3 Questions For A Law Firm Marketing Professional (Part I)

Just because you know somebody, doesn’t mean you appreciate exactly what it is they do for a living. Take our current interviewee, a gentleman married to one of my wife’s cousins and someone who I have known for at least 20 years. Yes, we have gotten to speaking a lot more often in recent years when he and his family relocated from Memphis to New Jersey, but the reality is that other than knowing he was a lifelong Saints fan and native New Orleanian, I didn’t really know much about his professional life. That started to change when he would check in from time to time on a random copyright question, but I always chalked such queries up to the fact that he was involved in online marketing of some sort. Thankfully, however, we recently got to talking more in depth about his work, including the fact that he is currently building a website for a leading patent litigation boutique firm. Turns out, he has a lot to share with respect to the ever-important issue of law firm marketing, making him a great choice for an interview in our long-running “3 Questions For” written interview series. 

So let’s meet Jonathan Blotner, the founder and owner of Blotner Mass Media, a full-service marketing and advertising agency established in 1994. Through Blotner Mass Media, Jonathan combines cutting-edge digital strategies with time-tested advertising fundamentals to help clients grow, compete, and lead in their markets. With over three decades of experience to offer his clients, Jonathan has built a reputation as a trusted consultant and strategist across multiple industries, with particular expertise in legal/law firm marketing, medical practice marketing, and retail and eCommerce marketing. His deep knowledge spans both traditional and digital media. He specializes in TV streaming advertising (CTV & OTT), website design, SEO, social media marketing, content development, email marketing, and full-scale creative services. His agency also continues to deliver strong results in traditional advertising, including TV, radio, print, and direct mail. 

As this readership knows, a cohesive and effective marketing strategy is a must for every IP-focused practitioner and law firm. And just as IP practice is always changing in response to technological developments, it is without a doubt true that what functions as effective law firm marketing today is very different that what worked ten or even five years ago. Accordingly, we all should probably be thinking about marketing more often than we do, so I very much welcome the opportunity to share Jonathan’s insights with this audience. As usual, I have added some brief commentary to Jonathan’s answer to my first question below, but have otherwise presented his answer as he provided it.

Gaston Kroub: What challenges do IP lawyers have from a marketing perspective that may not be found in marketing fields of law like personal injury and medical malpractice?

Jonathan Blotner: The legal industry is incredibly specialized — especially in fields like patent law, where there’s often a niche within a niche. This means the margin for generic messaging is slim. In our experience, lawyers — especially in IP — value precision, credibility, and positioning above all else. Unlike other industries where storytelling and broad appeal may take center stage, legal marketing must strike a balance between authority and accessibility. A well-designed site for a law firm needs to capture a prospective client’s trust within the first 30 seconds — both visually and substantively.

Marketing IP legal services, particularly in patent law, requires navigating a complex audience with highly technical needs. Unlike personal injury or medical malpractice, where emotional appeals or client testimonials play a central role, IP marketing must balance legal acumen with deep subject-matter expertise — often across science, engineering, and software. The target clients — startups, in-house counsel, R&D leaders, and inventors — are discerning and expect substance over slogans. Furthermore, the confidentiality of ongoing innovations and litigation makes it harder to showcase case studies or results publicly. IP lawyers must therefore rely on thought leadership, speaking engagements, technical content marketing, and carefully crafted messaging that signals credibility without overselling. The goal is to establish authority in both law and technology without appearing self-promotional — a far more nuanced challenge than in consumer-facing areas of law.

GK: There is a lot to like in Jonathan’s answer, but the point that I find most interesting is his astute observation that the confidential nature of the work done by IP attorneys adds complexity to marketing their achievements. Perhaps that is why IP trial lawyers focus their marketing on highlighting big verdicts received, or cases successfully defended, rather than on the amazing work they did helping their client avoid a filed case in the first place. Likewise, IP prosecution specialists tend to focus on counting stats like numbers of applications filed when it comes to marketing, or the types of clients they represent – as a proxy for actually discussing the quality of the work they are capable of. The problem is perhaps most acute for IP licensing specialists, who very rarely get to brag about their deft negotiation of a contractual clause in a public-facing manner. At bottom, Jonathan’s answer confirms that IP firms looking to refine their marketing efforts are advised to work with marketing professionals in tune with the realities of IP practice, as well as the most effective way of presenting an IP lawyer or firm’s qualifications to the target audience.

We will continue with Jonathan’s answers to questions 2 and 3 next time, which will center on both his work developing websites for IP firms, as well as his thoughts on how IP firms should be marketing their facility with AI tools – if they have that capability, of course.. In the meantime, feel free to reach out to Jonathan for potential solutions to any marketing issues your practice is facing…

Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at [email protected] or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.

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Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique, and Markman Advisors LLC, a leading consultancy on patent issues for the investment community. Gaston’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.