Weaving a site on the Web.

As Internet use among small-office lawyers has nearly tripled in the past several years, thousands of attorneys have gone a step further and created their own Web sites to educate and inform the public. Three trial lawyers who wasted no time in finding their place in cyberspace write about their experiences with the newest media on the block.

On the cutting edge

While I still feel somewhat deficient around computers, I am told that I am on the cutting edge of Internet technology-for an attorney. I don't think I have ever been on the cutting edge of anything in my life before.

My first foray onto the World Wide Web as a user coincided with my November 1996 marriage to Don Brown, who has an Internet company. Last year, Don designed my Web site, http:// www.mawalice.com.

Many interesting inquiries have come to me from this source--some from foreign countries, including Mexico, Germany, and even Malta. Al though I get my share of high school students who aspire to be lawyers, the site has produced several cases for my firm within the past year.

Before contracting for Web site development, you must have a clear definition of what you want your site to do. Is your market consumers, injured people, or other attorneys?

The main targets for my site are other Dallas lawyers, lawyers from other cities and states with a case in Texas, lawyers who do not practice personal injury or who need help with a personal injury case, and potential clients.

My home page features the night skyline of Dallas. My picture is on the curriculum vitae page, and I use my firm's promotional brochure for text.

Scanned color pictures can help the appearance of any site, but they are not necessary. No site needs to be elaborate. In fact, a site with dense graphics that load slowly may encourage viewers to leave and never return.

Don't be afraid to use personal information and informal pictures of your staff on your site. Your goal is to make yourself a real person, particularly to the Internet surfer looking for an attorney.

My listing in the Internet version of Martindale-Hubbell is hyperlinked to my Web site. This makes it very easy for potential clients or a referring attorney to find my site, which is much more personal and promotional than the stuffy legal listing.

After my site was on the Web for a few months, Don suggested I do a personal page about why I became a lawyer. I was reluctant to engage in a self-centered exercise, but late one night I hacked out my page. Although I thought it was rather corny, I have been amazed by the response. My personal stow clearly is more interesting to the potential client than my long and stuffy resume.

For more practical, information-seeking Internet surfers, we included a hyperlink from my CV page to a paper I presented at an ATLA convention on deposing expert witnesses in reflex sympathetic dystrophy cases. I have had numerous hits on this subject and an interview with a Los Angeles Times reporter who found the paper through an Internet search engine.

You may even want to work with other lawyers and host a joint site. For instance, two friends and I created a site called Lone Star Law (www.lonestarlaw.com), a consumer-oriented resource to help the public use the legal system. We find this site has more hits than our individual ones.

One note of caution: You might expose yourself to professional liability if your site includes anything that could be construed as legal advice. The site should include a prominent disclaimer, clearly stating that its content does not constitute legal advice. My site sends an automatic response to every visitor who sends me an e-mail inquiry. Part of it follows:

Thank you for contacting the Law Office of

Mary Alice McLarty. Our reply, if any, will be

from a licensed lawyer, but may only be general

in nature, and it will not constitute legal

advice or form an attorney-client relationship.

If you need immediate legal advice, immediate

legal representation, or are subject to any

time deadlines whatsoever, do not wait for our

reply. Instead, please use the telephone to contact

a licensed lawyer.

Check your state bar's ethical requirements before publishing your site. In Texas, lawyers are required to send a copy of the site to the state bar before posting the page on the Internet.

In addition to ethical concerns, confidentiality is of paramount concern to all lawyers. When I am contacted by a prospective client by e-mail, I usually send the following warning if I respond:

WARNING: Please do not divulge any sensitive

information that you want to remain confidential

via standard e-mail. The Internet is a

new frontier, and the legal issues concerning

confidentiality have not been fully settled.

Confidentiality is possible if you have the capability

of sending encrypted e-mail with PGP 

[Pretty Good Privacy--a commercial encryption 

device].

We have just begun to explore this new frontier, but I am sure it will expand the future of all of our practices. Good luck to you in your adventures on the World Wide Web.

Mary Alice McLarty is a sole practitioner in Dallas.

Life in cyberspace

Shortly after the unveiling of Law Journal Extra, the National Law Journal Internet Web site for lawyers and the law in 1995, decided that the World Wide Web would be a great platform for our firm's launch into cyberspace.

Our firm specializes in medical litigation, representing injured parties from coast to coast. We had discussed marketing the firm to other firms and potential clients but were never satisfied with the limited professional-looking marketing available to lawyers.

The first action we took toward setting up our Web site was to ask one attorney in the office to design a home page using a number of books on the World Wide Web. Quite soon, it became painfully clear that this was not the way to go. The time consumed by the process took away from the day-today operation of the firm.

We lost valuable time by not wanting to hire a true Internet consultant who specialized in creating and marketing Web sites for professionals. But we found a New York-based consulting company, and its professional programmers sat down with me--our point of contact in the office--and explained the difference between being present on the Internet and being a presence. It had been our goal to be a presence, and that requires the commitment of time, energy, and money.

Once the firm unburdened itself of the technical aspects of Web design, I talked with the consultants about what we wanted from the site: specifically, a tasteful forum where potential clients could learn about the professional staff, our cases, and the firm's philosophy. And a place where lawyers from across the country could "visit" and learn about us in a professional manner.

We decided to dedicate a large portion of our site to full-text articles written by members of the firm. Our partners had written about various practice areas for a number of professional journals. With the copyright clearance of the publishers, we set out to make these articles easily accessible--a mouse click away and downloadable for the practitioner's use.

We next set out to make our pages attractive to potential clients who might happen across the firm's site while trying to find a lawyer. This task was a bit more difficult. Our firm generally does not advertise, and we did not want to veer from that philosophy.

We opted to summarize our settlements and verdicts in a fashion that allowed consumers to understand what we do, while also giving information to other attorneys about the potential settlement value of cases.

From there, we set about offering a way in which the public could meet and greet our attorneys. Each attorney has one or more subpages off the home page that contain such information as a biography and the dates of upcoming public speaking engagements.

The most difficult aspect of our Web design concept was to offer something that would entice visitors back to the site. For lawyers, it was easy. We searched the Web for all the available legal sites we could find--from the various state courts to corporations such as Court TV and Matthew Bender--and created links to those sites. We call this network our virtual law library and have received many positive comments about the ease with which one can navigate it.

Again, for the consumer-client, we had a more difficult task. We obtained copyright clearance for articles that were tailored to lay readers and either placed them on the site in a downloadable format or created hyperlinks so the reader could go to another site and get them.

To get a feel for our site, I invite you to visit http://www.goldrich.com. There, you will be able to tour our virtual law office from the reception area to the law library, with stops at each attorney's office. Follow all the links to get a full appreciation of the virtual law office and how it can help you in your practice. When you visit, please sign our guest book and leave any comments or questions you might have. See you in cyberspace.

Howard S. Richman is a partner at Goldsmith & Richman in New York City.