Joe Giovannoli  

You’re listening to the Tip of the Law podcast where legal insights meet practical advice. In each episode, we bring you stories, insights, and tips straight from the legal industry’s brightest minds. I’m your host, Joe Giovannoli, founder and CEO of 9Sail. And joining me today is Jacob Eidinger, Marketing and Communications Manager at Outten & Golden, an employment law firm with offices in New York, California, and Washington DC. Jacob is a well-known and highly respected member of the Legal Marketing Association, where he has served in numerous volunteer leader roles. Without further ado, let’s get into it. 

Hey, Jacob, how are you? Thanks for joining me. 

Jacob Eidinger  

Hey Joe, thanks for having me. So excited to be a part of this podcast.

Joe Giovannoli  

Yeah, we’re excited to have you. I’ve been looking forward to this. And, you know, we got a lot to talk about in a little bit of time. So we’re gonna dive right in. Alright, you know, not sure if you’ve heard the podcast, but we always start out with one interesting fact about our guests that people may not know. I’d love to know what your interesting fact is. 

Jacob Eidinger  

Sure. So I love this fun fact, my fun fact is that I once appeared on Good Morning America to talk about my high school chemistry teacher marrying billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.

Joe Giovannoli  

Do tell more, do tell more. 

Jacob Eidinger  

So, this was March of 2021. And many people may remember reading about this story in the news. But it was March 2021. So we were still at the height of the pandemic. And I got a notification on my phone one day, and it was an article from The Wall Street Journal, featuring a photo of my high school chemistry teacher, Dan Jewett. And apparently, he and his then wife, billionaire MacKenzie Scott had announced that they had gotten married in secret. And they were pledging to give away the majority of their wealth to charity. And so of course, like everyone in my hometown is freaking out about this news. Mr. Jewett was one of my favorite teachers in high school. And so we were just all over the moon. And I had ended up getting connected with a journalist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, who is writing a story about, “who is this man?” And and so I was quoted in the newspaper talking about how everyone loved him and how he was such an amazing teacher. And I guess somehow, the producers at GMA got wind of the story, because I get a call on my cell phone from a producer asking if I wanted to be on GMA. And so it was, it was so much fun, you know, I, it’s, I haven’t spoken to Mr. Jewett since that announcement, and I’m sad to say that they’re no longer married. But Mr. Jewett if you’re listening, listening to this podcast, you know, I hope I didn’t offend you by going on TV and, and talking about your marriage. We’re all rooting for you. And we love you.

Joe Giovannoli  

That’s awesome. Yeah, I hope he is listening, because that would be a really awesome far reach that we have here. Totally, but wow, what a cool story. And, you know, there’s so much there. But you know, the the power of, of the media and the power of what we do as legal marketers, right, like, you know, you being outreached to, you understand how that world works and that had to be a really cool experience for you, you are home 2021, you are home during that right? You did that interview from home, not the studio, but from a home office? 

Jacob Eidinger  

Yes, I did the interview over zoom. And I actually had some photos from my chemistry class that I was able to use in this segment. But I had worked with GMA producers on stories before. So I don’t know if they just had my phone number in their system, or if they had some other way of getting in touch with me. But yeah, I did the interview from my living room. It was lots of fun. And I would totally do it again, if given the opportunity.

Joe Giovannoli  

That’s really Yeah, that’s really awesome. And I was actually going to ask you, so did they, what kind of prep did they do for you before? And I think, again, I love this because I think it’s so relevant to a lot of what legal marketers do, which is helping some of their attorneys to maybe get mentioned or to to be an expert contributor on the news, like, did they, when you did the virtual, did they prep you at all? Like what was the process like when they had you on?

Jacob Eidinger  

Right, so first, there was an initial phone call with their booking producer. And that phone call was really to determine whether I was the right fit for this story. And also to gauge my interest. So the producer was asking me questions about my experience as Mr. Jewett’s high school student, really trying to get a sense of how I would respond to questions in an actual interview setting, really vetting me to make sure that I was the right person for this. And then from there, there wasn’t too much prep after that. I, you know, I hopped on Zoom, they made sure that the technology was working properly. My microphone and my camera, making sure that my background was suitable for television. And then we really just dove right into the interview. It wasn’t very long. You know, I think the interview probably lasted 15 minutes. And in total that translated to about 20 seconds of screen time. And so, yeah, not too much prep went into it.

Joe Giovannoli  

Both. Well, that’s awesome. That’s a fun fact, for sure. And it’s something to put on the resume. I was on GMA. Absolutely. So, let’s talk. We’re coming off of LMA annual conference week, and I know you were there. And congratulations on your new role, by the way. That’s exciting, would you like to take a second just to say where you are and what you’re doing? 

Jacob Eidinger  

Sure. So I am now brand new to a role at Outten and Golden LLP. We are the largest plaintiff side employment litigation firm in the United States. I have known about this firm. Basically, since I entered the legal industry, the firm is well known for handling some of the most precedent-setting groundbreaking Labor and Employment lawsuits in the country. And I’ve always been really impressed with the results that the firm is able to obtain, not only on behalf of their individual clients, but also creating really important developments in the legislative landscape. And the legal landscape, you know, getting really great case law for the plaintiffs bar. So so happy to be here. I’m now at the firm as a marketing and communications manager helping prop up some of their practice groups and also working on them on PR for the firm as well.

Joe Giovannoli  

They’re very, very lucky to have you that it is an amazing firm. I know several people that are there. We obviously you know, we have a few people in common. But really, they’re very lucky to have you. And it is an amazing firm. So but as I was saying, coming off of the annual conference week, I know we had a few of our folks over there, I know you were there. So I’d love to spend a little bit of time talking about that debriefing. Some of the takeaways and some of your favorite highlights don’t have to make this a you know, annual conference recap, but I’d love to hear a little bit from you about some of the things that you enjoyed and what your takeaways were.

Jacob Eidinger  

For sure. Well, first of all, I was just so happy to even be at the LMA annual conference in San Diego in the first place because I’m fresh into a new job, wasn’t sure if my firm would be open to sending me to the conference. But fortunately, they were very supportive of my involvement in LMA over the years, and they were more than happy to send me to the conference. So just being there was a joy. Um, there were, I would say that there were a couple of key takeaways that I’m still in the process of reflecting on. But first of all, the theme of the conference was “All In.” And we heard from keynote speaker Jamie Lawless, the CEO of Husch Blackwell talk about her experiences times in her life when she was all in and times in her life when she had taken a step by UK and and she needed to sort of reevaluate where she was at in her career and her life. And this theme really resonated with me at the conference, because it was the first time that I had attended a legal marketing conference where I was not involved in some capacity. Usually, I’m either speaking at these conferences, or I’m serving in a volunteer role, I’m actually volunteering at the conference or serving in some type of leadership capacity. But this year, I was really just there to absorb; I was there as a regular attendee. And I was just there to take in all of the education sessions to meet with service providers, and to have really insightful conversations with my legal marketing peers. And so while I felt like I was all in, in some ways, you know, I was really there to consume. I was taking tons of notes. I wasn’t all in, in the ways that I maybe had been used to in the past. 

And so after the conference, I really sat with this for a moment and I realized that with any professional association, you get out of it what you put in. And so for me historically, that has looked like serving in leadership, being a part of it, being a part of that community, giving back. And so I think it’s really important for any professional to really commit themselves to going all in on a trade association or other networking group, you know, find ways to get involved, because it’s really not just about business, right? You know, we’re all there to learn. We’re all there to make connections that will help us generate revenue. But it’s more than that. It’s about finding community, finding a supportive network of your peers, it’s about being something that’s bigger than just yourself. And so I’m coming away from this conference, feeling ready to recommit myself to being all in with LMA, and being all in the legal industry. And what that looks like, for me, remember, being all in can look different to different people. And you can’t be all in on everything 100% of the time, because that’s the quickest road to burnout, but finding ways to go all in and what that means for you. And for me, that means staying involved in LMA, and really being a pillar of the community. 

The second takeaway, and this is one that I really gleaned from the sessions, you know, so many of the education sessions that I attended, people were talking about initiatives that they had launched at their firms, you know, in various capacities across their marketing and business development teams, and how they were able to find success, launching new projects or initiatives. And a takeaway that I’ve had from this is that we as a profession have so much more buy-in from our leadership and from our attorneys than we’ve had even five years ago. And I attribute this largely to the pandemic, you know, historically, there’s been this tension between lawyers within law firms and their marketing teams. And that’s largely because law is a relationship business, and a lot of lawyers have really relied on their own relationships in order to generate revenue at their firms. And a lawyer advertising is a relatively new phenomenon. I mean, it wasn’t even allowed until 1977, with the seminal Supreme Court ruling in Bates v. the State Bar of Arizona. So it really wasn’t that long ago that more traditional forms of advertising and marketing were frowned upon in their firms. And we’ve seen a ripple effect over the decades because of that, that has all changed because of the pandemic, you know, in 2020. Suddenly, lawyers could not take their clients out to dinner, they couldn’t go to sporting events, to try to woo a potential new client. And every law firm was confronted with this challenge of how do we continue to nurture these relationships with our clients and with our, with our prospective clients, when we’re all sitting at home, on, you know, in front of a computer screen. And so just about every law firm was looking to their marketing and BD department for guidance, you know, what’s the playbook? How can we make sure that we’re keeping the lights on? So this really thrust marketers into highly visible roles within their firms? And suddenly, I think a lot of lawyers and a lot of law firm leadership have a much greater appreciation for the value that we as a profession bring to our firms.

Joe Giovannoli  

Yeah, you’ve kind of become the tip of the spear, we were just talking about this before, but you kind of became the tip of the spear, right? Like, you know, people saw you for what your role really was, which was, is, is very large in their success, right? Because you do so far to the front facing stuff, but a lot of the behind the scenes work to make them look great and whatnot. And I’m the one saying this, I’m not having you take all the credit for everything, but at the end of the day, I know how marketing departments work and you know, you guys get you know, you do a lot of the work and don’t always get the glory. So it’s, that was one of the positives, I think, that came out of the pandemic is that you, you know, as marketers started to actually get the recognition and also started to get the clout within the firm, to get things done. So sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt you there. But I think that it’s it was an important piece that needed to be said.

Jacob Eidinger  

You’re so right. And I think it’s understandable why lawyers didn’t always fully appreciate the work that marketers do because they don’t understand it. In much of the same way that we are not practicing lawyers. We don’t necessarily understand every facet of the law. There’s a knowledge gap there and I think because law firms were forced to really look to their marketing and their BD departments for help, they really had to start to understand and learn more what it is that we do. So now the question becomes, what do we as a profession do with this newfound buy-in that many of us are not used to having. And so that was a takeaway from the conference, because a lot of the stories that I were hearing during the sessions, were just that, you know, how marketing and BD professionals are not only getting buy-in on on some of these more innovative programs that they’re trying to launch, but how do they maintain that level of buy-in? And I think, you know, it’s a complicated answer to that question. But I think it starts with making sure that we’re really methodical about the way that we approach any project, but especially ones that are sort of pushing the envelope or pushing the boundaries within our firm trying to encourage our firms to go in a new direction. So you really have to map everything out and be very careful about how you approach these projects. One phrase that I kept hearing over and over again at the conference was “find your champions,” you know, find those internal allies that will help you deal with the naysayers, because there’s always going to be somebody who has a strong opinion about what you’re trying to accomplish. So find your champions, find that support network, and then just make sure that you’re being methodical throughout throughout the process, and that you’re checking in, and you’re pivoting and you’re and you’re being agile throughout the process in order to maintain that level of buy-in with your attorneys and with your firm leadership.

Joe Giovannoli  

Yeah, and I’m sure, so first, thank you for sharing that. And and I think, as marketers, you’re probably very used to hearing attorneys, especially, we’ll call it more veteran attorneys, right, the ones that are say, oh, you know, we get all of our business from word of mouth, people, people hire us, for me, people hire us for a relationship and, and no disrespect, right? There are plenty of attorneys where that may be partially true, you know, but as marketers you’re there to help those attorneys to shine in other ways than relying on that, that next person to make that introduction for them. Right. And so, you know, I love the idea of the champion, you know, and I talk to my team internally about this all the time, right, you’re gonna have a couple of people that really believe in what it is that you’re doing. And those need to be your raving fans, whether it’s your clients, right, in our case, right, our clients are our raving fans, you know, but in your case, your clients are the attorneys at the firm. Right? So let’s talk a little bit about– how do you see this directly applying to what you’re doing today, in house at the firm? How do you see yourself taking what you heard and taking some of those notes about the champion? How do you see yourself applying that in what you’re doing today?

Jacob Eidinger  

Right. That’s a great question. And I actually want to react to something that you just said, which is lawyers historically, relying on word of mouth referrals to generate business? I do think that that is often the perception that attorneys have. And one other way that we can continue to maintain buy-in is making sure that we are effectively tracking the results of these projects. You know, make sure that you have KPIs in place to really communicate your return on investment. And this can be for any project that you’re trying to launch within the firm, make sure that you’re taking steps to track and measure progress, identify what those KPIs are early so that lawyers will really understand okay, this is exactly how this is translating to new business at the firm. 

But to go back to your question of, you know, how do I see these challenges playing out in my current role, so I have been in the legal industry for seven years, and I’ve only ever worked at plaintiff side litigation firms. I spent my the first five years of my career at Wigdor, which is a very high profile employment litigation firm on the plaintiff side, and then spent the last two years at Crumiller, which is a young, but budding feminist litigation firm that is really on the forefront of litigating cases, especially around women’s rights and gender rights in the workplace and health care. And so now I find myself at this new firm, which is the largest organization that I’ve ever worked for. We have roughly 55 attorneys in multiple states in New York, San Francisco and Washington DC as well as a number of attorneys who work remotely full time. And so now I’m confronted with this challenge of getting buy-in with a large number of attorneys who don’t know me and they don’t know what I do, and how do I do that? And so coming into this firm, I am in the beginning primarily going to be supporting our whistleblower practice. You know, we have a small number of attorneys here at the firm who represent whistleblowers, people who have spoken out against fraud within their organizations and have either been retaliated against for speaking out or actually have information that can help the government prosecute claims of fraud. And so we are really trying to raise the profile of our whistleblower practice, so that we can compete with some of these firms that that’s all they do is whistleblower cases. And so, right off the bat, I really have to prove myself to this small group of attorneys within my firm, and try to develop some marketing strategies and tactics that are really going to help us take our practice to the next level. And so I view those attorneys that I’m supporting, as those that are going to be my early champions, right, these are going to be the allies that, I think, are going to help me get buy-in within a larger contingent of attorneys and staff at the firm. And so almost viewing this practice group as a pilot program, you know, to test out different marketing strategies, and to figure out what’s going to help put us on the map. And then once we’ve tested it, and we figured out what works and what doesn’t work, then we can start to scale that out to some of our other practice groups. And so I’m really excited about the opportunity to join this firm, because there are just so many cases that the firm is working on that are really pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the legal industry. And so taking this small group of attorneys that really, you know, could use some support on the marketing side, and then using that to, to be able to launch some more large scale projects within the firm, I think is going to be a really interesting challenge.

Joe Giovannoli  

So in your experience, working at several different firms, right, and, you know, we tell our clients all the time, you know, we are working with 50 to 500 attorney firms, typically we have larger, we have smaller, but, you know, the firms that are larger, that have many different practice groups, you know, we tell them each practice group is is essentially their own operating business right there under the umbrella that is the firm, but, you know, they’re they have their own clientele, they have their own, you know, buyer persona. And so, you know, it sounds like, you know, you are coming into this firm and working with this, this group, like this is your wheelhouse, right, like you’ve worked with smaller firms to help them to grow and build their marketing strategy. So of the experiences that you have, what can you pull from, to make an immediate impact with these folks? And, you know, yeah, I think making these folks your champion is going to be really important. But, you know, what are some of the things that you’re looking at bringing in from your past experiences to make this as successful as you want it to be? 

Jacob Eidinger  

Yeah, great question. So every firm that I’ve worked for, I’ve come in, and the firm either has very little marketing infrastructure, or no marketing infrastructure, when I joined Wigdor in 2017, they never had a full time marketer, they never had a marketer before. And so I was creating all of our processes and procedures, essentially, from scratch. And, it was a similar story at my last firm. And so coming into this firm, Outten and Golden, we are a much larger firm, we are more established. But, and I think that the partners are aware of this, the firm is doing all this really important work, but doesn’t necessarily get all of the credit for it. I think the firm has been incredibly shy and humble, frankly, when it comes to promoting our wins and being a little bit more visible from a public relations standpoint, that has to change. And, and so I see this, this whistleblower opportunity supporting this one practice as a means to I mean, it’s to that end. And so, you know, I mean, the sky is really the limit. I’m very new to this role. So we’re already starting to have conversations about how we’re going to raise the visibility of the firm, but I think that you know, there are so many things that our marketing and BD department could be doing, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we should be doing all of them and especially when you work in smaller firms, you don’t necessarily have all of the resources to perform every you know marketing or BD strategy at scale. You might have fewer internal resources to get the job done. And so you really need to be, first of all, you have to wear a lot of different hats and you need to know a lot of stuff about how to market a law firm. But then beyond that, you really need to prioritize, you need to figure out what are the activities that are going to generate the highest return, and and while using the fewest amount of resources possible. And so when I’m coming to this whistleblower practice, I’m thinking about, what are those tactics going to be that are going to get us in front of as many people as possible? How are we going to reach the end user? How are we going to tell stories that really resonate with a wider audience? And so yeah, I think, I think like I said, the sky’s the limit there.

Joe Giovannoli  

Yeah. And you know, the phrase that I love and I recite to my team all the time, because we’re very much specialized– Jack, and Jack or Jill, of all trades, master of none, right? Like, you have to be aware, right? And you said it’s so perfectly– you have to be aware of all of the different strategies you could be deploying. But you, at your core, need to be super focused, and the firm needs to be super focused on the things that you are going to be great at. Right. And I know for you, Jacob, one of your superpowers is storytelling. Right. And we’ve talked about this in the past. And you know, what I heard from you there, and I don’t want to project but what I heard from you there is that, you know, they’ve been shy about certain things that they’ve done and and been involved in sounds like your superpower can really flourish here of helping them to tell this tell a story, using the channels that are going to be getting you guys the best return on investment and in the best exposure. Is that a fair summation of what you said?

Jacob Eidinger  

Yeah, definitely. You know, it’s really interesting, I think that there are a lot of attorneys who want their legal briefs to speak for themselves. And maybe they are, you know, not super keen to, to speak to the media about the cases that they’re working on or about trends that are going on in the industry, like they’re really there to practice the law, and they want their legal practice to sort of speak for itself. But from a business perspective, you’re missing out on some really crucial opportunities to tell those stories that are going to resonate with a broader audience and that are going to ultimately win you more work. And so I think that it’s, it’s so fascinating, because, you know, with with this firm, Outten and Golden, every labor and employment attorney on the plaintiff or defense side knows who we are, you know, we’re we’re the largest in, in the United States, we have a really great reputation among the employment bench. But outside of that we don’t have a ton of brand recognition within the industry. And I can speak to this firsthand because at the LMA conference, I was talking to friends and colleagues about my firm, and not very many people knew who we were, and not many people knew anything about us. So there’s a real opportunity here, not only to tell stories about our individual litigation matters, but really tell our brand’s story, you know, how did we get to this place where we are the dominant force in the plaintiff side employment law space, and I’m just I’m so excited to be a part of that shift.

Joe Giovannoli  

I think you’re the perfect puzzle piece for that for them, right? Like you were coming in with such experience. You had to help build marketing departments, but marketing strategies from the ground up with smaller firms with less resources. And now you get to really come in and flex your muscles, right, like really help them to build a winning message winning strategy, and affirm like this. And I love again, going back to the focus, I love that you get to go in and focus on the one thing that you’re really passionate about, because you’re going to be able to tell a better story, and you’re going to be able to build a better messaging, you know, kind of strategy around that. So I think that that’s incredible. So we’re going to take a quick break here. We just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge our sponsor for the Tip of the Law podcast, 9Sail. 9Sail is a law firm-focused digital marketing agency specializing in providing lead generation and awareness building services such as SEO, paid search, content creation and Digital Public Relations. Grow your firm with 9Sail. Jacob, we’re at the top of the episode here and it’s really important for us as a podcast to leave our listeners with one tip that they can bring back to their firms and implement it to actually see an impact. So you and I always have great conversations. We’ve talked about a few things here. What’s one thing you could tell them scenarios today that they can bring back to their firms?

Jacob Eidinger  

Sure. So my one tip is in all of your firm’s marketing communications, you really need to stop referring to yourself in the third person. I see this happen so often on law firm websites, and in social media, you’ll see this communication that it’s like, “Outten and Golden LLP is, is honored to announce that 15 Outten and Golden attorneys were ranked in Superstars,” like, stop doing that. Now that messaging really doesn’t resonate with anyone. You are a business that’s made up of real people. And guess what, your clients are real people as well. So you really need to start talking to your audience, like they’re human beings, try to minimize the legal jargon, the business jargon, and just try to talk to people as human beings, you know, refer to yourself in in the first person, if you need to use we or our, that’s fine. But stop referring to your firm as if you’re this, like, you know, like, that’s a complicated esoteric institution, like you’re just, you’re real people and talk to people like they’re human beings. 

Joe Giovannoli  

Absolutely. You know, people hire people they know, like, and trust, right. And that is, in every industry in every facet of life is people work with people they know, like and trust. And, you know, to set the firm up as this thing out in left field that people don’t actually resonate with. It’s not a winning strategy. So I love that wholeheartedly. Agree. Jacob, I appreciate your time. I am so happy you did get a chance to go to the conference. As I mentioned, I had FOMO the whole time we had my business partner and our salesperson both went out. I can’t wait to go potentially next year. So looking forward to that, looking forward to having some more conversations with you. But again, bottom my heart. Thanks for being part of the Tip of the Law podcast.

Jacob Eidinger  

Thanks so much for having me on the podcast, Joe. I so appreciate it. 

Joe Giovannoli  

Yeah, definitely. To our listeners. Thank you and stay tuned next week for another episode. Have a good day. Thank you for tuning in to the Tip of the Law podcast hosted by Joe Giovannoli. If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to Tip of the Law and leave us a comment wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. You’ve been listening to Tip of the Law.