Privacy Policies and Marketing

Working with lawyers and their clients, as I do with my current employer, means that we are required to use very ‘clear’ terms and language when publishing content. In the course of our work as an organization, we have to inform visitors to our lawyer websites of a number of terms & conditions, disclaimers, and policies. From the user’s point of view, this may seem cumbersome or text heavy, but it is necessary to protect them and our clients, the lawyers. The local courts and Bar Associations provide much of the regulations we and our lawyer clients follow.

From our perspective as the marketing agency, we have a responsibility to provide users with accurate, credible information as it pertains to certain case types and litigation. When we produce content, it is often heavily cite filled with a number of clear guidelines for its usage.

As for the language of the content itself, lawyers and their representatives have to communicate in very explicit ways – something as simple as using the words ‘car accident’ versus ‘automotive accident’ can carry a very different meaning depending on the context, so we have to follow a number of policies in writing content. As we collect case information and new clients, the information coming in is verified and disclosures have to be signed or consented to.

In our policies, the information we collect goes through several layers of critics as we gather case information. Once it is verified, we give it to the lawyers to handle. But before we do anything for our clients, we have a five step process that happens internally that includes physical security validation and legal review.

Primarily, we are effected by trademark, copyright, and legal regulations that govern how we communicate information to users. With each lawyer we market for, we have to identify any local, state, and federal laws that affect they way we portray them. For instance, some states require lawyers to us specific titles or designations when displaying their practice names, while others do not. There are a lot of memberships that help lawyers land new cases or show themselves as credible, many of these like the American Bar Association and National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers have rules that members have to follow if they want to carry special designations.