Guide To Running a Mid-Sized Law Practice

Colleen Williams
Wed, 01 May 2024 22:14:11 +0000
Learning

Running a mid-sized legal practice requires a keen understanding of both law and business. You aim to attract the clients you want to drive revenue and improve your firm’s reputation. Plus, you need to scale your staff, resources, and other costs to make the most out of your practice.

Knowing how to grow and manage your mid-sized law firm may initially seem challenging. Law school prepared you to be an attorney but not necessarily a business owner. At Martindale-Avvo, we use our lawyer marketing expertise to help you market, run, and improve your practice every step of the way. This guide can help you get started on the right path.

Growing Your Mid-Sized Law Firm

Controlled growth is the name of the game for every mid-sized law firm. You want to increase your client base and seek higher-earning cases simultaneously. Yet, your firm must manage its reputation, staff, and clients at the same time.

These tips can help you run your legal practice and make it grow:

1. Create a Trusted Brand

Your community reputation is everything, especially for small and mid-sized firms. Clients in your city and the surrounding community often pick an attorney based on word of mouth, reviews, and your case successes. Your reputation is vital to winning clients and retaining them to foster long-term growth. It also helps you stand out in the highly competitive legal field.

To create your brand, you can:

Establish an identity: Your law firm must establish an identity by featuring your practice areas. Potential clients must clearly understand what work you perform, whether that is criminal defense, business formation, personal injury, or other practice areas. You must clearly communicate what you offer and why you are experienced in these fields.

Develop brand materials: Your law firm must market itself to be successful. It should have clear branding elements such as colors, logos, and designs that are consistent across your marketing materials.

Build a desired image: You can cultivate your desired image with the right marketing. Perhaps you want to focus on your local community or would rather reach out state-wide for clients. You may seek white-collar business clients or personal injury clients. Focus your branding to attract the clients you want.

2. Create a Strong Web Site

A robust website does not mean complicated or expensive. It means clear, streamlined, and effective. It should consistently demonstrate your branding and identity on every page. It should also demonstrate your firm’s knowledge and experience in each practice area.

Your website should also include search engine optimization (SEO) principles to help drive organic search traffic to your firm. With a properly managed website, your blogs, landing pages, and more can appear higher on search results. This helps cut through the noise and get your firm the recognition it deserves.

3. Delegate Certain Tasks

You know from experience how busy an attorney is. You do not have time to do everything to grow your mid-sized legal practice. Delegating certain tasks to employees or third parties is often more efficient. Many law firms outsource non-legal areas such as:

Marketing

Advertising

Website development

Social media posts

Delegating frees you up for higher-income legal work rather than the minutiae of marketing your firm.

How a Legal Marketing Service Can Help

Mid-sized firms need to market their services to stay competitive. Whether you do criminal defense, divorce, or business litigation, your clients need to know about your firm. A legal marketing service can help you run your firm in several ways.

Utilize Social Media Channels

Your current and potential clients are using social media. It is where countless people spend their time on the internet. They might even post about their issues or ask friends for advice about attorneys. Social media marketing is a crucial tool for mid-sized law firms because:

It helps you establish authority in your legal field.

It creates a personal connection with your intended client base.

It helps you build brand awareness and trust where your clients are.

It allows you to share your successes, stories, and blogs.

Managing social media can be time-consuming to do yourself. That time is better spent on client matters or creating a good work-life balance for yourself. As such, a skilled legal marketing service can manage your social media presence to increase your revenue.

Obtain Client Reviews and Testimonials

Potential clients want to know what your past clients think of you. They want to see good reviews online before they approach your firm. Potential clients may check your Google rating or rating on other websites.

Mid-sized law firms must utilize testimonials as well. These stories and comments from past clients bolster your credibility and reputation for excellence. They also help to improve your firm’s business practices so clients stay happy.

Consider Paid Advertising

Paid advertisements are one of the fastest ways to increase your mid-sized firm’s exposure. Pay-per-click (PPC) ads in Google or other search engines put your firm at the top of the list. These SEO-driven ads only charge you when a potential client actually clicks on the ad, ensuring a better return on investment. Pay-per-lead ads improve this even further so that you only pay for ads that generate actual leads.

Paid ads are also available in other channels as well. Social media advertisements help drive new clients, but so may local ads in your community. A legal marketing expert can tailor an advertising plan that works best for your firm.

Larger Firms and Legal Marketing

Larger law firms may have in-house employees who currently handle ads and marketing. Those firms may wonder why working with a legal marketing company is helpful. First, many large firms use employees who split their focus between marketing and other legal services. This means that building your firm does not get the attention it deserves.

Second, a legal marketing company has far greater expertise in growing your law firm. Legal marketing experts can design a plan that specifically addresses your firm’s needs, unique characteristics, and budget. They streamline your marketing practices to achieve the highest return on investment for your law firm.

Market Your Mid-Sized Law Firm With Martindale-Avvo

At Martindale-Avvo, we understand precisely what your mid-sized law firm needs from its marketing. We provide comprehensive legal marketing solutions tailored to your unique needs. We assist with real-time lead generation, live chat, website content, legal profiles, and much more.

Get started with a Legal Marketing Expert today to help run your law firm.