Legal profession tries online marketing

Notorious paper pushers, lawyers have stubbornly resisted technology for years. But divorce specialists from Portland, Ore., to dealmakers on Wall Street are giving in.

Lawyers are embracing the Internet, which could revolutionize how the legal profession markets itself - long a subject of ethical debates.

Law firms with their own Web site have grown from 400 in 1995 to a projected 3,000 by the end of 1997, says Red Street Consulting, which helps law firms get on the Internet.

Even lawyers uncomfortable with television and print advertising are welcoming Internet marketing because it is much more information-based. And experts say the Internet is leveling the playing field between tiny law firms and those boasting several hundred partners and associates.

Consider Greg Siskind, 30, an immigration lawyer who started a solo practice in Nashville in 1994 and set up a site on the World Wide Web. Since then, business has exploded. His firm - Siskind Susser Haas & Chang - now has 16 lawyers in six offices. Several hundred clients have found him through his Web page (http://www.visalaw.com/). They translate into about $500,000 in billings a year, he says.

Siskind has since launched a separate Internet immigration newsletter. "More than 80% of my business comes in through the Internet," Siskind says. "Our Web site gets 100,000 hits a week in the U.S. and Canada."

The Internet presents lawyers with immense opportunities. "The Web is helping shape the word-of-mouth recommendation. The legal profession is about making sense of information and then making an argument. This technology makes that process easier," says Rick Klau of Red Street.

Law firm sites often include biographical sketches on lawyers, discussions on topics in which the firm specializes, links to other business and government sites, and electronic versions of the firm's briefs and lawsuits.

The Web sites are giving smaller firms new leverage. "It's become the great equalizer," says Lew Rose of Arent Fox, a 240-lawyer Washington firm that launched its Web site in 1994. "On the Internet, firms can look exactly the same. For the small firms, you can get your message out right next to the largest Wall Street firms."

The Internet also lets law firms tap clients who are part of a growing pool of computer junkies. Pensacola lawyer Mike Papantonio says his firm's year-old Web site has helped build a national practice representing whistle-blowers. Recently, he took on three clients who are cooperating with the government's huge criminal probe into hospital giant Columbia/HCA Healthcare. The whistle-blowers, whose identities Papantonio won't disclose, found him through the Internet.

"Whistle-blowers tend to be fairly sophisticated when it comes to computers, so the Internet has helped us tremendously," says Papantonio of law firm Levin Middlebrooks, whose site is (http://www.levin.com/).

Earlier this year, corporate law firm Buchalter Nemer Fields & Young of Los Angeles offered free calculators to Internet visitors if they agreed to offer feedback on its Web site. The 100-lawyer firm also has begun placing banner ads for the firm on other Web sites, such as those for trade publication National Law Journal and search engine Lawinfo.com.

"We get a constant flow of leads nationally and internationally from the Internet," says Marlena Chumo, the firm's marketing director. "Our advertising campaign is costing us a fraction of the minimum $150,000 we would need to spend on a print campaign."

Launching a Web site can cost from $10,000 to more than $100,000, consultants say. Siskind says he pays a service fee of $100 a month for his Web site. A full-page ad in the Yellow Pages would cost $3,000 a month.

But in the 20 years since the Supreme Court upheld lawyer advertising as constitutional, the methods by which lawyers sell their services have remained a sensitive and sticky issue. Lawyers' use of print and TV ads has raised concerns about potential abuse. Some lawyers say ads demean the profession and many still ostracize colleagues who use print and TV ads.

The Internet, with its global reach, presents a new set of challenges, particularly because lawyer ads are regulated differently by each state. The ethical gray areas have made some lawyers proceed cautiously with the technology for fear of being targeted as high-tech ambulance chasers. Some law firms take a subtle approach to marketing on their Web sites, asking visitors to sign "guest books" like someone might at a wedding.

But some lawyers are pushing the limits on the Internet - the kind of behavior that makes others in the profession cringe. Earlier this year, an immigration lawyer was sanctioned in Tennessee for "spamming" as part of a disbarment proceeding. Spamming is a promotional technique in which written messages are spread unsolicited to e-mail addresses and chat rooms.

Laurence Canter, who also was licensed in Arizona and California, promoted himself through 10,000 Internet ads in 1994, looking for clients who sought green cards. Canter failed to label the notices as ads, though.

"This was akin to carpet bombing," says Tripp Hunt of Tennessee's Board of Responsibility, who argued Canter should be disbarred.

Hunt says a big problem is that many lawyers are computer-phobic. "We had to put someone on the stand with a computer in the Canter case to show the panel of lawyers hearing the case how the Net worked," he says.

To help states come up with regulations for lawyer Internet ads, the American Bar Association is formulating standards. "The advantage of the Internet is that it's cost-effective communication," says William Hornsby, ABA staff counsel. "The risk, at least until states come up with specific regulations, is the failure of lawyers to recognize that general advertising rules apply to the Internet."

By Tom Lowry, USA TODAY