Last week Seattle Personal Injury Attorney Jason Epstein spoke with us about the various free and low cost online marketing tools and tactics he uses to market his firm. Here’s a replay for all those who may have missed it:

Our sincerest condolences go out to the family of Joseph C. McDaniel.  Some of you may recall that I wrote about Joseph in August, praising his marketing approach.  Joseph passed away unexpectedly last month, and I was so sad when Jenny, his Avvo account manager, gave me the news.

Joseph was a big Avvo fan and a friend.  He reached out to me a couple of years ago saying that he loved Avvo and, since that time, we checked-in with one another periodically.  I will miss hearing from him.

I realize that all of our time is limited; but when one of the good ones hits the door, the room feels a bit emptier.

Mark

This Thursday at 1PM ET/10AM PT we’re excited to have another guest join us for our weekly legal marketing webinar series.

Jason Epstein – a partner with the Premier Law Group in Seattle – will discuss his experience managing the marketing efforts for his firm (in addition to handling his personal injury case load). Specifically, Jason will share the strategy he has developed to reach his target market, including guerrilla marketing tactics, free (and low cost) online tools, search engine optimization and public relations outreach. Bringing it all together, Jason has experienced marketing success as seen by more bringing more clients in the door. You will hear what has worked well for him, and what he has learned through trial and error along the way.

Lawyers who attend this webinar will learn:

• SEO basics and how to increase online search results for your firm.
• Free and low cost solutions to enhance, measure and support marketing efforts.
• Time management advice – how to decide where to focus efforts and how much time to allocate.

Hope you can join us on Thursday!

Here at Avvo, we’re no strangers to getting sued by professionals who have been sanctioned by the licensing authorities. We believe that knowing about sanctions is powerfully important to consumers of professional services, and that this information should be readily and openly available. Sadly – but perhaps understandably – many of those sanctioned professionals would prefer that potential patients and clients stay in the dark.

While Avvo is big enough to fend off the occasional lawsuit from a sanctioned professional – and knowledgeable enough in the law to not be intimidated by the many threats of lawsuits we receive – bloggers and reviewers who write about doctors and lawyers are not usually as well-situated to defend against litigation, threatened or actual. The latest example is Portland blogger Tiffany Craig. Craig wrote a post this summer about plastic surgeon Jerry Darm, pointing out that he had been sanctioned for allegedly sexually harassing a patient. However, in pointing out the sanction, Craig referred to Darm surrendering his license. In fact, he’d been allowed to continue practicing, but with several conditions, including that he be accompanied by a chaperone when treating female patients.

Darm sued Craig for defamation, claiming $1 million in damages from Craig’s post about his sanctions. To Craig’s great credit, she fought the lawsuit and has not deleted the post in question. So many times, these types of claims are less about seeking damages than they are about silencing comments that the plaintiff doesn’t like. It’s unlikely Darm cares so much about the technical distinction of whether his sanction involved a suspension from practice or the imposing of significant conditions thereon; rather, he doesn’t want anyone to know about his sanction at all, and he believes – foolishly – that this lawsuit is a way to achieve that end.

There’s a term for this kind of claim: a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP suit. This type of claim seeks to silence otherwise-lawful speech by raising the specter of having to incur ruinous costs in defending the lawsuit. It’s a strategy that’s been employed by the prickly-and-deep-pocketed for quite some time, with the most notable recent example being Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder’s suit against the Washington City Paper over an unflattering portrayal.

But there are two dynamics that are starting to shift the playing field against those bringing SLAPP suits. The first is the Streisand Effect, where the defamation suit itself brings far more attention to the allegedly defamatory comments than they ever would have received had the object of the comments simply ignored them. And the second is the rise of anti-SLAPP laws, which provide defendants an expedited path to getting a SLAPP suit dismissed. Many such laws also provide a mechanism for the prevailing defendant to recover their attorney fees – or even a fine – from the party bringing the SLAPP suit.

While such laws aren’t available to SLAPP victims everywhere, they are spreading. Washington adopted a very strong anti-SLAPP law in 2010. Texas and Washington, D.C. have followed suit this year. And thankfully for Tiffany Craig, Oregon has an anti-SLAPP law. That law has allowed Craig to stand up to Darm’s lawsuit.

None of this is to say that defamation shouldn’t be actionable. An anti-SLAPP law provides no protection to someone who engages in actual defamation. But the concept of defamation is far more limited that those bringing these suits would have it. Tiffany Craig certainly didn’t defame Dr. Darm by writing about his sanction; he was in fact sanctioned, and truth is an absolute defense to a defamation claim. To survive Craig’s special motion to strike under Oregon’s anti-SLAPP law, Darm would have to show that he has a prima facie case of defamation. In order to do so, he would have to show that Craig’s overstatement – that Darm was suspended from practice in addition to having conditions imposed – is actionable defamation.

One issue that those claiming defamation often latch onto is this sort of minor inaccuracy or overstatement, thinking that statements must be 100% accurate to avoid being defamatory. But if you unpack this a bit, the problem Darm has is the disclosure that he was sanctioned. It matters a whole lot to potential patients of Aesthetic Medicine that Dr. Darm was sanctioned for allegedly molesting female patients; it matters a whole lot less whether that sanction resulted in practice conditions or a period of suspension. There’s a concept in defamation law called the “substantial truth” defense. As long as the gist of the claim is true, minor inaccuracies or overstatements will not support a defamation claim. This defense has been successfully applied in cases where far more onerous crimes and punishments have been reported, and would likely work in Craig’s favor here.

This isn’t to say that sloppy reporting should be excused, or that writers should be less-than-diligent in looking into those matters they plan to publish, particularly when they involve someone’s reputation. But at the same time, it impoverishes our discourse if the bar for accuracy is set impossibly high, and expressing oneself is done at risk of being sued for a foot-fault. Craig’s motion presents an interesting test of anti-SLAPP as applied to a “substantially true” defamation case.

However . . . this coming Thursday would have seen the hearing on whether Darm’s suit was a SLAPP, but as Craig announced on her blog at the end of last week, the case has been settled. As her original post is still up, that settlement likely involved Darm agreeing to drop his suit in exchange for Craig not going after him for her attorney’s fees (which she would be entitled to had she prevailed on her motion).

While we won’t see a court ruling on this particular issue, the case dismissal indicates what Darm thought of the merits of his defamation case as the moment of truth drew near. Kudos to Tiffany Craig for fighting the good fight to the end.

If you missed our webinar with Kevin Houchin last Thursday, here is the presentation in its entirety!

Also be sure to check out our upcoming schedule of free legal marketing webinars, including another great guest in two weeks – personal injury lawyer Jason Epstein – who will discuss low cost and effective online marketing tactics.

I had the pleasure of speaking at the University of Michigan law school yesterday.  I spoke to a group of students interested in alternative approaches to the law, in particular the evolution from lawyer technician to lawyer businessperson or total businessperson.

My message was simple:  In order to be a great lawyer, in almost every area of the law, you need to also be a great business person – or at a minimum a student of business principles.  Whether you want to start your own firm, be an influential partner or manager in a larger firm, be a general counsel or even represent business clients in litigation, the more you are a student of business principles, the more successful you will be.

Why?  Because by understanding your and your client’s businesses, you can make better decisions related to risk and return.  Too often lawyers – trained from day one to be ISSUE spotters – dismiss all sorts of opportunities because their fear of the issues – the risks – prevents them from ever thinking through the return.   

And, sadly, law schools and bar administrators are very shortsighted in failing to promote any education on this front.  Very few schools have any sort of curriculum relating to running a business, even though most of their students will be running their own businesses in the near future.  Bar administrators repeatedly refuse to give CLE credit for anything that even smells like marketing, which is pretty sad.  They should be encouraging lawyers to invest more time in becoming better businesspeople.

I noticed while writing this post that Megan has posted our October Avvo webinars and, in so doing, gave a shout-out to the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys (AAEPA).  The principals behind AAEPA , Robert Armstrong and Sandy Fisch, are two of the more business-savvy lawyers I know.  I met them a couple of years ago after Sandy attended an Avvo social media event in San Diego.  Thereafter, they have had me speak to the AAEPA regarding Avvo and social media and it has given me a firsthand view of the high quality services the AAEPA offers its members.  As Megan mentioned, they are the “Total Solution” for estate planning attorneys helping them build their business and enhance the technical legal skills.  Having dinner with a number of AAEPA members, they told me repeatedly that AAEPA had changed their practice.

So, if you are interested in learning more about the AAEPA, again, attend their webinar.  There is also the Academy Summit coming up in October In San Diego.  If interested in the summit or membership, contact info@aaepa.com or call 800-846-1555 for a free estate planning practice packet of information and tools.  You can also read their books, “The E-Myth Attorney” and “Dominate Your Market! The Attorney’s Complete Guide to Online Marketing and Social Media.”  Great guides for the business-minded lawyer.

Be a lawyer.  Be a businessperson.

Mark

We have some great legal marketing webinars planned for this month, including two Avvo guests, and another from The American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys. Sign up below, or see the full schedule here.

October 6: Using Personality Assessments in the Attorney-Client Relationship with Kevin Houchin

This webinar will be held on Thursday, October 6th at 10:00 am PT.

Many lawyers have “Attorney & Counselor at Law” on their business cards, but how much time do we spend improving our “Counselor” function? One of the key to being an effective “Counselor at Law” is effective communication between attorney and client, and the attorney’s ability to facilitate effective, accurate communication between the client and other parties to a negotiation or dispute. Because these communications are so important, how can legal professionals facilitate the process of accurate communication? One answer is to implement personality type assessments into our legal and mediation practices.

During this webinar Kevin Houchin, attorney, entrepreneur and leadership coach, will share the motivation, process, and benefits of implementing personality assessments in your law or mediation practice. While the session will focus on the Enneagram personality type assessment, the concepts discussed can be implemented using other personality typing models such as Myers-Briggs, DISC, Strength-Finders, or others depending on the preference of the attorney or mediator using the process.

Lawyers who attend this webinar will learn about:

• The mechanics and ethics of implementing personality typing tools into the client intake process and mediation preparation process.
• How implementing these relationship-building tools will benefit you as an attorney or mediator in both your professional and personal development process.

Sign up here!

October 20: Guerrilla Online Marketing: What You Can Do Right Now For Free* (*or, Not Too Much Money) with Jason Epstein

This webinar will be held on Thursday, October 20th at 10:00 am PT.

Hear from Jason Epstein – a partner with the Premier Law Group in Seattle – discuss his experience not only handling personal injury cases, but also managing the marketing efforts for his firm. Specifically, Jason will share the strategy he has developed to reach his target market, including guerrilla marketing tactics, free (and low cost) online tools, search engine optimization and public relations outreach. Bringing it all together, Jason has experienced marketing success as seen by more bringing more clients in the door. You will hear what has worked well for him, and what he has learned through trial and error along the way.

Lawyers who attend this webinar will learn:

• SEO basics and how to increase online search results for your firm.
• Free and low cost solutions to enhance, measure and support marketing efforts.
• Time management advice – how to decide where to focus efforts and how much time to allocate.

Sign up here!

We also want to pass along another webinar from our friends at the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys. Tomorrow Tuesday, October 4th and Wednesday, October 5th they will be covering the topic “Online Market Domination for Your Law Firm: Mastering the 5 Key Internet Tools to Save Your Law Firm From Extinction in the New Digital World.”

Go here to sign up for the webinar or call 800-975-6448.

The American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys has been around  since 1993 as the “Total Solution” for estate planning attorneys helping them build their business and enhance the technical legal skills. The Academy Fall Summit is also coming up later this month – October 13-17 – in San Diego.  If interested in attending, or learning more about membership contact info@aaepa.com or call 800-846-1555. They will also send you a free estate planning practice packet of information and tools.