Case Study — The Client Alert
Without doubt, the client alert can be a VERY effective promotional tool, particularly for smaller firms. But only if well done.
Client alerts that aren’t well done are just a waste of time, especially for the attorneys who write them.
In this post, we examine a client alert published by a well-known law firm – one with more than 130 attorneys. We look at what could be done to make the alert more effective (e.g., get more people to mention it).
Before we get started: here’s a link to the firm’s original client alert, and here’s a link to a revision of that alert. The name of the publisher and the names of the authors have been altered. Otherwise, the original is exactly as published.
Now, let’s get started. Review the original alert. Compare it to the revised alert. I suggest you print them both.
Let’s start at the bottom. Here’s the disclaimer from the original (which appears on ALL the firm’s alerts):
Notice anything amiss? Take a look at the copyright notice at the bottom of the disclaimer. Where there should be a copyright symbol, there’s a capital ‘O’ with an acute accent. And there’s a line break between the word Copyright and that symbol.
What else? The copy is center justified.
What else? To prevent “further transmissions” the reader is advised to click “unsubscribe above.” But there is no “unsubscribe” to click. The law firm claims it’s trying to comply with “proposed Federal legislation,” but it doesn’t.
What else? The alert doesn’t bear a date of publication, but it was published four years after that “proposed Federal legislation” became law. And that law doesn’t apply to client alerts posted at law firm Web sites.
Here’s the revised disclaimer:
Let’s go to the top. Here’s the heading of the original alert:
What’s missing? The date of publication. The future reader is left to wonder, was this published last month or last year? (Fortunately, the date of the decision appears in the first line of the body. But it’s a fluke. The typical alert from this firm leaves future readers wondering whether the alert was published ten days ago, or ten years ago.)
Notice the heading. It consists of 16 words, which is a might much for a heading. Check out the first few lines of copy. Can you tell whether the decision was issued by a federal court or a state court? In other words, can the reader decide whether this alert is even relevant? (In the original, which case is being discussed isn’t mentioned until the end of the alert.)
Here’s the heading of the revised alert:
A few observations. First, the heading is down to a more palatable ten words. Also, the reader is provided with a convenient link to the opinion, and is advised that it was an appellate court in California that published the opinion.
Compare the type in the original to the type in the revision. The type in the original is set in a face designed for headings, not for body copy. The type in the revision is set in a face designed for readability. This might seem like a tiny technicality, but it’s not (i.e., pros are always have a reason why they selected this typeface or that).
Let’s make one more visual comparison of the original and the revision. Here’s the first bullet point in the original:
Here it is in the revision:
Now, this might seem like a small thing, but the difference between a quality product and a mediocre one is often the cumulative effect of a bunch of small things. (Compare a Volkswagen to a Mercedes. You can use either one to go to the store to buy a quart of milk, but one is worth far more than the other. Why?)
In the original, underlines are used. In the revision, they’re not. Big deal? No. But the use of underlines suggests that the publisher hasn’t mastered the IBM Selectric, much less the PC. When a firm uses underlines for emphasis, tick marks for quotes, and hyphens for em dashes, it suggests that either the firm doesn’t know how to set type, or it doesn’t much care about such details.
Let’s look at a few more differences between a client alert that’s been touched by an editor, and one that has not:
- Click either one of the authors’ email links in the original. Then, click an email link in the revision. Notice that, in the revision, the subject line is automatically completed. This is a convenience not only for the potential client who wants to contact an author, but for the author as well. It lends to the notion that the firm is very concerned about client service and knows its way around computers.
- The original file is 32K; the revision is half that size. The original file contains a great deal of HTML that isn’t used, and a good bit of HTML that isn’t needed.
- If you look closely, you’ll find many other small changes between the original and the revision, including changes to the copy. For instance, in the original, the abbreviation MEC is introduced in the first paragraph, but then Medical Executive Committee is used throughout the alert. (Why introduce an abbreviation if you’re not going to use it?)
Like I said at the top, the client alert can be a very effective promotional tool, but only if well done (i.e., touched by an editor).
