Signed in as:
filler@godaddy.com
A COVID-19 Survival Guide for Criminal Defense Firms
Criminal defense practices must quickly adapt to the new rules of the game.
Criminal attorneys, more than most, need to quickly reshape their practices to weather the storm.
We predict that criminal defense firms will continue to occupy a top spot among those hit hardest by COVID-19. This is because the industry landscape was already shifting under their feet long before the epidemic hit.
Now the quarantine may deliver the final death-blow for those who fail to adapt quickly.
The criminal courts have all but closed.
Video arraignments are the new normal, at least for now.
Potential new client calls seem to have fallen off a cliff, along with criminal defense firms' web traffic.
And face to face interaction (via an office visit) is typically more important to clients selecting defense counsel, in the high-stakes / high fee game of criminal justice-- than in other practice areas.
This is because they are hiring a lawyer they thought they would never need before. The decision of who is best equipped to save your life is a big one. As such, most criminal defense clients want to meet their attorney in person before making a decision to hire.
Fees for defending criminal cases are typically much higher than other practice areas, such as wills and trusts or corporate formation.
Federal & State Prosecutions Were Declining Before COVID-19.
State Prosecutions Down 50% Pre-COVID-19
State Prosecutions Down 50% Pre-COVID-19
State Prosecutions Down 50% Pre-COVID-19
52,224 cases were arraigned in 2018 (9,380 felonies, 41,411 misdemeanors, 874 violations/infractions). This number has decreased by 49% since 2009, a year with 101,762 arraignments.
Federal Prosecutions Down 50%
State Prosecutions Down 50% Pre-COVID-19
State Prosecutions Down 50% Pre-COVID-19
Well before COVID-19, federal white-collar prosecutions have declined by nearly 50 percent since the peak years of President Barack Obama’s administration, according to figures compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.
Criminal Defense Firms That Pivot Quickly Poised to Dominate
CORONAVIRUS HAS ATTACKED AN ALREADY ANEMIC PRACTICE AREA:
Enter, COVID-19: In-person new client consultations have been replaced with telephone consultations, and, for the quick to adapt, video consults. Offices are inaccessible and several criminal firms have already made the decision to freeze all spending until they can better assess what the future holds.
Adding to the criminal defense bar's Coronavirus challenge, is that although criminal prosecutions have been on a steady decline, the number of criminal defense attorneys entering private practice is on the rise.
AT THE SAME TIME THAT ARREST RATES ARE SPIRALING TO 20 YEAR LOWS, AN OVERPOPULATION OF CRIMINAL ATTORNEYS HAS CROWDED THE MARKETPLACE:
Perhaps more devastating to the practice is the proliferation of criminal attorney websites and marketing dollars entering the field.
Not long ago, "marketing" was considered a four-letter word among the more seasoned lot of elite criminal attorneys; not so today.
A quick search for private criminal defense attorneys advertising on AVVO alone yields the following numbers:
Orange County, CA: 1,033 criminal defense lawyers.
Miami, FL: 1,351
Houston, TX: 2,661
LA County, CA: 3,185
New York, NY: 4,064
According to one representative at Findlaw, criminal lawyers are among the heaviest spenders on digital marketing, second only to personal injury.
There has been a commensurate uptick in criminal law firm spending on outside and inhouse "SEO" services, designed to put their website on the first page of Google for key searches like "criminal defense attorney."
And yet, that coveted real estate on Google's Page 1 is shrinking. There are only 7 organic listings on Google's page 1.
"Google had reduced the usual 10 search listings to just 7 on over 18% of Google searches!" -Larry Kim, Wordstream, Nov 11, 2019.
And those search results are now pushed below the fold, taking a back-seat to 4 Google pay-per-click ads and Google's "People Also Ask" section; not to mention Google maps.
Even before this change, search analytics sites were reporting that the first three spots on Google's page 1 attract 55-65% of all clicks.
That leaves Google's organic slots 4-10 (it used to be 10) fighting for the remaining scraps.
So let's recap the issues that abounded prior to this crisis:
- The number of criminal cases have been shrinking to record lows, while:
- The number of criminal attorneys engaged in digital marketing continues to increase.
- Marketing dollars invested by criminal firms in SEO services are climbing
- Google's page one slots have shrunk to 7.
OVER 1,000 CRIMINAL LAWYERS (PER CITY), AND GROWING, ARE FIGHTING FOR 7 GOOGLE SPOTS IN AN EVER SHRINKING POOL OF POTENTIAL NEW CLIENTS
So you have more criminal defense attorneys than ever before, spending more marketing dollars than ever before while the number of potential new cases is hitting record lows and Google is devaluing organic search results in favor of more lucrative Adwords / pay per click results.
Per the numbers above, in many instances you have well over 1,000-4,000 criminal defense attorneys in a single city all trying to occupy one of those 7 coveted slots on Google's page 1.
As this becomes more unobtainable, criminal practitioners invest yet more dollars into Google adwords, social media and directories like AVVO-- all in the hopes of obtaining a larger slice of the shrinking pie.
Within that shrinking pie is a tiny fraction of criminal defendants who are in the market for, and have the means to hire, private defense counsel.
It no longer matters if you are playing the marketing game better than your peers. It's a lose-lose prospect with shrinking returns on marketing investment (ROMI).
THE ANSWER TO THIS CHALLENGE LIES IN INTELLIGENT REDUCTION OF MARKETING AND OPERATIONAL COSTS WHILE INCREASING THE CRIMINAL FIRM'S DIGITAL FOOTPRINT.
This is achieved through redundancy elimination and systems consolidation under a single umbrella.
The proliferation of new criminal defense firms entering the market will come to a halt as they continue to cannibalize existing competition and clientele.
The firms that survive will have used the current crisis to their advantage, seizing the opportunity to downsize overhead without losing market share.
This will be accomplished through industry implosion and centralization of like operations through platforms controlled by a handful of criminal law firms.
Savvy criminal firms will turn the tables on marketing goliaths and run their own centralized systems rather than overspending on decentralized, outside marketing vehicles.
An Opportunity for Some Firms:
"The firms that survive will have used the current crisis to their advantage, seizing the opportunity to downsize overhead without losing market share.
This will be accomplished through industry implosion and centralization of like operations through platforms controlled by a handful of criminal law firms."