My guess is that many of you have more free time now due to the pandemic, which had slowed down deal flow and litigation activity.
Plus working from home eliminates the need for commuting, giving you extra hours in the day to focus on marketing and business development.
This is a great time to become a published author. There is a need for helpful, informative content and potential readers who also have more time on their hands to read articles.
While client alerts are incredibly important for every law firm to regularly publish on timely updates facing their clients to keep them informed, stay top of mind, obtain new work and to showcase their expertise, traditional and online outlets are always seeking thought leadership content to publish.
For example, Law360, the top legal industry publications (Bloomberg, Lexis Nexis, among others), the law journal in your state as well as niche publications that focus on specific industries are great places to submit an article.
Oftentimes, all you need to do is to look for the contact for third-party articles on the publication’s web site and send them an email with a short summary of the article and a proposed (catchy) title.
Don’t write the entire article before you contact them and it’s accepted – many publications have specific word counts or a preferred style – and so there’s no point in doing all of the work beforehand without knowing exactly what they are looking for.
Make sure to disclose if the article has been previously published (some publications want original content and others are fine to republish one of your client alerts).
If you are feeling ambitious, contact one of the law journals or industry publications to ask if they would be open to you writing a regular column and propose a few topics (again, just a quick summary of your ideas).
Hopefully many of you are utilizing a content syndicator such as JD Supra. This is a paid tool that is worth the investment to get your content into the hands of decision makers and a wider audience.
I’ve seen several lawyers score a recurring opportunity just by asking for it. And often, these kinds of opportunities come to those who ask for them. If you don’t ask, you won’t get it – it’s as simple as that.