Attorneys and Marketers Applaud Presentation on How to Get Work From Speeches, Meetings and Seminars

SAN FRANCISCO (April 2007) – More than 60 law marketing partners, marketing directors and firm administrators broke into spontaneous applause and stood Saturday as a panel of experts, led by law firm marketing consultant and moderator Robert A. Weiss of Alyn-Weiss and Associates, www.themarketinggurus.com, finished a presentation on marketing efficiency at the three-day Meritas Annual Meeting and Marketing Summit.

“This was the most practical presentation on marketing I have seen in many years," the managing partner of a Virginia law firm announced to the group. Weiss developed the workshop entitled “Closing: How to get work from speeches, meetings and seminars.”

Weiss explained that surveys of corporate, transactional and defense practices all confirm firms should be emphasizing Web sites, advertising, seminars, articles, trade and community groups and speeches to generate business.

“Most lawyers and legal marketers, however, are highly frustrated because time spent one-on-one with prospects and at meetings doesn’t consistently turn into new files,” Weiss said. “What we want you to learn today is why this happens, and what specific steps are required to get files in the door when making speeches, putting on a seminar, attending a convention, serving on a board and going to lunch with a client, prospect or referral source.”

As he reviewed the best practices he sees in firms nationwide, Weiss asked his three-member panel to give examples of how they deal with these issues in their firms. Panelists included Hugo Cuesta, managing partner of Cuesta Campos y Asociados in Mexico City, Denise Dewling, marketing director at Tydings & Rosenberg in Baltimore and Ed Miller, chief marketing officer of New Jersey’s Norris, McGlaughlin & Marcus.

Weiss and his firm have written hundreds of law firm marketing plans over the past 20 years, including contingent fee practices and those firms with a distinct practice niche—immigration, family law, criminal defense and policyholder rights. He speaks regularly on legal services marketing and ethics and has addressed the annual meetings of the American Bar Association, Association of Trial Lawyers of America and numerous local chapters of the Association of Legal Administrators. He will summarize the workshop in his next monthly marketing column for the ABA which will be published in Law Practice Today.

Meritas is an international network of 200 law firms with nearly 6,000 lawyers in 60 countries.