This is a guest blog post from Long Island Attorney, Jeena Belil, who I have had the pleasure of meeting through Twitter, email and occasionally over the phone. She was also one of the early adopters integrating Avvo Answers into her law practice’s website. The post recounts her transition from large in house attorney to solo practitioner and provides a real life example of how Avvo has impacted an attorney’s marketing efforts.

For twelve years, I was employed as an attorney defending insurance companies against claims made by their insureds. I handled a case load, managed a staff counsel law office and was personally responsible for implementing legal strategies in connection with litigation, arbitration and trials. My work for these companies boiled down to achieving the overall goal set by the insurance carrier: my job was to help maintain the corporate bottom-line.
Most recently, I was managing counsel for an insurance company based on Long Island. I had a lofty title and my name was engraved on a plaque in the lobby. By the summer of 2007, I was counsel of record on over 10,000 law suits in the court houses in downstate New York. Unfortunately, during 2007, roughly half of the people employed by the insurance company were downsized. In September of 2007, the entire in-house legal department was let go. Once the dust settled, I knew that I did not want to go back in-house. I wanted to start using my experience to help injured people in my community.
I started my personal injury solo practice out of my home with spit and glue. I had a lot of things going for me: some money to start up, a business plan, budget in place and prior experience representing injured persons in auto/motorcycle and slip and fall accidents. The one major disadvantage I had was that although I was well known in the auto insurance defense community, my name was not known to the general public.
I knew that while the Yellow Pages and other types of print advertising were the traditional forms of marketing for personal injury attorneys, the ads that I found did not fit my business model or my personality. I wanted my clients to know more about me than what could be contained on a quarter page.
I found that Avvo was a great tool to assist me in achieving my marketing objectives. It is an excellent way for me to showcase my experience, speaking engagements and publications. Additionally, I have found the “Track Record” platform is an effective way to demonstrate to consumers my ability to personally litigate their cases.
It’s important for lawyers, especially solos, to realize that the traditional methods of getting your name out to the public can be expensive, redundant and ineffective. The Web is here and it’s easier then you think to embrace the technology. A web marketing vehicle like Avvo makes it simple to set yourself apart from the herd.
Avvo will continue to be a big part of my marketing plan in 2009 and beyond.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 10:19 am by Conrad Saam, Marketing and is filed under Guest Bloggers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.