The decision to dissolve your law firm is a difficult one. No one starts (or joins) a firm expecting to take it apart. But, as with all businesses, it happens sometimes. And when it does, you have to figure out how to disassemble a law firm, not just from an operational and client-service perspective, but from a marketing perspective, too.
Figuring out how to divide (or shut down) the firm’s marketing assets is tricky, but before you can even get to that, you need to identify all of them. Back in the day, that was pretty simple…look around the office and catalog stuff. In a digital age, that has gotten more complicated.
In this blog, we will explore the less obvious digital assets that your law office possesses and needs to address if your firm disbands.
Let’s start with your most important owned asset, your website. Unfortunately, a website isn’t just one thing. So, we need to dive in a bit.
Your domain is what gets people to your website (for example www.yourlawfirmname.com). A domain is not really owned. It is actually “rented”. You pay a registrar (such as GoDaddy or Domains.com) yearly for the usage. Once you have decided to disband your firm, it can be tempting to just let your domain expire. Not so fast.
First, in addition to getting people to your website, your domain is also used for your email address. So, you will want to keep the domain for a period of time for that reason. You can forward email addresses by individual to their new email.
The other reason you should consider holding onto that domain is to protect against fraudulent activity. Once you release that domain back into the wild, it is free for someone else to claim and use as they wish. Some nefarious sort can purchase your domain once you have let it lapse and use it to pose as attorneys from your firm.
Think about how much damage someone could do if they purchased the domain and set up email using your same naming conventions. There would be no obvious way for a recipient to know that an email she received wasn’t sent by a member of your firm. For that reason, we recommend holding onto your domain for at least 10 years. The good news is that it is relatively inexpensive (around $20/year at the time of this writing on popular registrars) and easy to do.
Your website hosting is what gives it life. Think about it as the land your website is built upon. Once your law firm disbands, you will need to decide what you want to happen when someone visits your domain. Sure, you aren’t in business any longer but, for at least a few months after you close you probably don’t want a visitor to get a “website not found” error.
We recommend paying for hosting and maintenance for a minimum of six months after your separation date and displaying a message explaining that the firm is no longer in business (and guiding visitors to where they can contact the former members of your team.
Remember the painstaking work you did to craft all of the content on your website? Members of your team likely spent hours honing the services pages, finding valuable resources to help clients, and perhaps creating relevant and engaging blog content. Once your website disbands, who gets the content? That will be a matter of discussion for members of your firm.
One thing to keep in mind is that search engines don’t like it when content is duplicated on more than one web page. So, only one person should use the content if it isn’t revised significantly.
The final pieces of the website puzzle are the image and development files (so basically the core design of the website). If this is closely associated with your logo and branding aesthetic, it is probable that the best thing to do is to have a small Frozen ceremony and “Let it go”, but that is a decision you and your partners should make while going through the dissolution process.
In today’s complicated online landscape, your website is not the only digital asset you need to address.
While marketing your law firm’s services, you have probably created business pages on social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, or even Instagram. For each social media platform on which you participate, you should create a post announcing the break up of your firm and how to reach former partners (and associates where relevant). You might also consider taking the page down after a year or so to avoid confusion around outdated content and information.
Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is the information that appears on the upper right of the browser when someone searches your brand name on Google. It also shows up when someone searches locally for your business category. While it can be heartbreaking to lose any positive reviews you have earned if your firm is disbanding, it is best to remove your Google Business Profile before a client (or prospect) alerts Google and it is left stamped with the dreaded “Permanently Closed” designation.
While Google Business Profile might be the largest directory your firm appears on, it isn’t the only one. In addition to other smaller global search engines such as Bing, Yahoo!, etc, there are law firm-specific directories. These directories (such as FindLaw, Avoo, and Martindale) are typically searchable both by individual and firm name. For that reason, they will need to be updated for both.
There are a lot of decisions to make when you decide to disband your law firm. One trick is that this is a lot easier if you have a web partner to help you through the process. (How do you think we know so much about this?) We hope you will consider working with us on your next law firm venture (which we just know will be a great success). Set up time here to learn more about our services.