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For 6oo unbillable hours a year, advertising law specialist Lewis Rose shoots the breeze with people who may never buy his legal services, but who discover his World Wide Web Advertising Law Internet Page while sampling the dim sum menu of cyberspace. Mr. Rose, a partner at Washington, D.C.'s Arent Kintner Plotkin & Kahn, answers for free queries such as this one from a college student: "Need Internet law Info for Class project!!! [sic] Your help will help me get an A+."
Mr. Rose's largesse extends to offering a raft of Federal Trade Commission regulations and hypertext links, or connections, to enough Web sites to sate voracious ad wonks.
What's in it for a lawyer who could otherwise pull in $250 an hour? While non-"netizen" lawyers last year were sticking "My Name Is..." tags on their lapels and dropping business cards in glass bowls, Mr. Rose was giving away free legal tidbits-until Sun Microsystems Inc., the Silicon Valley creator or the much-hyped Java programming language, dropped business into his laptop.
Carl Middlehurst, marketing counsel for its subsidiary Sun Microsystems Computer Co.. unearthed Mr. Rose last year by clicking on his home page at http://www.webcom.com/~lewrose/home.html,, which Mr. Rose claims has been accessed by more than 80,000 cybersurfers and counting. He also says 10 to 15 new clients have found him online.
Can the Internet do for you what it seems to be doing for Mr. Rose? Internet-challenged lawyers who still think that 'Java' is something secretaries brew and that 'Hot Links' sounds like a golf course, tend to blanch at the notion of mass marketing a law firm brand name on the World Wide Web. Indeed , state bars have started good-taste patrols of the 'Net. Yet already. the Web's contagious growth threatens to force a transformation in a profession known for its antiquated approach to marketing.
A home page can be anything a lawyer wants it to be -from an unimaginative directory of names to a photographic tour through its offices to a legal Dear Abby-style column. Many old-line New York corporate firms intentionally avoid creating flamboyant sites because they so believe in maintaining a conservative image. But, at start-up costs ranging from $500 to $20,000 (or more), other firms are leaping forward with colorful home pages that glow, flash - even talk.
"Thanks for surfing with us today, and please stop back in often to view our new offerings as they are published," intones a mellow Ken C. Bass III from a screen promoting Baltimore's Venable, Baetjer and Howard L.L.P. Mr. Bass says Venable's site gets about 4,000 'hits' a week (meaning surfers click on the opening page 4,000 times a week) and has yielded up to five new clients. Taking a dignified approach, it sports a logo reminiscent of blue Wedgwood china and features hundreds of articles by partners. (http://venable.com).
But the electronic revolution is more than bells and whistles. By posting news and case updates, lawyers are becoming de facto publishers. Attorneys also are providing what are arguably pro bono services through Interactive forums with the public-though most are careful to warn that the communications they send should not be construed as legal advice. Several law firms' pages serve as recruiting bulletin boards, with help wanted bulletins and firm demographics - although typically, the information goes little beyond job listings and repackaged Martindale-Hubbell bios.
The reporting for this story is based on discussions with dozens of firms, clients, bar officials and non-legal cybernauts, as well as close to a dozen legal marketing consultants. Editors were Interviewed at both Law Journal EXTRA! (http://wwwljextra.com), a legal news Web site and home page designer owned by the NLJ's parent company, the National Law Publishing Co.. and Lexis Counsel Connect, a for-fee online subscription service for lawyers that is owned by American Lawyer Media L.P. Law Journal EXTRA! did not participate in the selection or evaluation of the Web sites featured in this story.
At this early stage in the Web's evolution, pinning down details on who surfs a site and who is likely to visit in the future is as inexact a science as predicting jury verdicts. At best, software can identify a visitor's country and 'domain' (an indicator of the network the computer Is on)-plus, perhaps. whether a hit is from a large company.
Lawyers who have reaped clients on the 'Net spread the good word like biblethumping converts. Gregory Siskind, of Nashville's Siskind and Susser, an immigration law firm (/), has grown so enamored of online marketing that he's teaching local bar courses and writing a book on the subject. He and his partner, Lynn Susser, claim that since their firm opened in 1994, they have gotten two-thirds or their clientele (and half their fees) from the Internet, mostly engineers and graduate students seeking work visas. But lawyers' reservations about the Web-that most of their clients haven't started shopping for attorneys on the 'Net, that it's a high-maintenance medium and that it attracts unwelcome attention from inquisitive freeloaders-are borne out by ample anecdotal evidence:
This Is exactly what corporate firms don't want. 'To me. It's like putting your phone number up on 42d Street. Anybody can call. You don't know what's going to happen.' says Edward J. Burke, communications director at New York's Shearman & Sterling. Despite some partners' misgivings, the firm will soon launch its own Web page.
It's all about keeping up with the Joneses. At the end or 1994, only a handful of firms were known Web quantities, including Arent Fox, Venable and Washington D.C.'s Pepper & Corazzini L.L.P. (http://www.commlaw.com/pepper/). In early 1996, about 380 law firms and solo practitioners were listed on Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com). One of the comprehensive Web registries. Consultants at the Seamless Web Site, a San Francisco Web design firm, claim to have catalogued 1,500 firms' or sole practitioners' home pages. While the figures are hotly disputed, Mark Pruner, of Riverside, Conn.'s Web Counsel L.L.C. (a legal Web site designer), says that by mid-1997 Web addresses 'will be like Yellow Page Listings.'
FIND/SVP. a New-York based market research firm, estimates that 9.5 million U.S. Internet users cruise the Web. On a list of North American companies published by lnteractiveAge. a cyberzine, 28 percent or the first 400 companies ranked by U.S. sales have Web sites.
It's natural that these companies start to seek counsel through the 'Net. An In-house attorney at one such company, Memphis-based Federal Express Corp.. already performs online litmus tests. Dwayne S. Byrd, senior litigation attorney, determined in December that he would staff a California case by finding a firm on the Internet. He hit upon Los Angeles' Alschuler Grossman & Pines, which advertises an e-mail address in online legal directories. Mr. Byrd says he knocked the firm out of the running when his Dec. 15 email was never returned. 'Part of my goal is to test them. Are they just talking the talk, or are they really serious about [the Internet]?' says Mr. Byrd.
Alschuler managing partner Gerald B. Kagan says that his firm didn't respond because it wasn't interested in the job Mr. Byrd described but that the firm now regrets not answering Federal Express and has since vowed to answer all email.
One rule is now gospel on the 'Net: Content Is king. 'The only people who really benefit from this market are those who are willing to make valuable information available.' says Joseph Lamport, publisher or Law Journal EXTRA!
Clients say they appreciate free and up-to-the-minute Information, not boosterism. Gerry Goldsholle. a Los Angeles lawyer and partner in the Seamless Web Site consulting firm, sniffs, 'You're seeing some very unsophisticated Web sites which only somebody's mother would be proud of. Some are crassly commercial.' The NLJ asked four World Wide Web devotees to review legal Web sites: Sun Microsystems Computer Co. General Counsel and Vice President John Croll, Internet World Senior Editor Andrew Kantor, Modem Media Research Director Liz Vandenberg (whose Westport, Conn. based firm designs Web sites for such giants as AT&T and Seth Goldstein, president and creative director of New York's 'creative Internet agency' SiteSpeciflc Inc. The NLJ panelists hailed sites such as Jeffrey Kuester's at http://www. kuesterlaw.com. The Atlanta intellectual property attorney offers mostly text. not fancy pictures, and provides links to many other law-related sites.
San Francisco's Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison (http://.brobeck.com) also won high marks. Clients need only their lawyer's last name to make contact via an interactive box on the front or the screen. Says Mr. Croll, "Their library and automated legal research requests are very helpful, updated In the last week."
A surprise favorite is put out by divorce lawyer Sharyn T. Sooho of Newton, Mass. '[L]awyers are so damn expensive. How can I keep their outrageous fees down?" begins a FAQ, or frequently asked question, on her Family Law Advisor page (http://www.divorcenet.com/flame.html). Ms. Sooho's answer, "If you are able to speak to one another, consider going to a mediator."
The hazard or surfing legal Web sites is that the links to non-legal sites begin to look all the more enticing. One browser's pond-skipping experience; from San Francisco solo practitioner Robert I. Sommers' (a.k.a. The Tax Prophet) site at http://www.taxprophet.com to a blur of other sites, eventually landing at HotWired, the online accompaniment to Wired magazine. A few clicks and soon you've got a Rob Roy cocktail on the screen, with a recipe that calls for scotch, vermouth and bitters.
But we digress -and legal Web site designers aren't afraid to say why. For every creative page, there's a yawner - or two.
White & Case's http://whitecase.com was knocked by marketing consultants. Their verdict: a downloaded, sterile, electronic brochure.
White & Case marketing director Nancy Lasersohn says a home page "is not a high investment at this point" because the Internet is still in its infancy and the New York firm's clients haven't indicated they evaluate attorneys by their Web sites.
New York's Chadbourne & Parke had a home page, at http://www.chadbourne.com, that was criticized by Mr. l,evinsky of Inland Steel in a September Lexis Counsel Connect online seminar for failing to update its pages in several months. Chadbourne Marketing Director Susanne Mandel says the firm has since pulled down the page because "it was done hastily and without as much thought as it needed."
Even worse, says Internet World's Mr. Kantor, is a vanity page so impressed with itself that it's all graphics and no text. Slower modems choke on such hubris, he warns. While London's Bird & Bird and Washington, D.C.'s Gordon & Glickson offered interesting law articles, he aborted visits because it took so long to download the colorful, 'look at me' graphics. he says. (Both firms say they want high-end graphics to attract hightech clients and are correcting problems that slow down access to their sites.)
Web pages that resemble press releases draw more than derision. The Florida and Texas bars are among the first to scrutinize home pages to see that they comply with advertising restrictions. Although no lawyers have been disciplined yet, says William E. Hornsby Jr., staff counsel to the American Bar Association's Commission on Advertising, bar officials can regulate any Web material deemed "commercial speech."
Luckily for firms pushing the envelope, he adds, the Internet is a different animal from television or radio. Mr. Hornsby believes bar advertising police will give lawyers more leeway online. "Right now the demographics of people who would find legal services through the Internet are probably more sophisticated than the demographics of people who watch late-night television."
Perhaps. But Mr. Rose wannabes take care: It's a wild. woolly Web out there.
Four guest panelists reviewed 30 law firm web sites and assigned I to 10, 10 being the highest. based on content, graphic design, creativity and usefulness as a marketing, recruiting or research tool. Final scores have been averaged. The review list included Web pages mentioned in online forums or discovered during cyber-surfing sessions. The judges were John Croll, general counsel and vice president, Sun Microsystems Computer Co. (http://www.sun.com). Andrew Kantor senior editor, Internet World magazine (http://www.iworld.com), Seth Goldstein, president and creative director SiteSpecific Inc. (http://www.sitespecific.com), and Liz Vandenberg, research director for Modemmedia (http://www.Modemmedia.com).
1. Kuesterlaw - The Technology Law Resource, Jeffrey R. Kuester, Atlanta
Score: 8.5
"Informationally, it seems very rich and very current. The best Web sites are labors of love." - Seth Goldstein
2.Advertising Law Internet Site, Lewis Rose, Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn, Washington, DC
Score: 7.8
"Excellent. People are going to come back again and again and again to ... get information." - Andrew Kantor
2. Pepper & Corrazini LLP, Washington, DC
Score: 7.8
"Good links, fairly well organized." - Andrew Kantor
3. Brobeck Phleger & Harrison, San Francisco
Score 7.5
"The feature allowing signingup for conferences is very innovative - John Croll
4. R. Mark Halligan's Trade Secrets Home Page, Welsh & Katz Ltd., Chicago
Score: 7.3
"A Wealth of information on a specialty." - John Croll
Score: 7.3
"Definitely cutting-edge. Good use of Internet technology." - Andrew Kantor
4. Cooper, Fink & Zausmer PC, Detroit
Score: 7.3
"Good recent developments. Portrays firm's Michigan environmental specialty well" - John Croll
5. Family Law Advisor, Law Offices of Sharyn T. Sooho, Newton, Mass.
Score: 7.1
"If I were getting married and divorced, this is where I would go." - Andrew Kantor
6. Robert L. Sommers Esq., The Tax Prophet, San Francisco
Score: 7
"A little too glitzy, but good FAQs and access points." - John Croll
Score: 7
"My favorite. A professional Web site. Very, very well designed." - Seth Goldstein