ONLINE INJURY LAWYER v. iPHONE INJURY LAWYER
What has happened the past 10 years in the legal profession? If you are a lawyer and have been sleeping the past 10 years you have missed the boat. The days of the big yellow page personal injury lawyers in my opinion are almost gone. The way to advertise now is on the world wide web and on the cell phone. The presence of personal injury lawyers on the web is so huge that either the client or the lawyer can get lost in the thousands of injury lawyers on the web.
What has happened the last 4 years? Just when you think you are catching up with technology and get your online internet presence as a personal injury lawyer, your kid tells you the following. “Huh, the internet? Is there an app. (application) for my Android, my iPhone or iPad that talks about personal injuries or car accidents or injury lawyers?”
In California if you want to look up a personal injury lawyer’s legal record you can do it online at the California State Bar website. It will probably only be a short time until you can pull up a personal injury attorney’s profile on an app (see even my computer keeps trying to say that the word “app” is not a correct word, it is even behind. I wonder if Webster’s Dictionary has added the word “app” to the dictionary?) produced by the state bar.
As a personal injury lawyer I tried to look up different articles or applications for personal injury lawyers on the web that discuss the future of lawyers on the internet and I did not come up with anything of significance. Why not? What is the next way for a lawyer to get their name out to the world to help increase their business and yet do it within the State Bar guidelines? The technology is changing so fast that I don’t know if the State Bar can even keep up with what is going on.
So, choosing an online lawyer for the average consumer comes down to who has the best technology guy or gal working for them. Or, which lawyer knows the most about technology. Unfortunately many of the older (I guess that is a relative term) good personal injury lawyers in California might find themselves left out if they do not stay up with technology. It seems much of a lawyer or their technology person’s time is spent trying to stay up with the latest legal websites or lawyer applications for the iPhone or Droid. What ever happened to the AT&T, Pacific Bell, Yellow Book, SBC, Transwestern, Berry and many other yellow pages that you used to pick up from your doorstep every year? In my opinion they are not being used very often. Now you have superpages.com, yellowbook.com, yellowpages.com, etc. So what is a person to do when he or she is looking for a good personal injury lawyer such as Penney and Associates online? There are thousands of injury lawyers to choose from on the internet. Must every personal injury lawyer that works on a car wreck now have a full time technology person helping him or her with their internet or phone apps? One day you are in trial for a big wrongful death car accident representing a client and when you are finished with that you go back to your office and meet with your technology people and ask them to determine the next application or internet source that you need to use to help people find your personal injury attorneys or law firm among the vast amount of lawyers on the internet. And what if they spell your name wrong, such as Penny and Associates instead of Penney and Associates? A person can get lost on the internet looking for you.
According to www.intgernetworldstats.com, there were about 108,096.800 internet users in North America in 2000. The latest statistics for June 2010 is that 266,224,500 people use the internet in North America. I assume that includes Sacramento, Roseville, Rocklin, Chico, Redding, Davis, Vacaville, Fairfield, Auburn, Vallejo, San Francisco, San Jose, Newport Beach, San Diego, Red Bluff, Folsom, Placerville, Stockton and other areas of California. The world total use of the internet in 2010 was 1,966,514,816. As of June, 31, 2010, the people in Asia had the most users of the internet. The smallest user of the internet was Oceania and Australia.
This begs the question. Do you get an application for an iPhone or Android if you are a personal injury lawyer? Would anyone download an app for a personal injury lawyer? Maybe not. According to www.148apps.biz, the statistics on active apps on the iPhone is that there are currently 332,230 different applications that one could download. The most popular categories of apps are under books, not personal injury lawyer or injury lawyer. According to www.compete.com, 93 percent of iPhone owners have added an application to their phone. Many of the downloads on the iPhone include Google maps. A recent survey by Rubicon Consulting Research showed the following about iPhone users. Fifty percent of iPhone users are under thirty years old. Fifteen percent are students. E-mail is the most commonly used feature. Sixty percent of the iPhone users browse the internet at least once per day.
There has to be statistics on Android users, but the above still makes my point. Lawyers have to step up to the plate and start advertising on the internet and even on the iPhone or Android (Droid). Does technology mix with lawyers? It has to or else the best trial lawyer in the country can really work hard on an injury case and be successful, but he or she needs to make sure that car or truck wreck or personal injury cases come in the door. It seems to me in my experience that even when a personal injury lawyer gets a referral, the potential client still either looks you up on the internet or asks for your website. Soon the potential injured person might be asking for your app on the iPhone or Android.
Does anyone have the answer about what a personal injury lawyer is to do to help others learn about his or her accident and injury lawyers or law firm? Is there a way on the internet, iPhone or Android to help people find you if they have been in an ATV accident, truck accident, boating accident, bicycle accident, motorcycle accident or bit by a dog? Penney and Associates has offices throughout California, including but not limited to Newport Beach, Santa Clara, Rocklin, Loomis, Roseville, Chico and Sacramento. We also have a satellite office in Fairfield and other cities. But other than by word of mouth, how can we get information out about our lawyers and law firm on the internet, iPhone and Android?
Well, I have the ANSWER. Let your 14 year old kid figure it out!