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Struan Robertson and his gang of out-laws at Masons
are at it again. This time it’s a slick magazine
that looks nothing like the stuff we regularly see from
big law firms. Its outrageous. It's Marketing with a
capital M. I love it.
 Masons
is one of those big London-based international firms,
with offices also in Europe and Asia Pacific. Back in
May 2000, they shook up the big-firm marketing world
by creating a new Web site called “OUT-LAW.”
http://www.out-law.com
The site offered articles, forms, advice and even extranet-based
services, all with a “tude,” that was decidedly
not British. More important, it focused on the firm’s
core IT practice, providing information that was both
interesting and easy to read, with daily updates. The
idea was a hit. The Web site now has about 5,000 pages
of free content and more than 17,000 registered users
worldwide, 10,000 of whom receive a weekly round-up
of their latest news stories.
Not ready to stop there, in the Summer of 2001 Struan
Robertson, Web site editor, and several others at Masons
launched a glossy new magazine building on the OUT-LAW
brand already made famous (or infamous if you were one
of the other law firms competing for IT clients in their
markets) by the Web site. The magazine is actually printed
and mailed to subscribers in the U.K. but is also available
by color PDF to the rest of the world.
OUT-LAW magazine publishes quarterly in 16-page issues.
The initial print run started at a few hundred, but
the most recent issue has grown to 9,000 copies. Unlike
other law firm publications I’ve seen, this one
looks like the sort of thing you would want to pick
up at a shop. The journalism is first rate, the topics
are fun, and it doesn’t just regurgitate legislation.
 Last
year OUT-LAW ran a cover story on the legal issues in
file-sharing services. Most law firms would approach
this subject by summarizing the latest legislation and
cases on copyright issues, with cute graphics to illustrate
how with-it the firm really is. Instead, the writers
spoke to the head of the British music industry's trade
body to get his views on U.K. laws and the U.S. moves,
spearheaded by the RIAA. They also spoke to government
representatives who drafted the laws on copyright and
to several of the leading ISPs to find out whether and
how they planned to cooperate with the music industry.
Lastly, they somehow got permission from Madonna to
use her image on the cover. Take a look. It’s
hot. Apparently the clients thought so too.
According to Robertson, who I got to meet the last
time I was in Glasgow, they now get around 100 new requests
every week to sign-up for the magazine. They have also
been approached by advertisers who want to be associated
with the magazine. There’s a concept you might
consider for your next brochure.
The firm figures that the main benefit of the OUT-LAW
brand is raising the profile of Masons' IT law practice.
Robertson figures that while their rivals claim to know
the needs of technology businesses and users of technology,
Mason’s OUT-LAW brand seems to be convincing people
that they really do. He says a lot of work has flowed
in to Masons as a result.
Recently, Masons commissioned a survey of subscribers
and the results are interesting, to say the least. According
to the survey, readers divide into the following categories:
26% managers; 20% directors; 14% in-house lawyers. Of
those, about 20% have used Masons for legal services
but fully 75% say they would consider using Masons'
services in future (some readers don’t hire law
firms).
According to the survey, each copy of OUT-LAW is read
by 2.97 individuals with over a third of the readers
taking up to 30 minutes to read each copy. Equally important,
almost half of the readers say they pass on their copy
of OUT-LAW to colleagues once they have finished reading
it and another third keeps the magazine for later reference.
You can get a copy of the latest issue from the OUT-LAW
Web site or sign up for your own subscription at http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_id=out-lawmagazine.
Take a look and start thinking about how you are going
to catch up with these outrageous legal marketers. The
outlaws have gotten away with it again. I love it.
John C. Tredennick, Jr. (jtredennick@caseshare.com)
is a partner at Holland & Hart and CEO of CaseShare
Systems, an Internet company building paperless systems
for the legal and business communities. He is also the
Editor-in-Chief of Law Practice Today.
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