Third Party Publishing Platforms to Promote Your Law Firm's Articles to Thousands of New Prospects

Many lawyers demonstrate their expertise to current and prospective clients by writing articles on timely topics and trends in their specialty. By the time an attorney has spent a few hours writing about a topic, and the article has been reviewed, edited and finalized, the cost - in terms of billable hours invested and out-of-pocket expenses incurred (e.g., ghostwriter) - can run anywhere from several hundreds to several thousands of dollars per article.

So it would make sense, once the initial investment of time and money has been made, for a lawyer to seek other channels to distribute and promote his or her articles beyond just posting them to their law firm website. The good news is that there are a number of services available to help lawyers distribute their articles, white papers and other content to a much broader audience consisting of general counsel at major corporations, journalists and other interested parties.

We'll take a look at four such article syndication platforms: Mondaq, Lexology, JD Supra, and Legal OnRamp.

1. Mondaq: launced in 1994, Mondaq distributes articles and other content contributed by law firms through two channels: (i) Mondaq's proprietary subscriber network (consisting of over 270,000 in-house counsel, executives, journalists and other third parties), and (ii) a partner distribution network of over 2,000 third party channels, including subscription-only channels like Lexis, WestLaw, Factiva, & Bloomberg; free web channels like Google News, MSN and Yahoo News, and 'syndicator' channels like Moreover who in turn re-distribute articles to thousands of other websites like the Economist.

Mondaq also offers law firms a reporting service that allows contributors to monitor how subscribers have interacted with their articles, including (i) who is reading each article and their contact information; (ii) how readers found each article (e.g., what web service, what specific phrase they searched for), and (iii) what readers did with each article (e.g., printed, forwarded, went to the firm's website). Activity reports are downloadable to Excel for exporting to a CRM system.

From the standpoint of contributors, Mondaq's reporting service can be a great source of highly qualified new business leads.

Firms pay Mondaq an annual fee tied to how many articles and other content they contribute, as well as for access to various premium display and reporting options.

To learn more about how Mondaq works with law firms, see here.

2. Lexology: Lexology pulls content such as articles and alerts off law firm websites and distributes it to senior corporate counsel and other subscribers to its daily newsfeed service (currently consisting of over 16,000 subscribers, including corporate counsel at many Fortune 500 companies).

Firms pay an annual fee to Lexology to collect submissions and break them down into different categories by practice area and jurisdiction, and distribute articles through the daily Lexology newsfeeds. Each article links both to the original format in which it appeared (to preserve the firm’s branding), and to a professional listing containing contact information for the firm. All published articles are stored in the Lexology database, which is fully searchable by keyword, date, jurisdiction, work area and firm name.

There is no limit on the number of articles that can be posted. Contributing firms have access to
web statistics providing a breakdown of exactly how many times each article has been accessed, together with a complete list of those companies and firms that have done so. Firms can also use this system to generate periodic readership reports for monitoring purposes.

Learn more about Lexology here.

3. JD Supra: the newest entrant into the field of law firm content distribution is JD Supra, which intends to serve as a resource for the media to find lawyers with a proven track record and experience in legal issues they are researching.

Attorneys working with JD Supra will have the ability to promote themselves as experts to journalists and other media contacts by publishing recent court filings, orders, decisions and verdicts to JD Supra's searchable database -- at no charge. Attorneys will be able to designate content as a "Hot Document" for viewing on JD Supra's homepage.  Each document will also link to the publishing lawyer's profile and contact information.

After attorneys post documents, JD Supra will automatically convert them into keyword searchable PDF files, and index them in a database that will allow users to retrieve relevant results and download them either as PDFs or Word documents. There will also be an RSS feed.

Learn more about JD Supra here.

4. Legal OnRamp: Legal OnRamp was launched by the general counsel of Cisco and other major companies as an outlet for participating law firms to share expertise in a community environment. For example, a participating firm can prepare answers to a set of "Frequently Asked Questions" on a topic in which the firm has deep knowledge and expertise. The FAQ's are then made available at no cost to member companies in an "Ask the Expert" format.

Law firms can also contribute legal updates, forms and templates for use by members.

There is also a social networking angle to the site cultivated through features such as a discussion forum, a marketplace to seek referrals for certain legal services, and a "wiki" to which members can contribute editable content.

As of the end of 2007, Legal OnRamp had over 1,900 members, consisting of lawyers at private law firms, general counsel, and other service providers.

Presently, membership is by invitation only from an existing member. However, a firm can also join if they are able to bring along an existing corporate client also willing to sign up as a member. 

Learn more about Legal OnRamp here.

The Legal OnRamp service has also been reviewed by outside publications such as the ABA Journal.