Ask the Legal Marketing Guru

 Posted on July 25, 2008 in Uncategorized

Dear Legal Marketing Guru,I have left government service, and am starting my private criminal law practice as a hired-gun prosecutrix. I have already started creating my brand ("Prosecutor for Hire") and negging the competition. I have been hired to try a capital case in Wharton County as a special prosecutor. What should I do next?-Paladina, Houston, Texas

Dear Paladina,

You're probably going to catch some flak (from those who don't appreciate ballsy marketing) for running down the competition. You might want to temper that just a little bit. You can defuse the issue by apologizing for anyone who erroneously thought, when you wrote about "the standard, typical everyday problem that truly exists with prosecutors", that you were talking about standard, typical everyday prosecutors.

Still, you've got to make the people mistrust their elected DAs and hired ADAs to do their job. So once you've issued your Clintonesque non-apology, point out that there are lazy prosecutors and that a complainant who relies on public prosecutors cannot get his choice of prosecutors, that the only way to guarantee that the prosecutor seeking retribution for your loved one's death is to hire a hired-gun prosecutrix - namely you.

Great work getting hired on your first case already, but remember that in the vengeance business, you're only as good as your last retribution. If you don't come down on the defendant in Wharton County like the fist of God and you don't have anything else in the hopper, you could turn from hired gun to has-been in a twinkling.

So concentrate on building up a portfolio of cases now. You don't want to get in the habit of bringin' righteous retaliation down on evildoers for free, but now would be a good time to offer discounts on a couple of prosecutions of your choice just to make sure that you have something to do when the Wharton County case is over - especially in case the defense lawyers save their clients' life.

I'm sure that your business plan takes into account the fact that only the wealthy or politically powerful will be able to either afford to bring you onto a case or convince their county commissioners to do so in order to avenge their losses. As it should be - what kind of country would this be if the wealthy and powerful couldn't get better justice than the poor and voiceless?I hope this helps and, as always, when you have legal marketing questions, ask the guru.