Demystifying Legal Strategies for Marketers | Shahin Rothermel from Venable

Ernesto: Pathmonk is the intelligent tool for website lead generation. With increasing online competition, over 98% of website visitors don’t convert. The ability to successfully show your value proposition and support visitors in their buying journey separates you from the competition. Online, Pathmonk M qualifies and converts leads on your website by figuring out where they are in the buying journey and influencing them in key decision moments. With relevant micro experiences like case studies, intro videos and much more, stay relevant to your visitors and increase conversions by 50%. Add Pathmonk to your website in seconds. Let the AI do all the work and get access to 50% more qualified leads while you keep doing marketing and sales as usual. Check us on pathmonk.com dot. Welcome to today’s episode. Let’s talk about today’s guest. We are Shahin from Venable attorney, partner there with them. Um, how you doing, Shaheen?

Shahin Rothermel: I’m doing great. Thanks for having me, Ernesto.

Ernesto: It’s, uh, great to have you on. I mean, you have a lot of journey there with them. Almost, uh, close to ten years, is that correct?

Shahin Rothermel: That’s right. I’ve been practicing over ten years. Ten years here at Venable, though. That’s all right.

Ernesto: Awesome. Abel, I think there wouldn’t be another perfect person to explain a little bit of what you guys do at Venable. So, in your own words, can you tell us a little bit more?

Shahin Rothermel: Venable is a nearly 1000 attorney law firm. We have offices throughout the United States. We’re headquartered here in DC, where I am, but we’ve got offices in New York, Chicago, Florida, uh, California. We’re really everywhere in the country. And we do essentially anything a business needs. We can help business from soup to nuts on, um, formation of the business, marketing, um, any type of compliance issues, trademark issues. If a client gets sued in, uh, litigation, we’ll defend that client. If a client wants to sue somebody else, we can help the client do that as well. We go after things like competitors for all different issues. So really, you name it, we here at vettable will do it.

Ernesto: That’s awesome to hear. And, uh, uh, as talking about some clients, is there. I mean, I know you work with industries like you mentioned, right? Advertising and marketing, construction and healthcare care, hospitality. I mean, cybersecurity. Is there one that you guys like to go for? Is there an ideal ICP for you guys?

Shahin Rothermel: It’s a great question. It depends on our practice group, I would say. But for me, I really will work with clients of any size. Typically, um, some startups, all the way to the time that they’re selling to some of the huge countries or the huge companies here in the US. So industry wide, it could be anything. A lot of direct to consumer sales, though, um, in terms of products, consumer goods, as well as more informational. So I work a lot with lead generators, affiliate marketers, and do a lot of the advertising and marketing tech work and agreement work too. There.

Ernesto: Okay, perfect. Awesome. So then, how would somebody usually find out about venable? Is there a top line acquisition channel for you guys?

Shahin Rothermel: There are two main ones. We have a website where we do a lot of content generation, and the second part of it is really referrals. If we do a good job for a client in a case or matter, they are often our best. Our best advertising is, uh, a good referral, definitely.

Ernesto: That’s always important. And so that way our listeners who are tuned in can go ahead and visit you. You could always check them out@venable.com. dot what role, then, does the website play for client acquisition?

Shahin Rothermel: It’s a great question. I think Venable was actually the first law firm in the country to have a website. We might have been the first or the second back when the Internet was first created. Uh, lawyers are notoriously bad at using digital marketing. I think we are really behind the eight ball. We’re just starting to catch up. What the website does for me and my practice, and vettable generally, is it provides us the opportunity to talk about what we’ve done in our experience on our bios, and provide a lot of content generation, which gives people an understanding of what we do and what we know. For example, I’m in the ad log group. We have an ad law blog, um, all about adlaw.com dot. And we publish multiple times a week on things like what has the Federal Trade commission done, what’s going on on the telemarketing side. If there’s a new, interesting lawsuit, um, there’s a lot of auto renewal lawsuits going on that we talk about weekly. That’s all that’s on the blog. And we do alerts. We also have a podcast that we launched this year. I’m the, um, co host of the podcast. So I appreciate the work you do, Ernesto. That was a tough one. Uh, and then the other thing we do also is we’ll do webinars and we’ll generate traffic and push that traffic to the webinar so that we’re able to give content PowerPoint presentations to just educate people. And I think by educating people and talking about our case, um, you know, various cases anonymously and giving ideas about our experience and how we handle things. It shows people that we know what we’re talking about, and so they’re able to watch it and see it and gives us more credibility. The one downside on lawyers and that why I think we’re behind the eight ball is we are notoriously bad at converting. Uh, I saw a pathogen email on this the other day, and it’s totally right. It’s like, just because somebody visits a website doesn’t mean they’re going to convert. And a vanity metric, if you ask me, impressions is very often it’s a vanity metric, unless it converts to something else, which it does, but it’s not direct.

Ernesto: Exactly. Right. I think, uh, everybody’s in that right part, right. Everybody wants that traffic on the website. But then what happens, right, once, once they’re on the net conversion, definitely. Thanks. Thanks for that plug there. Um, but talking about the. A little bit about the website, then, shaheem, is there any tools or tips or methods that you would recommend to your listeners as far as some website lead generation?

Shahin Rothermel: So there’s a couple of things that we do. One, uh, is making sure on the SEO side that we’re capturing all the right terms. I can’t tell you how many times I read these articles from other law firms where they just use these random legal terms that if I’m a marketer and I go online and I’m searching for something, those aren’t the words I’m using. And I think it’s interesting because, you know, who’s a real lawyer in this area and who isn’t, by the way they talk and do they speak the speak? Do they know what conversions are? A b testing. Do they know what you know? All of these questions, and a lot of times you don’t get. So I would say, making sure that you’ve got the right terms and you’re doing the right SEO there and making sure that you’re inviting, I think, connections and outreaches from the leads, qualified leads. Um, otherwise you just got a page and then you don’t know. I can see the number of views, maybe click through rates, but I don’t know who’s reading it, really.

Ernesto: Definitely. And that’s very important. So I’m glad that you were able to share that. You definitely have to have those keywords there, or else it’s just gonna go different ways. So awesome to hear that from you, Shaheen. Uh, and, ah, well, let’s switch gears a little bit, and let’s talk about you as a leader, you being the attorney, partner, there at Benavale, what are some key tasks you like to focus on your day to day work?

Shahin Rothermel: It’s, uh, what I like doing most is talking to marketers, talking to CEO’s about their problems and ways we can solve it. There’s nothing that makes me happier than having someone call me in the morning or Lee at night, stressed out. And then the next day, by the end of the next day, they are sighing a sigh of relief because we’ve handled it. And that’s my favorite thing. So it might be something like, we have this, um. You know, our competitor has these, um, fake review websites, and they’re running traffic to it on Instagram and Facebook, but we don’t actually know it’s a competitor because they’re using this fake mommy blogger, and it’s not really a real woman. So something like that. And, like, we need to get that taken down now and then getting it taken down now so that that traffic stops being diverted from my client. Um. Um. You know, a client calls me and they say, I just got this cease and desist letter from California lawyer. Like, what. What’s going on here? And then being able to answer that, handle that, take everybody’s temperature down and say, this isn’t going to be a business ending issue. This is going to be something we can handle quickly. There have been times, Ernesto, where I think on, like, a Thursday night or a Friday morning, we find out that one of our clients got an asset freeze. The Federal Trade commission came in, froze all of their assets, shut their CRM down, shut everything down. My partner and I jumped on the case, and I think by the next Tuesday or Wednesday, we had gotten the FTC to agree to drop the asset freeze against our client. And then two or three weeks later, the FTC dropped the case entirely, which is pretty unheard of. But I just will never forget, during the weekend, nobody wants to be on the phone over the weekend, stressing out about these things. And so just taking everybody’s temperature down initially and then actually getting a result where people can go. Go home to their families, you know, it’s not. This isn’t on their mind. Solving problems, for me, is really. That’s my job, definitely.

Ernesto: All right. Also awesome to hear that. And just the resolve. Right? They call it, uh. Uh, but I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen it, Reg. Uh, the. The series suits, you’re, like, high respecter, right? The best clothes are out there, so. Good. Great to hear that from you. Um, and so how would then. I mean, it sounds like you’re busy all day resolving issues at whatever time. But is there, uh, how, uh, do you stay up to date, then, with. With the marketing information going out there? There’s a lot of overwhelming data. Is there a specific channel that you.

Shahin Rothermel: Like to go with on staying on top of. Of, um, marketing and everything? Yeah, you know, honestly, it’s just, um. I have, um, thought leaders that I follow. I follow websites. I follow blogs. I mean, pathmonk is a good. You guys are great at this. I, uh, have other companies that other. Even. Even my clients, I’ll actually get on the phone with them and just chat with them about what’s going on in AI. What’s going on in m. Marketing. Obviously, I’m not billing them for it. They’re telling me something. They’re educating me, and it’s. It really is a way to stay on top of this, because the marketing world is just changing so rapidly, and there’s so many issues, and you just have to be, uh. You have to be ahead of the eight ball, because otherwise, you’re not going to. You’re not going to survive.

Ernesto: Definitely. All right, great to hear that from you. Uh, and, well, let’s jump into our next section here, Shasheen, which is our rapid fire question rounds. Uh, are you ready for them?

Shahin Rothermel: I think I am.

Ernesto: All right, perfect. Awesome. First off, then, shaheen, what is the last book that you read?

Shahin Rothermel: I read the book of beautiful questions by Warren Berger. Okay.

Ernesto: All right. Interesting read there for our listeners. Uh, next up, that is, what is one single thing your firm is focused on at the moment the most?

Shahin Rothermel: I, uh, would say, um, expansion. And really using, um, this does expansion for marketing. Uh, tools like making sure that we’re getting all of the right clients and all the industries we want, especially as things are changing.

Ernesto: Definitely. Okay, great. Great to hear that. Next, then, is, if there would be no boundaries in technology, what would be that one thing that you want to have fixed for your role as a marketer today?

Shahin Rothermel: I think knowing what the audience and what the clientele wanted, if there was a way to automate, essentially, where my clients are on any given issue or any given time, figuring that out, as opposed to I’m on the phone with the clients, uh, throughout the week. And it’s so funny, because I’ll get the same call from five different clients asking the same question. In other words, I know there’s people talking behind the scenes. I know. I know. A lot of times my clients know each other. Like, hey, I was talking to Joe. I know you were talking to Joe. And they’re telling me those things, but I always wish I could get that. I wish I could know about those conversations before they were happening so that I would be right there with them and I wouldn’t have to have five phone calls of five people.

Ernesto: Okay. All right, sure. Great. Awesome. Uh, next then is if there’s one repetitive task that you could automate, what would that be?

Shahin Rothermel: Responding to? Emails that are administrative, and I think all of the administrative tasks of being a lawyer, we have, you know, we have so many ethical obligations, like conflicts, checks. Before we see somebody, we need to make sure that we don’t represent the company that we’re suing. So really going through all of those admin, especially at a big law firm with 1000 lawyers, you can imagine we represent so many different clients. And doing all those things just takes time. Even if you just want to make sure you can get things done really, really quickly. But then that’s anywhere, it’s going to be the red tape. If you’re a successful law firm, definitely.

Ernesto: Yep, I would agree. And then lastly, then Jean, I mean, m, you have a lot of experience already with marketers and in the world, but what is that one piece of advice that you would give yourself if you were to restart your journey as a marketer today?

Shahin Rothermel: I, uh, think that I would tell myself to focus on Roi. In other words, making sure that we all only have 24 hours in the day. Whenever somebody says, I don’t have time for that, I think that’s such a silly thing to say because I said, oh, well, you have 24 hours. So do I. So don’t say you don’t have time for it. You’re not prioritizing it. But what I wish I could have known when I was much younger, um, was that making sure that I’m prioritizing what is going to give me the most bang for my buck. And I say it in the marketing sense. Right? Like sometimes we write articles or we do these pitches, these massive pitches, where it’s like we’re never going to get the client. We just know it and the article is going to be read by five people and it’s not going to lead to anything. So there’s that. But I think in life, too, really focusing on priorities and, uh, roi, even if that just means, like, the company you keep, the vacations you take, things like that.

Ernesto: Yep, I would agree. Right? I think prioritizing, you know, and not, like you mentioned, in work and in life, definitely takes you a long way. So I’ll also tear that for you, shaheen. And, well, I do want to thank you for being on the show with us, uh, today, shaheen. And, uh, before we end, though, I do want to give you the last word now. If someone forgets everything about the interview today, what is that one thing they should remember about Venable?

Shahin Rothermel: They should know that if they have a problem that needs a legal solution, that a lawyer can handle it. Venable can handle it. That’s what we we as lawyers are here for or to help you solve your problems.

Ernesto: Whether you guys heard it, uh, you could always check them out@venable.com. dot I, uh, do want to thank Shaheen for being on today’s episode, as well as to our listeners for being on today’s episode. And, well, I’m looking forward to our next episode at Pathmonk Presents. Thanks, Shahin Keen.

Shahin Rothermel: Thanks for having me.