As an attorney, your goals primarily center around helping people get their lives back on track. You represent victims who were injured in catastrophic accidents, people who cannot fight large insurance companies alone, or families who lost a loved one.
You’ve seen firsthand how the appropriate amount of compensation can help people begin to move forward again. And often, people who might be owed higher amounts of compensation need the most help.
Be proud to set your sights upon million-dollar cases. In addition to helping the client, such cases provide firms with ample opportunity to reach more clients, assist more colleagues, and facilitate more business processes.
Keep reading for tips and insight to build a formidable web presence that can put your firm at the top and keep you there.
Wanting High-Value Cases Doesn’t Make You Greedy
Quality over quantity: the old saying rings true for law firms looking to grow.Wanting and winning million-dollar cases doesn’t make you selfish.It means you’re an adept negotiator who truly believes that your client deserves more and won’t settle for the insurance company’s lowball offer.
Of course, with a larger verdict comes the risk of remittitur (see the infamous McDonald’s coffee case), but a properly prepared and ethical attorney will not argue for an excessive or nuclear verdict. They’ll argue for an amount that’s contingent on the facts.You can probably imagine that that’s a tricky line to walk, but experience and due diligence will make it possible.Now, on to getting you million-dollar cases.
Step One: Be Proactive, Now
Realistically, you can’t expect million-dollar clients to find you, and much less hire you, if you’re nowhere to be found on the internet. In fact, 33% of potential clients start looking for a lawyer online, and a staggering 96% search for legal advice on the web.Those figures represent hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. Somewhere in there lies a treasure trove of million-dollar cases.It’s not enough to own a website and upload a blog every six months. To go after that treasure, you need to know what your users search for and you need to know their behaviors (how long users spend on a page, what subjects they’re interested in, etc.). In other words, you need to be fully present and fully involved online. That means:
- Optimizing your site for Google and other search engines to crawl and index so users can find it.
- Publishing frequent, unique content that’ll position you as an expert in your practice area.
- Running PPC and/or LSA ads to get you and your firm in front of a specifically chosen audience.
- Claim your business and be active on Google My Business, responding to reviews, contacting unsatisfied clients, and keeping hours and contact information up to date.
Case Study
We helped a Floridian client gain so much exposure online that when a young man was injured in Florida, his father in New York found our client through an internet search and hired them almost immediately.Being present will give you exposure to your desired audience. When you know what your potential client needs and how they search, you can position yourself in front of them and establish your firm as the one with the answers.EverSpark can help you gain profound exposure online. To learn about our full gamut of law firm SEO services, read up on our legal page or call us at (877) 323-4661.
Step Two: Present Yourself the Way You Want to Be Presented
Nowhere is presentation more important than online, where tens of thousands of other attorneys are vying for clients’ attention. In a survey by Thomson Reuters, 46% of responding legal consumers said they rank expertise as the most important factor when choosing which attorney to hire. Expertise came in at #1, outranking cost, location, and even word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family members.Expertise is imperative. Here are some ways to get the ball rolling and present yourself as an expert online:
Demonstrate your speciality.
You can create YouTube videos, podcasts, articles, and countless other materials in which you discuss the experience and adroitness that you bring to your specific practice area(s).
Include links to articles you’ve written for acclaimed or well-known publications.
You can include links in a variety of ways, either as a prominently displayed button or banner, or in text within one of your blogs or other resources. Ideally, you would do both.
Include testimony from colleagues.
Let others know about your proficiency in your practice area and the difficulty of cases you’ve handled. Refrain from tooting your own horn across your entire website – arrogance turns clients away and makes your claims of expertise seem false. Let colleagues speak for you when possible.
Add a Case Results page or section of a page to display prominent results.
Don’t forget to include a little exposition of each case. Potential clients want details, and they’ll be more likely to contact you if they see themselves in one of your former cases.
Share information about Continuing Legal Education (CLE) or law school courses you’ve taught or written articles about.
Potential clients want to make sure you won’t plague their case using exhausted, outdated methods. Continuing legal education is a great way to keep yourself up to date while proving that you’ve mastered complex strategies.
Include information about a leadership or advisory position in a Board or Bar organization.
Experts don’t shy from other experts. They revel in the opportunity to learn and share from colleagues while spending time with professionals in similar positions. These are just a few ways to demonstrate your legal prowess online. When you’re adding these elements to your website, don’t hide them on a page no one can find. Display them prominently on your homepage, your About Us/About Our Firm page, and throughout the site as needed.
Step Three: Set Yourself Up for Success
The journey to enter the legal profession is full of opportunities to set yourself up for success. Take a moment to reflect on the preparations you underwent throughout the educational process: studying for, then taking the SAT to get into college; studying hard throughout college to earn your Bachelor’s degree; studying yet again to take the LSAT; studying and holding internships and externships throughout law school, and studying to take your state’s bar exam.
During every step of the journey, you set yourself up for success by preparing, studying, and considering your future.In the same way, you need to set yourself up for success to earn million-dollar cases. These cases won’t just fall into your lap (unless you’re extremely lucky), so you need to take the time to answer the “why” and “how” to bring in those big cases.First off: Know the “why” behind your client’s right to maximum compensation, and hold fast to it. Your client may deserve a maximum payout because the doctor’s prognosis of their injury is likely to cost exponentially more in a few years, especially when factoring in inflation and other economic factors. When you have evidence (doctor’s prognosis) that the injury is and will continue to be expensive even after the trial is over, it’ll be easier to ethically and wholeheartedly argue for significantly more than what the insurance company or other party is offering.You make a more compelling case when you believe resolutely in something, and juries are more likely to award million- or multi-million-dollar cases to attorneys who have full confidence in their argument.Secondly, understand insurance companies’ tricks and (legal) ways of getting around policy limits. Understanding these key concepts is one of the best ways to set yourself up for success and earn million-dollar cases. Understand them, and be proactive in looking for them. Insurance companies are sneaky and are always coming up with new ways to devalue your clients’ claims. Thirdly (we know, we know), you’ll just have to get lucky. Understand that potential clients are probably looking at four or five other firms, comparing them and combing their websites to choose the one that’s the best fit. Luck plays a big role here, but make no mistake – clients love an attractive, informative, easily navigable site. They love content that shows them you know what you’re talking about and you have the skills to deliver a favorable outcome.
Hire EverSpark to Build a Site That Attracts Million-Dollar Cases
Every lawyer wants to be successful, and while a million-dollar case doesn’t inherently make it so, your goal should always be to deliver as much as you can to your clients. In the same vein, you’ll make a profit and earn maximum compensation by attracting clients with high-value cases.In this blog, we gave you tips and insight to get started on the road towards more lucrative cases. Now the ball’s in your court – take it and run. When you’re ready to get started on building and maintaining a formidable online presence, give us a call or fill out our form. You’ll receive a basic website audit at no charge. We look forward to working with you!