The speakers were:

• Peter Krakaur (ils@legalethics.com) of Glasser LegalWorks in San Francisco. The former Director of Strategic Alliances for FindLaw, Peter also operates the Legalethics Web site (http://www.legalethics.com/); and
  
• Greg Siskind (GSiskind@visalaw.com) of Siskind, Susser, Haas & Devine in Cordova, Tenn. One of the first lawyers in the country to set up a Web site for his practice, Greg's VisaLaw immigration site (http://www.visalaw.com/) gets 97,000 hits per week.

New Purposes for Law Firm Websites
Krakaur observed that the initial aim of law firm Web sites was to attract new clients, but a trend has emerged in which firms are putting their sites to different uses, such as:

• Attracting recruits, because law firms are finding that most of their traffic comes from law schools;
  
• Serving existing clients by using extranets to allow secure document exchange;
  
• Reaching out to the media by posting statistics about the firm and newsworthy content; and
  
• Branding the firm by setting out unique graphics, content and attorney biographies.

"You may not attract clients with a brochure-like Web site," Siskind said. "Instead, you should focus on specific areas of law, as VisaLaw focuses on immigration, or focus your site on recruiting." Siskind noted that the Chicago firm of D'Ancona & Pflaum (http://www.dancona.com/) does an excellent job of promoting its summer associate program, spinning recruiting information to a separate site.

Move to a Database Environment
Most law firm Web pages are coded in static HTML, so that every page appears the same whenever it is viewed. In contrast, on a database-driven site, the pages are created "on the fly" every time their content is updated. Information like lawyer bios can be updated easily without the need to know any HTML coding.

"This saves a lot of time when you are updating the site," Siskind said. He noted, however, that it initially is very costly and time-consuming to transfer static information into a Web database. Siskind named the Wilson Sonsini site (http://www.wsgr.com/) as a good example of a database-driven site. For the techies, Krakaur recommend Web database software called Cold Fusion by Allaire Corp. (http://www.allaire.com/).

Turn Your Site Into a Portal
Most law firm Web site content is propaganda about the firm. In a new trend, however, law firms are expanding into information portals, offering content on particular areas of law. Siskind said the Wilson Sonsini site is a one-stop site for entrepreneurs. Siskind's site is an immigration law portal. "We will see more of that as law firms target a particular industry," he said.

Make Web Content Viewable on Palm Pilots
Millions of marketers are using these handheld organizers (I have a wireless Palm VII). Last February, Siskind's firm became the first to make its Web content available for downloading to Palm OS and Windows CE devices. Users now can receive Siskind's Immigration Bulletin automatically every time they "sync" their devices. The firm created a specially formatted version of the newsletter that can be read easily on a Palm-size screen.

The newsletter already has 26,000 subscribers. The Palm version is stripped down to plain text and no graphics. Thus, you can download it from the firm's Web site "just as you would download a news story."

Put Your Firm's Content on Other Sites
Some law firms have taken the first step in this direction by establishing links to their Web sites on other sites. Siskind suggested that law firms now should figure out how to put the content itself on other sites, especially nonlaw sites. "It's a great way to pair up lawyers with nonlawyers," he said.

For example, Siskind is the immigration expert on Monster.com. He sends the site a package of articles regularly. Every Wednesday, he also participates in an online chat in which he answers general questions about immigration law. However, "when they want answers on their individual case, I recommend they hire a lawyer," he said.

He also sends a package of immigration articles to the Silicon Valley Bank Website. This bank has 6,000 customers and focuses on startup tech companies. He noted that one-third of the Silicon Valley work force is foreign-born and they need immigration advice.

Krakaur pointed out that some law firms guard their content, requiring visitors to request articles by e-mail. He asserts that this is a mistake. "These law firms are behind the times," he said. "They will miss the Internet opportunities. You want to get your information in front of as many eyeballs as possible."

When Krakaur was at FindLaw, for example, he created the FindLaw Library (library.findlaw.com). FindLaw collects copies of articles from law firm sites and makes them available in its library, which gets an incredible 30 million page views a month. Law firms can set out their articles on FindLaw for free. "Think of your content distribution strategy more broadly," Krakaur said. "You want clients to find you and your content on other people's sites."

Make Reprint Permission Easy
Print publications are turning to Web sites to find articles to reprint. When Siskind gets a call from an editor, he freely gives them reprint permission and supplies a credit line. "They can reprint anything they want from my Web site and they will have a constant source of content," he said. He gives blanket reprint permission so the editor doesn't need to ask permission every time he wants an article. As a result, Siskind's content is all over the Web.

Check Your Site Statistics & Boost Your Traffic
Krakaur said that a law firm can find out what sites are linking to the firm's site by going to the AltaVista search page (http://www.altavista.com/) and typing "links [the firm's site URL]." "This will identify the audience that is interested in your site," he stated, and added that a firm should use this technique to see who's linking to its competitors' sites.

Marketers should use a good Web site traffic report program, like Web Trends or Live Stats, to measure site visits. These programs read a site's log and report the results as "page views" and "unique visitors," which are the true measures of traffic. The reports will also show where visitors are coming from. Thus, for example, if your visitors are mainly from law schools, you can tweak your recruiting information.

Once you have identified your primary visitors, you should check out other sites your visitors use. For example, "if you use your site for recruiting, then you should visit sites where the recruits are going," like Infirmation.com and the Greedy Associates message board. "All you need is one bad post on the Greedy Associates board, and it'll counteract your $100,000 recruiting campaign," Krakaur said.

Search Engines
Krakaur said that law firms should use services like Submit-It to make sure they are registered with search engines. Marketers should follow up by checking the Web traffic reports to see which search engines are sending the most visitors to the law firm site.

Siskind reminded the audience to insert metatags in Web pages. These are keywords that use HTML coding to make them visible to search engines, but invisible to regular visitors. He added that updating Web pages frequently also improves results in search engine reports, because the search engines rank recently modified pages higher.

Put Your Calendar Online
Siskind keeps his appointments on the Web using Yahoo's online calendar (calendar.yahoo.com). Only he can see the details of his appointments, but the public view of the calendar shows blocks of time of when he is "busy." It coordinates with his Palm Pilot, so he inputs information only once. "Clients love it," he said. "By viewing my calendar, clients can see when I'm free for appointments and can plan accordingly. Marketing is all about relationships and making clients feel good about hiring you."

Mind-it Buttons
Siskind pointed out that law firms can increase return visits by putting "Mind-it" buttons on their sites. A sample can be seen at the LawMarketing Portal (www.lfmi.com/best/bestindex.html). Here's how it works: if visitors want to be notified when a particular Web page has changed, they simply type their e-mail addresses in that page's button. Mind-it automatically monitors the page; when it changes, it sends out e-mail notices to those visitors.

Ethics
State bars are becoming overwhelmed trying to regulate law firm Websites. Krakaur observed that Florida and Texas are the strictest states regarding ethics. Marketers who have specific questions can find a collection of state advertising rules and opinions at Krakaur's site (http://www.legalethics.com/).