Innovations in Legal Tech: How AI and Automation Are Shaping Legal Marketing

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The legal industry, long surrounded by tradition, has been experiencing a digital transformation driven by various technology advancements. Legal tech, a field that combines innovative technology with legal expertise, is redefining how legal services are accessed and delivered. 

While law firms and legal professionals are leveraging legal tech for things like contract delivery and case research, it has other uses as well. Specifically, technology innovations are helping law firms get found and chosen by their target clients. Here’s how legal tech is also influencing legal marketing. 

1. AI and Machine Learning

Similar to many other industries, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning are taking the marketing and legal sectors by storm. The applications for these technologies seem to be endless. 

AI technologies in marketing are transforming the way businesses connect and engage with potential clients and accomplish tasks. One example is AI-driven chatbots, which is a solution that many law firms are adding to their websites. These automated solutions can engage with potential clients around the clock and provide some basic information, such as your office hours, practice areas, and even availability for consultations. 

Machine learning (ML) is transforming the way legal marketing learns about the wants and needs of its target audience and the latest market and legal trends. These automated assistants can reduce or eliminate repetitive tasks and free up time for other high-value endeavors. 

2. Extended Reality

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are two technology innovations being used with more frequency in marketing. The first puts the user into a completely virtual setting, and the second allows users to control their presence in the real world. In fact, AR can be accessed with a smartphone. 

It’s a new technology, but interest in it has soared. Internet searches for “the Metaverse” increased by 7,200% in 2021 alone. While the impact on the legal industry likely won’t be profound for several years, there are some implications for legal marketing. 

Law firms can use VR/AR technology as a novel way to promote their services. Specifically, a firm could provide clients with a virtual client experience. This technology can also provide greater insight into a law firm’s particular expertise and culture. 

3. Data-Driven Marketing

There is more data available to legal marketers than at any time in the past. On one hand, consumers have many concerns about their personal data getting into the wrong hands. On the other, many consumers say they appreciate it when brands offer a more personalized marketing message, which can only be done using data. 

Data-driven marketing allows legal marketers to ethically collect, analyze, and leverage available data for a variety of purposes:

  • Personalized messages — This data can help your firm deliver personalized messages to clients via email or chat. 
  • Better decision-making — Data can allow your firm to analyze trends and make better decisions about where to dedicate marketing resources. 
  • Real-time adjustments — Using AI-powered insights, your legal marketing team can get the best possible results from your content marketing, social media marketing, and paid advertising campaigns. 

4. Audio Marketing & Voice-Search

As the popularity of virtual assistants and smart speakers continues to soar, audio marketing and voice search optimization have become significant legal marketing trends. Consumers who need legal services are just as likely to ask Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant who they should turn to or even pose legal questions to this technology. 

Voice searches tend to be longer and more conversational than traditional text-based searches. This requires a different SEO strategy for legal marketers. If you want your law firm’s content to show up, it must be optimized using natural language and long-tail keywords. People are more likely to ask these digital assistants who, what, when, where, and why questions. Your content should have these types of answers. 

Many voice searches are also location-based, such as “Alexa, find a DUI lawyer near me.” Law firms can leverage audio marketing by including geographic references throughout website content. It’s also critical to have a well-optimized Google Business profile and social media marketing campaign. 

5. Social Commerce

As of January 2024, there are over 5 billion social media users worldwide, which is roughly 62% of the global population. The average user spends nearly two and a half hours daily on social sites, and legal consumers are more likely than ever to turn to these platforms when they need answers to questions or legal referrals. 

Social commerce is a fairly new strategy that involves “selling” products or services on social media platforms in addition to promotion. While law firms won’t necessarily sell their services, they can make stronger connections with potential clients using some of the same strategies. These include things like short-form video content, live streaming, and delivering branded messages to boost engagement. 

6. Marketing Automation

One of the most significant benefits of MarTech, or marketing technology, for the legal industry, is that not everything needs to be done manually anymore. This not only saves time and money but also delivers better overall results for your business. 

When your firm gets a new prospect via its website or social media, you can create an automated system for nurturing that prospect. Specifically, personalized email or text messages can go out at specified intervals to prompt that person to check out your content or call you if they have any questions. 

Chatbots are another example, which can free up your office staff to handle other things instead of responding to basic and repetitive questions via phone or email. Finally, some AI-powered tools are helping to optimize online ads and content so they produce the best possible results. 

Take Your Law Firm’s Marketing Strategy to the Next Level

Now that you understand some of the innovations in legal tech, you’re probably ready to move forward with an effective legal marketing strategy. We can help. Too Darn Loud Legal Marketing specializes in results-driven digital marketing solutions for legal professionals. 

Our team of professionals will learn as much as possible about your law firm as we assess your current digital marketing program. We will recommend a customized solution that will help your firm increase awareness and drive new referrals. Call us at (800) 649-1764 or contact us online to schedule a free consultation and website evaluation. 

Adapting to Changing Marketing Trends in the Legal Industry

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Change can be tough to handle once you get set in your ways. Attorneys, however, are uniquely trained to adapt to constant changes in the legal landscape. But what about the marketing one? Often, the strategies and tactics that worked well a few years or even months ago undergo a shift. Something might work better today than it did in years past. Or, something that worked well years ago don’t work at all today. Here’s how your law firm can adapt to changing marketing trends in this industry and a few of the current trends to watch. 

How Your Firm Can Adapt to Changing Legal Marketing Trends

While some things in the law will always remain consistent, you need to be ready to adapt to changes. The same holds true with digital marketing. Getting too comfortable can be a recipe for disaster, where you suddenly find that the competition is light years ahead because they’ve been keeping up with changing legal marketing trends. Here’s how your law firm can avoid this dangerous trap. 

1. Be Ready to Embrace Change

Being resistant to change isn’t isolated to the legal profession, even though it’s known as a more traditional industry. However, many law firms in today’s fast-paced business environment are embracing new marketing trends, which will give them an edge. If your firm isn’t ready to follow suit, it can quickly get left behind. 

2. Audit Your Current Law Firm Marketing Program Regularly

Avoid making drastic changes on a whim since anything you do needs strong justification. To accomplish this, conduct regular audits of your current law firm branding and digital marketing programs. Compare them against best practices and competitor results to see where you can make some improvements. 

3. Update Your Website When Needed

Your law firm’s website is the digital representation of your brand. It’s not something you want to get stale, have “buggy” navigation, or allow other issues to pile up. Ideally, your website will need a refresh every few years to remain visually appealing, accessible, and optimized for the search engines. If you suspect it’s time for an update, start the process moving forward.

4. Review Your Content Strategy

If you want your website to rank well in the search engines, you’ll want to regularly review your content strategy. To get the best possible results, it’s critical that you post regular, engaging content that answers your potential client’s most pressing questions. These should be in the form of blog posts, videos, social media posts, and ebooks. Additionally, every content piece needs to be optimized for the search engines and promoted appropriately. 

5. Integrate PR and Marketing

It no longer makes sense to compartmentalize PR and marketing for law firms. The efforts are too similar and the tactics can be easily integrated to save time and money. By integrating these approaches, you can ensure your branding message is uniform across all strategies and combine efforts with respect to things like social media and paid ads. 

6. Implement New Strategies

Whether it’s adding an AI chatbot to your website, leveraging legal directories, or investing more in paid advertising, it’s important that you be open to implementing new strategies. For example, many law firms are finding that technology solutions are helping them reach more clients. Some strategies allow for more personalization of messages, and others can reduce or eliminate repetitive tasks. 

Top Law Firm Marketing Trends to Watch Today

As we progress through 2024, the legal industry continues to experience transformation in its approach to marketing. Here are some of the top legal marketing trends that can help your business succeed in the coming year. 

1. Consistent Legal Branding

Today’s legal consumers want to work with brands they trust, which often comes down to consistency in branding. When you take the time to define your firm’s brand identity, it’s critical that you demonstrate a consistent and strong message across various online platforms. 

2. Rise of AI Tools

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an essential part of successful legal marketing strategies. We can expect to see more reliance on AI tools for things like 24/7 client interactions and data analysis. AI can also streamline some repetitive processes in marketing so you can devote your resources to other strategies. 

3. Social Media Marketing

Social media will always be a trend worth exploring in digital marketing. As we move forward, law firms will need to adapt their social media strategies to keep up with user behaviors and shifting algorithms. For example, many users now prefer to view video content on social platforms. 

4. Voice Search Optimization

More and more consumers are using their handheld devices and home devices for voice search. By optimizing your legal website for voice search, you can capture more of this traffic and potential business. This involves answering specific questions concisely using blog content and using more conversational language. 

5. Hyper-Personalized Content

This type of content offers potential and current clients the most individualized experience possible. For example, many firms are now leveraging AI and data analytics to better understand client preferences so they can deliver personalized content through email campaigns, chat, and video. This type of content boosts client engagement and can set your firm apart in a competitive market. 

Partner With a Cutting-Edge Legal Marketing Agency

Understanding how to market your law firm in a constantly changing environment is critical. You won’t get the results you need by relying on outdated strategies. But you do have to take decisive action. You probably already have enough on your plate that you’d be relieved to get some help with the marketing side of your business. At Too Darn Loud Legal Marketing, we are dedicated to helping our legal clients achieve positive results. 

From firms of every size and type, we have helped legal clients dominate their markets through game-changing results. Our marketing experts stay on the cutting edge of what’s working and what methods are no longer producing results. And everything we recommend is customized to fit your needs and goals. Give us a call at (800) 649-1764 or reach out to us online to schedule a free initial consultation. 

Artificial Intelligence and the Law

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The Future of the Legal Industry: Will AI Take Over?

November 30, 2022, may very well be viewed as a “day that will live in infamy” when it comes to the AI revolution. This was the day that ChatGPT, an AI-powered language model developed by OpenAI, was released to the general public. ChatGPT has quickly taken the internet by storm because of its ability to generate human-like responses to text prompts.

Chat GPT can also write computer code and do countless other tasks, and it has supposedly passed the bar exam as well as several medical exams. It is like having a research assistant who holds countless degrees and MBAs and can give you whatever information you need clearly, concisely, and in a matter of seconds.

With something this powerful that is bound to improve exponentially over the coming months and years, professionals who work in the legal field would be crazy not to be at least somewhat concerned about what the evolution of AI means for their careers.

Is your legal career at risk of being automated? Is AI coming for your jobs?

It is nearly impossible to answer that question for the long term because most of us have no idea where all of this is going to end up in three to five years. We can speak with much more certainty about the short term, however.

At the moment, AI is a very helpful tool that allows those in the legal field to automate mundane tasks and complete much of the work more quickly and efficiently. But the way it looks right now, AI is a long way from replacing humans in our industry. And there is a good argument to be made that it never will.

AI Use Cases in Law Firms

The use of AI in law firms is growing, and it is being applied to a wide range of tasks. I figured ChatGPT would be an expert in the use of AI across various industries, so I asked it to tell me what tasks lawyers are currently using it for. Here is what he gave me:

  1. Document Review: AI can automate the process of reviewing and categorizing large volumes of legal documents, such as contracts, pleadings, and discovery materials. This can save lawyers time and increase efficiency, allowing them to focus on more strategic tasks.
  2. Legal Research: AI can assist lawyers in conducting legal research by analyzing large amounts of data and presenting relevant information in a concise and organized manner. This can help lawyers find the information they need more quickly and accurately, allowing them to make better-informed decisions.
  3. Contract Analysis: AI can be used to analyze contracts and identify potential risks and opportunities. This can help lawyers understand the terms of a contract more quickly and accurately, allowing them to negotiate more effectively.
  4. Due Diligence: AI can be used to automate the process of due diligence, which involves reviewing financial, legal, and operational information about a company or transaction. This can help lawyers identify potential risks and opportunities more quickly and accurately.
  5. Predictive Analytics: AI can be used to analyze large amounts of data and identify patterns and trends. This can help lawyers make more informed decisions about legal strategy and help them better understand the potential outcomes of a case.
  6. Chatbots and Virtual Assistants: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can be used to provide legal information and support to clients, freeing up lawyers to focus on more complex tasks.
  7. Sentiment Analysis: AI can be used to analyze large amounts of text data, such as social media posts and news articles, to identify sentiment and understand public opinion. This can help lawyers better understand the public’s perception of a case or issue and make more informed decisions about legal strategy.

 

So, you can see that there are a lot of potential uses for AI in a law firm to make the jobs of lawyers, paralegals, and legal assistants easier. But when you think about it, how is this different from the trend toward automation in other industries?

For example, how many humans do you see at toll booths these days? Or how about grocery and department stores? Most of them that I go into have at least some self-checkout lanes. Automation has been happening for a while with blue-collar work, so we shouldn’t be surprised that it’s starting to play a bigger role in the white-collar world as well.

The Human Factor in Law Firms

Although AI can take care of a laundry list of routine tasks that, if we are being honest, most people who work in law firms would rather not do, there are a number of key functions within a firm where humans are going to be needed for a long time to come. These include:

Legal Interpretations

As everyone in the legal field knows, the law is extremely complex and nuanced. There are countless laws on the books addressing every area of our society, and even the best legal minds often disagree on how these laws should be interpreted and applied in various situations.

Think of how many split decisions we have every year at the Supreme Court, for example. Even the most accomplished lawyers in the country cannot agree on many of the cases that reach the highest court.

Interpreting a law and determining how it is likely to be applied is a crucial skill when you are representing a client. Lawyers must be able to analyze legal issues, identify relevant laws and regulations, and apply them to specific situations.

This ability only comes with the knowledge and experience that you gain by practicing in your area of law. A machine might be able to make some suggestions about how a law could be interpreted (based on previous precedents, etc.), but there is no way that it can replicate your experience and the unique insights that you can offer based on the specific cases you have been involved with.

Customizing Legal Solutions

Lawyers must be able to provide customized solutions and legal strategies for their clients. For example, when preparing an estate plan, a lawyer must be able to understand the unique needs and goals of the client and develop a plan that addresses their needs and accomplishes their goals. This requires not just technical knowledge of the law, but also the ability to listen, understand, and respond to the client’s needs. This, of course, is something that a machine will probably never be able to do.

Negotiations and Dispute Resolutions

Another key area where AI is unlikely to replace humans is in the negotiation and dispute-resolution process. Lawyers must be able to build relationships, understand their clients’ goals and concerns, and use their interpersonal skills to resolve disputes and negotiate contracts. This requires empathy, emotional intelligence, and the ability to understand and respond to the needs of others, all of which are qualities that AI lacks.

Imagine two machines going back and forth trying to negotiate a divorce settlement, for example. Or imagine two machines negotiating a settlement for a car accident victim.

I have heard about digital dating – the idea that someone’s “digital twin” simulates dates with the digital twins of numerous other individuals to produce a handful of people whom they are likely to be compatible with before going on a real date. I don’t think this is happening yet, but this is a technology they are working on.

Digital dates seem a bit far-fetched to me, but I can see this happening someday if it is not being done already. What I cannot imagine though is two adversaries creating digital twins and sending them off into cyberspace to negotiate with each other. If machines ever become that dominant in our world, then I think we will all be out of a job 😊

Litigation

As ridiculous as machine-generated negotiations sound, the idea of machines arguing cases inside a courtroom seems even more absurd. Even if you brought a robot into court that had all the information in the world about your case at its fingertips, imagine this robot trying to make a persuasive argument in front of a judge or jury.

Success in court requires not just a deep understanding of the law and legal procedures, but also strong communication and interpersonal skills, as well as the ability to think on your feet. Many cases are won or lost in court based not only on the law but on the strength of the arguments and how well they resonate with those who are hearing the case. These of course are skills that are exclusive to humans.

Intangibles

Much of an attorney’s success in getting clients comes down to how a client feels about the person who will be representing them. The client must believe that the attorney is truly looking out for them and has their best interests at heart. This requires the ability to establish a personal connection and build rapport with prospective clients. These again are qualities that cannot be replicated by a machine.

AI in Lawyer Marketing

AI is also having a significant impact on the world of legal marketing, and we at TDL Marketing are using the tools that are available with this technology to help our clients achieve their goals more effectively and efficiently. AI enhances our efforts by automating a lot of mundane tasks and giving us more accurate data. This allows us to produce better results for our clients and maximize their ROI.

There are a lot of areas in which AI can be helpful. For example, it can be used to write code for websites, analyze a website’s content and structure, find keywords to target, suggest ways to improve search engine optimization (SEO) and generate ideas for blog content and social media posts.

However, while AI can assist with many aspects of attorney marketing, we are not worried about our jobs either (in the short term anyway) because humans are still essential to the marketing process. For example, AI might be able to give us ideas for content and provide various statistics, but it cannot write compelling content that establishes an emotional connection with readers.

It should also be noted that while Chat GPT can give you some good information to work from, it is not always accurate. The current version of the language model only knows information through the end of 2021, so it does not have the most up-to-date statistics and data, for example. More importantly for law firms, it does not know about changes in the law that took effect in 2022 or 2023.

For these reasons, tread carefully if you decide to generate content from Chat GPT. We would also suggest that you heed the advice of OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman, who warned against using the language model for important topics.

The bottom line (as we see it) is that AI’s role in law firm marketing is similar to its use inside law firms. It is a very useful tool that helps us with several aspects of our business, but it will never be able to replace the creativity, empathy, and depth of understanding of our target audience that our team possesses. These are the intangibles that we bring to the table every day, and it is what sets us apart and allows us to drive exceptional results for each client we serve.