Poock’s Post Segment of Episode 3 of “The Ask the Law Firm Seller Show”

Episode 6 of the Ask the Law Firm Seller Show includes 3 segments. In Segment 3, host, Jeremy E. Poock, Esq., presents the following “Poock’s Post:” The Risk to Law Firm Value in the 2020’s When Senior Attorneys Do Not Adopt Digital Marketing – And, 2 Solutions

As Poock explains: “Today's Senior Attorneys, that is, attorneys that have practiced more than 30 years - they developed their Books of Business by and large, pre-Google, and they did it what we call the “hard way.”

That “hard way” consisted of:

1. In-Person Networking (ex. handing out thousands of business cards at networking events)
2. Non-Digital Thought Leadership (egs. writing articles & speaking at CLE’s)
3. Event Sponsorship (ex. placing ads in event ad books)
4. Pre-Y2K Advertising (egs. Yellow Pages; newspaper ads; radio; TV)

Poock also points out the following:

“What we're consistently seeing is that Senior Attorneys that maintain their Status Quo, that is, attorneys who are aged today between 55 and 75 and maintain their Status Quo in terms of how they market for new business, or really how they are not marketing for new business by not adopting Multi-Channel Digital Marketing - their revenues are going down.”

Poock offers the following 2 solutions for Senior Attorneys to consider to address those revenues going down:

1. Join a Growing Law Firm: As Poock explains, Senior Attorneys have what growing law firms want and need, namely: (1) Instant client growth; (2) Lawyer and non-lawyer staff; (3) Cumulative expertise in multiple practice areas; and (3) Untapped digital content for Growing Law Firms to develop and distribute among a Senior Attorney’s Book of Business and clients of a Growing Law Firm; or
2. Do It Yourself (DIY): Per this solution, Senior Attorneys can adopt the following 5-pronged approach to market for new clients in today’s 3.0 Digital Era for the legal industry: (1) Invest in Google (egs. pay-per-click and SEO); (2) Increase a Senior Attorney’s social media presence (egs. LinkedIn, Facebook, Threads, X, Instagram, and more); (3) Optimize a Senior Attorney’s website, together with increasing Google reviews; (4) Establishing an audio and video presence (egs. podcasts, YouTube videos, and even TikTok posts); and (5) Old School networking (egs. attend in-person networking & place in-print ads).

“[T]he reality of Senior Attorneys shifting towards adopting Multi-Channel Digital Marketing - in our experience is pretty low,” Poock states.

Poock further explains that the lower revenues that Senior Attorney-led firms experience short-term as a result of not adopting Multi-Channel Digital Marketing in the mid-2020s will have following unintended future consequence: Lower values when Senior Attorneys later sell their firms due to their Books of Business having less clients and referral sources than yester-year.

As Poock states, “So, as Senior Attorneys are thinking about how the value of their firms is going to go in the 2020s, if you maintain that Status Quo, your revenues short-term could go down, and the value of your practice could go down. For those Senior Attorneys that join Growing Law Firms, their revenues, while they continue to practice, are going to go up. That is our experience, and you're going to get higher value on that all important Book of Business that is the key component to the sale of your law practice.”