I received an email from the Minneapolis law firm of Fredrikson & Byron last week entitled, “FredALERT: Internatio
Fred needed to alert me, it seems, to be mindful of my hiring practices in China. Fred specifically needed to repeat and paraphrase a New York Times article from mid-August to me.
As it happens (are they monitoring my internet use???), I was just about to click “send” on a mass email to a few hundred carefully chosen Chinese princelings offering jobs at my law firm when I saw the FredALERT. Phew! I dodged a nasty JL-2 SLBM on that one!
Seriously, I have previously voiced some doubts about lawyers’ use of blogs and websites for marketing and it is possible that the FredALERT concept and other similar marketing efforts support my theory. It is extremely difficult to keep up, to generate fresh content, and sooner or later, one might resort to posts that appear to some, at least, to be re-treads or “re-tweets.” These might be unproductive or maybe even counter-productive. (I got a second FredALERT — two on two consecutive days. Broadcast email “alerts” cost next nothing but maybe that is more than they are worth?)
In the end, who is to say?
There are very few, if any, Minnesota law firms who can rival Fredrikson & Byron’s China practice. Maybe “alerts” and “re-tweets” draw attention to this fact and help with the critically important and difficult challenge of linking lawyer supply with lawyer demand.