Why Do We Advertise

For years lawyers did not advertise.  Lawyers thought it was below their dignity to advertise their services.  Doctors didn’t advertise, so why should lawyers.  In fact, many states had ethical rules against advertising.

Then came Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, a United States Supreme Court case, which upheld the right of lawyers to advertise.  The Court upset the tradition against advertising by lawyers, rejecting it as an antiquated rule of etiquette.  That was in 1977.

A few law firms began to advertise, but the vast majority of law firms believed it was still beneath their dignity to advertise.  The firms that did advertise began to take business away from the firms that were rooted in the past.  As things changed more and more lawyers found it was not only beneficial to the public for the lawyer to advertise their expertise and experience, but it was also beneficial to the law firm to allow it to concentrate on a particular area of the law.

At Oliver Law Firm we were slow to join the law firms that advertise.  At first we had a small ad in the phone book…then we had a webpage, then we had a billboard with our pictures on it.  It wasn’t until early last year that we saw the light.

My law partner, Sach Oliver, was speaking to a group of lawyers in California about how to take depositions.  During a break, Sach stumbled onto a book by John Morgan, You Can’t Teach Hungry.  Apparently, someone had left it at a table.  Sach thumbed through a couple of chapters and immediately called me and said we had to get a copy.

That is how we found out about a fantastic marketing firm, PMP.  We learned that John Morgan had been so successful that he started his own marketing firm, Practice Made Perfect, or PMP.  We contacted PMP and set up a meeting with Kaci Bloemers, PMP’s managing partner.

In the past we had worked with a few companies on our website and thought we had a pretty good site.  We were shocked when Kaci told us about numerous problems with our site.  We asked for references and Kaci gave us the name of other PMP clients.  Each one sang the praises of PMP.  Sach and I decided to make a commitment to air 10 televisions spots in our local market.

Sach went to Florida to shoot the spots.  We all loved the natural way the spots, which are currently airing in our local market, looked.  Just as PMP told us, the spots and our new web site are generating so many new clients we have brought in additional staff to handle the clients.

As a side note, a couple of weeks ago, Sach and I were having lunch at a local restaurant.  The server looked at Sach and then went back into the kitchen.  A few minutes later the server came back and said, “The girls in the kitchen want to know if you are Sach Oliver”.  I can’t wait until someone asks Sach for his autograph.  Thanks, PMP.