Google Keyword Search Volume Now Available with the Google's Keyword Tool
Hi Friends,
Google's AdWords Keyword Tool now gives the search approximate monthly search volume for different keywords.
You can read more about this new feature on the Google AdWords Blog here.
And here are a few words and their approximate monthly search volume
4,090,000 Lawyer
7,480,000 Attorney
1,000,000 Law Firm
7,480,000 Legal
20,400,000 Law
Of course, as can be seen in the image above, Google gives additional suggested terms as well. Should be something fun for people to play with :)
Peace,
Tim
BlawgSearch.com & Blawgs.fm - New Legal Blog Search Tools from Justia
We have released the first beta version of BlawgSearch.com for searching legal blogs... and our first alpha version of Blawgs.fm for searching legal podcasts and blog posts with audio or video media files attached.
BlawgSearch.com
Blawg Search. BlawgSearch.com allows legal researchers to search over a 1,000 editorially selected legal blogs. The database is updated throughout the day with new posts. BlawgSearch.com allows you to sort your search results by relevance or posting date, and you can subscribe to RSS feeds of your searches, to continuously track newly updated posts that match your search terms.
On the search front, we will be adding some advanced search functionality, as well as some other core functionality and features... but more on those when they are ready.
Blawg Directory. We also provide a directory of blawgs by subject category and locality (state and country) focus, as well links to other Blawg directories like Blawg.com's Blawg directory. This may be helpful in finding other legal blogs on a topic you are interested in. We are still fixing up the categories somewhat (Antitrust will be its own category soon :), but it is a pretty good start.
Blawg Rankings. Everyone loves rankings (except Michigan Football). We rank the blogs on a variety of factors, including how often a blog is clicked on in a search result or directory listing and the last post date (blogs with more recent posts are valued higher). Clicks from different parts of the site (eg top ranked blawgs on the home page, search results, blawg directory pages) are attributed different values. And there are some click spam protections built in. The overall system algorithm is still being fine tuned somewhat, but it seems to be working pretty well.
We still have 1000s of more legal blogs to check out in the weeks ahead. If you have or know of a legal subject matter blog you think should be included, please click here and fill out a form to suggest the blog. We are very focused of adding more blogs into the directory.
Blawgs.fm
While working on BlawgSearch.com, we noticed that we could tell from the RSS feeds when there were audio or video files. So we added some small icons to indicate there was a multimedia file, and then added a flash player so people could quickly listen to audio of a particular post right there in the search results. But on BlawgSearch.com, the audio or video files would only show up once in awhile in the search results*.
So we made Blawgs.fm, a new search interface for searching blawg posts with multimedia files. Blawgs.fm searches all of the posts that are included in BlawgSearch.com, but just returns those posts that have multimedia files attached to them.
In addition we have started a legal podcast/vidcast directory categorized by subject and locality, and a ranking of the podcasts (like BlawgSearch.com). The podcast directory only includes blogs that are either focused on providing multimedia content (like Coast to Coast) or primarily text based but have a substantial number of multimedia posts (like Evan Schaeffer's Legal Underground). If we were able to find a special podcast feed (like the Stark & Stark's New Jersey Law Blog's Podcast feed) we included that podcast feed in addition to the general blog feed.
But again, not all of the search results will be from blogs that are in this podcast directory. The search will have results from blogs that might not be podcast blogs, but have a multimedia post or two.
You can listen to audio files for a particular post using the flash player if you wish. What is nice about this, is that you can do a search and see what individual podcast posts have matching descriptions. Then you could either visit the original podcast page or do a quick listen using the flash player before deciding to subscribe to the full podcast. I have found it useful in finding new podcasts, and I will bet others will too.And like the BlawgSearch.com, we are also looking for more legal Podcasts to add into the directory. So if you have a legal Podcast you like us to add please click here on the Podcast and fill out the Podcast suggestion form.
Ok... that is it for now. We will announce some more features in the near future...
Peace - Tim
* We will include the media search only functionality into the advanced search options of BlawgSearch.com as well, but we thought it would be nice if there was site that just searched multimedia files from the get-go, and thus Blawgs.FM is being launched as a separate site.
Larry Bodine on Macs -- and how to get Free PR
Hi Friends,
I would comment on Larry Bodine's (in)experience with Macs (see Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree). But LexBlog's Kevin O'Keefe (a Mac User) just sent me a post from Wil Shipley's blog that pretty much covers the Mac side.
And for more fun... read the MacLaw group posts that have been coming through... and read Larry's blog where he has put up some of the "thoughts and suggestions" himself.
But from a pure marketing standpoint... there is no faster way to get your name known by the technology community at large than to attack the Mac. Larry is now "famouser" and he knows it :).
From Justia's standpoint... we just bought another loaded MacBook Pro and 30 inch monitor for our new programmer. And we will be running Windows XP on the same computer... for testing purposes only.
And now taking a page (or partial post) out of my personal Law Blog of Fun... here are couple of GooTube videos to express some thoughts...
Peace - Tim
And on a side Seattle note... what a great Seahawks win on Sunday. It made my NFL.com Internet radio subscription worthwhile for the whole year.
:: Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not by the Arctic Monkeys
Google Services for Business - Email, Website, Calendar
Hi Friends,
Another day, more free Google stuff. Google today formally released their free hosted domain services for business (you can read the press release and the Wall Street Journal Article). It includes email and Website tools for your domain, as well as a calendar and chat services. We were in the beta last May for testing Google's GMail for our Justice.PRO domain and it has worked well. We got a 100 2GB justice.pro email accounts for the great price of .... FREE :).
The new free service Google has just added is a Web site development tool for your domain. This is similar to their Google Pages application, but now you can use your own domain for your site. We made a business site for Little Sheba and Rio Bravo. Links to t-shirts and mugs will be included later this week :)
You can visit Sheba's and Rio's site by visiting Peace.Justice.PRO
Stacy and I did a presentation at the National Bar Association a few weeks ago on free marketing services, and will start posting that information in the next few days, contrasting in particular Microsoft's Office Live offerings with those from Google.
Peace - Tim
GooglePages - Free Web Sites from Google
Google came out with their free Web sites (Google Pages) last week. I was playing around with it (see Sheba's GooglePages Web Site) and it seems pretty nice. The Page Creator is page by page focused, and your subdomain (tstanley.GooglePages.com) will be based on your Google Gmail address (tstanley at gmail.com) leading to possible spam.
Natalie Jost has a nice run through and tutorial on using Google Pages on her own Google Pages Web site NatalieJost.GooglePages.com. Anyway check out Natalie's GooglePages site, it is excellent.
More free stuff from Google... always good.
Peace - Tim
And of course law firms can make free law firm focused Web sites at freedom.justia.com (for an example see Antony Cermanaro's business law site).
FindLaw Shutting Down Free Firm Sites; Justia Offers Free Migration Solution for FindLaw's Law Firm Web Site Clients

Yesterday, Chris Fontes, the Senior Director of Strategic Marketing at FindLaw, notified law firms that FindLaw was shutting down their law firm web sites. In his e-mail, Fontes explained,
"For the last several years, FindLaw has been hosting a Web site for you at no charge.... Because of technical and business constraints, we are no longer able to provide this service. We are writing to inform you that this site will be removed from our servers on August 1, 2005."
Since you only have 2 1/2 weeks to find a new online home for your law firm, here's a checklist on how to smoothly handle your web site eviction.
- Make a Back-Up Copy of All the Content on Your Web Site. Building a new web site takes time. You need a paragraph to describe your law firm. Another paragraph covering your own experience and achievements. You may also want to display some articles that you have authored just to showcase your knowledge and areas of expertise. Preparing all these elements for a web site can be a time consuming. However, if you've already done it once before, you should take full advantage of your prior work. Either copy and paste the content from your FindLaw FirmSite to a Microsoft Word document, or save each individual web page (control-S) from the web browser itself. Now you can refer to your web site even after FindLaw evicts all the free law firm web sites from their servers.
- Sign-Up for a New Search Engine Optimized Law Firm Web Site. Justia offers Free Search Engine Optimized Web Sites for lawyers or law firms. Their free package includes:
- Template Web Design
- Search Engine Optimized Pages, covering one practice area, one city and one state
- Firm Home Page
- Firm Profile Page
- Firm Location Page
- Practice Area Profiles
- Attorney Profiles
- Web Resources Page
- Legal Articles Section
- W3C Web Standards Design & Layout
- U.S. 508 and W3C's Web Accessibility Guidelines
- Set-Up Your New Justia Law Firm Web Site. Law firms that have an existing web site really have an advantage here. By copying-and-pasting their content from their old site to their new one, law firms can quickly launch their new online presence. Here's an actual free web site built by one of Justia's clients:
Does your existing free (or even paid) web site appear as stylish as the one above? With free web building tools and free web site designs, Justia offers FindLaw's Firm Site clients an easy migration path to a new search engine optimized law firm web site from Justia. Start building your new search engine optimized web site today by visiting http://freedom.justia.com/.
Justia Free Sixty: 60 Essential Free Law Firm Competitive Intelligence Resources 45-60
Competitive Intelligence for Transactional Lawyers
Venture Capital
- Yahoo! - Venture Capital. Offers venture capital news. As I've discussed in a prior tip, you can even set-up a customized news feed to target a specific venture capital firm. For example, here's an RSS news feed for Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

- MoneyTree Survey Report. PricewaterhouseCoopers compiles a quarterly study of venture capital investment activity in the United States.
- BusinessWeek Online - Deal Flow. BusinessWeek blog on venture capital and startups. Also available by RSS.

Mergers & Acquisitions
- Yahoo! - Mergers & Acquisitions. M&A news feed.
- CNNMoney - M&A Databank. Features reports on recent M&A deals, including transaction details and information on the target and acquiror.
- BNET - Mergers and Acquisitions. Features RSS feed of mergers and acquisitions updates.
BNET also provides an RSS feed for mergers and acquisitions white papers. 
- Onecle - Mergers Agreements. Features mergers and acquisitions agreements that were disclosed in SEC filings.
Initial Public Offerings
- MSN Money - IPO Center Offers IPO filings, highlights and news.
- Yahoo! IPOs Features latest IPO pricings, filings, withdrawals and news.
- Hoover's Online - IPO Central Features IPO filings, calendar and more.
Think Globally, Act Globally
Despite the election-year demagoguery over outsourcing and Benedict Arnold CEOs, the wave of globalization has continued unabated. As companies continue to augment their existing workforce with lower-cost help from overseas, law firms are frequently needed to help their clients deal with legal, business and compliance issues in an international marketplace. Here are some resources to help you keep in touch with your overseas branches or clients.
- Yahoo! - International News. Features financial news.
- CNN/Money - World Business. Features international business news. CNN.com International - Business News also offers international business news with different stories than the CNN/Money web site. Here's an RSS feed for CNNMoney - News/International

- Yahoo! - European Business & Economy. Features an RSS feed of European business news.

- BBC News - Business. Features international business news, as well as an RSS feed.

- International Herald Tribune - Business. Features international business news, as well as an RSS feed.

WaRSSington DC
A few years ago, the Supreme Court finally joined the other branches of the US Government with their own web site, which was a big breakthrough for that conservative institution. Nowadays, government web sites are more or less taken for granted. The latest technological push is towards implementing RSS feeds for press releases or other government announcements. Can't wait until the Supreme Court starts offering an RSS feed for court opinions. Until then, here are some teasers to whet your appetite.
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration Features RSS News Feeds from the FDA and the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH). Includes feeds for CDRH Recently Approved Devices, FDA Talk Papers, FDA Recalls, Withdrawals and Alerts.
- U.S. District Court - Eastern District of New York This court offers an RSS feed for judgments, orders and complaints. I hope this is a preview of things to come for all courts. However, you need a PACER account to view the underlying documents. Also, for some reason, this feed isn't working with My Yahoo right now.
For more US Government RSS feeds, be sure to read Robert Ambrogi's LawSites, in which he recently introduced us to FirstGov's U.S. Government RSS Library. Thanks for the tip!
This completes the Justia Free Sixty. I hope this resource was useful for all of you. We will be creating a new law firm competitive intelligence web site that includes all of these resources, as well as other useful sites that didn't make the original list.
Justia Free Sixty: 60 Essential Free Law Firm Competitive Intelligence Resources 40-44
If you have been following Justia's Free Sixty: 60 Essential Free Law Firm Competitive Intelligence Resource, by now, you should have realized that I love My Yahoo, RSS feeds and inside competitive intelligence. Previously, I had written about using job listings and material contracts from SEC filings for competitive intelligence analysis. Today, I will share with you another great web site with tons of inside competitive intelligence.
Have you ever scoured a competitor's web site to look for product or personnel information? As companies have grown wise to this practice, they've increasingly restricted the amount of information that is being publicly disclosed on their corporate web sites. Even some law firms had adopted this practice and have removed their associates from the firm's web site to deter recruiters from poaching their human assets. However, there is a way around this corporate firewall.
- LinkedIn. A while back, social networking web sites were the latest fad. A number of them sprouted up for various purposes: career advancement, business networking, dating, etc. LinkedIn falls into the business category and offers registered members access to a network of business contacts. The basic premise of LinkedIn is that each member has a list of trusted friends, who are members. In turn, each of your friends will also have a list of trusted friends, who are members as well. So, when you are looking for a person with a particular interest or skill set, LinkedIn will match you with your friends or friends of your friends who meet your criteria.
Now, for the inside competitive intelligence. Because each LInkedIn member may also provide a resumé, you can view all contacts from a certain company to see what products their employees are working on. LinkedIn will also tell you if your proposed contact is open to employment opportunities elsewhere. - Greedy Associates Board. The Greedy board is the destination for those seeking the latest law firm gossip and rumors. Associates on this board frequently talk about law firm culture, salaries and other issues.
- U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Here's a 2-for-1 deal. Patent filings are another source of inside competitive intelligence. See what products your competitors have in their pipeline. You can also visit the web site of the European Patent Office to see what folks are filing across the Atlantic. And, I won't even count this one as part of the free 60 law firm competitive intelligence resources.
- FreshPatents.com. FreshPatents.com offers an RSS feed of "patent application highlights." Of course, this is not a complete feed of all patent applications, just those that are "popular, interesting, innovative, weird and/or kooky"— whatever that means.

- Moreover Technologies - IP and Patents News. Moreover Technologies offers an RSS feed on intellectual property and patents news. If you want something more targeted, you can always set-up a customized IP news feed based on targeted IP keywords using Yahoo News.

Justia Free Sixty: 60 Essential Free Strategic Intelligence Resources for Your Law Firm 25-39
Last month, I had written about GoogSpy in I Spy Competitive Intelligence for Law Firm Marketing Consultants. At the time, I had reviewed GoogSpy's features without offering some insight on how you can use their data in your strategic planning. Let me share some of my ideas now.
- GoogSpy. GoogSpy offers a tremendously powerful strategic intelligence tool. The Ranks in the Top 10 on these Search Terms section tells you where a web site currently ranks for certain keywords. So, instead of manually entering keywords into Google to see how your web site or a competitor's web site ranks, a simple search using GoogSpy takes care of this tedious task. Another advantage of using GoogSpy is that you may discover that your web site is ranking highly for certain keywords that you did not intend to target. The disadvantage of using GoogSpy is that its data set is not complete. So, not all web sites or keyword combinations appear in the GoogSpy database. You may also consider optimizing portions of your own site to capture your competitor's higher ranking keywords. Just be careful that you don't end up de-optimizing your site for your existing keywords in the process.
The Pays for these Google Adwords section tells you which keywords are valuable to a web site—at least valuable enough that the web site is willing to part with cash in order to buy that traffic stream. Now you know where your competition's product focus and attention resides and what audience they are targeting. How you choose to respond is up to you.
My Yahoo—Your Legal Desktop
The reason why I'm a huge fan of My Yahoo—besides the fact that it is free—is because My Yahoo truly allows me to customize my legal desktop. At this point, you may be scratching your head and wondering, "When did Yahoo become a legal portal?" And, you are right. Yahoo is not a legal portal or a medical portal or a venture capital portal. However, My Yahoo does offer such a customizable system that I can configure the content to be focused on any topic that I want, whether that is law, medicine or even venture capital. Furthermore, I'm not locked into just using their proprietary content sets. So long as a third-party web site offers an RSS feed, I can incorporate that feed into my legal desktop.
Legal News
A number of free legal news sites are available. I've also provided a button so that you can easily add their RSS feeds, if available, to My Yahoo.
- bizjournals.com - Legal Services Features news about the legal services industry from local business journals.
- JURIST - Legal News and Research. JURIST offers separate RSS feeds for legal news, legal documents, and videos. I've provided a link to add the legal news RSS feed to My Yahoo.
- Law.com. Features legal news and information.
- LexisNexis Mealey Publications - Legal News via RSS. LexisNexis offers free (gasp!) RSS feeds for legal news. They also provide individual feeds for different practice areas, including insurance, products liability, litigation, intellectual property and more. While reading the news headlines and summaries is free, you do need a paid subscription to view the full-text of any articles or cases.
- Moreover Technologies - Law News.
- Virtual Chase Features RSS feed of current news. From Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll LLP.
- Yahoo! News - Full Coverage. Yahoo offers news stories, feature articles, opinions & editorials and related web sites on Personal Bankruptcy Law, Corporate Governance, Intellectual Property and Labor & Workplace. While Yahoo does not offer pre-set RSS feeds for these topics, you can set-up a custom RSS news feed. Yahoo does offer a Supreme Court RSS feed though.
- CNN - Law Center. CNN also has a Supreme Court News page, but no RSS feed for Supreme Court news only.
- NPR - Legal Affairs. NPR provides RSS feeds of law-related radio programs.
- Jaffe Legal News Service - Law Firm News.
Offers RSS feeds for top stories
, law firm news
and breaking news
. - C-SPAN - America and the Courts. Features videos from recent programs, court documents, news and more.
- Online NewsHour - Supreme Court Watch. Watch segments from NewsHour with Jim Lehrer online.
Lawyer Blogs
Of course, fellow lawyers are also great sources for legal news, especially if they blog. Here are two examples. One covers the U.S. Supreme Court and the other covers New Jersey law.
- SCOTUSblog. Commentary and news on the U.S. Supreme Court. From Goldstein & Howe, P.C.
- New Jersey Law Blog. Provides timely information on recently published court decisions, enacted legislation and news which impact businesses in New Jersey. From Stark & Stark.
Remember, if you can't find a relevant RSS feed, you can always create it. I've just come across an even easier way to create RSS news feeds on Yahoo. Start from the Yahoo! Search page and enter your keywords. I entered "California Supreme Court." The News Stories column on the left-hand side displays matching news stories. On the right-hand side, there is an Add your news search to My Yahoo link and button. Clicking on either will add the RSS feed to My Yahoo.

Justia Free Sixty: 60 Essential Free Actionable Intelligence Resources for Your Law Firm 12 - 24
What is actionable intelligence? For strategic planners, actionable intelligence means insight into the future business plans of a competitor. Imagine being able to see your competitor's product road map months or even years before their product is ready for release. During this period, you have time to properly assess the competitive threat and defend your business kingdom accordingly by widening your competitive moat or erecting higher barriers to entry. However, there's a big difference between offering buzzwords and offering solutions. Unless you have an insider working for you, how will your law firm get its hands on actionable intelligence?
- Yahoo! HotJobs. Many people visit employment web sites to explore new career opportunities. And, that's how employers and recruiters would like you to use them. However, savvy strategists have long realized that job listings provide a trove of actionable intelligence regarding a competitor's future plans. What projects are your competitors staffing for? Which companies are developing products similar to yours? Yahoo! HotJobs knows, and it'll even compile an RSS feed of the results for you. I guess you do have an insider working for you after all.
- Work.com. Like Yahoo! HotJobs, Work.com also offers an RSS feed of job search listings. However, you have to copy and paste the URL instead of having a handy button to just add the feed to My Yahoo. You can experiment with targeting a specific company, combining a company name with a job title, or even focusing on a unique set of keywords specifically relevant to your own products.
Industries
If your practice is focused on serving a particular industry, staying up-to-date on industry trends and challenges could not be simpler.
- Yahoo! - Industry Center. For background research, Yahoo covers industry news, statistics and profiles, as well as top performing companies within the industry. Yahoo also provides an earnings calendar to track upcoming events.
- bizjournals.com - Industries & Communities. bizjournals.com aggregates news articles by industry from different local business journals. They even offer a My Industries custom page where they will display news headlines from industries you have selected.
- MSN Money - News by Industry. MSN offers a basic news feed of industry news.
RSS Feeds
- BNET - White Papers RSS Feeds by Job Function and Industry. BNET offers white papers that span a broad range of job functions and industries. This is another great resource that you can feed into My Yahoo. You have to register in order to read the white papers though.
- Moreover Technologies - Free RSS News Feeds Listing. Moreover offers news feeds by industry.
- bizjournals.com - RSS Feeds. bizjournals.com also offers RSS feeds of local news and industry news. They've conveniently included an Add to My Yahoo link to simplify the process of adding content to your My Yahoo page.
On this page, I'm tracking jobs that include the keyword section 508, commercial real estate development white papers, consumer non-durable news, Atlanta local business news, and accounting and consulting headlines. You can customize your My Yahoo page to match your industry, location, and competitors too.

Most Favored Nation
When you are preparing to structure a major transaction, you would really like to know what terms your negotiating partner has offered other parties before. This time, you can't count on the HR Director to post actionable intelligence online to tip you off. You need a different insider.
- SEC - EDGAR Company Search. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission offers real-time filings by company name, ticker symbol, location, and SIC Code.
- Onecle- Sample Contracts and Business Forms. Onecle has compiled a database of material contracts extracted from SEC filings. This collection is both searchable and browsable, and includes employment agreements, services agreements, license agreements, manufacturing agreements, severance agreements and more. This is the insider source for corporate contracts and other actionable intelligence.
- PwC - EdgarScan PricewaterhouseCoopers offers a different twist on SEC filings. Their focus is on financial data, which they've extracted and may be displayed as an MS Excel spreadsheet or as a chart.
- SEC Info. SEC Info offer yet another spin on SEC filings. This site includes both SEC EDGAR and CSA SEDAR securities filings, and also includes SEC-deleted filings. Why would a company request that the SEC delete a filing? Because there was either an error in the filing or the company inadvertently disclosed something that it now wishes to redact. So, even when the SEC deleted a copy of a filing from its own site, you may be able to find an archival copy on SEC Info.
RSS Feeds
- EDGAR Index - Free RSS Feed Filing Alerts. EDGAR Index offers filing alerts for IPOs, quarterly reports, annual reports and insider trading.
Well, this concludes today's edition of the Justia Free Sixty: 60 Essential Free Actionable Intelligence Resources for Your Law Firm. I hope the web sites that I shared with you will prove useful in your practice. Stay tuned because I have 36 more law firm actionable intelligence tips on the way.
Quick Tip: Using Custom News Feeds to Compile Strategic Intelligence
In a previous post, I had written about setting up a custom RSS news feed through Yahoo News. I'll lead you through the set-up process since it isn't entirely intuitive.
Starting at the Yahoo! News - RSS page, scroll down until you reach the Create your own RSS news feeds field. In the snapshot below, I've highlighted it in yellow to help you locate it.

In the search field, enter the keywords for matching news articles you wish to retrieve. I've entered age discrimination in employment act in my example. Clicking on the search button then takes me to an XML data page. Copy the entire URL of this XML data page from the address bar.

Return to My Yahoo! and look for the Add Content link.
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Clicking on the Add Content link takes you to the Add Content page. Look to the right of the Find button for the Add RSS by URL link.

This takes you to the RSS Add Page. Paste the URL from the XML data page into the URL field and click on the Add button. This takes you to a confirmation page which displays a sample of your customized news feed. Click on the Add to My Yahoo! button and you're done.

Now, I can glimpse the headlines for news articles involving morrison foerster and age discrimination in employment act every time I launch My Yahoo.

Justia Free Sixty: 60 Essential Free Competitive Intelligence Resources for Your Legal Desktop 1 - 11
To succeed in today's business environment, you must know more about your own business than your competitors do. And, you must understand more about your clients' businesses, than your clients do. So, how can you keep abreast of changes in your competitive business landscape?
The first challenge is identifying sources of competitive intelligence. Thankfully, the amount of business intelligence available on the internet continues to grow. However, you must be able to effectively channel this flow of information to avoid drowning in an ocean of data.
To help you harness the power of the internet, Justia has compiled a list of 60 essential free competitive intelligence resources. We'll introduce you to new sources of actionable intelligence, as well as new twists on ways to use web sites with which you are already familiar.
- My Yahoo. My Yahoo heads this list because it offers a tremendous breadth of customized content with a clean interface. Furthermore, you can now place additional content modules into My Yahoo—beyond the default set provided—by taking advantage of RSS feeds, some of which we will discuss below. With customized stock quotes, business news and RSS feeds, there's no reason why My Yahoo shouldn't be your legal desktop.
- Google. Google your company, Google your competitors, or Google your clients. With over 8 billion web pages indexed, Google will likely provide you with some tasty morsel of information.
- Yahoo News. If you're just skimming the headlines of Yahoo! News, you haven't fully tapped into this essential resource. Yahoo News - RSS allows you to create custom news feeds based on search terms you've identified. You can then read these in an RSS reader or view them on My Yahoo!. Look at my Morrison Foerster news feed module on My Yahoo. This is an easy way to keep up with press coverage of your company, your clients or even your competitors.

- Google News. Google News doesn't offer RSS feeds, but you can set-up a Google Alert, which is similar in concept to the e-mail-based Yahoo Alerts. Given a choice though, I much prefer updates by RSS feed instead of e-mail. Don't like seeing too crowded an inbox.
Company Background Reports
The first four web sites are great starting points. Let's now turn to specific data sets for more in-depth intelligence. The first category is company background reports, which includes corporate profiles and financial data. Here, a number of web sites provide this basic data for free.
- Yahoo! Finance For publicly-traded companies, Yahoo offers stock quotes, stock charts, news, company profiles, competitor data, industry data, analyst coverage information, ownership data and financial statements—all for free.
- Hoover's Online Hoover's provides company fact sheets, news and financials on selected companies for free. Hoover's also offers additional business data, such as officers and employees, D&B reports and corporate family trees on a subscription basis.
- CNNMoney - Company Research CNNMoney offers stock quotes, stock charts, earnings estimates, insider trading data, SEC filings, financials and news. It also provides news feeds from CNN/Money, Dow Jones, press releases and Fortune.
- MSN Money Offers much of the same content as above in a less attractive interface.
RSS Feeds
- BNET - Company Updates RSS Feeds BNET features news updates for selected major companies.
- Yahoo - Company News via RSS Generates an URL for publicly-traded companies in the RSS format. My Yahoo already allows you to subscribe to company news as a default feature. This alternative lets you see the same content using an RSS news reader.
- Moreover Technologies - RSS News Feeds Moreover features news feeds by company.
11 down. 49 to go. Stay tuned for the next installment.
I Spy Competitive Intelligence for Law Firm Marketing Consultants
I Spy a legal referral company looking for clients.
For law firm marketing professionals seeking competitive intelligence, GoogSpy offers a trove of marketing data. What keywords are competitors purchasing and what audiences are they targeting?
At first glance, GoogSpy offers a clean user interface reminiscent of Google. However, unlike Google, GoogSpy isn't flawless as the disclaimer notes. I've come across an error message or two on occasion, but waiting a few seconds and reloading the page works as a temporary fix. The hassle is well worth the value of the information that GoogSpy uncovers.
So, I ran a search for martindale. The results returned included some matching domain names and search terms.
I clicked on the martindale.com link which then lead me to a page that displayed Martindale's rankings for certain search terms, its top 25 competitors, and Google Adwords it pays for. It appears that Martindale is targeting lawyers seeking legal support services.
I guess that Martindale is trying to become more than just a lawyer directory. Do they give AV ratings to court reporters too? :-) While you are using GoogSpy, don't forget to have a little fun.
I Spy a political party that is targeting the House majority leader.
I Spy a competitive intelligence web site that I will be returning to a lot in the future.
Google Video Hosting Opens New Channels for Law Firms and CLE Providers
Lately, I've been covering a lot of new product offerings by Google and today proves to be no exception. Google Video offers a world of potential for law firms and continuing legal education (CLE) providers looking to extend their reach online.
For estate planning law firms that provide live seminars to attract new clients, Google Video potentially offers them a means to educate a broader audience on the basics of wills, trusts and estate planning. So, instead of reaching only those clients who can attend a seminar at a pre-determined time and location, Google Video may enable law firms to reach any client at all times of the day.
For CLE providers who are not distributing their courses online, Google Video may allow them to sell their video seminars directly to attorneys. The Video Upload Program FAQ notes that you can charge any price for your video. However, if you do charge users to play your video, "Google will take a small revenue share to cover some of [its] costs," which the Google Video Upload Program Terms of Service discloses to be at least 30% of gross revenues.
Using craigslist for Marketing Your Law Firm's Legal Services to Consumers - Free Online Marketing for Law Firms Tool #7
Hi Friends,
craigslist... sure you are thinking that this is where you post jobs, buy used furniture or read personals (at least according to my friends :)
But did you know you can also post and present the legal services you offer on CraigsList... for Free! (at least for now). Posting on craigslist works great for attorneys looking to reach the consumer audience - eg personal injury lawyers, wills and trusts attorneys, real estate law firms etc...

Here is what you do... Go to your city's craigslist home page (see links below). Then find the services section and under there you will see a link to legal. Click on this legal link.

You will see a bunch of posts that look like those above. Most will be from other attorneys offerring their services.
Read through a few posts to get an idea of what looks good for your own post and then click on the post link in the top right to post to the section. Write a post, confirm your email and confirm your want your post to go live. It will take anywhere from 5-15 mintues, and then your legal services post wil be up for all to see.

Your post will looking something like this (without the graphic smudges, added by me). Present ther services you offer, your qualifications etc...
And a few notes... Newer posts will show up higher than older posts, so you will need to make a new post of your services periodically. But read the craigslist terms of use and do not spam the boards. There is only one legal services section, so the personal injury posts will show up right along side the immigration law posts.
Only post legal services in the legal services area in a locality you actually serve. Again read the craigslist terms of use for more details.
Below is the current list of craigslist USA localities, but if you do not see your city, and it is big enough to be considered a metro area, keep check back, as craigslist is continuously adding more local sites (and I have not included any of the non-USA localites below).
So find your city and make your legal services post.
Peace - Tim
Google GMail turns 1, increases storage, - notes on GMail free forwarding, POP/SMTP access - Free Online Marketing for Law Firms Tool #6
Hi Friends,
GMail turned 1 today. Google increased GMail's storage immediately to 1.5GB (for my accounts at least), with plans to increase to 2GB (as stated on CNET and others) and then... Infinity + 1GB (or at least... more).
In any case Google has again pulled ahead of Yahoo! in the "we offer more free space" marketing realm, - Yahoo! recently announced that Yahoo! Mail will increase its storage to 1 GB in the near future. Microsoft Hotmail continues with its "huge" 250MB of mail storage. (anyone still remember 4mb - 10mb mails boxes?).
Of course Google offers more than free Web mail. Each GMail account also comes with free Email forwarding as well as, POP access and SMTP sending for GMail. So you can configure GMail for POP and SMTP services for local computer clients, like Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird, Apple Mail etc...
Personally I find the GMail POP/SMTP access more valuable than the increased storage (neither Yahoo! nor Microsoft are offering free POP/SMTP access).
And you can see your new GMail message titles in your news reader with an ATOM feed of your GMail account. And.... to see additional new features on GMail, visit the What's new on GMail. Visit this page often, as it seems to change about once a week.
And if you want your own GMail account, go to iSnoop.com, enter your current email address, and a GMail invite will be sent to you. Better hurry though, they only have 665,592 invites available to share.
UPDATE: I am now up to 2GB for my account, and... I tend to use my GMail accounts for all of the mailing lists I am subscribed to (eg Law-Lib, etc...). It is a nice place to have you own personal archive of the mailing lists (and, as noted, with GMail's POP access you can download them to your local machine as well)
Peace - Tim
:: I'm Afraid of Americans, Earthling by David Bowie with NIN
Send a 1GB file over the Internet with YouSendIt.com - Free Online Marketing for Law Firms Tool #5
Hi Friends,
Today and tomorrow I am going to cover a few more free tools, starting with YouSendIT.com's service for transferring large files over the Internet. You can upload/send files of up to 1GB.
How does YouSendIT.com's service works? You upload the file to the YouSendIT.com server and then have YouSendIT.com send a link in an email to the email address of the recipient that you would like to give access to the file. The recipient can then click on the link and download the file. That's it.
Here is the URL of the file that I just uploaded to the YouSendIT.com system: http://s4.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0C5BIJESYKK1H0SKW83459EGFU.
As you can see, the URL is not easily guessable, but it is not secure. While you can use https to securely upload the file if desired, access to the file itself is not password protected.
Anyone who visits that URL can not just download the file, but can also remove the file from YouSendIt.com's servers (so if you do not see a file at this URL it is probably because someone deleted it). But unless you tell many people the URL, like I just did, it is unlikely the file will be deleted before the recipient downloads it (and/or deletes it him/herself).
YouSendIT.com's service works well for sending very large documents that email services may not be able to handle. Examples are large Photoshop files or PowerPoint presentations or any large document where confidentiality is not critical. i have personally used it many times, and YouSendIT.com service is great.
And best of all YouSendIT.com's service is free :)
Peace - Tim
Note: You may have seen the YouSendIT.com service being used by the WaveofDestruction.org Web site when they were collecting tsunami videos.
Free Web Directory Links to you Web site - Washburn Law School's WashLaw.edu and the Open Directory Project - Free Online Marketing for Law Firms Tool #4
Hi Friends,
Doing well in the search engines, like Google, Yahoo! Search and MSN Search, involves three primary components - (1) Search Engine Optimized Web site structure and page layout (see the free Justia Web sites post), (2) links to your Web site from other related Web sites (this post :) and (3) strong legal content with related key words and phrases that Web users search on (to be covered in a later post).
Two (free) places your law firm should be listed in our the Open Directory (DMOZ.org) and Washburn Law School's WashLaw.edu legal Web directory.
The Open Directory is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. The listings from the Open Directory are provided under a free license and are used by Google, for their Google Directory, and hundreds of other Web sites. Getting a link in the Open Directory thus essentially gets you 100s of links to your Web site.
To find the best place to get linked, look at both the practice area and locality of the directory page, the PageRank (download the Google ToolBar or a FireFox extension [ PageRank Status (Google PageRank) | SearchStatus (Google PageRank & Alexa) ]) of the page, and the number of links on that page. What you would ideally like is a Web page that matches your firm's primary practice area, matches your city, has a PageRank of 3+ and few links. To find where to ask for a link, you have two starting point choices, the Society: Law: Services: Lawyers and Law Firms section or through the Regional directory section.
Washburn Law School's WashLaw.edu is the best law school Web directory site for getting a link to your law firm. Washburn has long been at the forefront of online legal research, and their directory is well maintained and updated quickly.
Where else should you get your Web site linked? Well look for places that have legal or locality content that is related to your practice. Practice specific Web site directories and local directories. Sites with a lot of good content are also great for getting links from.
And a non-free note: How much should you pay for a link? Well that depends somewhat on the content of the Web page, the PageRank and number of links on the page, but I would place $100 per year at the upper end, with the exception of the Yahoo! directory, which is $299 per year.
And a Yahoo! directory note: I will have other posts on this blog on the Yahoo! directory and other Yahoo! marketing solutions (Yellow pages etc...) in the near future, but a quick note about Yahoo!'s Web directory placement. Choosing the correct page on Yahoo! to get linked up is non-trivial, and involves many of the same factors listed above in choosing a page to be linked in the Open Directory. But no matter what your practice is, do not submit to a Yahoo! directory listing page that is being split into multiple pages unless your Web site will show up on the first page of the split directory page. Being on page two or three of a split page is of minimal value, and probably not worth $299 per year, especially since there should be other places to purchase a Yahoo! directory link.
In summary... submit your law firm Web site to the Open Directory and Washburn Law School's Washlaw.edu. There is more information about link popularity in the Justia SEO Center.
Peace - Tim
Mailing List Management with Google Groups - Free Online Marketing for Law Firms Tool #3
Hi Friends,
We are now on to free mailing lists. There are a number of places you can make a free mailing list, Google Groups, Yahoo! Groups (the former eGroups) and Topica are some of the better known ones.
All have their strengths and weaknesses, but for a one-way email newsletter or a conversation email list, Google Groups is the best.
With Google Groups you will have the ability to read the archive and post on the Web (just like a message board) . If you allow your posts to be "public" then the text message archive is included in the Google Groups archive of Usenet postings (this includes the former Deja News archive of the Usenet). The Google Groups Usernet archive is the most searched archive of Usenet postings on the Internet.
If you want to start a community with photos, file sharing and a calendar then Yahoo! Groups is pretty good. The downside of Yahoo! Groups is that there are sometimes banner ads on the pages, extra ad only pages when reading posts, and the interface is not as clean as Google Groups. MacLaw and Network-Lawyers are examples of popular legal mailing lists on Yahoo! Groups.
We at Justia use Google Groups for our announcement mailing list, justia-friends, to which we send out about 1-2 messages per month. You can join our announcement mailing list by filling the boxes below! :)
For updates on Justia's services, please subscribe to justia-friends. Thanks! | ||
| Browse Archives at groups-beta.google.com | ||
So what do you need to do to create your own Google Groups mailing list in under 2 minutes???
Well first you visit Google Groups, then either sign-in or create a new account (you will need to verify your email addresses to create your new group).
To create the group, you click on the "Create new groups" link on the home page, enter a group name, group email address, group description, decide who can post, and who can read the posts, and then add members.
Google Blogger - Free Online Marketing for Law Firms Tool #2
Hi Friends,
So what is a blog, why should you blog, and where is the best place to get a free blog. Here are the answers:
Q: What is a blog?
A: A blog is a Web site that is made up of posts that are arranged chronologically, and are archived by date and category. [ Blogger Blog Definition | LexBlog's legal blog definition ]
Q: Why should you blog?
A: Blogging gives law firms an easy way to highlight news items and publish commentary on what is happening in the legal world. In addition, most blogs have news RSS and ATOM feeds that summarize their authors posts and are aggregated in new news feed search engines like Feedster and Technorati. News journalists are using these blog search engines to find sources and information for their stories (and stories are breaking on the blogs, such as the CBS news documents, and the Whitehouse reporter with the false name and... :). As many news stories concern law, blogs are a great way to get in front of reporters. Many established law firms are doing it, such as Preston Gates & Ellis and Stark & Stark.
Q: Where is the best place to get a free blog?
A: Google's Blogger is the best place to get a free blog. There are many other places for free blogs (eg LiveJournal - for teens with style or MSN Spaces - for teens without style), but Blogger has the cleanest interface, and is very easy to use.
You enter in your contact information, choose a subdomain, choose a template, and you are ready to post. You can take a tour of Blogger here.
Blogger allows you to FTP (or more ideally sFTP) your blog on your own servers or you can use their hosting service blogspot.com.
Blogger has a lot of information about the service online. Rather than repeat their tutorials and instructions, here are the links to information that will help you set up your own Blogger Blog.
- Blogger Tutorial
- Blogger Help - FAQs and support
- Blogger's Blog (Blogger Knowledge)
- About.com's Blogger articles and resources
- Molly Holzschlag has an online video on learning Blogger (part of it is online for free, the full video requires a subscription or you can purchase the CD ROM of the video for $29.95).
Overview - Justia's Free Law Firm Web Sites - Free Online Marketing for Law Firms Tool #1
Hi Friends,
I will start this series of posts on free marketing services for law firms with Justia's own free lawyer Web sites service.
Although we have only been up and running for a few months now, this has been the one project we focused on from the get-go. It is the same backend as our pay system, with certain limitations on the number of sections and pages, as well on the number of localities and practice area keywords for search engine optimization. Currently there are only three template designs, but we will be adding additional designs over time.
All Justia's free Law Firm Web sites include:
- Your Own Subdomain (firmname.justia.net)
- Template Web Design
- Search engine optimized pages
- Firm Home Page
- Firm Profile Page
- Firm Location Page
- Practice Area Profiles
- Attorney Profiles
- Web Resources Page
- Legal Articles Section
- W3C Web standards design & layout
- U.S. 508 and W3C's Web Accessibility Guidelines
Setting up a site basically is composed of a few steps.
- Registering into the system.
- Initial firm data entry with the Step by Step Editor
- Additional editing using the Site editor - if desired
- Previewing the site and/or Publishing
You do not need to publish the site immediately. The (unpublished) preview will allow you to see the Web site exactly as it will appear to users. You can add content and data multiple times, until you are ready and the publish the site.
You can update the site with our online editing tools 24/7. You can even change designs whenever you wish (limited to the templates we have in the system).
We save the data in database and publish static xhtml files for faster loading for users and search engine spiders.
Even if you already have a Web site, you can make a free Justia law firm Web site. You can even link to your current Web site.
So with that introduction, let's begin a walk through the application in the following blog posts.
Peace - Tim
:: I See a Darkness, American III - Solitary Man by Johnny Cash
* Justia's free Web site service was originally announced on Sheba's Hug Pug Weblog.
1. Initial Registration - Justia's Free Law Firm Web Sites
Hi Friends,
Here is how you register into the system. This will seem obvious to most, but here it goes...
You begin on the Justia free Web site home page and click on the "New User >> Sign Up Now!" button.
Continue Reading2. Initial Data Entry - Justia's Free Law Firm Web Sites
We are now ready to start entering data. You do not need to have everything ready, although it would be helpful to have some home page, firm overview, practice area(s) and attorney information ready for the application.
If you do not have some information, just continue in the application, you can always add it later before you publish your Web site, or you may add or modify your Web site after it is live.
I will show some of the input screens here (the others are very similar).
Enter you password and log into the system.
You will see an overview screen. This screen lays out the steps you be following in the application for the initial data entry.
Continue Reading3. Additional Editing, Previewing and Publishing the Site - Justia's Free Law Firm Web Sites
The Free Online Marketing Solutions for Law Firms - Websites, Blogs, Mailing Lists, Directory Listings...
Hi Friends,
Do you have time but no marketing budget? Well here is a set of solutions for online marketing of your law firm for free!
These free services are especially valuable to lawyers that are just starting a practice, such as those by recent law school grads, or attorneys leaving larger law firms to start their own firm. And of course even established firms can use some free services once in awhile.
I will quickly run through the free marketing solutions list today, and then over the next few days, I will walk through exactly how to set each of these solutions up, as well as show examples of how they are being successfully used by law firms right now.
Some of the step by step setup examples I will be doing in the next set of posts might seem simplistic or obvious to Internet veterans, but "how do I do this" is the question I am always asked, and simply pointing to a URL often doesn't seem be enough how-to. So look forward to some step by step screen shots.
And I will also explain the differences between these free services with some higher end custom non-free services (like custom Justia Web sites or highend LexBlog Lawyer Blogs), but with a real focus on the free :). So let's start...
Free Online Marketing Solutions for Law Firms
1. Free Search Engine Optimized Web sites from Justia
These template Web sites are search engine optimized for one locality and one practice area. You can make a free Web site even if you already have a paid Web site.
2. Free Blog from Google's Blogger
A Blogger blog and BlogSpot hosting are free, and relatively easy to setup. One downside with the hosting service is that the "Next Blog" in the blog NavBar will sometimes link to a blog that would best not be seen by... clients. One of the hidden risks of free.
3. Free Mailing List from Google Groups
Google Groups is now in beta, but it provides easy administration of a mailing list, does not have annoying banners on every page, and your posts will get archived in the Google Groups database, which includes an archive of Usenet.
4. Free Web Directory Listings in the Open Directory and Washburn Law School's WashLaw Legal Web Directory
The open directory listings are used by 100s of Web sites, including Google. Washburn's WashLaw.edu is the best law school Web directory of legal resources. Justia is listed the Open Directory and WashLaw.edu so should your law firm. And both are free listings.


5. Free Website tools and clip art/photos from numerous sources
This post will include some links to good free tools and art Web sites, as well as to directories that have lists of the free tools and resources.
While I have focused on what I believe are the best free services for law firm marketing, I will also mention some others along the way.
Peace - Tim
:: Big Bang Baby, Tiny Music...Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop by the Stone Temple Pilots




















