Lawyers know squat-diddley about marketing; really we don't understand the concept. Judges know less and I'm guessing they will admit their lack of understanding. After all, they are an independent judiciary and don't need to market. Right? Is that right? If so why are the three that are doing their job under attack in Iowa? So I have to wonder, do they need to better understand marketing? Today let's discuss why lawyers and judges would be wise to appreciate at least something about Internet marketing.

We didn’t’ study marketing in law school and after graduating the business just came to firms where we are working as lowly associates. In days past, marketing was simply glad-handing at the Rotary Club or a round of golf at the local country club. For associates clients just seemed to show up at the firm's threshold.

Lately I've been asking myself, exactly what the brand is that binds us all together. The question comes up because of tort reform and because of people attempting to remove three Iowa Supreme Court justices over the gay marriage decision. The prospect of removal bothers me because these three justices have done nothing wrong; to the contrary they've done their job by tackling a tough issue. So I have had to ask what's wrong with this picture and what role if any does marketing play in being a judge.

Do judges have a brand that needs protection; if so what is it? What is its brand and how is that brand being both promoted and protected? Most judges believe they are above marketing; that their job has nothing to do with marketing a brand. That’s a lofty idea that in the case of the gay-marriage decision may need some rethinking and much retooling. After all judges are one of us; they are taxpaying citizens with families, friends and jobs. Like us they put their pants on one leg at a time. To understand what's going on with the judges we need to reflect on what happened with tort reform. So let's get back to the trial lawyers.

If the tort reform crisis of the 2000’s taught me anything, it is that the legal profession does have a brand and that I have an ethical obligation to protect it. Our client is our customer and they come to us with expectations that cannot nor should those exptations be ignored. If we ignore their expectations we run the risk of others marketing our brand for us by framing the issues in a way that is adverse to our clients and to our business model. Yes like it or not the court system, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and your state constitution is a part of your business’ brand. Ignore it and others will promote your brand in a way that causes it damage along with our image.

What is the legal professions brand to which I refer?

Before the Internet was so widely used, most lawyers obtained clients through word-of-mouth and Yellow Page advertising. Today if you ask any lawyer who pays attention to legal marketing and they will tell you the Yellow Pages are dead. Dead because most of our clients aren’t influenced by the Yellow Pages any longer. Those paper printed pages are a static ad in a book that no longer hangs in a street corner phone booth. Today clients are persuaded by a dynamic, ever-changing medium of electronic advertising. Our clients are constantly influenced by the electronic media that is so easily accessed and readily available on the Internet. Their perceptions are being persistently influenced and molded by what they read or hear over the Internet and in the legal profession by people that lack a genuine understanding of the law's history and inner workings. The Internet is a digital monster that the legal profession can no longer afford to ignore.  Ignore what is being portrayed as our brand and every jury or voter will be persuaded to see justice through someone else's rebranding or what we do. It is the Internet that delivers our brand to consumers and if we don’t participate in protecting the brand, the brand will be reengineered by others.

Ignore the brand at your peril. Ignoring the Internet brand is akin to poking out your eyes, sticking your head in the sand and then allowing Pepsi to decide what Coke's brand should look and sound like. The new Coke is Pepsi, it’s the Real Thing!

Let's look at our competition. The insurance, the tobacco, the right-wing conservatives and the pharmaceutical industries are all examples of special interest groups that make a profit by destroying our brand. These are your competitors. They spends hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide trying to reengineer the way people think about the law, lawyers, litigation, jurists and lawsuits. When it comes to convincing their customers (our jurors and judicial electorate) that judges and lawyers are the problem, not a solution, these industries are selling ice cubes to Eskimos.  Ask yourself why this is working. Why do working people who will probably be injured in an accident or those with a gay child, willing to buy into the notion, that we are, the problem and not the solution? Is this a re-branding of judges, lawyers and justice?

Why have they been widely successful in changing the perception of the good we do? Simply put the Eskimos are buying ice cubes because we’ve allowed our legal brand to be reengineered into the notion that adding ice to hot chocolate makes it warmer, not colder.

Blaming lawyers for the number of lawsuits is like blaming doctors for the number of cancer patients. Blaming personal injury lawyers for how many law suits are filed is like blaming the hospital clerk for the number of cancer patients admitted to the hospital wards.

Remember the Bush era mantra that thousands or lawyers were getting rich off of filing frivolous lawsuits? Think for two seconds about the logic of that statement. By definition frivolous lawsuits are worthless; so how could anyone believe lawyers were profiting from filing worthless lawsuits? But the public did for a period of time believe this preposterous notion. And we allowed them to. What we allowed the special interests to do was to degrade our brand and to change our image into something totally negative. As lawyers we were ignoring our duty to protect the judicial brand while allowing that brand to be marred through the efforts of special interests trying to increase their bottom lines. And don't think for even a second that this was just about Plaintiff attorneys. If we were getting rich off of those frivolous lawsuits then judges were supposedly allowing it. Yes, judges too were part of the problem. Let's not forget that judges are after all lawyers.

The insurance industry has had enormous success in trying to ruin our brand because lawyers have failed to grasp the very basics of marketing. Legal marketing protects the essentials of our brand. In the case of law our brand that needs to be protected is that we do good and not just because we are paid to do the work. Our work produces real results for real hard working people who are taxpayers and would otherwise be overrun by an industry that cares more about selling insurance than it does about settling claims. The pharmaceutical industry would turn the aging-world-population into plantet of lab rats for the next blockbuster drug; while the tobacco industry would persuade more and more teens that smoking cigarettes is a healthy lifestyle. We aren't about lawsuits; our brand is all about safety, individuality, diversity, freedom of expression and all those things that made America great. Our brand is about the little guy taking on corporations. Our brand is needed more by people than they do a Coke, yet Coca Cola as a brand is protected far better than is justice’s brand.

Believe it or not we are in a war of words over the hearts and the minds of the general public. When I say you have a professional duty to protect the brand through digital media and the use of blogs, I honestly mean it. Ignore that duty and you degrade the American way of life and what still makes this a great country.

America’s Greatest Export is Freedom of Speech

Let's think about the Internet in a way that perhaps has escaped the attention of most lawyers and judges. The First Amendment is now being mass produced and on a worldwide scale; not even China can stop it from occurring. The Internet is the modern version of the industrial revolution; except with the Internet machinery, workers are turning out thousands of ideas, some good and many bad. Like cloth off a loom those ideas cloak us in a black hat when in fact what we do is essential in maintaining social order and stability in America.

If you want to wear a white hat again; then get busy weaving cloth.

What the Internet accomplished, that most lawyers have failed to grasp, is that it created the ultimate First Amendment printing press. 0’s and 1’s turn into words, words turn into phrases, phrases into ideas and ideas now move around the world at lighting speeds. Like it or not legal marketing is no longer an option. Perception is reality. We are no longer allowed to believe that the rules of ethics discourage participation. We are no longer allowed to assume that professionalism in the law shirks such marketing efforts. Today, legal marketing is the responsibility of each and every lawyer and jurist. Most judges who read this will deny they are in any way involved in a brand. If you think judges and justices are exempt consider the situation in Iowa with the gay marriage-license opinion.

Politicians Take on the Bench when Judges Fail to Protect the Judicial Brand

Look at the recent Iowa political situation involving Bob Vander Platts attempting to remove three justices from the Iowa Supreme Court, not because they didn’t do their jobs nor did something criminal, but because he didn’t like their decision in Varnum, the gay-marriage decision. The brand has everything to do with why an independent judiciary is in the best interest of America. This has little to do with who is marrying who. Plain and simple Vander Platts believes he can persuade the public to destroy the court’s legal brands of equal protection, an open courthouse door to those oppressed by bigotry or hatred and an independent judiciary. An independent judiciary is an essential part of our brand. And who is explaining that to the public? Protecting an independent judiciary is no different than protecting a certain color of green paint on a farmer’s combine or the name associated with quality windows from Pella. The brand we use is the one we must protect. Creating that brand was what our forefathers did at the time when they wrote the U.S. and Iowa Constitutions. If George Washington or Abraham Lincoln weren’t above creating a brand why then are modern day judges exempt from protecting it? It is our duty to protect our brand and those lawyers failing to market in a way that does protect it are failing ethically to protect the integrity of the legal profession.  Like it or not judges are included in brand security. So ignore the brand and do so at your own peril.

See Vander Plaats Advocates Iowan's Practice Groinacology on the Iowa Supreme Court, August 9, 2010

We live in an Internet driven world and we need to adapt our business models to protect our judicial brand or lesser forces will destroy it, the rule of law and the system of trial by jury. The American system of justice is the greatest judicial system the world has seen; it is the greatest brand known to mankind. Lawyers and judges are the guardian of it and like it or not we all have a duty to protect the judicial brand. The bottom line is that marketing takes time and effort. And if judges and lawyers are not spending time to market or they’re not putting forth the effort to do so, then professionally you’re not being ethical.

LEGAL BRANDS

• Off the bench, judge blogs her mind, Boston Globe, May 27, 2008 – About a federal judge that blogs.
• The Becker-Posner Blog, a blog by Gary Becker and Richard Posner
• The ABA Blawg Directory, a comprehensive list of law blogs. By topic.
• The ABA Blawg Directory for the topic of the Judiciary.  

CONSIDER THESE QUESTIONS:

• Is Legal Marketing an Ethical Responsibility?
• Do Judges Need to Exercise Their First Amendment Rights?
• Who says the law has no brand?
• How do judges and lawyers protect our legal brand?
• Is legal marketing being hampered by the rules of ethics?
• Do the rules of ethics hinder protection of the law brand?