A law firm marketing consultant is so fed up of getting asked whether such and such a survey is legitimate or not that he’s created a shared spreadsheet indicating whether various legal publications are scams.
“Who Hates Spammy Lawyer Awards?” is the brainchild of law firm website designer, Igor Ilyinsky.
Ilyinsky (pictured), who runs the Firmwise agency, said:
“I must get asked a dozen times a month if I’ve heard of THIS AWARD, and usually it’s a pay-to-play scam, so I was inspired to create a shared google form.”
To contribute to the crowdsourced venture, you click on the form, name the publication, and then indicate how reputable it is by checking one of the following:
- Pure spam
- Real, but not reputable
- Semi-reputable/pay-to-play
- Semi-reputable with free option
- Reputable award but pay to-play
- Reputable, cannot be bought
- Other
For the benefit of other readers, you can also add in “helpful notes for those being bombarded (include proof of scam, pricing, tactics for avoidance)”
Now, I’m always a bit conflicted when it comes to establishing any sort of standardized pecking order of respectability for legal awards and surveys.
Sure, I regularly advise clients and contacts as to the authenticity of various awards, some of which are embarrassingly naked in their money-grabbing attempts, and even the slightly more plausible ones that are not outright scams use a variety of shady, boiler room tactics.
But some of these products are genuine and determining what is appropriate will vary according to the type of firm involved.
For its part, vanity publishing has a long history and occupies its own niche in the market.
A number of the culprits on the spam list are essentially organizations that ask law firms to write an article – for a fee, of course – which the publication will then distribute across a variety of print and online channels.
Not everyone’s cup of tea, and pretty dated when it comes to legal marketing techniques, but not a scam.
Smaller firms with limited marketing resources sometimes opt for these, as it gives them a quick hit.
Where we move into dodgy territory, though, is where publishers claim to have done some “research” in order to reveal that you –yes, you – are “lawyer of the year for X”.
Usually in a breathless, pander-to-the-ego “don’t miss this opportunity” kind of way.
Of course, they haven’t done any research at all, or very little, but they say they have because they think it gives the award more credibility, and makes it more likely that the lawyer will buy a tombstone or advert.
Some lawyers know this of course – they’re not all gullible – but will take the award because, well, it’s an accolade that they can tout, and, being realistic, perhaps their chances of winning one of the more prestigious awards are limited.
Every law firm should develop policy guidelines as to which rankings, surveys, and awards they should participate with, and to what extent, but it is horses for courses.
What might be rejected by an AmLaw100 firm as low-grade may be OK for a small independent firm in Romania.
I’m not going to be mean and link to Mr. Ilyinsky’s shame list, but feel free to contact him directly if you want to see or contribute to his chart.
Not sure I entirely agree on this one Lloyd. The format sounds a little off but there are an awful lot of no or low value publications, awards and quasi networking platforms out there. Then of course the contract publishers pretending they are speaking for the UN or other significant body when they are simply doing an “official publication ” for some event or another. Small firms can benefit enormously from guidance because it can be hard to tell a credible publication from a non credible one when there are made up readership stats, a generic but impressive name and salespeople scouring law firm websites for press releases to then call up partners posing as journalists until the cost kicker comes in at the end. If an award has no clear methodology or credibility the winner does themselves no favours using it as an accolade. A firm small or large gains nothing from paying to write for a publication that has no buy side readership. And that’s before we get into the myriad who’s who publications. These publications’ existence is a function of two primary things: the fact the legal industry remains extremely fragmented, making for many targets; and the hangover from lawyers being barred from conventional advertising, which remains the case in some places. I have wasted more hours than I care to think about dealing with awards and publishers of this ilk as has anyone in the legal PR game for long. They exist solely to part fools from money. That is a place of sorts but the suggestion it is horses for courses and some firms benefit is to my mind a nonsense. It’s a personal view but one borne out of long experience. It can be fun to turn the tables on their sales pitches though. They usually end up swearing and putting the phone down on you.
Agree with much of this Mike, but my “horses for courses” comment is based on having worked with many law firms over the years, from the very large to very small, across a range of different markets, and recognizing that there are huge differences between them.
You’re seeing this entirely through a BigLaw lens, where it’s easy for large, prestigious commercial firms to establish clear policy guidelines as to which publications to focus on.
Imagine that you left your job tomorrow and went to become the marketing manager for a two-partner firm in Macedonia. You have no budget, no staff, no PR software, no resources to do any sort of campaign, and, at least not in the short-medium term, little likelihood of getting into the more credible directories and publications, and no luxury of time to secure top-tier “earned media” coverage.
Along comes a publication that you would have dismissed in your old firm. Not one of the outright scams, but a more middling/speculative one. They say that you have been nominated as the best competition law firm in Macedonia. The partner asks you if we should tout the achievement on the firm’s website. What do you do? Or they say: “for $500, we will include your firm in our supplement with your logo and a description of your practice.”
In a large firm, you might reject this easily on the basis that it’s not a credible accolade. But in a smaller firm with no/limited staff, few other options, you may want to take the quick hit. It doesn’t take much time, nor cost much, and gives you something you can put on the website, in the signature box, on their bios, push out to clients.
In the U.S, for example, there is a large plaintiffs bar and they spend money on certain types of directories and publications that are sniffed at by defense-side firms. Yet in some cases the return on investment/brand building is good. And these firms would balk at the huge sums/time spent by commercial firms on their preferred directories and the enormous submissions effort. Then you have consumer firms that would spend a lot of money on listing/SEO-type directories.
As I mainly work with larger firms, I agree that that you have to be strict, and have spent a lot of time over the years establishing policy guidelines for big firms, but in my view it is more nuanced than simply categorizing every publication in a fixed fashion, as there is a whole range of different sub-segments of the legal market with different needs.
We’re going to have to disagree on this one, Lloyd. I’m not coming at this from a BigLaw perspective. Prior to moving to PR (when Herbert Smith was probably mid law not BigLaw anyway) I spent six years as a journalist across several publications, including editing one series that goes 100 percent into the vanity publishing box that I won’t name. And on that and others I was working with salespeople ranging from fly by night shysters to people with great integrity commercialising my content. Firms should not conflate cheap with value for money.
I entirely agree with you large firms spend an enormous amount in terms of opportunity and real costs on directories. Optimising such processes is extremely valuable and there is a long way to go, but I don’t think it’s unfair to surmise that directories and indeed consultants such as yourself benefit from serving a fragmented industry and have a degree of interest in keeping it that way. Note the rise of rankings of legal networks in Chambers et al. Many people have a lot to lose from genuine consolidation in the market even though that is likely many years off on a truly global scale.
I agree there is a whole set of sub segments of the legal market with different needs. The offshore firms being one example that is reasonably well served by some sophisticated publications. I would simply say in many cases sub segments are being terribly badly served. I always suggest the managing partner test. If the managing partner of a firm called a partner into their office and asked them to justify the expenditure on a pay to write article, deal tombstone or paid-for award with no clear methodology, awards ceremony or evidence of client penetration, would they be comfortable justifying the spend, whether a couple of hundred dollars or $10k.