Perhaps you had a professor in law school who reacted with outrage when first-year law students did not know what a tort was or had never heard the expression “black letter law.” Maybe you have a good laugh when a prospective client tells you that she doesn’t think her ex-husband deserves unsupervised parenting time simply because he lets the children watch more TV than she considers reasonable or another that expects you to bribe the police to make his DUI charges go away. “Some people just don’t understand” is a refrain that we hear too often; it usually serves no purpose other than to make the speaker feel smart. Being amused at other people’s ignorance is not a good look for lawyers. What is the job of attorneys in public-facing practice areas such as family law, criminal defense, and estate law, if not to help people understand the law? What better way to inform the public about the laws and legal procedures related to your practice area than by regularly updating your website with informative, understandable legal blog content?
Nothing Is Obvious
According to Robert Rose of Content Marketing Institute, 90 percent of success in content marketing is attributable to successful communication. The root of the problem is that speakers assume that something is so obvious to the audience that the speaker does not need to say it. He is referring to communication between clients and professional content creators, but the rule applies equally well to communication between the author of the content and the audience.
By this logic, you should not shy away from stating the obvious in your content, because it probably is not obvious to prospective clients. For example, how many clients contact personal injury lawyers after they have accepted an insurance settlement that is not enough to cover all their accident-related medical expenses? You would be able help a lot more clients get a lot more money if the general public knew more about the events in the days and weeks after an accident where insurance companies make it harder for injured people to recover settlement money that will cover all their accident-related bills. It is a good idea to write blog posts about how you should have a lawyer contact the insurance company when they ask you to give a recorded statement or before signing the insurance settlement offer. Most people don’t know that they should do this, because most billboards and TV ads do not make it clear. In other words, it is obvious to personal injury lawyers, but not to the people who need their services. Remember that, in a law firm blog, your audience has almost no background knowledge about the law; it is not like when you are giving a presentation at a conference for lawyers.
The Obvious Can Still Be Interesting
The professional legal content writers at Law Blog Writers will compose legal blog content that explains basic legal concepts to your target audience in an engaging way.