Attorneys are always swapping business cards with people they meet at tradeshows, conferences, and the like. It's common business etiquette.
A client recently asked whether it would be a good idea for marketers to enter the email addresses on business cards collected by attorneys at a tradeshow into the law firm's email marketing database.
The short answer: bad idea that could possibly get your law firm into hot water (as in having your domain or IP address blacklisted - we've had such incidents - thankfully very rarely).
Why is that? Basically, when somebody gives a lawyer a business card at a conference, they're probably implying it is okay for the lawyer to personally email them directly in the future to touch base. But you cannot assume they're also asking to be signed up for one of the firm's email lists. In other words, a business card is not a form of opt-in (the danger arises if this contact happens to be a passionate anti-spam activist who will take offense when they receive an email from your firm and complain to some anti-spam organization).
Instead, the better practice is for the lawyer to follow up personally with the contact, and ask him or her in passing whether they'd like to be signed up for the firm's email alerts in an area of interest (e.g., if the contact is general counsel at a hospital, maybe they'd be interested in receiving the firm's healthcare alerts). If the contact says, "yes", then the attorney can pass along the email address and other contact information to a marketer (and make sure to save the email where the contact said "Yes!!!").
Alternatively, over time, an ongoing business relationship may develop with the contact (either as a client of the firm, a reliable referral source for new business, or some other capacity), at which point the contact could be added to the firm's mailing lists for areas of interest to the contact. Of course, it's a question of judgment as to when the point is reached that the business relationship with the contact has become well-established. But a single chance meeting at a tradeshow or conference resulting in an exchange of business cards doesn't cut it.
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