Legal Vendors Meet Your "Unknown" Clients: Paralegals

It's been an interesting past eight years.  During that time, ParalegalGateway has grown to well over 20K plus members into a strong and close-knit community.  We are actually probably closer than most given the unique challenges we face as Paralegals. I've actually often joked that we are the "red-headed-step-children" of the legal industry...we're not attorneys and we're not legal secretaries.  We're stuck somewhere in between the two and it can be tricky - to say the least - learning to balance yourself between them. 

Like most enduring organizations, we enjoy sharing information among ourselves and we absolutely discuss legal services.  If someone has experienced good or bad service, rest assured the word gets around.  What has been interesting for me to personally observe as the owner of a Paralegal portal that keeps the lights turned on via the support of legal service providers, is the odd dance that seems to take place when approaching these vendors about advertising.   It seems the very people who contact Paralegals to sell their services suddenly become anti-social when it comes to Paralegals seeking support from them. Let me give a couple of quick scenarios we have encountered over the years.

But, I'm Part of the Group

ParalegalGateway has been online since 2001, well-before the days of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  Back then we were communicating via the tried and true message boards.  As a result, we now have the largest Yahoo! Group on Yahoo! for Paralegals.  We also have a sister-site, MyParalegalSpace that has been online for over 2 years and enjoys over 3K members. Our more recent group on LinkedIn already has over 2K members and typically sees about 100 new members per week.  Although we allow vendors into these groups, we ask them not to spam the members with their services.  This includes harvesting email addresses as well as posting messages.  The obvious reason we ask this is secondary to our policy that only our advertisers (or Partner Sponsors) are allowed to contact our members about their services. This is a "value-added" service to them (to use their own terminology).  If we allowed every service provider to post their information, not only would it not be fair to those who pay to advertise but it would not be fair to those who pay to advertise!  I know this seems simple however when we ask those who have posted to the group or sent emails to our members to respect those who do pay for this benefit, you wouldn't believe some of the entitlement attitudes that pop up. 

Paralegals Aren't Our Target Market

Really?  Very interesting.  Let me back up here.  We once had to contact a vendor after they had harvested emails from our Yahoo! Group and then sent well over 200 emails to our members about their service.  When we contacted them, we invited them to become an advertising Partner thinking certainly since they were sending out so many emails to our members that they wanted to market to them.  Their response? "Paralegals really aren't our target audience."  (Insert stunned silence here).

We're Providing a Free Informational Seminar

We've had several national legal service companies attempt to post information about their free seminars to our group in an attempt to increase attendance.  When we deleted the post, it was immediately posted again by the vendor.  When we had to remove the vendor from the group for failing to follow protocol, he responded by saying they weren't attempting to advertise, the seminar was free and they were only trying to help Paralegals.  Isn't that very altruistic of them?  They weren't marketing their service at all!  They were just trying to help Paralegals with their free and very branded seminar.  When we asked them if they would review our pricing for advertising, we were told they would be sure it got to the proper person.  (Insert cricket noises here).  Never heard back and subsequent calls were never returned.

Paralegals Are Holding the Purse Strings

ParalegalGateway recently commissioned a survey (prepared for us by Alexander Babbage) of our site visitors which enjoyed excellent participation and results.  When asked "How much impact do you have on purchases made within your firm or company?" we were pleasantly surprised to learn that 62% of Paralegal influence decision making, 89% participate in decision making and 29% are the sole decision makers.  May want to rethink that target market. (Insert wink here).

The reality is that the attorneys we work for would rather be billing their time than having to research legal software or legal services.  They delegate this work to us and trust our opinions when it comes to making the final decisions.  We understand the importance of the aforementioned statistics and our role in the very lucrative legal service industry.  We are also very aware of the companies that are willing to support our community by means of sponsoring our local and national associations and sites like ParalegalGateway that provide us with a free platform to virtually network, increase our marketability, continue our education and assist each other via mentoring, sharing forms or simply being able to vent about a bad day at work.  Not only are we aware of it, we talk about it and with the economy slowly picking up, we're going to remember those who have stepped up. 

So where am I going with all of this?  Absolutely we would love to see more vendors stop trying to get something for nothing and help support a virtual network via advertising.  However, it goes deeper than that.  It's almost as if these companies are devaluing our worth via their allegations that our credibility as professionals just isn't the same as an attorney.  All they have to do is ask an attorney and he/she would tell them how valuable we actually are.  Perhaps that's a bit paranoid on my part or maybe I just can't quite put my finger on it yet.  Whatever "it" is I guess I've been unwilling to learn the proper steps to join in the dance.  

I realize this isn't an unbiased post and other opinions are certainly welcome.  Maybe they can help to shed light on this topic.

Comments

[Penny Standley]

As a private investigator and paralegal that was formerly with a large law firm, I cannot agree more. You said it, Jeannie. And, Lorna's comment can be quoted here because she hit the nail on the head. If you were a vendor that terrorized me with cookies, candy, telephone calls or other "marketing" on a continual basis -- you didn't get my business, period. I made the decision who to use and who not to use. It was a very rare occasion that I was told what vendor to use. On those rare occasions that I had to use a specific vendor that I was told to use, the job didn't get done correctly or it didn't get done at all. Vendors need to be wary of repeatedly offending the paralegals . . . . repeat offenders do not get repeat business or new business at all. There were some that I had to get down right rude with -- and finally, they got the message. At any rate, I do appreciate Paralegal Gateway and your absolute right on approach. Thanks so much for helping the profession that needs promoting in the worse way. Signed: another red-headed step child

/Penny

[JB Bannister]

Outstanding article. Paralegals have always been the key to law offices. I enjoy you on twitter and thank you for what you do.

JB Bannister
@onebigrhino
CEO Serve One Process Serving

[Norma Hackler]

This hits the nail on the head. Really enjoyed the article.