“The practice of law has not really changed all that much in the past decade, but the economics of the business of law have changed dramatically. It is no longer sufficient to rely exclusively on excellent technical skills to succeed as a lawyer,” as stated by James A. Durham in the introduction to The Complete Guide to Marketing Your Law Practice, Hollis Hatfield Weishar and James A. Durham, editors. Durham goes on to say that the authors have “assembled the information in this book to allow legal practitioners to explore in more depth the specific tasks and skills needed to succeed in a competitive marketplace. There is great value, for example, in knowing not only that you need to use technology more effectively in your practice, but also the specific ways in which technology might be better used to deliver value and efficiency to clients.”

The Complete Guide to Marketing Your Law Practice was published in 1999 by the Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association and focuses on general marketing techniques. The following year the ABA published Marketing and Legal Ethics: The Boundaries of Promoting Legal Services by William E. Hornsby, Jr. Hornsby focuses on the legal issues of marketing legal services, including multistate practices; and joint ventures, ancillary businesses, and multidisciplinary practices.

Building on the theme begun in The Complete Guide to Marketing Your Law Practice, the Bar Association published two additional titles in 2002 that focus on specific marketing techniques. The first is Effective Yellow Pages Advertising for Lawyers: The Complete Guide to Creating Winning Ads, by Kerry Randall. Yellow Pages not only discusses how to create effective ads for display in the yellow pages, but it hopes to change the way you think about marketing. This book attempts to “shift your thinking from the sellers’ objectives to the buyer’s perspectives”

The second title published by the ABA is The Lawyer’s Guide to Marketing on the Internet, 2d ed, by Gregory H. Siskind, Deborah McMurray and Richard P. Klau. The authors encourage you to “think of the Web site as your firm’s face to the world”. Your firm’s Web site is your chance to tell your firm’s unique story. How do you do that and keep visitors coming back to your site? Included is a sample RFP for Web site design and the top 250 law firm Web sites awarded by internetmarketingattorney.com.

Hanging out a shingle is no longer an effective method of marketing legal services. These books will help you create an innovative plan for your firm.