Effective, Ethical Marketing For Attorneys
Good Advice?
"Lawyer.com" Not Unique, says Appeals Court
Category: Good Advice?
It's no big surprise that the bid by LexisNexis to trademark "lawyer.com" has failed. An appeals court yesterday upheld a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decision to reject the Reed Elsevier application.
The agency had said the phrase was generic, pointing out that others use variations, such as Massachusetts-lawyers.com, medialawyer.com and truckerlawyers.com. Reed Elsevier argued that its site had ``acquired distinctiveness.''
As I said, no big surprise here. For one thing, consumers don't know about "lawyers.com." That's not where they start their searches. The start in Google, not these large, generic, lawyer directory web site.
Weird Proof That the Phonebook Works?
Category: Good Advice?
According to a published report, Verizon Communications will pay $2 million to Virginia customers affected by mistakes in phone directories under a settlement approved by the State Corporation Commission. The settlement follows a two-year investigation by state regulators of complaints about wrong numbers, dropped listings, published private lines and other mistakes.
One Virginia Beach businessman whose number was published incorrectly by Verizon in three yellow pages in the state said that his business had been doubling every year until the mistaken listings. His business then dropped to nothing.
Another Richmond business, Creature Comforts, claims that it went out of business in the fall of 2004, a year after the last time Verizon messed up her listing.
Customers affected by errors since 2004 have until May 14 to submit a claim with the Commission's division of communications.
The Good News Is.....
Category: Good Advice?
Your competition reads articles like this about how to do effective lawyer advertising and believes it's true. So they keep on doing the same type of advertising over and over again, hoping for a different result.
Thanks to Lisa Solomon for bringing this to my attention. Read this article and then read my commentary below.
Why Small Firms Have the Advantage
Category: Good Advice?
Larry Bodine has a post which should give small law firms who engage "effective, ethical and outside the box" marketing great hope. The large firms still don't get it and that's good for the rest of us!