By Katherine Hollar Barnard
There are 7,855 lawyers in Kansas, and approximately 62 percent of them work in small firms (or on their own).
If you’re one of them, you may have been frustrated creating your law firm website: Vendors want to lock you into long-term contracts, charge high prices for bespoke design or features you don’t need, keep you hostage with proprietary software…or all of the above.
This can lead you to stick with a site you don’t like just to avoid the hassle; to waste what could be billable hours working on a DIY solution; or even going without one. According to the American Bar Association, 30 percent of solo firms don’t have a website at all.
But neglecting your virtual front door can carry a real cost.
While referrals have been the traditional currency for lawyers marketing their services, their dominance is waning in today’s digital environment:
- While 59 percent of potential clients still find their lawyers by asking for referrals, 57 percent search on their own, and 16 percent do both, according to Clio’s Legal Trends Report.
- Your online presence matters more to Millennials and Gen Z, who comprise a growing percentage of law firm clients. In the same Clio report, younger clients were 43 percent more likely to value websites than Gen X. When compared with Baby Boomers, they valued websites a whopping 131 percent more.
- It’s not just people looking at your website, either. The rise of AI tools brings a new importance for a credible, discoverable online presence, as McKinsey reports about half of consumers turn to AI-based search to find service providers.
All told, websites are more important than ever, but traditional offerings often fail to meet the needs of the small law firms who need them.
This is where our agency Firesign hopes to help.
Based in Prairie Village, we are an award-winning marketing agency that exclusively serves the legal industry. We were founded in 2017 and have served law firms and legal technology companies across the country and on two continents.
Earlier this month, we launched Flare, a new website product for law firms of one to three lawyers. We created Flare to provide small law firms the same caliber of websites that BigLaw firms use, but with a structure and terms that make sense for them.
Flare is specifically designed to provide solo and small firms with professional websites that build credibility and visibility – with an expedited timeline, predictable pricing and accessible software. We build websites on WordPress so our law firm clients have a choice for ongoing maintenance: they can stay with us, update the sites themselves, or find another resource. No hostage agreements; no proprietary software.
Flare clients benefit from our team’s considerable experience. We have won Lawyerist.com’s “Best Law Firm Websites” twice and been recognized by the Communicator Awards, dotCOMM Awards and the Hermes Creative Awards. Closer to home, we have been voted the “Best Website Design” team in the Missouri Lawyers Weekly Reader Rankings Awards for seven consecutive years.
The Flare service is especially helpful for startup law firms, who often need to meet tight launch deadlines and often work with limited budgets. One of our beta projects was for a startup law firm, Gunn | Slater; this website later won Gold in the NYX Awards’ Website: Law & Legal Services category.
While we appreciate the award, we take more pride in our happy client. Erica Slater, a founder of Gunn | Slater said the website “exceeded our expectations.”
“It is not only visually impressive,” she said, “but also helping our new firm quickly establish market presence and credibility. We couldn’t have asked for a better partner to support our vision and goals.”
For more information or to get started with Flare, visit us at www.firesignmarketing.com.
Katherine (Katie) Hollar Barnard is the managing partner of Firesign. Recognized among PR Daily’s Top Women in Marketing, she advises law firms, legal tech companies and legal service providers in branding and marketing communications.
