Compliance
We’re going to come at this topic from an entirely new perspective.
State Bar Association Compliance Issues
It’s a given that the legal community, depending on state and specialty, has a whole whack of disclaimers that their Bar Association requires they must do. Everything from a Mini Maranda for collections attorneys to advising web visitors that filling out an online inquiry doesn’t create a client-attorney relationship. Since that’s a given, let's not go there.
Compliance issues from the State Bar are a given. But unfortunately, they are often considered a pain or superfluous and rarely fully implemented because it isn’t on the law offices’ or the web developer’s radar (or budget) when a website gets built.
Compliance and SEO
Here is the other side of the story. Google looks at how people “trust” you and at your “authority.”
If you don’t offer a privacy statement, the search algorithm’s assumption is, you don’t care about privacy, making you less trustworthy. If you don’t care about GDPR legislation privacy policies, again, you are less trustworthy. Having a comprehensive set of disclaimers, privacy, cookie policy, etc., is an influencer of your rank. They make your site more “authoritative” and more “trustworthy,” meaning that all other things being the same, your lack of compliance drops your search value.
That compliance impacts rank was made reasonably clear in an internal document leaked from Google. It was the instruction book for Google Employees that manually evaluated sites. The goal of the internal team was to make sure that the algorithm was promoting suitable sites, not the best-architected sites. That guide spoke extensively about authority; I only wish I still had a copy to share with you.
Are you ignoring (or offending) 20% of the market?
It's not just about being sued for ADA non-compliance
Here is yet another side of the story. If you are disabled, and a place of business does not make provisions for your handicap, despite ADA laws, or because of holes in the ADA laws, how do you think they would feel about doing business with you, as opposed to someone who did make accommodations?
Not being ADA compliant exposes firms to lawsuits, probably offends the disabled people (20% of the market), and denigrates your authority from a search perspective.
Compliance is a large part of many attorney’s practices. So shouldn’t your communications to the world also be compliant, especially when this lesson, and supporting documents, can make it almost free to implement?
Lesson Materials
Attorney Website Compliance
Transcript
Audio Only
ADA Compliance - Not as daunting as you might imagine
Setting Up GDPR From Top To Bottom
We recommend this for more technical people - if you have an in-house digital marketing person - they will get more out of this than an attorney, at least typically.Preview an Appropriately Compliant Website
Attorney Compliance SAMPLES!!
*necessary disclaimer - we are digital marketing professionals, not attorneys. We provide samples here of disclaimers we have used, however, we accept no responsibility for you using them. You are an attorney, do your own homework, but feel free to use our work as a template to grow from.