing argument. 

The situation is no different with your SEO provider. Tell them what you want to achieve. Explain the problems you are having. Give them insight into the operations of your law firm and the most common issues  faced by your clients. But for goodness sake, don’t tell them what changes they should make to your website’s URL structure.

Treat your SEO provider like a partner, not a vendor

When you hire an SEO company to work with your law firm, you are asking them to do something that’s really not easy: To create, as if from thin air, new lucrative business opportunities for your firm. 

As with anything that’s valuable, achieving this will require motivated human beings who care deeply about your goals. In my experience, the dumbest thing attorneys can do when they hire an SEO provider is to establish a patronage relationship.

I realize this is hard for many law firms to accept. After all, technically, it is a patronage relationship. The law firm pays the SEO provider for a service. It is reasonable to feel that simply by way of handing over your money that your SEO provider owes you their best efforts towards your goals, and I would agree.

But the goal here isn’t to beat your SEO into submission by pointing to the last check you cut. No. The goal is to get the most out of them. And how do you get the most out of humans? By forming a relationship in which client and provider are equal partners in a shared endeavor.

I can say from personal experience that I have always done my best work for clients who are effective at making me feel like I am a part of their team, not just a worker bee from whom they expect a certain amount of output. So how do you achieve this in practice? It’s not so difficult:

• Treat your SEO provider with respect, the same way your legal clients treat you.
• Make an effort to establish a communication style that places you and your SEO on an even playing field, rather than in a hierarchy.
• Trust that your SEO has your best interests at heart rather than assuming the worst in their intentions.
• Constructive criticism is fine, but always acknowledge a job well done. I, for one, will move mountains for the client who makes me feel that my work is appreciated.

The key here is that while it may be satisfying to treat your law firm’s SEO provider like an untrustworthy teenager, it’s not effective if your goal is to get the best possible SEO results. 

Have a system for effectively responding to and signing up new leads

Whether your SEO investment yields 10 leads a year, 10 leads a month, or 10 leads a day, it won’t make a lick of difference if you don’t have an effective system for turning those leads into clients.

I have seen this time and again over the course of my career. The conversations with my clients go like this:

Me: The data is looking good. We’re 6 months into the campaign and we’re ranking well for our target keywords, we’re getting traffic from those keywords, and we see that folks are calling you or filling out a form once they get to the site.

Client: Yeah, we’re not signing up any new cases.

Me: How long does it take you to respond when a lead comes in?

Client: I don’t know, normally the same day, sometimes the next day, unless it comes over the weekend, then we respond early in the week.

Me: What if someone calls after hours? Is anyone taking those calls?

Client: People call us after hours?

Me:

If you’re not able to respond to SEO-generated leads quickly – within minutes – and you are not able to convert qualified leads into new clients at a high rate, your SEO investment will fail.

I’m not going to get into all of the strategies and tactics you can use to increase close rate; that’s it’s own post. What I can say is that before you invest in SEO for you law firm you need to have solutions for the following:

• Ability to answer phone calls – and provide an above average customer experience – 24/7.
• Ability to respond to inquiries from the web within minutes. I am talking 5 minutes or less.
• Some sort of technology or system that enables you to organize and manage your web leads and follow up with them as appropriate.
• Ability to close. You need to be able to convince prospective clients that you are the right attorney for them and close new clients at a high rate.

If you are not able to sign up a large percentage of the qualified leads that your investment in SEO produces, you’ll never see a positive return.

Understand that your SEO investment should be made from a position of stability, and your expectations shouldn’t be insane

Anyone reading this who’s hired an SEO agency before knows one of our favorite things to say:

“SEO is a long term investment. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

At this point it’s a cliche, but it’s true. If you need to generate revenue immediately in order for your firm to stay afloat, you are in no position to be investing in SEO. 

You wouldn’t believe how many attorneys think that it is perfectly reasonable to expect to double their revenue within 6 months by paying an SEO agency the same amount as they would data entry intern.

This tweet sums up that position pretty well:

Every now and then an attorney will reach out to us expressing concern that if they don’t start bringing in more new business soon, they will not make it.

100 times out of 100, we turn these leads away. Sure, we could take their money and hope for the best, but we know that, generally, an investment in SEO takes 12 to 18 months to mature to a point where the firm is able to sign consistent new business from the web, and begin to realize a return on their investment.

Not only is your investment in SEO likely to fail if you make said investment from a position of desperation because of the fact that SEO takes time to bear fruit, it will also place undue stress on the human beings who are actually working on your campaign, which will lead to subpar work and results.

(True story: Early in my career, I had a client tell me that if I didn’t get his website back to page one of Google for a certain keyword in the next week, he wouldn’t be able to pay his mortgage and his wife would leave him. Not cool.)

Before firing your current SEO provider and hiring a new one, escalate your concerns 

It is expensive to switch SEO companies. Not only does it require your time and energy researching and vetting new SEO companies, but when a new company takes over they will likely charge you a large up front fee which essentially covers the time they need to formulate a strategy and learn a whole bunch of things about your firm and your market that your current SEO provider already knows.

Before you fire your current law firm SEO provider, you should escalate your concerns, and communicate clearly your issues and your expectations.

As someone who runs an SEO agency for attorneys, I can tell you that sometimes the wrong people are assigned to a project. Whether it’s that they don’t have the right skill set or experience for the client, or that they just have incompatible personalities or styles, mismatches happen.

But the good news is that, if you’re with a reputable law firm SEO provider, they almost certainly have other folks on their team who can take over your project and help bring things up to your standards and expectations. 

I’m not just saying this because clients have fired me too quickly and I’m sad about it (though that has happened). I’ve also taken on new clients who I felt fired their previous SEO provider too quickly! While there is certainly a time to move on, it’s in your best interest to exhaust your options with your current legal SEO provider before taking on the time and costs involved with jumping ship.

Know that you don’t have to spend the same amount on SEO forever

This is something very few of the law firm SEO agencies you speak with will admit: You don’t have to invest the same high amount on SEO continually and indefinitely.

Unlike “pay-to-play” methods of online online advertising, the benefits from an investment in SEO don’t vanish when you stop spending money.

The truth is, competent execution of a strategic SEO campaign over the course of 12, 18, or 24 months (depending on where you are starting from) can continue to bear fruit for years after you stop investing in SEO.

At my company (Juris Digital) we’ve invested a lot into our own SEO over the years. That is to say, we’ve researched and optimized for topics that our potential clients are searching on, we’ve written a lot of quality content on those topics, we’ve built links to that content, and we’ve updated it periodically as needed.

However, we don’t “do SEO” at that same rate at all times. We often go long stretches where the nature of our business challenges or workload means that we spend less time and energy on our own SEO. Might our site be even more valuable as a lead generator if we constantly invested in SEO at the same rate? Sure. 

But the point is, because of the nature of SEO, we have the freedom to shift our resources to other areas when it makes sense, without having to fear that our previous SEO investment will be wasted.

After you’ve invested in SEO for a period of time, and you are seeing strong results, ask your SEO provider something like, what should I expect to happen if I cut my SEO investment in half for the next 12 months? If they tell you that all the gains you’ve made will be lost, they are probably lying to you.

Cutting back your spend on SEO is a far better option than firing your SEO agency altogether, and a reputable SEO provider will help work with you to determine a scope of services that will both maintain your SEO results, and help you shift resources elsewhere, if that’s what’s best for your business.  

Too long; didn’t read

I run an SEO agency for lawyers. A full 70% of our clients come to us after feeling like their previous SEO provider failed them.

While there are plenty of not-good legal SEO providers, law firms often get in the way of their own success by making key mistakes in how they work with their chosen SEO agency. By avoiding these mistakes, law firms can realize a strong return on their SEO investment, and avoid the frustration and expense that goes along with frequently firing and hiring SEO companies. 

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Fresh off his rousing success (or not) suing CNN and the Washington Post for grievously defaming Nicholas Sandmann, attorney Lin Wood has picked up (along with Pierce Bainbridge) another fine young man as a client: Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois teenager charged Thursday with homicide, reckless endangerment, and possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18 after shooting three people at protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday night.

Yesterday Wood released a bizarre statement describing Rittenhouse in absurdly glowing terms — he’s a lifeguard! a medic! civic minded and full of good will for his fellow man when he’s not blowing giant bullet holes into them! — and also previewing a bevy of strange defenses.

“Kyle did nothing wrong,” Wood wrote. “He exercised his God-given, Constitutional, common law and statutory law right to self-defense.”

As NBC’s legal analyst, Danny Cevallos notes, the reference to “Constitutional” rights strongly implies that Wood intends to assert a Second Amendment defense to the charge of possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18. The Supreme Court has held that the right to bear arms is not absolute, and federal courts have affirmed the legality of prohibiting gun sales to persons under the age of 21, much less 18.

So arguing that Wisconsin’s arrest of a 17-year-old for wandering the streets with a loaded AR-15 strapped to his body violates the Constitution, much less God’s law, is probably a stretch. And speaking of stretching, it’s not entirely clear how a kid crossing state lines to deputize himself as a law enforcement officer, police the streets after curfew holding a gun he barely knows how to use (according to the charging documents), and then fire lethal rounds into an unarmed man qualifies him as a member of the “well regulated militia” for the purpose of the Second Amendment.

Mr. Wood will no doubt explain that after he gets through patting himself on the back for securing a 25-day continuance on his client’s extradition hearing to the dreaded third-world nation of … Wisconsin.

Kyle now has the best legal representation in the country. With help from Nicholas Sandmann attorney L. Lin Wood, Pierce Bainbridge and multiple top-tier criminal defense lawyers in Wisconsin immediately offered representation to Kyle.

Today, his legal team was successful in working with the public defender to obtain a several-week continuance of his extradition hearing to September 25th. This at least partially slows down the rush to judgment by a government and media that is determined to assassinate his character and destroy his life.

Twenty-five whole days! Wisconsin! Second Amendment! And lest we forget, God himself.

Was Kyle Rittenhouse’s possession of a gun protected by the Second Amendment? [NBC]

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Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

More money.

— an answer provided by a third-year associate working at a Biglaw firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in response to a question asked in Am Law’s annual midlevel associate survey about what associates would tell their managing partner and what associates would change about their firms. Midlevels also seem to really want “more snacks.”

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.