Why the sudden ban? Missouri is taking strides to decrease inappropriate contact between students and teachers and taking whatever measures necessary to do so.

Schools felt a sense of urgency to put at abrupt stop to any student/teacher Facebook friendships that may exist. Why?  If inappropriate contact is being made and the prosecutors can prove the school was aware, they can be held liable.

Senate Bill 54 going in effect August 28^th and states:

“By January 1, 2012, every school district must develop a written policy concerning teacher-student communication and employee-student communications. Each policy must include appropriate oral and nonverbal personal communication, which may be combined with sexual harassment policies, and appropriate use of electronic media as described in the act, including social networking sites. Teachers cannot establish, maintain, or use a work-related website unless it is available to school administrators and the child’s legal custodian, physical custodian, or legal guardian. Teachers also cannot have a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student. Former student is defined as any person who was at one time a student at the school at which the teacher is employed and who is eighteen years of age or less and who has not graduated.”

The bill, also known as the “Amy Hestir Student Protection Act” is named after a Missouri woman who was assaulted by a teacher.  Currently, details on how the law will be enforced aren’t clear which leads to a lot of “What If” questions.

How will schools enforce this law?  How will courts punish the offenders?  How will courts punish the schools?

What are you thoughts on the ban?

Why: Meet new business contacts. Building credibility through providing relevant information increases the opportunity for referral sources.

How: Gina Rubel from The Legal Intelligencer Blog defines the approach as:
Define Purpose -> Follow-> Listen -> Create -> Engage.
Below is the approach the Auctori:law team takes from Gina Rubel’s direction:

Define what your law firm’s “purpose” is for participating in Twitter conversations.

Decide how you’re going to position yourself and stick to it.

Follow people speaking about topics you are familiar with and professionals in the industry.  In order for people to regularly see that you’re tweeting, they must be following you.  Actively use the “search” feature to find people who are discussing a certain topic, who are in your area, or are in your industry.

*Try searching for a legal professional with a lot of credibility and “following” that person’s “followers.” By doing so, you know you’re following people who already have an interest in legal professionals.

Listen to conversations.  Twitter is an excellent avenue for quickly intervening and participating in conversations. This allows you to rapidly connect with others that can share their knowledge and benefit from yours.

Create content unique content to share with peers; become a resource in the legal industry for Twitter users.

Engage in conversation.  Social Media is a two-way online conversation tool that must be used as such.  Simply tweeting without replying to people, those who have re-tweeted you, and starting a conversation with peers will ultimately result in failure.

Here you will find tips on optimizing your Twitter account to boost search engine rankings.

LinkedIn

Why: LinkedIn allows attorneys to maintain a list of people they know and trust in business, expand their professional network, and locate other qualified professionals.

How: The key to expanding a professional network is engaging other professionals in conversation; participate in LinkedIn’s Q&A section.  Ask questions to receive advice from other professionals in your network.  In order to position yourself as an industry leader, search for questions related to law that you would be able to answer effectively.  “Best Answers” are recognized each week which increases visibility and credibility.

Facebook

Why: Promoting your law firm online as a business through a fan page.

Use for Jury Selection:
Law firms can search Facebook profiles to screen potential jurors.  Facebook pages can tell a law firm more about a person than a background check.  A person’s individual preferences, “Likes” and hobbies can let an attorney know if the juror is a good fit for a trial.

How:

The latest blog by “The Nutmeg Lawyer: Should Attorneys Facebook Their Clients? states:
In my status updates, I began posting things like “in Hartford Superior Court today” or “doing a commercial closing today at 5.”  Although a bit pretentious, my various updates reminded friends and family what I did for a living. “Hey Baron, I hear you are a lawyer now.  Do you do real estate closings, can you help prepare a will for my mom, I ran over the neighbor’s cat – any chance you do criminal defense work?”  For my small practice, the increase in clients was a godsend.  People I hadn’t seen in years began referring friends and family to my law practice. I began seeing my client base grow.

JD Supra

Why: JDSupra.com allows attorneys and legal professionals to showcase their expertise by posting and sharing articles and blogs through the website and its LinkedIn group.

How: By posting articles on a variety of platforms (such as your website, blog, article sharing site), you position yourself and your law firm as an industry leader.  JD Supra allows legal professionals to create an online portfolio of their work including articles, presentations, minutes, and blogs.

When social networks are used to promote a lawyer or law practice, though effective on their own, they should ultimately contain a call to action to drive traffic back to the law firm’s website.  Not only do these social networks offer increased exposure to legal professionals, profiles and content, they also have the ability to increase your search engine rankings if used correctly.

Websites should have the ability to be translated into virtually any language which will allow users to communicate to a global audience in their native language allowing the law firm’s message to reach diverse prospects.   Websites with an i18n Frame allows settings on user profiles to be changed so that the interface is instantly translated into the administrator’s native language.

Translating website content to effectively target a specific market takes time.  Simply throwing the content into an auto-translate tool online is ineffective.  Translating the information from your company’s website into the target language must be done by native speakers in your law firms’ country.

Google’s Webmaster Tools Blog states: “Automated translations don’t always make sense and they could potentially be viewed as spam. More importantly, the point of making a multilingual website is to reach a larger audience by providing valuable content in several languages. If your users can’t understand an automated translation or if it feels artificial to them, you should ask yourself whether you really want to present this kind of content to them.”

If law firms in the United States want the content of their website translated into Spanish, they must be sure that the translator is someone from the U.S. who speaks Spanish to ensure your message is delivered correctly.  Neglecting to do this may result in a mistranslation.   Law firms must have the ability to ensure content is translated with the intention of capturing a target audience.

Successfully launching a multilingual website and marketing campaign for your law firm will increase opportunities to secure clients in a niche market.

Below are a few key professional document sharing platforms:

DocStoc
DocStoc, a document hosting service, contains over 23 million professional documents in a variety of categories including: legal, business, financial, technology, education and creative.  This award winning community allows users and businesses to upload and share their documents with professionals across the globe for free.
Recently, DocStoc launched “DocStore,” a members-only feature that allows professionals to sell documents via DocStoc’s embedded document viewer.  The DocStore Marketplace will allow professionals to monetize documents created for their business, such as agreements, wills and trusts, contracts, etc.

Scribd
Scribd is a document sharing service that allows users to read, print, download and send documents to their mobile devices.  The Business/Law Category on Scribd includes legal documents, presentations and articles written by lawyers.  The Scribd Store’s Business/Law section contains over 100 pages of professional documents.

SlideShare
SlideShare is widely known as a PowerPoint presentation hosting center, though it is also a document and video sharing center for professionals.  SlideShare boasts an event calendar for professionals that can be accessed anywhere in the world and does not require a paid account to add a professional event.

Web CMS Document Manager
A Web CMS Document Manager allows law firms to post their published works directly onto their website.  Web CMS’s are built for search engine optimization and to drive traffic to a law firm’s website – the site administrator has to power to add, edit and delete articles in a centralized location which allows for easy access and sharing.  The user also has the freedom to organize countless documents and determine how the articles are displayed on the page.

JD Supra
JD Supra is a document sharing website solely for lawyers and legal professionals.  JD Supra allows users to create online portfolios of articles, newsletters, alerts, court filings and presentations.  Along with the website, JD Supra also boasts a LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook which it streams articles to.  The site also syndicates articles to third-party resources such as Newstex, Complinet and Justia.

Positioning yourself and your law firm as a thought leader through a variety of platforms not only establishes credibility, but builds a large online footprint for your law firm.  For more information on optimizing all aspects of your Internet marketing campaign visit: http://www.auctorilaw.com/search-engine-optimization.aspx.

According to WorstPills.com each year:

• Over 28,000 cases of life-threatening heart toxicity occur from a commonly used digitalis
• 41,000 older adults are hospitalized; 3,300 die from ulcers caused by NSAIDs
• 16,000 injuries occur from automobile accidents which are attributable to the use to psychoactive drugs
• 32,000 older adults suffer from hip fractures attributable to drug-induced falls
• Nearly 163,000 older American suffer from serious mental impairment caused or worsened by drugs
• Drug-induced Parkinsonism has developed in 61,000 older adults due to the use of antipsychotic drugs.

Each year, more than 9.6 million adverse drug reactions occur in older Americans adults which means every hour, another elderly person faces a life threatening illness from a drug-related reaction.  Many, however, do not report their reactions to doctors because they associate their illness with age, or unrelated illnesses. (Source: worstpills.com)

Those who are affected, both family members and patients, that are unaware are unable to seek a proper settlement for the hardships they’ve endured.

The key to awareness is ensuring your law firm is a top Internet resource in alerting the public of drugs immediately after they are recalled.
Maintaining up-to-date information on your law firm’s website is imperative when raising awareness about these drugs.
In order to do so, you must have access to your site 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without the hassle of contacting a web developer to make changes.  Strengthening your firm’s Internet presence will build your law firm’s credibility and improve your search engine ranking.  When people are looking for a solution, you want your law firm to be top-of-mind when they are searching for a resource.

What has been your law firm’s most effective avenue in alerting the public of drug recalls?

The next time you sit down to blog or make a video, take a second to think – “What am I writing about? Who am I targeting? Why will people want to read my blog out of the millions of blogs that hit the Internet each day?”
The answer?  There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for being interesting.  Tailor your message to your geographical area, your target market, and the interests of people in your target market.  Someone who isn’t actively searching for a lawyer isn’t likely to surf online for law articles and blogs, which is why catering to your target market’s interests will capture their attention, engage the reader and keep your firm top of mind when they are looking for legal representation.

Case in Point:
St. Louis law firm Sandberg Phoenix & Von Gontard has done an excellent job in reaching out to potential clients by connecting with people on a more personal level.  They’ve recently reached out to their community and sponsored a Wine Tasting Event though their city’s Chamber of Commerce.   The event had little to do with law, but it gave Sandberg Phoenix an opportunity to reach a broad range of targets that may not necessarily be actively searching for legal representation.  The firm used their social media networks to support marketing for the event which helped engage those interested in the law firm and those who were interested in the event.

Social media is a tool used to support marketing efforts not a stand-alone solution.  Businesses must remain human; don’t let your love for all-things online overshadow your potential to be a well-rounded legal resource.

Engage Prospects

Firms now have the ability to engage their prospects more frequently with important information which can include – but is not limited to:

• Recent changes in laws and clauses (copyright laws, federal regulations, etc.)

• Important information for business owners

o Such as potential losses and liabilities in acquiring a business.

• Participation in community and charity events.

• Noteworthy news items.

• Articles published in newspapers, magazines, journals.

• News on settled claims within the firm.

• New associates and partners and their specialties (malpractice, personal injury, etc.)

Retain Existing Clients

Clients – in any industry – appreciate communication. Updating a website with relevant information builds trust with current clients- which increases the chance for that client to return and recommend the firm’s services to others. Auctori:law’s legal content management system allows law firms to frequently add and update their website’s information.

Firms can also utilize Auctori:law’s custom field generator to further customize the news and articles they post by grouping them in categories such as: practice groups, attorneys, as a homepage display, or to organize publications by attorney and practice.

Organizing and providing links to publications by attorney or practice allows firms to position themselves as leaders in the legal industry and makes their information easily accessible to those searching for an attorney online.

As law firms become more prevalent on the internet it will become essential to work with a company that provides law firm SEO services.

In addition, your legal blog is a very important component of your law firm’s Internet marketing strategy, due to the fact that it is one of the most effective places for you to demonstrate value to your clients online.

When it comes to law firm marketing the value of blogging is unlimited, as it creates a clear, credible and constant voice for your law firm. Blogging also allows your lawyers to showcase their strengths and attributes, which can separate your firm from the pack. Through active blogging, prospective clients will develop a sense of security with your legal team as they read your blogs about similar cases, verdicts and opinions, reassuring them of your legal expertise and knowledge.

In conclusion, with high quality content and SEO integration, you will achieve better search engine rankings for your site, which leads to an increase in the amount of unique visitors, resulting in new clients.

Over the past 25 years, Hendricks has worked specifically with law firm and various marketing media including: website development, search engine marketing, yellow pages, cable television and direct mail. Before joining Auctori:law, Hendricks was most recently involved as a Client Development Specialist for Lexis Nexis Martindale Hubbell. In her role as Client Development Specialist, Hendricks was responsible for technical sales and the marketing of numerous internet marketing products and legal publications. Hendricks is a graduate of Southeast Missouri State University with a BS in Business Administration and received an MBA from St. Louis University.

“This is the career that I’ve been training for my entire life, and I’m very happy to be with Auctori:law,” said Hendricks.

Read the Press Release

With the legal content management system Auctori:law, law firms can create and manage their attorney biographies quickly and easily with the biography management system. With this legal CMS module, users have the ability to enter a wealth of information to create a customized biography for each attorney at your firm.

• Create customized biographies for each attorney at your firm
• Update biographies quickly and easily
• Automatically generate a VCard for download
• Groups are automatically updated when a biography is added or updated
• View as a print friendly PDF – styled to professionally display your biography

Auctori:Law understands how different visitors expect to see and interact with the information on your legal firm’s website. This legal CMS makes it possible for firm’s to reflect their credibility by highlighting their most valuable assets: their attorneys.

The legal marketng professionals at Auctori:law believe that there should be a focus on the firm’s attorneys, businesses segments, client needs, prospective clients, project and case management, noteworthy news, civic group involvements, associations and any person or agency seeking to conduct business with, or obtain information about your firm. Auctori:law analyzes each clients stated objectives, requirements and desired services and their team fully prepared to create and support a premier website, that meets those specific needs.