The lifeblood of any successful lawyer and of any successful law firm is “fee paying client.” In fact, when people sometimes ask me what I specialize in as a lawyer, I have been known to quip: “I specialize in the fee paying client.” As has been stated throughout literary history, there is truth in every humorous comment. We have been discussing multiple ways to get clients and to make clients happy. One way to get clients is the Internet. This week’s tip is to be listed on at least one Internet referral membership site.

Recently I was reading a series of articles that talked about the amount of time people spend on the Internet and the number of people who are now finding lawyers on the Internet. Whatever happened to the phrase “let your fingers do the walking?” The answer is telephone book advertising is out and the Internet is in. Obviously, if you actually go to the Yellow Pages you will see that they are far from being “out.” The amount of money being spent on advertising by lawyers is astronomical. Recently I was told of an attorney from my own city that decided to run ads in a city 60 miles away. He bought the front page and the back page of The Yellow Pages, placed a major ad in the section for attorneys, and he has apparently almost single handedly put a lot of lawyers in that city in a monetary pinch with regard to the amount of business he has been able to steer to his practice from such ads. Conversely, in my own practice I am getting a half dozen to a dozen blind Internet inquiries a week due to what appears to be random searches that pick up key words in my various Internet listings but only one or two calls a week from the yellow pages.

Admittedly, I have never been a big telephone book advertiser and that may account for the difference between the contexts from the Internet versus from the Yellow Pages.T Many people I have spoken with about the use of Yellow Pages swear by them and believe it is by far the best investment with regard to legal advertising as a way to secure clients. The shear amount of Yellow Page advertising obviously speaks for itself in terms of its use as a successful medium for securing legal business. There would be no way the Yellow Pages could sell the amount of ads they do on a year-to-year basis if it was not a proven way for lawyers to secure business. If the ads didn’t work, lawyers would simply not reinvest the next time around, and the ads would dry up. The fact that ads continue to grow speaks for itself with regard to it being a profitable medium with regard to marketing legal services as securing “fee paying clients.”

On the other hand, it appears as though the Internet is still in an embryonic stage with regard to how lawyers will utilize it as a successful marketing medium. I am solicited weekly by various Internet referral services to have my name placed on their list for Internet users to identify me as a lawyer who performs legal services in various areas.

Every time you talk about marketing legal services, I think you will find there are people who see themselves as being cutting edge who are doing everything they can to let the consuming public know about their legal services. The flip side of that are lawyers and firms who never do anything with regard to marketing and simply rely on word of mouth to sustain their practices. My approach has always been somewhere in the middle ground. One difficulty of doing everything you can to get as many contacts for potential business as you can, is the necessity of having to screen and take only those matters that will result in fees that will justify the work you put into the matter, and will result in a happy client that believes they got their money’s worth for the legal services you performed. If you are already so busy that you can’t seem to get the work done, which seems to be the case for most lawyers, embarking on an aggressive marketing campaign that will necessitate even more time being spent screening intakes of cases might appear to be counter-productive. On the other hand, if you can replace some of the matters you would normally take with matters that would generate even larger paying fees or better paying clients, it may well be worth the effort.

In 33 years, I don’t believe I have ever spent $1 on lawyer advertising. I have often wondered what I would do if I spent some money on advertising and ended up getting more cases than I could handle. The phrase “be careful what you wish for, you may get it,” comes to mind.

In my own particular case, I am a member of one Internet referral service that identifies me in my metropolitan area as a lawyer who is available to perform legal services in various areas. In my case, I traded a list of names and references to the Internet referral company in return for my being listed in their Internet referral network. This was a great opportunity for me to see what kind of referrals I would get from the Internet referral network without having to layout substantial amounts of money to do so. Like many other things that come across a lawyer’s path, the use of advertising, the Yellow Pages, the Internet and other types of referral networks, most of this is trial and error. Assuming the initial monetary outlay to try one of these sources in trying to get additional legal business will not put you out of business, it is a very good idea to “put your toe into the water and test the temperature.” Try one of these Internet referral networks and see what kind of response you get.

Often times there are what I will call “affinity” Internet referral networks. These networks can be everything from plaintiffs and defense lawyers to substantive areas of practice such as bankruptcy and domestic relations all the way to lawyers with a specific religious affiliation.

The long and the short of everything that I am saying about the Internet is that unless you are a member of at least one Internet referral network, you are behind the crowd. The comment “the speed of the leader determines the pace of the pack” comes to mind. It is the job of the lawyer who wants to be successful to continually probe new areas and sources for legal business. The Internet and a membership in an Internet referral network is an area that is well worth the time to investigate and become involved in.

Our next topic is the importance of being involved in at least one lawyer referral service membership. We will explore this topic next week and discuss it from both the point of view of securing clients for your practice, but also performing a service for the public. It is very important as we continue through all of these topics to understand that there is always at least a dual role in everything that you do regarding getting clients and making them happy. If you focus on the getting of the clients and the making of the money and forget about making them happy you have become satisfied with only half a loaf. You should devote as much effort in making the client happy as you spent getting the client in the first place. Regardless of what method you use to get clients, my own practice and my thirty-three years of observations have told me that there is no better advertisement than a satisfied client. If you make your clients happy, they become walking talking billboards for your law practice and, frankly, there is no amount of money that can be spent in advertising that can beat a whole group of satisfied clients recommending your services to other people on a day-to-day basis.

Talk to you next week!

Jim Wirken is a civil trial attorney and the Chairman of the Board of The Wirken Law Group in Kansas City.