“We can surely do better,” read the last line of the email. “What the hell does that mean?” asked Margaret. The young associate had just helped win a big case, and she was reading a "thank you for your efforts" email from the lead partner to the supporting team. Based on the tone of the email, it was hard to determine whether the last phrase was meant to encourage or scold.

For lawyers, web marketing is what the French call a devoir — a “have to.” But most of us would rather wash our hands of it. We didn't go to school for an MBA or marketing degree. We have a whole desk full of case files demanding our time and marketing is hitching for a spot in the backseat, at best. But the web is where the clients are and in today's marketplace, Google is the ground from which law firms grow. So we hire people to help us — consultants and companies in the fields of digital marketing, SEO, social media and online advertising. Some are really easy to work with, but they’re about as common as an 8-1 ruling in the Supreme Court. The trick is to find a marketing firm that can get the job done at the right price while keeping your blood pressure below call-an-ambulance level.

Merrilyn Astin Tarlton | Once you've had a good meeting, you want to ensure you don't lose ground.

Last Friday, dozens of women gathered at the San Francisco offices of Seyfarth Shaw for the first Shape the Law unconference. No, no. You didn’t misread, and that isn’t a typo. Popular in the technology world, an unconference transfers control of the proceedings from conference organizer to attendees. There is no set agenda when you arrive; you contribute to its creation. It may sound strange, perhaps chaotic, as it’s easy to picture a lecture hall with everyone shouting ideas as one or two people squiggle unintelligibly on blackboards. The Shape the Law organizers — Laura Maechtlen, Mary Redzic, Alexandra Devendra and Jeena Cho — did their homework to avoid such calamity, and the result was an afternoon of discussion, connection and community.

Information sitting in your law firm's case management software can help you make better-informed marketing decisions — including where and when to advertise. Most firms have the information they need. It's just a matter of making a priority of getting at it, and actually following through. Here are three steps you can take to fine-tune your marketing with a little basic data.

LEAP can increase law office billing by as much as 30 percent because the system facilitates capturing every service provided to the client  — and that makes the investment well worth the money. Focused on Serving Small Law Firms LEAP is a cloud-based law office management software supplier with the sole focus of meeting the needs […]

Email marketing should be part of your internet marketing plan. (See "The Big Three Internet Marketing Activities for Lawyers.") Emailing new posts from your blog to a list of clients and prospects increases the return on your blogging time (and maybe money) investment. The best e-newsletter or blog does nothing for you if it doesn’t get read.

Maybe you're due for a little spring makeover? For this Friday Five+ installment, we asked our practice management dream team for their best tips on tidying up your office systems. Heidi Alexander, Dustin Cole, Sharon Nelson, Nora Regis, Deborah Savadra and Reid Trautz offer up small measures that can make a big difference in clearing up irritants that slow you down and stress you out.

Question: Are there tools available to help me see how many people are reading my blog? Are there standards to judge its success? In this month's "Ask the Experts from the Legal Marketing Association," Lindsay Griffiths and Jabez LeBret have tips to help you measure the success of your legal blog.

This past month, newspapers around the world have been filled with stories of the Panama Papers — a massive trove of confidential tax planning information that will probably topple more than one politician. For lawyers and law firms, the chilling fact is that these millions of documents emanated from the computer files of a global law firm — Mossack Fonseca. Their client records and all of their secret dealings are now being read by journalists around the world. Was it done by some skilled cybersleuth, intent on exposing illegal or improper activity, or at least hypocrisy? Was it a disgruntled internal whistleblower, within the law firm? Either way, it points to the vulnerability of law firms, and to the seriousness of the stakes when confidential client information is leaked. What's in Your Cybersecurity Bag of Tricks? A month ago, we asked the Attorney At Work community to let us know how confident you are about cybersecurity in your firm. Today, we unveil the results.