.A Lawyer’s Guide for Delivering Legal Services to Dallas County Latinos
It’s Time to Re-Evaluate Your Marketing Strategy: Like many legal professionals in Dallas County, your firm undoubtedly has a formula for success or “secret sauce” that keeps your business competitive, including such tactics as paid advertising, a web site, social media, sponsorship of community events, networking at social events, and other strategies. Recent trends, however, suggest that your “secret sauce” may be losing some of its effectiveness in the near future. Consider the following:
- A lackluster economy is causing many individuals and firms to forgo needed legal services, or choose less costly online alternatives like LegalZoom.com.
- The Dallas County population has changed dramatically and is now 64% non-white – creating the demand for communications in non-English languages.
- This culturally-diverse community brings values and traditions that are unique and likely to challenge the delivery of traditional legal services.
- Equally important, many of these individuals will serve on juries that will determine the outcome of lawsuits that may involve your clients.
Without additional knowledge about the legal experiences, attitudes and perceptions of these diverse groups in Dallas County, your firm may find itself at a significant disadvantage by relying on the same formula for success. The solution to this dilemma will not be found in any law school classroom, text book, or Lexis-Nexis, but rather in a new study that has been designed to update the marketing strategies used by attorneys.
Legal Watch™ Dallas is the brainchild of Dr. Edward T. Rincon, a research psychologist with 34 years of experience in studies of diverse communities, and Kevin Karlson, JD., Ph.D., a litigation consultant who has provided jury consulting, trial preparation, and coaching services to Dallas-area attorneys for more than 30 years. By combining their collective expertise, Dr. Rincón and Dr. Karlson have designed a unique marketing tool for attorneys, law firms, law schools, and supportive legal organizations that will help:
- Evaluate their visibility in the Dallas area and determine whether their advertising efforts, corporate giving or other strategies are achieving their intended objectives;
- Evaluate their competitive position relative to other Dallas-area attorneys or law firms that provide similar services;
- Identify new service and staffing needs that need to be initiated or expanded to better serve Dallas-area Latino residents; and
- Identify new marketing tactics to improve their image among different segments of Latino residents.
How the Study Was Conducted: The sampling universe consisted of a random sample of all Latino households in Dallas County with a landline or cellular phone, which was used to conduct telephone interviews with a cross-section of 400 Latino adults. Within each household, an adult was selected randomly for the interview. All interviews were conducted by experienced bilingual interviewers in English or Spanish based on the respondent’s preference.
What the Study Measures
Advertising Recall, Awareness and Usage of Attorneys and Law Firms: Awareness of legal advertisements in past 12 months, top-of-mind awareness of attorneys or law firms in Dallas County, and past 12-month usage of attorneys or law firms.
Importance of Selected Factors in Hiring an Attorney: Advertising, word-of-mouth referrals, race-ethnicity or gender of attorney, language support, perceived trust.
Barriers to Obtaining Legal Services: Barriers that have prevented the use of legal representation in the past 12 months, including costs, language support, treatment by attorneys or their staff, limited English-language proficiency, location, or conflict with attorney office hours.
Attitudes and Perceptions That May Influence Jury Outcomes: Moral and other values related to crime and punishment, family and marital issues that could be relevant in jury trials; perceptions of trust of attorneys and factors that influence trust.
Sources of Information to Find Legal Services: Sources of information generally used to find legal services, including television, radio, newspapers, cable, Internet access & usage, social media, community organizations, family, and friends; most trusted sources of information.
Expected Legal Needs Over the Next 12 Months: Immigration, personal injuries, child custody, job discrimination, business start-up, obtaining a patents and trademark, signing important contracts, home foreclosures, any time of crime, business bankruptcy, and DWIs.
Demographics: Gender, age, marital status, household size and composition, race/ethnicity, years of U.S. residency, and nativity.
Socioeconomics: Educational attainment, occupation, household income, homeownership, credit card usage, and preferred payment options for legal services.
Custom Analysis and Questions: Subscriber-designed questions that are tabulated by a customized banner; special analyses available on request
The Basic Report is available for $5,000 plus sales tax. The Basic Report includes a preface, study concept and background, study methodology, study findings, conclusions and recommendations. A complete set of tabulations of survey questions by key demographic subgroups also accompanies the Basic Report.
Becoming a Subscriber: To become a subscriber, simply complete the Order Form (see link to pdf file below) and mail it along with your payment to Rincon & Associates LLC, 6500 Greenville Ave., Suite 120, Dallas Texas 75206. You may also pay for the study with PayPal using a major credit card or bank check by clicking on the Ordering Options button below, select the item that you want to purchase, then click on the Add to Cart button to submit it to PayPal. You may return to this page from PayPal to add more items to the Cart, then submit your final purchase in PayPal.
Questions concerning the study can be addressed by calling Dr. Edward T. Rincón at 214-750-0102 or sending an email to edward@rinconassoc.com.
To download a pdf file that includes the information on this page for Legal Watch™ Dallas and the Order Form, click here