The newest marketing tool for personal-injury lawyers could be the cellphone. Lawyers who typically send letters pitching their services to accident victims can now advertise those services via text messages. Phone calls still are a no-no, as are personal visits. The new wrinkle has been scrutinized and approved by the Ohio Supreme Court.
Its Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline issued an advisory opinion in May that said lawyers are permitted to use text messages to solicit business, assuming they comply with other rules that regulate attorney advertising. Lawyers sending the messages are required to pick up all the costs of the texting.
The most important thing is that Advertising rules require lawyers to make several disclosures when pitching their services, disclosures that can take up far more space than the 160 characters allowed by many cellphones. The requirements mean lawyers may have to send multiple messages to a prospective client.
But with Picture Messaging (MMS), lawyers can over-come text message limit by sending MMS (Multimedia messaging), which allow to include 1000's of characters in a single message. Most of the phone smart or non-smartphone camera phones can receive MMS messages.
TXTImpact MMS messaging solutions allow lawyers to compose a disclosures message and send it to multiple potential clients at once.