Marketing and maintaining your law firm is a very serious task. With the 2016 election rapidly approaching, it might be helpful to look back at past presidents who have pursued the noble profession of attorney and how you can utilize the lessons they learned along the way.

John Adams

Our nation’s first vice president and second commander and chief. Many of us will remember Adams for his famous defense of the British soldiers accused of shooting and killing five Bostonians in what became known as “The Boston Massacre.”

What may be less memorable is his early legal career. In fact, Adams’s first case was a loss. Adams’s had recently been admitted to the bar of the Suffolk Inferior Court when a farmer by the name of Joseph Field sought Adams’s representation. Field’s was seeking damages for trampled crops, as a result of his neighbor’s horses escaping on to his land*.

The failure of the case did not stem from Adams’s inability to prove the merit of the case–it was instead lost due to mistakes made regarding the paperwork Adams filed.

How much paperwork does the average office process every day? How many paperwork errors or missed deadlines have led to failed cases or serious issues in your own office?

Unfortunately for Adams, he had no standardized tools in place to make sure every piece of paperwork was correctly formatted and filled out. Fortunately for you, eGeneration offers a lead and case management software eLuminate, where you can generate the very same document for a number of different clients, ensuring that all of the information associated with your client is included in the necessary places.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the United States and a well respected founding father.

Jefferson began his career as a circuit lawyer, traveling Virginia to hear cases for the colonial court; however, few would remember him as an able attorney, but rather as one of the most influential founding fathers. Jefferson gained this reputation in 1774 when he authored “Summary View of the Rights of British America.”*

This list of grievances is certainly a worthy read, but a lesson can be learned from the fame Jefferson attained upon writing this document. The attention was so great that it propelled Jefferson from a circuit lawyer to a voice of authority in regards to the colonist’s grievances against the British government.

How are you known in your community? Even the most respected attorneys limit themselves if they only interact with the clients that happen to seek them out.

On the other hand, attorneys that proactively involve themselves in their communities earn the regard of more than just their former clients. Positively impacting your community can strengthen your reputation in a way that transcends wins or loses in the courtroom.

Promoting sporting events, local gatherings, or other community-centered activities will build a brand for your firm beyond simply signing clients. When the time comes to find a lawyer, your practice and good name will be on the forefront of everyone’s mind.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the United States sixteenth president, leading the country through the Civil War. Like twenty-five other presidents, Lincoln got his start as an attorney.

According to the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Lincoln handled around 3,000 legal cases in his twenty-five year legal career, averaging roughly 120 cases per year. Lincoln also handled a wide variety of cases, including petty misdemeanors, debts, contracts, bankruptcies, deeds and defending the Illinois Central Railroad.*

There are plenty of lessons to learn from Abraham Lincoln, but perhaps his willingness to handle all types of cases is the most relevant for the marketing-minded attorney in today’s world.

Cherry-picking cases can waste not only the time but also the money you dedicate to promoting your firm through marketing. Some attorneys turn down low-end, low potential pay out cases, simply dismissing these cases as “not worth it.” While lower payouts may be unattractive, they are still profitable, especially if you’ve already invested advertising dollars into your campaigns. Additionally, everyone you help in your community could generate many more referrals, perhaps for cases that are more lucrative.

If your firm does not have the budget to create online or TV campaigns large enough to sign 120 cases per year, consider giving us a call today at 617.800.0089. Our Social Security, personal injury, workers’ compensation, and employment law leads are a great way for your firm to grow your caseload at a competitive price.

Adams, Jefferson, and Lincoln are just 3 of the 25 attorneys-turned-president.

• John Adams (Harvard, then apprenticed as a lawyer)
• Thomas Jefferson (College of William & Mary, then apprenticed as a lawyer)
• James Madison (College of New Jersey — now Princeton — then read law)
• John Quincy Adams (Harvard, then apprenticed as a lawyer)
• Andrew Jackson (self-taught lawyer)
• Martin Van Buren (Kinderhook Academy, then apprenticed as a lawyer)
• John Tyler (College of William & Mary, then apprenticed as a lawyer)
• James Polk (University of North Carolina, then apprenticed as a lawyer)
• Millard Fillmore (clerked for and studied under New York Judge Walter Wood)
• Franklin Pierce (Bowdoin College, then studied law)
• James Buchanan (Dickinson College, then studied law)
• Abraham Lincoln (No formal education, a self-taught lawyer)
• Rutherford Hayes (Kenyon College, Harvard law)
• Chester Arthur (Union College, then studied law)
• Grover Cleveland (apprenticed as a lawyer)
• Benjamin Harrison (Miami University in Ohio, then studied law)
• William McKinley (Allegheny College, Albany law)
• William Howard Taft (Yale, Cincinnati law)
• Woodrow Wilson (College of New Jersey — now Princeton — then UVA law)
• Calvin Coolidge (Amherst, then apprenticed as a lawyer)
• Franklin Roosevelt (Harvard, Columbia law)
• Richard Nixon (Whittier College, Duke law)
• Gerald Ford (University of Michigan, Yale law)
• Bill Clinton (Georgetown University, Yale law)
• Barack Obama (Columbia, Harvard law)*

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*John Adams Historical Society "The Young Lawyer"

*Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virignia. "Thomas Jefferson: Life Before the Presidency."

*The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History "The Sanctity of the Law: Lincoln's Legal Career"

The Wall Street Journal "Barack Obama: The U.S.’s 44th President (and 25th Lawyer-President!)"