How to Start a Law Career Working for Personal Injury Law Firms
Do you dream of having a career as a personal injury attorney? It’s a long road of education and exams before you can even begin to be considered for a job.
There are about 129,000 personal injury attorneys employed in 56,000 firms in the U.S. You may have plenty of opportunities to get hired.
What does it take to start your law career as a personal injury attorney? Keep reading to find out.
What Does a Personal Injury Attorney Do?
Personal injury attorneys often get a bad rap because they’re seen as ambulance chasers. That’s due to the publicity of some major awards, like when someone spilled a cup of coffee on their lap.
While there are some unscrupulous attorneys who are out to capitalize on someone’s pain, most personal injury attorneys have much better intentions.
Personal injury attorneys represent people who were physically or emotionally injured by a person, public agency, or business.
In many of these cases, there was negligence involved and that’s what caused the accident. Without some kind of accountability, people would be left to take care of themselves and pay
Personal injury lawsuits hold these people and organizations accountable and make them take responsibility for their actions or inactions.
A personal injury case award usually covers medical expenses, additional damages, and attorney’s fees. Here’s what it takes to become a personal injury attorney.
Know It’s the Right Path for You
Now that you know what a personal injury attorney does, you need to decide that it’s a good fit for you. Do you tend to side with the underdog that lost so much or want to hold those in power accountable?
Then personal injury law may be the right path for you. You may feel that you side with businesses or that you don’t think that most personal injury cases warrant legal action.
In that case, you’ll want to look for another career path.
Law School
When you have dreams of becoming a lawyer, you know the first thing that you have to do. That’s to get into a good law school. You need a four-year degree and you need to have a good score on the LSAT Law School Admission Test.
Law school will be the most difficult thing you’ve done in your life. It is intense and everyone is fighting to stay on the good side of the bell curve.
You have to work hard, reading up to 100 pages of cases each day just to keep up. Law school professors are famous for employing the Socratic method of teaching. They will call your name randomly and expect that you’ll know the answer.
That means that you need to be prepared for anything and everything, just like a day in court.
You’re expected to be analytical and understand highly complex problems. You’re preparing yourself to have a legal mind where you can look at a situation objectively and see all of the potential outcomes for it.
A typical law school program is for three years. However, some programs can be completed in two and if you go part-time, you can expect to earn your J.D. Degree in four years.
Begin the Job Search In Law School
You might think that all of your time is going to be spent working on things like reading and studying. You have to make room to get out and network while you’re in law school.
This is the essential piece of laying the foundation of your career. Networking can lead to internships which can lead to more exposure and legal experience.
That can ultimately lead to a job right away. You don’t want to rely on your resume to get hired. Law is still a very competitive field and knowing the right person can go a long way to getting a great job.
You want to be able to get as much legal experience as possible while you’re in law school. This can be difficult since you’re still in school.
You may get incredibly lucky and find a firm that will hire you and allow you to work in some capacity as you prepare for the bar exam.
Passing the Bar
If you think that law school was hard, wait until you take the bar exam in your state. The bar exam varies from state to state.
You can expect to see multiple-choice questions, essay questions, and you need to know the laws in your state. It’s a very difficult test to pass.
You should give yourself several months to prepare for the bar exam. It can take several months to see the results of the exam, which can be agonizing.
If you fail the exam, you can take it again. Don’t get too far down about it. Many people have had to take the bar several times before finally passing.
If you pass the exam, you can then get sworn in and licensed to practice law in your state. If you don’t have a job waiting for you upon passing the bar, here are the next steps you need to take.
Looking for Work
Now that you passed the bar and you’re able to be hired in a firm, it’s time to look for a job. Before you get your resume together, you want to do some research as to how law firms hire personal injury attorneys.
These tips offer a lot of insights into what firms are looking for in candidates. You can then position yourself to fill the needs of personal injury firms.
You do need to have a good resume that outlines your skills and experience in the legal field. You want to have a list of people to reach out to and let them know what you’re looking for in a position.
Starting Your New Law Career
It’s an exciting time to become an attorney, even more so as a personal injury attorney. You can do the work to legally protect those who suffered legitimate injuries due to someone else’s actions.
In some cases, you’ll get to hold the powerful accountable. Check out this site often for more great information to help you build your law career.
A Classic of Legal Technology: Legal Bill Review Software
Legal bill review is a crucial part of an effective legal spend management strategy. So what is legal bill review, and is outsourced legal bill review software worth it?
Quite simply, legal bill review (LBR) is the analysis and review of legal bills against Service Level Agreements (SLAs), regulatory compliance guidelines, such as LEDES and UBTMS. Given the large volume of property & casualty (P&C) invoices or workers compensation (WC) invoice claims, and the reasonably high demand for LBR professionals, LBR is often outsourced to pure play experts.
While the analysis of legal invoices often drives adjustments, ensuring the right amount is paid for the right amount of services is just as important. Firms must be able to answer the question of whether a law firm is compliant with not only guidelines, but also ethical, professional and legal standard. In short, LBR must fit within a broader strategy, which includes enterprise legal management, otherwise known as claims management or matter management. Each invoice reveals details about the activities undertaken in a case, and empowers a check and balance with the case file. An important distinction to note is that effective legal auditing relies mainly on an understanding of billing practices and an ability to spot potential billing abuses, and not in-depth knowledge of the factual background of the litigation.
Earlier in the life cycle of the legal technology industry, many companies managed legal bill review in-house with full time employees. At that point in time, LBR was handled by employees whose main role would revolve around the auditing and analysis legal bills. This employee could be assigned other duties within the company, as needed. As the duties of that legal auditing program expanded, the company would onboard additional employees to manage the review of legal bills. In theory, training would be carried out in-house, thereby keeping costs associated with the legal audit unit small.
The truth couldn’t be more different.
Every time an insurance company or TPA onboards another employee it incurs significant overhead expenses such as office space, salaries and benefits. There are less obvious costs too. Staffing to an exact level is no easy business. After a case is completed, the cost of increased staffing does not stop. The company must find other duties for this new, larger legal bill review team or commence the layoff process, which hurts morale and reputation. The next time a large project arises, it may be more difficult to rehire staff.
With the cost and time associated with legal bill review, third party legal bill review services start to make a lot more sense, especially those with strong track records. For example, the third party LBR service partnered with LEDES has reduced client costs by $500M+ over the last decade. Armed with experienced, specially trained auditors, cutting edge technology (from PowerBI data analytics to machine learning), and the ability to complete legal auditing projects quickly, the independent legal auditing firm provides the corporation with the most cost-effective means of controlling one of the largest factors impacting profits. One third party, LSG, revealed a study that showed profit savings of over 30% with an effective, technology-driven legal bill review software process.
With an independent approach to law firms, third party legal bill review software providers are worth exploring, in order to avoid the pitfalls associated with the in house experience. Further, every insurance and TPA firm should not only be considering technology-driven LBR, but also technology-driven enterprise legal management software.
Gary R Markham is co-founder and Chief Executive of Legal Solutions Group, which designs, develops and deploys an array of in-house legal technology tools. He is an author of Timekeeping for Dummies, regularly speaks at conferences, panels and symposiums, a Global Director of the Hedge Fund Association, a recent recipient of the Keys to the County of Miami Dade. Gary has over 20 years experience in FinTech, specializing in spend, expense management, vendor and allocation and apportionment software solutions.
What to look for to hire the right DUI law firm for you
When you’re facing a DUI charge, it’s important to have the right people in your corner. This will largely come down to finding an expert DUI lawyer who can fight your case and hopefully reduce or eliminate any punishments you could be facing.
But when you need representation from a DUI expert, what should you be looking for to make sure you hire the right DUI law firm for you?
Local expertise
When it comes to looking for a DUI lawyer, it’s important to know that they know the law in your state as well as they can. As well as thorough knowledge of state law, they’ll also be more familiar with the processes of your particular state. You want to look for a well-known firm in your area, with a range of similarly well-known and respected lawyers in their employ. You might look here, for example, if you were looking for a DUI firm in Los Angeles
On top of the fact that a local DUI law firm will have more knowledge of the way your state functions, there’s also the simple consideration that looking out of state for a law firm to represent you could increase your eventual costs. It might be that you’re looking for someone who’s successfully defended a string of high-profile cases and you’re looking for the best you can find from several states over. However, in many cases, local expertise could trump a lawyer brought in from out of state, while saving you money in the process.
A good history
In 2016, in California, 1,059 people died in drunk driving accidents.Because of the severity of the crime and the potential punishments involved, it’s important to know that you’re being represented by a firm you can trust.
Being represented by a lawyer who has a strong history of successful cases under their belt can be particularly reassuring when it comes to a DUI case. While you could hire a lawyer from any general law firm to represent you, there’s no guarantee that they would be as effective as a lawyer with several years of DUI specific law experience behind them.
What you want to look for is an ethical firm that’s been established in the DUI sector for a while now, as well as a firm that has a good track record of successfully defending DUI cases.
Affordability
Cost is a key factor when it comes to finding the right firm. Unfortunately, some firms can be too expensive, while seem a little too cheap to be reputable and ethical.
Beating a DUI charge, only to spend $1,000s of dollars that you don’t have in doing so, can be a very risky and dangerous approach. As a rule of thumb, only hire what you can afford.
Size of firm
The size of the firm representing you might sound like an odd one to consider, but it is important all the same. Some firms might be far too busy to take on your case, while some might take your case and not give you the high-quality legal representation you deserve during your trial.
Ideally, what you’ll be looking for in a DUI law firm is a firm that’s quick to respond, patient and methodical when listening to your story, and eager to defend you as best they can.
While finding an agency that attentive might sound difficult, this is why it’s so important to do thorough research when going through this process. Spend too long looking for a firm, and you might inadvertently leave it too late to appeal a sentence; spend too little time looking for a firm, and you might rush into the first cheap first you find, only to be disappointed by the quality of what they provide for you.
How Law Firms Can Choose the Best Group Benefits Plan
When creating a law firm that not only attracts some of the top talent out there but is able to retain them, there is a lot that goes into the process. First, the work environment at your law firm needs to be fair, professional, and respectful, but employees are also looking for more such as fair pay and incentives such as group benefits. In fact, an excellent group benefits plan can often be enough to lure in that top talent and prompt them to stick around.
So how do you as a law firm choose the best group benefits plan to offer your staff? Here are some tips you can use.
Set a Budget
Often the first place to start is by setting a budget on what the law firm is willing and should spend on employee benefits. Keep in mind you can make adjustments to the cost of the plan by requiring your employees to help pay for the costs of the premiums, meaning you each pay a portion, you may only choose to offer a few things rather than a full plan, and your plan can exclude specific prescription drugs.
Another way to start bringing down the costs is to set up what is called a wellness program. These are really starting to gain traction, as the wellness plan has the goal of keeping people healthy, therefore, placing less stress on the benefits plan. The plan may feature mental health counselling, flu shots for your law firm, aid for those trying to quit smoking, fitness programs or even gym membership discounts, and more.
What Should Be Included in the Plan?
The next question to ask yourself is what to include in your law firm’s benefits plan. While there is nothing wrong with offering just the basics, it’s important to realize that competing law firms may be offering a more attractive plan.
Some of the items you may want to include:
- Extended health care plan
- Life and disability insurance
- Dental plan
- Wellness program
- Pension or retirement saving plans
- Paid time off such as personal days, and vacation days
Pick a Plan Tailored to Your Size of your Law Firm
Another thing to keep in mind is that plans are built differently according to how many employees are in the law firm. For example, if you operate a small to medium-sized business, then you’ll be looking at very different plans and providers compared to a large corporation.
This is when it can be very helpful to speak to different providers, get quotes, and ask their advice on the kind of plan suggested for your particular needs. Many of these group benefit plan providers have access to a variety of plans, with some even offering customizable features.
Giving Your Employees the Best Option Out There
By ticking off each of these boxes, doing your research, and making sure to ask plenty of questions, you’ll be able to find the best group benefits plan that works within the law firm’s budget, and creates a satisfied group of employees.
Small Firm? No Problem! 5 Law Firm Marketing Strategies for Firms of All Sizes
Did you know that the biggest challenge small law firms report is attracting new clients?
No matter how large or established your business is, finding effective law firm marketing strategies can be difficult. The good news is that sticking with simple tried-and-true techniques can make a big impact on your numbers.
Do you want to know how you can draw in more clients? Keep reading for 5 expert law firm marketing ideas.
1. Consider Advertising a Specialty
Having a strong brand can help more people remember your name. A great way to separate your firm from the competition is to adopt a specific legal niche like car accident injuries or divorce. Think about which types of cases you enjoy most and consider advertising those as your firm’s specialty.
2. Give Your Site a Makeover
The biggest mistake attorneys make when trying to figure out how to market a law firm is neglecting their business website. Before you grow, you need to have a solid foundation. Since your site is the heart of your company, you need to make sure it’s user-friendly, fast, and optimized.
Following SEO design practices will not only make your website more attractive, but it can also boost your ranking on Google. Adam Draper of www.gladiatorlawmarketing.com explains that having a high Google ranking is crucial for law firms, as most people only click on the first few Google results. Some easy ways to optimize your website include adding a navigation menu, including your logo on each page, and creating a contact and about page.
3. Start a Blog
There are plenty of reasons why every business website should have a blog. Writing helpful content is the best type of marketing for legal firms because it proves you’re an expert on law. If you use SEO keywords in each post, you also have more opportunities to increase your ranking on Google.
4. Focus on Online Reviews
Did you know that 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation from friends? Since the world is digital now, every business needs to pay attention to their reputation online.
If clients write about their positive experiences, then that’s free marketing for lawyers. Responding kindly to each review is a great technique to make your law firm seem more personable.
5. Build Your Online Presence on Social Media
79% of Americans have at least one social media account. Social media is a convenient place to find reviews, ask questions, and learn more about a company all in one space. If your law firm doesn’t have a LinkedIn or Facebook page, then you’re missing out on a lot of exposure.
In order to stay active online, you can share links to your latest blog posts and even do live streams where you answer people’s legal questions.
These Law Firm Marketing Ideas Will Revolutionize Your Business
With these 5 law firm marketing ideas, you should be able to reach a much wider audience. Before you know it, you’ll have a hard time keeping up with all of your new cases.
Do you want more legal advice? Explore our blog for helpful tips.
How To Find The Right Lawyer For You
There could be many reasons you need a lawyer and finding the right one may be a daunting task. Recommendations from friends and family are not always the best way to go, as their need could have been totally different from yours. There are ways to narrow your search and to make the job simpler. Here are a few hints to help you find the lawyer you need.
Look for Specialists
The first thing you need to consider is what type of lawyer you need. Is it for a criminal defense, to do with employment law, an immigration lawyer, a personal injury lawyer or a lawyer that specializes in some other area? Often, you can find what a law firm specializes in by putting keywords into your search engine.
When lawyers are preparing their website, they may use a firm such as the Guerrilla Agency to advise them on which keywords will make it simple for prospective clients to find them. This is known as search engine optimization (SEO) and is vital for all business, not just lawyers.
Typing in keywords helps you find the right lawyer for your needs.
Narrow Your Search
You can narrow your search by adding the city you want the lawyer to be located into the keywords. Just as an example, putting criminal defense lawyer USA into Google returns 23,400,000 results. Change your search to criminal defense lawyer California and that drops to 8,560.000. Refine your search even further to criminal defense lawyer Albany and finally you get less than a million results with just 396,000.
Of course, you will not go through them all and, in fact, most people only consider results from the first couple of pages, as they are usually the most relevant.
Look at Costs
You should speak with more than one lawyer to find out an idea of what their fees will be. Larger firms with huge office and many staff will have to charge more to cover bigger overheads, whereas a small firm can probably afford to work for a lower hourly rate. If you can agree a fixed fee that is even better, as then you will know exactly where you stand.
All lawyers are trained to the same standards and have to pass the same exams to get their license. This should mean that no matter what size the firm is, you will get the same advice. However, this is not always the case because, at the end of the day, lawyers are human like the rest of us, and can differ in their opinions.
The cost can be a deciding factor but remember that the cheapest is not always the best to opt for. You also need to be aware that on top of their fees they will charge disbursements for things such a filing fees, photocopies, and anything else that costs them money.
People do not save up because they might need a lawyer one day and if you suddenly find yourself in need of one, the financial aspect can be worrying. However, there are some circumstances where you can get legal aid, and if not, many law firms will agree on a payment plan with you. If you are fighting someone for compensation after an accident, there are lawyers that work on a conditional fee basis. This means that you do not pay them any money unless they win your compensation, and then the fee is taken from that.
Finding the right lawyer can mean the difference between winning and losing your case and it is well worth spending the time to find the right one for you.
Is It Time To Start Your Own Legal Practice? Great Tips To Get You Started.
You’ve paid your dues at your current law firm. You’re ready for bigger and better opportunities. The next logical step is to establish a legal practice.
Being a top lawyer is one thing, but starting a law firm from scratch is a whole other beast. If you aren’t business savvy, your firm won’t survive its first year.
Lawyers are natural problem solvers. Ready to apply your skills to the business world? Follow these tips to grow your law firm from the ground up.
Pick Your Practice Areas
The first step to starting a legal practice is to narrow down your practice areas. You may have experience in multiple areas. Here are a few ways to find the right legal niches.
- Assess the needs of your community
- Align your practice areas with local laws
- Consider niche practices areas
- Consider the clients you want to work with
- Research legal concerns of top industries in your community
- Research legal needs that aren’t being addressed
- Scope out your potential competition
Market research is the best way to narrow down your practice areas. Your research may reveal that your community has a real need for an investment loss lawyer or accident law firm.
However, don’t focus on too many practice areas either. Start with just one or two niches.
Get Your House in Order
Remember, a law firm is a business. You need a business plan, city permit, office location, equipment, supplies, employees, and financing.
If you want to get a bank loan for your firm, you’ll need to create a comprehensive business plan just like any small business owner. Estimate how much financing you’ll need for all your essentials, including employees. This is where your knowledge of business law comes in handy!
Next, pick an accessible location for potential clients. Look for commercial spaces in office parks, downtown, and populated areas with shops and services.
Once you have a location, hire in-house staff for your firm. In addition to more lawyers, you’ll need an office manager, paralegal, and legal assistant. You may want to consider hiring interns from local law schools.
You want to get as much done as possible before your big opening. Work with your team to establish a workflow that sustains productivity at the lowest cost.
Clients are putting their legal concerns in your hands. You don’t want to leave any room for mistakes.
Build Your Client Referral Network
You have a location, capital, and a hired team of professionals. Your next step is to get clients. Before you implement a marketing strategy, look within your network for opportunities.
Who do you know that could benefit from your legal services? Building a referral network is a critical step and another reason why it’s important to make contacts in law school, internships, and law firms.
Add lawyers from different practice areas to your network. They can refer their clients to your practice. For example, a small business lawyer may have a client that also needs an investment loss lawyer.
Don’t forget to talk to close friends and family members about referrals. Friends of friends are also potential clients.
Build a Website for Your Legal Practice
With a few clients ready to go, it’s time to build your website. Decades ago, a law firm website wasn’t necessary for running a legal practice. Times have certainly changed.
A website is no longer optional, especially for law firms. This is the self-diagnosis age. Everyone is hopping online to diagnose everything from health problems to legal woes.
Your website could be so much more than just a page with your contact information. It has the potential to be a goldmine of information. That’s why having a website is one of the most potent forms of legal marketing.
Your law firm website should have the following elements:
- Phone number, address, and email
- A pop-up chatbox
- A legal blog packed with facts
- Legal service pages
- About page
- Credentials and licenses to practice
- Client testimonials
You can have all the bells and whistles, but if your website takes forever to load, you’re going to lose potential clients. Make sure you have an adequate web host and make necessary adjustments to improve site speed.
Choose a Winning Legal Marketing Strategy
Your spiffy, new website is ready to go. Next, you’ll need to take on the competition online. Your next step is to craft a winning marketing strategy that attracts and converts leads.
To start, offer free consultations. Freebies are a juicy incentive for potential clients. Plus, free consultations are an excellent way for people to get to know you.
Include your free consultation offer in all your marketing campaigns, whether it’s social media or pay-per-click. Free offers are the ultimate call-to-action.
You’ll want to focus on marketing channels that are appropriate for law firms. Think about consumer behavior. How do potential clients find law firms?
Remember how people use search engines for legal help? They certainly aren’t using Instagram to find lawyers. You need a robust PPC campaign that advertises your law firm in search results.
There are several PPC services available, but Google Adwords is the most popular for a good reason. You can also try Bing ads.
These PPC services allow you to bid on relevant keywords, so your law firm is visible to your target demographic. To save money, look for low competition keywords with medium to high search volume.
Another effective strategy is local marketing. Your law firm is a local business. If potential clients can’t find you online, that’s a problem.
After publishing your website, you should create a Google business listing. Your business listing will also appear in Google maps. Clients will be able to call your office directly with the click of a button and get directions to your location.
Take full advantage of Google’s free marketing tools! This is a must for local legal marketing.
Launch Your Firm on the Right Foot
You’re a talented lawyer. Now you have the business acumen to open a firm your community needs. Follow these tips to launch your legal practice on the right foot!
Don’t forget; you’re a problem solver. Stay updated on the latest tips, trends, and solutions for growing law firms.
How to Deal with Bottlenecks in Your Law Firm
One of the most important in ensuring a successful law firm operation is to identify the points of congestion. The management needs to know the bottlenecks that make the business run slowly. These are the things that will make the organization inefficient. In turn, it limits success. Read this article as we talk about the bottlenecks that can confront the day-to-day operations of a law firm and the most effective ways to deal with it.
1. Inefficient Billing Management
The billing process is one thing that slows down law firm operations. If there are delays in the issuance of invoices, clients won’t be able to settle their payments on time. This negatively impacts the cash flow of the firm. There are can also be billing inaccuracies, which can delay the payments. To prevent this problem, law firms need to invest in law practice management software, such as Rocket Matter. It helps to improve billing practices in law firms, including capturing billables and sending invoices.
2. Lack of Accessibility
Lack of access to relevant legal documents is another law firm bottleneck that law firms need to address. Lawyers and paralegals, among others, must be able to access the files necessary for a specific case. Gone were the days when they do it manually as they scour through hundreds and thousands of pages. This is a lot easier as law firms can now store documents in the cloud. This allows users to access the documents anytime and anywhere. Among others, Rocket Matter is one of the top providers of cloud technology for document management. Try their cloud case management software today and see how it can improve your firm’s operations.
3. Lack of Collaboration
It is important for a law firm to build a collaborative environment. Lack of collaboration is a bottleneck that limits the potential of the organization. The complexity of legal work demands collaboration in law firms. This is especially important in large organizations with several people working on a single case. By fostering a more collaborative environment, it is easier to complete a job successfully and eliminate the bottlenecks.
4. Understaffing
Another common bottleneck in law firm operations is understaffing. As a result, lawyers are forced to do things that are outside of the scope of their job responsibilities, including administrative tasks. Their billables can suffer as they dedicate time in work that other people can handle. It is important to make sure that there are enough people in the firm.
5. Incompetency
Hiring more people is not a simple solution to incompetency. It will be useless to have employees who do not have the knowledge and skills necessary to make the law firm competitive. The firm should invest in training its people, including lawyers. Training equips people with the competencies to eliminate bottlenecks in the law firm.
To make lawyers more competent, law firms should invest in tech training. Refer to the infographic below on how to successfully carry it out.
Take your law firm above the competition and manage the bottlenecks that confront its operations. Consider the inefficiencies above and make sure that your firm addresses them the best way possible.
4 Law Firm Advertising Tips To Help You Bring In New Clients
As a lawyer, you know your job is to practice and know the law well. If you have been practicing for even a short amount of time, you also know it is about finding clients.
This means you need to be more than a lawyer. You also need to be a business person, a marketer, and an advertiser. The truth is cases and clients don’t fall onto your desk because you want them.
You need to do deliberate things to build your client base and promote yourself as a lawyer. Check out these ideas for law firm advertising to help get your firm more clients.
1. Build Your Network and Referrals
This is one thing you can do that won’t cost you money. You need to treat every person you know and meet as a potential client. Remember, your dry cleaner, your mechanic, your mortgage broker may all need an attorney at some point.
Talk and connect with every person you know and have contact with. Think about past clients. Connect with them regularly so you remain familiar should they need you again.
Get to know other attorneys who might give you referrals or means to meet new clients.
2. Bring in the Professionals
You might also decide to bring in some help. There are companies who specialize in helping lawyers and their firms get cases.
They can learn about you and your areas of specialty. Then sift through potential cases to match you up with the right clients for your firm.
Case generation services use marketing strategies, both digital and traditional, to search for potential clients. Then once they have those clients they connect them to you, so they become your clients.
3. Become Familiar and Show Your Knowledge
There are many lawyers who have not done the right thing to give lawyers the best name. You need to be the opposite of that. It should be your goal to show your knowledge of the law at every opportunity.
Get involved in local organizations. Here you can meet potential clients and talk about the law. Market yourself every time you speak about the law.
Participate in events in your community so people see you and hear you.
Make sure your website has a blog that has newsworthy and knowledgeable content. You could even have online videos that allow potential clients to see and hear you speak, showing off your craft.
4. Take Advantage of Advertising Opportunities
Sure, many types of advertising can be expensive. But there is advertising that doesn’t have to break the bank.
Make sure all your blog writing has keywords that match up with SEOs. Use social media platforms to advertise inexpensively. Social media also allows you to do some content focused advertising at a pretty low cost.
Consider using PPC advertising. This pay-per-click method allows you to advertise for certain online queries.
Law Firm Advertising to Get You Clients
Certainly, you have to practice the law well to be successful. You also need to practice smart self-promotion to get and keep those clients. You can also take advantage of law firm advertising opportunities to grow your client base.
To connect with other lawyers and build up your referrals contact us today.
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Translating International Legal Documents
Obtaining accurate translations of business documents is important no matter what industry you’re in, but it may be especially crucial in the legal field – where a poorly translated idea or miscommunication could have serious consequences for all parties involved. That’s why it’s so essential to secure the services of an experienced legal translator; one who not only understands specialized legal terminology, but also has some familiarity with the legal systems of the countries involved.
International legal translators should have experience with a variety of documents, including patent and trademark documentation, marriage and birth certificates, legal contracts and agreements, court documentation, immigration paperwork, and more. Linguists with a background in this field will attest to the fact that it requires not only an understanding of legal jargon and excellent translation skills (native speakers are always a plus), but also a strong sense of ethics and an appreciation of the importance of the work – as well as the consequences that can result if it’s poorly done.
If You’re a Translator…
All this may sound daunting if you’re just starting out as a professional translator with aspirations of expanding your skills into the international legal arena. But you can reach your goal if you’re willing to take the time and gain the experience necessary to achieve it. Begin by focusing on building your reputation as an excellent linguist. Not all of your clients may be in the legal field, but over time – as you gain more experience in general – you can market your services to law firms or other companies closely related to the legal profession. Keep your focus on law. Learn the terminology. Build a clientele of lawyers. Once you’ve accomplished that, further narrow your focus to legal firms that specialize in international law. After you’ve established yourself with these clients, you will have the experience and skills to enter the highly competitive field of international legal translation.
If You Need a Translator…
Trying to locate a translator with all the abilities and traits you require – including exceptional translation skills, expertise in the international legal field, and a strong ethical code – may sound challenging. And, truth to tell, it is! That’s why hiring a professional linguist through a reputable translation company is the best choice for most organizations and agencies in the legal field. A good translation company can ensure that you are matched with the right translator for you – one that has excellent references, a solid background in the legal field, outstanding translation capabilities, and a strong work ethic.
Agencies that employ the services of international legal translators are almost as varied as the types of documents that need translation: from individual law firms to the United Nations to the European Court of Justice to the War Crimes Tribunals of The Hague. But as varied as these entities may be, they all share one thing in common: they require the services of only very highly skilled and dedicated professional linguists.
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