Search Engine Optimization Helps Land Clients

On June 3, attorney Gregory Owen held a press conference in Huntington Park to announce that children who attended a police-sponsored youth boot camp were physically and verbally abused during their week stay at the camp in May. At the time, the name partner in Owen Patterson & Owen in Valencia represented the families of seven of the children. He now represents families of 16 of the 36 children who attended the camp near San Luis Obispo, which was run by the Huntington Park Police Department, South Gate Police Department and the California National Guard. So how did a law firm in Valencia recruit clients in a largely Latino community in the Mid-Cities area for abuse that allegedly took place three counties away? Owen told the Business Journal that he gets most of his clients from referrals from other attorneys, but he landed this case thanks to cutting-edge Internet marketing. Although most of his work is personal injury cases, a few years ago he represented families involved in the teacher abuse case at the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Miramonte Elementary School, which gained wide media attention. Owen’s firm, which has five attorneys and 16 employees, has search engine optimization personnel who posted videos of press conferences and TV interviews of him on the company’s website. That – together with some high placement on search engines – won the clientele. “In this particular case, the moms who discovered this (alleged abuse) wanted legal representation and they went to the web,” he said. “They saw video of me with the Miramonte children, and they were very emotional. When parents look for someone to trust, they look for those videos to guide them.” According to Owen, officers at the camp allegedly slapped, punched and even beat the children, ages 12 to 16. Investigators with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department are conducting an investigation into the allegations. Because the officers at the camp were government employees – not private citizens – filing a lawsuit involves a few extra steps. For now, Owen is aiding sheriff’s officials while he waits for a required 120 days before filing a complaint. Officials with the Huntington Park and South Gate police departments did not respond to requests for comment. A spokes-man for the California National Guard declined to comment during the investigation. LegalZoom Suit When LegalZoom.com Inc. filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the North Carolina State Bar early this month, it made the decision to do so following a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision. The suit by the Glendale online legal services firm was brought weeks after another action against a North Carolina state agency went to the high court. In North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission, the court decided that a government-sanctioned committee or board that includes industry participants cannot regulate a market without supervision by “politically accountable” officials. “When a state empowers a group of active market participants to decide who can participate in its market, and on what terms, the need for supervision is manifest,” the court wrote. The North Carolina State Bar is a government agency run mostly by lawyers that upholds professional standards and regulates the market for legal services. The LegalZoom suit contends that the state bar engaged in “anticompetitive, exclusionary, and monopolistic” conduct by refusing to register LegalZoom’s prepaid legal service plans for sale. The suit names more than 20 attorneys who sit on the state bar committee that rejected LegalZoom’s application, calling them “co-conspirators.” The suit claims that just as the dental association violated federal law, the state bar is “now fully subject to the reaches of the federal antitrust laws.” Those laws include compensation for triple damages. LegalZoom estimates it has lost $3.5 million in potential sales in North Carolina, and it is suing for $10.5 million. Disc Disinheritance Just a few miles from Hollywood, estate planning lawyer Bill Wais has decided to become a producer. That’s nothing unusual in the Valley, until you hear the title of his first DVD project: “How to Disinherit the IRS.” And in a notable deviation from standard Hollywood practice, he’s giving the discs away for free. Wais, a sole practitioner in Glendale who estimates 95 percent of his work involves estate planning, said he’s distributing the DVDs because when he meets with clients, he often finds they don’t know the first thing about trusts or estate planning. “They are embarrassed at their own lack of knowledge,” he said. “I figured the DVD would help them out and make them a better client.” But he emphasized that no one has to be a client get the DVD through his website. “If they are proactive enough to ask for a copy, I’ll send it to them,” he said. Staff Writer Joel Russell can be reached at (818) 316-3124 or [email protected].