Case summaries on your website will help win business
Every time we prepare an award submission for clients, we stand back and admire their incredible legal work. We love the challenging and complex nature of the matters we include in the various submissions we draft. Each one tells a story of a special deal, unique dispute, or ground-breaking legal precedent. It’s like looking at a display of exquisite goodies and observing some of the most interesting (and often award-winning) legal work of the year. It’s where our team totally geeks out.
But after the award submission is complete, we’ve come to realize that many of our clients don’t publish their cases or deals on their websites. Essentially, our clients’ best work remains hidden from the public and is only discovered if you know where to dig and research. Why do we make it so difficult to tell clients and prospects of our achievements? All those stories and hard work deserve to be showcased.
Your website SEO will benefit from rich keywords, case citations, and party names, providing you with higher search result rankings. In turn your lawyers’ profiles and credibility will get a valuable boost. Prospective clients who search for a lawyer using keywords, or when validating you via a referral, will find your case or matter summaries of significant interest – and chances are, your competitors aren’t publishing any summaries at all. So, your conversion rate, turning a prospect into a client, just improved from a passive marketing effort.
And it’s so easy to include this information on your site, and your social channels too, by the way.
Depending on your firm size, set an interval every two months, quarterly or bi-annually, to sweep the firm for deals and cases to profile. Of course, there will be times when you don’t want to include a notable transaction or decision on your website, but those will be the minority. When in doubt, consider asking your client for their comfort level, or anonymize the client, but do include the industry in the summary.
Drafting case summaries are great manageable assignments for students or other strong writers in your firm. Here are some tips when summarizing case summaries for your website:
Use plain language
Choose a strong descriptive title
Make a list of relevant keywords and weave them into your summary
State the challenge/problem/issue in the first sentence or two
Describe why this was notable or special
State briefly and generally how you navigated the deal to close or win the case
Provide the outcome and impact on your client
We know that it can be challenging to continue to summarize and display cases over time. This is where your outsourcing budget is worth every single dollar. Lawyer time can be applied minimally to review and approve drafts (did I mention we have a crack writing team?) and we get each summary across the finish line and published for you.
Which cases or deals of yours deserve to emerge from hiding? Let us help bring them into the light.