How should your law firm react to an increasingly competitive market of attorneys fighting for a limited number of cases? Analyze and optimize your firm’s competitive advantages with these guidelines.

Competition is everywhere.

Today, the opportunities for attorneys to promote themselves are nearly unlimited. Past restrictions, professional norms and concepts of ethics have changed in the last 20 years. Legal services are advertised virtually everywhere consumers are. Referrals, the old tried-and-true method of business development for law firms, have migrated to digital social media.

While greater exposure for your firm is both beneficial and vital, in a competitive environment how you position your firm against other firms is equally, and maybe even more so, key to how many new client inquiries you receive.

Find your firm’s competitive advantage.

Identify and be aware of the other law firms in your local market providing the same service as yours. 

Three types of competitors typically exist in most markets: big multi-disciplinary firms, small firms and solo practitioners, and non-lawyer docuprep or DIY options. Competitors are not solely other firms like yours.

What is the perceived market position of each of your competitors? How do they promote themselves and where? Where are they perceived on the competitive axis’ of price versus quality (level of service) versus breadth of offerings versus experience versus location and convenience?

Do the same for your firm. Look for holes (opportunities) in the competitive matrix that your firm might dominantly fill. But be aware that each positioning parameter may not have equal weight with the consumer, and some parameters, such as breadth of offerings, may be a negative to generating new client inquiries (consumers tend to prefer specialists over generalists). And, of course, your firm can’t take a competitive position that doesn’t have a basis in fact.

The amount of information about you and your firm available on the internet can be astounding. Prospects often know much more about you and your firm than you would believe when they first contact you. If you have previously run for public office, handled a high-profile case that made headlines (even with marginal news coverage), and belonged to associations or various state bars, that information is available online to those who seek it. Positive, and negative, reviews about your firm are available online to those who seek to read them.

Get help cutting through the competition to generate new clients.

Often attorneys come to us at LeadQ because they are overwhelmed by the competitive pressures they face and have difficulty generating significant numbers of new client inquiries on their own. And they don’t have the time or expertise to adequately handle new client generation for the firm.

By getting a clear picture of the competitive environment and challenges they face online, we are able to promote a market position opportunity that enables us to generate new clients for them and grow their practices – in spite of the current environment of increasing competition.

Call us at LeadQ if your consumer law firm is looking to expand the number of new client inquiries it receives regardless of the market competition your firm faces.