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Hosted by Jared Correia, Legal Late Night is a weekly, pop culture-infused romp through the latest & greatest business management ideas and technology tips for lawyers, featuring engaging guests, and constructed in the format of an old school television variety show.
Jared Correia (00:00):
Hello everybody. We've got a show that promises to be mildly interesting for your listening and watching enjoyment. I've got some thoughts on the Clio acquisition of vLex that I'm about to offload. After that, I interview Megan Hargroder of Legends Legal Marketing. Then Megan completely derails the counter program by introducing an entirely new theme as we discuss commonly misunderstood song lyrics. Now let's get real with some hardcore legal tech analysis. On June 30th, Cleo announced the acquisition of vLex for $1 billion- billion with a B. Sorry, that was a terrible Dr. Evil. I was hoping it would come out better. Yes, it was a scant five years ago that Cleo achieved unicorn status as a company itself valued at $1 billion. Now they're out here acquiring companies for $1 billion. It's so bittersweet watching them grow up. Now, if you're listening in the United States, vLex may not be on your radar yet.
(01:24):
If not, let me tell you what you need to know. It's a legal research product founded by two brothers in Spain 25 years ago. It's a large repository of international law and secondary sources, kind of like the Westlaw and Lexus of Europe is how I like to think about it. They got a lot of EU stuff in there, but there's been a lot of action around vLex, especially of late in 2022. Oakley Capital out of London, investing in vLex with a focus on building out AI features. You've heard of AI before then in 2023, fast Case was acquired by vLex and what was originally positioned as a merger Fast Case, which you're more likely to know if you're in the us, is a legal research product that's available for free to lots of State Bar Association members across country. And they have been an AI pioneer themselves for quite some time.
(02:24):
You may have heard of the founder, ed Walters Fast Case had acquired. Casemaker is Chief US-based competitor for Bar Association contracts in 2021 in another purported merger. That was really an acquisition that's going around apparently. So you can see the stars aligning a little bit here, probably now between Fast Case and vLex. You're talking about a shit ton of users who are lawyers and a metric shit ton of searches moving through the combined softwares. vLex has also recently released its AI research tool, Vincent, which one Can Only Hope is named after the Don McLean song about Vincent Van Gogh, which the AI tool just received an update early in the year focused on AI agents. Remember that investment from Oakley from a few years ago. I've talked about AI agents before, which allows AI to run workflows independently effectively, not like iterating constantly like with a chat bot.
(03:30):
And that's going to be is, yeah, is probably the next big thing in AI that's going to affect the journeys. So you probably don't have to be a rocket scientist at this point to figure out why Cleo wanted a piece of vle actually. They didn't want a piece. They wanted the whole thing. The question then is, and always is I suppose what happens now. So here are some of the knock-on effects that I think are going to happen as part of this deal. One, there are Clio users who are not vle users and vle X users who are not Clio users. So both companies will likely add users here, especially as deeper integrations begin to happen. And this also gives Cleo an inroad more of an inroad into Europe. Is there a singular version of inroad or is it always inroads? I'm not sure. Perhaps the linguists can comment number two on the score of integrations.
(04:32):
I'm hopeful that there could be some deep integrations here between vLex and Clio, but if I'm being honest, Clio hasn't necessarily done a bang up job of integrating Lexicata, remember them slash Clio Grow and Law slash Clio draft into Clio manage and it's been a while. So I'm pretty skeptical. Of course, this is the biggest acquisition that Clio has ever made by several factors of magnitude. So maybe there's some added motivation here. Cross your fingers that you get that deep Clio Felix integration. Three, because it would be cool to be able to do legal research inside of a case management software in a real way. If you remember, LexisNexis launched his own case management software, I think over 10 years ago called Firm Manager that's now defunct. They shuttered that if you even remember it. And Thomson Reuters is still chugging along with this LPM software called Firm Central, but I don't know a single person who uses that.
(05:37):
So perhaps the way to do this is build a research engine into a case management software and not vice versa. Have the LPM folks maybe be the driving force for innovation and structural management perhaps? I guess we'll see what this combination looks like when it's done the other way. Four, legal research has generally been more advanced in AI as a vertical than legal practice Management has been as vertical legal research tools and e-discovery products have been in AI for forever and have probably the most advanced tools. In my humble opinion, this acquisition likely opens up more AI features inside of Clio, which will improve their overlay software duo, which could do a whole lot more than it does right now, as well as probably introducing AI agents into the platform more quickly and effectively. And maybe that's the biggest deal. We're talking about adding rocket fuel to the Lio AI features rocket fuel.
(06:38):
God damn, I'm such a pretentious ass. Five, anywho. I'm interested to see if someone slash some company slash combination tries to follow in the footsteps of this transaction like File Vine or oppe off the top of my head would probably be able to acquire a research engine if they wanted to, but likely not Lexus or West or Bloomberg. So nothing even close to approaching as big as what vLex is. So Cleo seemed to jump the market here, which is pretty smart. But there's another pathway which is that Lexus drives back into the LPM space and acquires a provider or maybe Thompson drops firm central or folds it into the acquisition of another LPM software with a far more significant user base. Previously they built law practice management software. Maybe they could buy and see how that goes. We'll see how things shake out. So basically I'm asking does this star run on LPM slash legal research combinations?
(07:47):
Again, we shall see six and last. I still think, as I mentioned before, that cleo's gearing up to start selling services to legal consumers. I think a lot of legal tech vendors are potentially buying or founding law firms as alternative business structures become a more accepted practice are more regularly allowed across more American jurisdictions. That's happening now in the us. It's happened internationally and been happening internationally for a while now. And acquiring a larger user base as well as legal research tools with AI features that can be made accessible to legal consumers is not exactly out of line with that plan that I think I know they have. I don't know. Shit, I'm just speculating. We'll have somebody from Cleo on the show soon who's only going to want to talk about 30% of what I just said, but that's all right. Now, I'm not going to tell you who it is yet, but I can't tell you. It's not Jack Newton though. Jack. Feel free to give me a call, man. If you want to come on. My cell number hasn't changed since 2006. Next up, because I don't know, Jack, we've got Meghan Hargroder of Legends, legal marketing, who's talking with us about website design and maintenance and tattoos. Maybe I'll finally get a tattoo narrator. No, he won't.
(09:23):
Well, I've effectively run out of things to say, which is awkward because this is the podcast. So I'm just going to slip into my house shoes in a nru jacket and perhaps sip some for moth while you just watch me do that. Okay. Actually, that sounds terrible and I'm just fucking with you. This is a podcast I have to talk and I don't even really like vermouth. So let's interview our guest instead. Our guest today making a triumphant return to one of my podcasts. I'm personally very excited. It's Megan Hargroder, who's the founder and CEO over at Legends Legal Marketing, not an overstatement. May I say. How are you?
Megan Hargroder (10:06):
Thank you. I'm good. And I do love vermouth. So the first part of that actually sounded, I'm a big vermouth fan. Oh, interesting.
Jared Correia (10:15):
With stuff or just alone.
Megan Hargroder (10:20):
So if you mix vermouth with Tonic, it makes actually a really good, nice cocktail, but also alone.
Jared Correia (10:28):
Interesting. Maybe I should drink more. That's the lesson of this podcast.
Megan Hargroder (10:33):
That is actually always a good takeaway
Jared Correia (10:35):
For me. Yeah, I think so. I've talked to you many times. I feel like we always have a good time. But there's one thing I never asked you about, and I don't know if this is a new thing on your new website, but I was like, let me go look at Megan's bio just to see if there's something new so I can learn about her. And I learned that you were once a television reporter.
Megan Hargroder (10:58):
Oh, yeah. We've never talked about that. That was my very first job out of college. It's crazy. I applied for internship at the television station and I created this newsreel, this very realistic newsreel as my demo to get an internship. And they were like, this is better than what we got from the actual job applicants. So do you want a job? And also, they needed someone young that they could underpay and they needed someone who knew how to do the camera stuff. So I knew how to do camera editing, story voiceover, getting it online. A lot of seasoned reporters weren't,
Jared Correia (11:35):
Which they probably refer to it as getting it online and couldn't figure it
Megan Hargroder (11:39):
Out. Getting it on the getting it on the Internets was an important part. So yeah, they hire me as a one man band news reporter, just fresh out of college, 21 years old's Wild, gave me a camera and a car, and they trusted me to go out on my own to get these stories and places that were sometimes scary that I had no business being in. I'm
Jared Correia (12:00):
Sure.
Megan Hargroder (12:00):
Yeah, it was a really good way to learn about storytelling and discovery on a quick cycle sort of basis. And then being able to be deadlines and put it all together. You had to. And it was also a lesson in what you don't want out of life, which is to be a news reporter. Yeah. I didn't want a job where I worked so hard and then all of my work the next day meant nothing because you have to do it all again. And I didn't want a job where someone called me out to a scene and there was a dead body there.
Jared Correia (12:33):
Not ideal.
Megan Hargroder (12:33):
And I didn't want to interview skeezy politicians anymore. They put me alone in a room with some really creepy men.
Jared Correia (12:40):
I'm sure they did.
Megan Hargroder (12:41):
And all of that I was doing for less than what my friend was making working at McDonald's.
Jared Correia (12:47):
Oh my God. That's crazy. So in addition to putting out the call for all local perverts, were there any memorable stories that you had? Did you come up with some really interesting story angles? I'm sure you did.
Megan Hargroder (13:01):
I did a lot of activism focused stuff. They were, when they would tear down these iconic buildings, I would go out there and interview the protestors and there was this police brutality case that the other news wouldn't pick up. And so I went out and did those sorts of interviews when I was able to, a lot of my stories got shut down, but mostly, yeah, they would send me out for really stupid things like interviewing politicians and there was a casino opening, nothing really. It's Lafayette, Louisiana. Right. Nothing really exciting was happening there. So we just did our best
Jared Correia (13:34):
One day. You'll get the Pulitzer she of it
Megan Hargroder (13:37):
One day. I'm sure it's coming.
Jared Correia (13:39):
So one thing I noticed is that also you have a pretty decent collection of tattoos and I've never been brave enough to get a tattoo. Can I say that? I'm going to say that and publish it. Yeah. I don't know. I've never, never,
Megan Hargroder (13:51):
Not one. Not even
Jared Correia (13:52):
A little. I don't have single, not even an anchor on my arm like Popeye. Do you have a favorite tattoo and what made you decide to do the tattoo thing? Maybe you can convince me.
Megan Hargroder (14:05):
Okay. I have a lot of favorites. My favorite, oh, we have
Jared Correia (14:08):
More than one favorite. My favorite favorite. We're doing a video podcast now, so if you're just listening to the audio, you're missing out. All right. What is that
Megan Hargroder (14:17):
You're missing? So this is my pelican and there's a magnolia in it. Magnolia's woven through all of my tattoo concepts, but the Pelican is my favorite bird. And I won't bore you with all of the facts that I know about
Jared Correia (14:30):
Pe. Just give me the brief rundown.
Megan Hargroder (14:32):
They live a long time. They live to be like 40 years old, and their beaks can hold more food than their stomachs can, which is really interesting too. It's
Jared Correia (14:43):
Crazy.
Megan Hargroder (14:43):
And they're just really cool regal birds, and they're not often that you see them up close, but I've had a couple of really amazing close encounters with them, and they're huge. They're just majestic
Jared Correia (14:55):
On purpose, or
Megan Hargroder (14:58):
When I was living in Slidell, I was in my yard and a pelican flew into my yard and it was just like four feet away from me, and we just looked at each other for a really long time.
Jared Correia (15:08):
That's it. And then one of you stopped staring.
Megan Hargroder (15:11):
He was my size. He was huge. And so I just sat down and he was just standing there. We looked at each other and then everything else is pretty Magnolia themed too.
Jared Correia (15:22):
Yeah. Okay. Oh, that's interesting. You get themes. I didn't realize that,
Megan Hargroder (15:26):
But what would you get if you were going to get a taxi?
Jared Correia (15:28):
See, I don't know. It's supposed to be something you like, right?
Megan Hargroder (15:32):
Yeah. I feel like you have so many interests.
Jared Correia (15:34):
I know. I don't know. I would have a hard time deciding. I might have to wheel it down. People like the turtle picture behind me. My daughter did that. Turtle. Maybe I'll get a turtle. One of those sea turtles, like the big sea turtles that you see in Hawaii. All right, I'll work on that. Let's talk about your company, shall we?
Megan Hargroder (15:56):
Oh yeah, let's get to that.
Jared Correia (15:57):
You've been in the marketing space for a while, and I think the name, if I have this right, I think the name of the firm used to be Conversations Digital. Is that right? It
Megan Hargroder (16:07):
Did. We started as a social media company called Conversations Digital and then switched to a legal marketing full service
Jared Correia (16:16):
Setup. That's what I was going to ask you. So you rebranded now you're Legend's, legal, marketing, cool name. So how did you come up with that and was that based solely on this switch to a broader program model?
Megan Hargroder (16:30):
The name Switch was purely based on the identity slash aspirational identity of my clients, the really good clients. There's all kinds of lawyers out there, but the ones that I in particular really like to work with tend to be trial lawyers. They tend to be lawyers who are really passionate about storytelling and continuing education and being the best that they can be. And they almost always bring something to the table that other lawyers, not lazy, okay. They're just, my clients are amazing lawyers. They are not lazy people. They're not just in it for the money. They're in it for a purpose. And I consider them legends. I did a lot of word mapping, and at the end of the day, that was the word that I came up with that best summed up all of the people that I most like to work with.
Jared Correia (17:19):
I mean, I got to say, if that's the pitch, at that point I'm like, how could I not work with you? Really?
Megan Hargroder (17:25):
Right?
Jared Correia (17:26):
I want to be a legend.
Megan Hargroder (17:27):
Unless you're a shitty lawyer and you're like, that's not me.
Jared Correia (17:30):
And
Megan Hargroder (17:30):
I'm like, great. Let's not waste each other's time.
Jared Correia (17:32):
Go find shithead legal marketing and go work
Megan Hargroder (17:35):
With them. Yeah. There's a lot of companies that, I won't say any of them, but they love working the lawyers.
Jared Correia (17:43):
There are some bad marketing agencies out
Megan Hargroder (17:45):
There. We're not going to put the karma out there, everyone.
Jared Correia (17:50):
So what is it, because you started off with the social media piece of it. What do you do now? I know you do some branding stuff, you do some website design. What's the full suite of services that you guys offer at this point?
Megan Hargroder (18:01):
It really starts with the website. The foundation for success with legal marketing always starts with the website. Having a solid SEO foundation, having really clear messaging and branding and branding's everything from your logo and your colors and your fonts to your photos. People don't realize photos are a big part of their branding, but someone came to me and he's like, I keep getting these skeezy calls. And I'm like, yeah, look at you on your website. Your hair's all slicked back. You're in the weirdest loot ever. You've got casino dice as your image. This isn't giving trust to me. This is giving the opposite of really gambling. People keep calling me about these BS casino accidents. And I was like, yeah, they do. You are marketing to them perfectly. So everything from your branding to your messaging and all of that is really important to your overall success. So we always start foundationally at the website. I very rarely work with people who come to me with a website
Jared Correia (19:03):
That makes
Megan Hargroder (19:03):
Sense. And they're like, can you just market this? And it's happened once or twice. People come in and they have a good website, but I rarely see something really good at the quality that we build it. And especially now, all the rules keep changing, and my company's small, and we constantly adapt and we meet every week to be like, what's new? Whereas a larger company can't pivot so quickly. So they're getting hit a little harder by these Google algorithm changes and all of these other,
Jared Correia (19:34):
I do want to talk about that, but let's not do it right now. Well, I will say, I think your website's really creative, and whenever I send people your way, I'm always be prepared for a creativity overflow. A lot of websites are the same, and your stuff is
Megan Hargroder (19:51):
Pretty unique.
Jared Correia (19:52):
And I'm not just saying that
Megan Hargroder (19:54):
They are beautiful, they're objectively beautiful, which is what brings people in, but they're also representative of the lawyer. It is very, very common for us to get feedback from our clients that people close to them read their biographies, for example, and had emotional responses to them. That is a really common reaction that we get is that, so the reason it's not the same as everyone else's is because it's not cookie cutter. We're going through an intense discovery process and it's designed around that person. So some of them I like better than others, and some of them give us a little more creative freedom, and some of them are a little bit more open and vulnerable, but you can tell by looking at the websites who went all in with their vulnerability, who was like, take this to the max. This is who I am. Blast it. It's very, very obvious. Who does that?
Jared Correia (20:48):
Turn it up to 11. Now, with respect to the, so you kind of niched down to lawyers obviously. What made you decide to do that? Done the same thing, obviously.
Megan Hargroder (21:01):
So I was working with so many industries that it was exhausting to keep up
Jared Correia (21:06):
With,
Megan Hargroder (21:07):
And I just did the 80 20 rule. Who are my best clients? Who's paying their bills on time? Who's not calling me on the weekend? And who am I consistently wowing? And that was all lawyers. And one of the things is like I want my work to be really great. I want to be better than my competitors. So the fact that for legal marketing, in my opinion, the bar is so low because no one's trying that hard.
Jared Correia (21:36):
The bar is
Megan Hargroder (21:37):
Really low, just crying, right? Yeah. Just trying and doing your best, just making
Jared Correia (21:40):
A modicum of effort. Yes,
Megan Hargroder (21:43):
You're able to succeed every time because marketing and SEO is completely relative to competition. So in order to succeed, you just do better than the other guy, which
Jared Correia (21:55):
Just
Megan Hargroder (21:56):
Requires a little effort. And so it's so nice to be able to just deliver each time.
Jared Correia (22:01):
Yeah, I think people think lawyers are super savvy about marketing. A lot of them are not. However,
Megan Hargroder (22:09):
They're not. They just flush money down the toilet and they're so good at it. Lawyers are just like, here's a stack of hundreds, flush it down the toilet. Let's do whatever. Because they are the biggest spenders of marketing dollars, and they're not marketing savvy, so they think spending money equals making money. And sometimes it does, but spending money the right way equals making money.
Jared Correia (22:31):
And a lot of lawyers are like, let me give you a lot of money so that I can offload this to you, and now I don't have to worry about it anymore. Exactly. It's just the recipe for disaster. Without giving away your best secrets, what do you think is table stake from modern website at this point? Summer of 2025,
Megan Hargroder (22:52):
Jared, I'm always happy to give away all of my secrets because at the end of the day, it's not the what? It's the how, and it's the actual,
Jared Correia (23:00):
All right. Give away your best interest then if you must. Yeah.
Megan Hargroder (23:03):
So I guess it's fresh because I'm actually almost finished writing a book about
Jared Correia (23:07):
All of this. No way. Oh my God. Can you tell us what it is called?
Megan Hargroder (23:11):
It's called trust is the strategy.
Jared Correia (23:14):
Oh.
Megan Hargroder (23:14):
And the idea is that legal marketing, a lot of lawyers don't realize people don't trust lawyers. So when you get organic traffic to your website, the number one job your website has to do is build trust with that person. And that is the most difficult thing to do. So the idea is what if every single piece of your marketing was just focused on building trust with people, what that looks like? And so that's what we do for our clients, and that's why it's not just about getting them more traffic. We get a lot of traffic from the SEO, but you can get a lot of traffic and then not get a lot of phone calls. So it's making people call you. So having a really, here's one trick. It's not a trick. It's just a known fact that it's effective. The homepage of your website, if you have a generic image on the homepage of the website, it is going to convert at half or less the rate than if you have a photo of the attorney on the top of your homepage a hundred percent of the time. I've ab tested this so many times over the past decade, whatever. Someone comes to me for the first time, they're like, I need more leads. And they have a cityscape on their background, the first thing I do, and the only thing I do to start is put their photo back there and then I check in with them in a month and they're like, I'm getting more calls.
Jared Correia (24:37):
I know, absolutely. That's a good one. That's a good one. I also think some of that is strategy, but then I also think that a lot of lawyers, they don't want to be upfront. They don't want to be the face of anything.
Megan Hargroder (24:50):
They don't. And that's where the therapist part of my role comes into play because a lot of what I do is talking to people about Why don't you want to be the face? And there's usually a few different reasons. Sometimes it's because they want to scale their firm and they don't want everyone to just be coming to them. But there's a lot of examples of people being the face of a firm in LA here we have Sweet James. No one's going to be working with Sweet James. We don't even know Sweet James's last name, but no one's going to be working with him. Right? You're working with someone on his team, but he is the face, he's in the commercials, he's on the website. It's you becoming a brand that represents your firm.
Jared Correia (25:30):
I've heard of this firm. Is that the dude's actual name? Sweet James. He plays with the Holland Grove charge or something like that.
Megan Hargroder (25:38):
Yeah, I don't remember his last name. He got more famous because his wife was on the Real Housewives. They're not married anymore.
Jared Correia (25:46):
Oh my God.
Megan Hargroder (25:47):
It was a really intense breakup. They made him look really bad on the show, but his firm's doing great.
Jared Correia (25:52):
But that's why you don't go on The Real Housewives. We've explored this in detail at the show before. Believe it or not, we've had one of the cast members on, and it sounds like just a complete shit show. Yeah, no, thank you. Hard pass.
Megan Hargroder (26:04):
It's never really made anyone look good.
Jared Correia (26:06):
Know. Why would you do that?
Megan Hargroder (26:08):
Loves me.
Jared Correia (26:10):
The reality show producers are really going to help me with my image. No, probably not. Other tips, other thoughts? That's a good one.
Megan Hargroder (26:19):
So one of the things that I think is important for people to be aware of is the role of AI now in search.
Jared Correia (26:25):
Okay, can we talk about that? That shit is changing like lightning. That's quick.
Megan Hargroder (26:31):
It's changing very fast. Yes. But the foundational principles of building intentionally and with integrity still apply here. So for example, all these ai, Google algorithm hits that have tanked, a lot of law firm websites haven't affected any of the sites that we have built so far. Great. We're ready to pivot if they do, but they haven't affected it because everything is structurally set up correct. The content is all unique. The content is broken up. Even just think about how you like to read. You don't want to read a block paragraph that's like this long. You want to read things in snippets and really one line, two line sentences so that your eyes can continue to scan. The AI also prefers to read that way, and AI prefers to digest content in kind of like what in news we call soundbite format.
Jared Correia (27:32):
Oh, you brought it all back home. Beautiful.
Megan Hargroder (27:35):
Great. Full circle. Full circle. The copy on a law firm website is most successful if it is written in soundbite format. And if your informational pieces are solving a question. So thinking about what is the question? And then the answer is this, step one, step two, step three, step four. So AI really likes bullet points, numerical list, how to specific guides and things that are easily digestible. So if you want to do long form content, you can, but there should always be a little summary synopsis above that so that AI can pull those snippets in
Jared Correia (28:21):
The death of long form content. What would Thomas Hardy say? I ask you? So part of that's like how you build the content. Part of that's how you structure the website. So really, so I think the people who do website design intelligently are the ones who are like, okay, how is this going to play in SEO? And you're clearly doing that.
Megan Hargroder (28:44):
Yeah. And the buzzword now is, have you heard LLMs?
Jared Correia (28:49):
Yeah, you want to talk about large language models. For people who don't partake, feel free to expand on that
Megan Hargroder (28:57):
Large language models. Well, it's just a really important term to know at this point because it's coming up a lot, and that'll apply to anything from Chachi, BT, to Gemini, to all of these other tools. But the other thing that's important from a technical perspective is making sure you're indexing properly across multiple platforms. So Google, we've got Google and Google's running off of Gemini real time chat. GBT is kind of fighting to get in with there, but Google's like you can't have the real time. So chat GBT is mostly running off of Bing data, and apparently some people do use Bing browsers. It's crazy.
Jared Correia (29:39):
Losers do.
Megan Hargroder (29:40):
People are doing that. So it's important to make sure that all of your stuff is indexed properly through both Google and Yahoo too. Just may as well throw that in for good measure, but making sure everything's set up properly because it's Bing that's going to give you the chat GBT leverage, and then it's going to be Google that's going to give you the Gemini leverage, which Gemini's also baked into the actual Google search itself. So that is Gemini AI that's popping up at the top whenever you get AI results in a Google search.
Jared Correia (30:14):
I love how Chad g PT is made bank search relevant. Again, what a time to be alive,
Megan Hargroder (30:20):
What time?
Jared Correia (30:21):
I
Megan Hargroder (30:21):
Think they might bring back a OL instant messenger at
Jared Correia (30:25):
Some point. I hope so. It's funny because I think a lot of people are thinking of search just in a traditional way. Everybody goes to Google, but you're right, people are effectively getting search results through generative AI tools. Now, how do you feel about, and how do you approach full on AI search engines like perplexity and then Google is going to look a lot like perplexity moving forward. What do you do with that stuff? As a website designer,
Megan Hargroder (30:55):
You're not doing anything different with these tools. Everything that you're doing has to do with the native environment that you're creating in which for us is WordPress and then indexing, and then well, okay, actually there's a whole separate component, which is online reviews. So let's just say I've got the app for chat, GBT or Gemini or any of these on my phone because people are now just searching through AI apps versus going to Safari. Yeah,
Jared Correia (31:27):
They're doing the in-app search rather than getting on the search engine.
Megan Hargroder (31:31):
And this is where it's important for lawyers, because I may say, who's the top divorce lawyer in Austin, Texas? How do you get in those
Jared Correia (31:42):
Results?
Megan Hargroder (31:42):
Is the question. And the answer is actually largely based on reviews. So all of these language models are going to be primarily looking at reviews across the board. Google reviews are still carrying the most weight for now, but Yelp reviews do play a factor in this and other listing based sites that have public reviews as well. So don't discount your AVO reviews. That's another thing that a lot of people aren't really doing that anymore, but going do peer reviews on AVO so you can get more peer reviews on AVO is still a really good way to amp up your reviews. So reviews is a huge thing. The way that your site is indexed is a huge thing. And I'm hesitant to say this because it's sort of an essence.
Jared Correia (32:28):
Oh, come on now, you got to say it. Say it anyway. Okay.
Megan Hargroder (32:31):
I'm not saying I'm recommending this because
Jared Correia (32:34):
Just to be clear, don't do this now. Go ahead.
Megan Hargroder (32:37):
Don't do this thing that could possibly help you out a lot. So there's a legal ethics rule that says that you cannot state that your firm is the best firm, but if you weave that strategically a little bit into your metadata, it does help with whenever someone's using an LLM to search for best whatever.
Jared Correia (33:04):
That's what people look for.
Megan Hargroder (33:07):
And the ethical hack around that is to apply for awards that have the word best in them, because if someone else calls you the best, it's okay. And then make sure you're using plain text version of that within and throughout your site that you got that award. And so then that'll help you pop up for the keyword best. That is my biggest secret tip. Very good one slash use it carefully
Jared Correia (33:35):
Because there are a ton of awards out there for lawyers, many of them
Megan Hargroder (33:39):
Featuring the term best paid $200 to get an award for pretty much anything.
Jared Correia (33:43):
Oh, I know. It's crazy. All right, so we talked a little bit about performance. This has been great. Now what you think, what do you look at in terms of metrics? Because I feel like people, this is a stumbling block for a lot of people. They'll go into Google Analytics or whatever and they'll be like, fuck, I can't understand any of this. And then some of it's vanity metrics, they don't necessarily lead to conversion. So what do you tell people to look at?
Megan Hargroder (34:11):
My model's a little bit different because my
Jared Correia (34:14):
Client, I would hope so. Yeah.
Megan Hargroder (34:16):
Well, my clients are on our, what we call it, 10 x program. So most marketers at most will say that they deliver a five XROI.
Jared Correia (34:26):
You were like, fuck it, we're doubling it.
Megan Hargroder (34:28):
We're doing 10. Yes, exactly. Fuck five. We are doing 10 x. And again, it's not promised as a guarantee in my contract because you never know what could happen. But everyone's getting that, and if someone falls below, we have contingencies and stuff to bump them back up. But 10 x is what we're tracking. So we use an algorithm based on your average case rate, your average close rate, and what the total amount for that month would be the goal. So that essentially it's 10 x what you're paying us slash marketing budget, and that number is our metric. So maybe that is 20 leads per month, maybe that's a hundred leads per
Jared Correia (35:16):
Month. So if you make it firm dependent, which I think is smarter.
Megan Hargroder (35:19):
Exactly, everyone has their own metric, and we track those very carefully. So that is, to me, that is the only metric that actually matters to the client because it's cases, what did you hire me for cases? Did you hire me for impressions? No, you don't know what those mean. You don't care about them, and neither do I. So cases is what we're tracking. The other thing I do look at, because this is important in the event that there's a dip or something that we need to evaluate is total traffic. And then we look at total traffic per number of leads so that we can over time say the leads were this percentage of traffic. And then if we see, for example, traffic's actually really high, but leads went down, what is that problem? That's a conversion problem. So then we're addressing a conversion problem, not an SEO problem and vice versa sometimes. So there's metrics that we look at if there are a problem. I think analytics are a tool for deep dives for if you're looking to make improvements on some level. But metrics wise, there's not a whole lot in Google Analytics that the client cares about. That's
Jared Correia (36:29):
Great. Everyone's excited. They're like, I get to avoid Google Analytics entirely beautiful,
Megan Hargroder (36:33):
But you don't have to do it. We do it for you. One cool thing to look at is top content. So if you're posting blogs or you have some pages, it's good to know what's getting the most traffic and what's getting the most viable traffic that's actually generating leads,
Jared Correia (36:47):
Because
Megan Hargroder (36:48):
Those are the pages you want to go back into and continue to update because Google slash LLMs are also indexing. Oh, this was updated. Updated means it probably has the newest, most relevant information on it, meaning it is the most relevant, and then they're more likely to show those results.
Jared Correia (37:05):
Right now, I may not know what an impression is, but I've been very impressed by your wisdom and knowledge. Thank you for coming on as always.
Megan Hargroder (37:14):
Thank you for having me on,
Jared Correia (37:15):
But we're not done yet. Will you hang around for another segment?
Megan Hargroder (37:21):
Does it involve Tom Petty?
Jared Correia (37:23):
Maybe.
Megan Hargroder (37:25):
I'm ready.
Jared Correia (37:26):
Take a big swig that's coming up next. Welcome to the Counter program. It's a podcast within a podcast. This is a conversational space where we can address usually unrelated topics that I want to explore at greater depth with my guests. Expect no rhyme and very little reason. Now, Megan, you've been dancing around this topic a little bit. Evan was telling me you had dancing clothes if necessary. You talked about Tom Petty before we left because last time we did a podcast together. I did a little Tom Petty thing, and I believe we're both Tom Petty fans. I think
Megan Hargroder (38:05):
We are.
Jared Correia (38:05):
Okay, good people. I want to do a little something different this time, but it is musical related, and although you can't dance, oh, you could dance. I would never want to stop anyone from dancing. You may be able to sing. Okay, this is what I want to sing or don't sing. Don't think, nevermind. Okay, so today I've got a new game for us. It's the first time I've ever done it, and it's called, so You're the Guinea pig, and it's called, don't Let Me Be Misunderstood. Here's how it works. I'm going to relay a commonly misunderstood song lyric. I'm even going to give you the name of the band and the song, and all you have to do is tell me what the actual lyric says. Commonly misunderstood. I feel like you might crush this because some of these are,
Megan Hargroder (38:57):
I'm feeling good about it. Yeah.
Jared Correia (38:58):
Are you a lyrics person?
Megan Hargroder (39:01):
I am a lyrics person. I'm also a metaphor person, so I feel like I'm ready for this. This
Jared Correia (39:05):
Is right up your alley Storytelling. Now, I'm afraid these might be too easy, but we're going to go with it anyway. The first lyric is wrapped up like a douche. Another rumor in the night, Bruce Springsteen blinded by the light, also covered by Manfred Man's Earth band, commonly misheard, misunderstood lyric. What is the actual lyric?
Megan Hargroder (39:33):
So I've heard a lot of interpretations of this one, including like a not PG
Jared Correia (39:39):
Related. You can go not pg if you wish, but you don't have to. I've got the actual lyric ready for you, but go on, please.
Megan Hargroder (39:47):
So I think he's wrapped up like a douche because he's a douche bag, right? And he's wrapped up at the bar socially. He's rolling deep with his friend group is simply protecting him from the repercussions of his own actions.
Jared Correia (40:06):
Oh my God.
Megan Hargroder (40:07):
As he goes into the night.
Jared Correia (40:09):
That's pretty good.
Megan Hargroder (40:12):
Is that correct? Did I get it right?
Jared Correia (40:15):
That lyric is totally incorrect. Do you want to hear the real one? Do you want to hear the real one? The real one is revved up like a Dee, another runner in the night.
Megan Hargroder (40:31):
So
Jared Correia (40:33):
It's talking about like a Dee coop, like the old car.
Megan Hargroder (40:39):
I never knew that
Jared Correia (40:40):
You're revving up your car and you're driving off into the night. But I like the idea of Bruce Springsteen being a complete douche canoe at some bar in Asbury Park.
Megan Hargroder (40:52):
He's got to be,
Jared Correia (40:54):
He's called be. That's better. I like your interpretation. All right, we're
Megan Hargroder (41:00):
I'm going to call that one for one.
Jared Correia (41:02):
Let's do it. One for one. All right, one for one. We get the next one. I'm going to start by reading the misinterpreted lyric, the incorrect lyric, and then you can tell me the right one. But I also like this angle we're working on where you just make up a story about the wrong one. So whatever you want to want to do, whatever you want to do. All right, here's the next one. There's a bathroom on the right. There's a bathroom on the right, creams. Clearwater Revival, bad Moon Rising. What's the real lyric?
Megan Hargroder (41:36):
Oh, I don't know this song.
Jared Correia (41:40):
You don't know Bad Moon Rising. All right, so
Megan Hargroder (41:43):
I do know the song, but I don't remember the bathroom lyric.
Jared Correia (41:46):
So just remember that the name of the song is Bad Moon Rising. There's a bathroom on the right. It kind of sounds like,
Megan Hargroder (41:56):
So is it just Bad Moon Rising? Is that just the whole thing?
Jared Correia (42:00):
There's a bad moon on the right. That's all it is. That's the real lyric. I
Megan Hargroder (42:03):
It sounds like bathroom on the right then.
Jared Correia (42:05):
Well, maybe not. These are commonly misinterpreted emails. I mean, not emails. Why am I saying emails commonly misinterpreted lyrics? But you clearly have a good voice for sound or a good ear for sound, clearly.
Megan Hargroder (42:18):
I think so. Except I did not know that Bruce Springsteen wasn't a douche.
Jared Correia (42:23):
He might be. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not personal friends with Springsteen or anybody in that area of New Jersey. So I'm going to call this, I think we can call this two for two, because you said Bad Moon.
Megan Hargroder (42:34):
Yeah.
Jared Correia (42:35):
All right, number three. Number three. Here's one that is a little bit obscure. So the lyric, the misunderstood lyric is Calling Jamaica. Calling Jamaica. And this is in the REM song, the Side Winder Sleeps tonight. Do you know that one? No. Are you an REM fan?
Megan Hargroder (42:59):
I probably would if I heard it. I feel like REM kind of all blends together.
Jared Correia (43:04):
Oh my God. Shot to the heart. My God, I'm so saddened now. This is their best album, automatic for the people.
Megan Hargroder (43:15):
What is the lyric?
Jared Correia (43:17):
The actual lyric is Call Me When You Try to Wake Her up, which is in the song it said so quickly that it does kind sound like calling Jamaica. Alright, I think I know we're only halfway through, but I feel like a playlist is in order. Alright, I think I got two easy ones for you.
Megan Hargroder (43:42):
Okay,
Jared Correia (43:42):
We'll see how we go Here. We are now in containers. Here we are now in containers. Nirvana smells like Teen Spirit. What's the actual lyric? Here we are now. Do you see it in containers? I feel like you have toing it. Here we are now in containers.
Megan Hargroder (44:03):
Here we are now it's contagious.
Jared Correia (44:05):
Oh, that's another commonly misunderstood one. Very close. Very close. But that's not what it is either.
Megan Hargroder (44:14):
What is it?
Jared Correia (44:15):
Contagious is better Entertain Us. That's how the song goes. Here we are now entertain us. Ah. But there's a lot of misunderstood lyrics in smells like Teen Spirit, as you might imagine. Pretty much every lyric. All right, let's do another one. That was good. That was good. We're getting closer. Let's do another one that I think is commonly, this is a common one. Excuse me while I kiss this guy. Not me, literally, but excuse me while I kiss this guy. Jimmy Hendrix, purple Haze. What is the actual lyric? Excuse me. Well, I kiss this guy.
Megan Hargroder (44:55):
Is it the sky instead of
Jared Correia (44:56):
This guy? Yes. Yes, yes, it is the sky. Well done. Well done.
Megan Hargroder (45:03):
Yeah.
Jared Correia (45:04):
All right. Got two more fun ones for you.
Megan Hargroder (45:07):
I like my version better where we break down the meaning of the lyrics.
Jared Correia (45:09):
I do too, actually. So let's do that for these last two. Okay. But you could also make a guess. You could do both. Don't bring me down, Bruce. Electric light Orchestra. Don't bring me down. Do you know this one? He's like, don't bring me down. And then he goes, Bruce. Bruce.
Megan Hargroder (45:33):
Yeah. I mean that is obviously Bruce is a little bitch and he is always running, bringing people down. And this guy, I had it. Bruce, I am writing an entire song about you and asking you not to bring me down anymore.
Jared Correia (45:48):
Bruce Springsteen catching so many strays in this podcast.
Megan Hargroder (45:52):
So many
Jared Correia (45:53):
Only is not Bruce. Okay. This is funny. It's not even a name at all. So Jeff Lynn who wrote the song, he's the lead singer of Electric Light Orchestra. He was like, I just made up a word. There was a break in the song. So the actual word he yells is Gru, which is not even a word.
Megan Hargroder (46:15):
Oh my God. I have a friend who, their last name is Gru, and so I am actually going to play this song at them this week.
Jared Correia (46:22):
They're going to be devastated.
Megan Hargroder (46:24):
Probably.
Jared Correia (46:26):
Jefflin said when I was singing it, there was a gap in the vocal, so I just shouted out Gru, which is the most anticlimactic story ever.
Megan Hargroder (46:35):
The worst, absolute worst.
Jared Correia (46:37):
I got one more for you, and I'm excited about this. I like how we've converted this segment just entirely in the middle of it. Yeah. I got one more lyric for you, and I'm excited to hear this story. You can tell around it. Hold me closer, Tony Danza. Hold me closer. Tony Danza, Elton John's. Tiny dancer, obviously Tiny
Megan Hargroder (47:01):
Dancer. This is obviously a Hold me closer tiny dancer, but also interpreted based on lots of things as Hold Me Closer. Tony Danza, who at one point was something of a heart throb, who you would want to be held closely by
Jared Correia (47:16):
Super, super heartthrob back in the day, taxi all the way through. Who's the boss? I would say,
Megan Hargroder (47:23):
Who wouldn't want to be held tightly by Tony Danza?
Jared Correia (47:26):
I mean, honestly. So I mean, that was pretty good. You didn't even need to really stretch to tell that story. Well done. This was fine.
Megan Hargroder (47:35):
The lyrics tell their own stories,
Jared Correia (47:36):
The lyrics tell their own stories. So next time we're going to have story time with Meghan Hargroder, where I'm just going to say random shit, and she's going to come up with stories, which is kind of what we did just now.
Megan Hargroder (47:48):
I'll give you a whole backstory on anything with very limited information.
Jared Correia (47:52):
Amazing
Megan Hargroder (47:53):
Confidently.
Jared Correia (47:55):
That's why you're such a great podcast guests. Thanks for coming back. We're going to have you back on at some point.
Megan Hargroder (48:00):
Yeah, thank you for having me. This was fun. Good to see you again.
Jared Correia (48:02):
Same. We'll talk soon. Thanks for our guest, Megan Hargroder of Legends Legal Marketing. To learn more about Megan and Legends, she's a legend herself. Of course. Visit legends legal marketing.com. That's legends legal marketing.com. Check 'em out now because I'll always be a nineties kid wondering why the dude from Crash Test Dummies, who looks like one of Adam Sandler's friends, the one who buys the lion in Grandma's boy, is doing that weird thing with his voice, whose true passion is burning CDs for anyone who would listen. I'm now just doing the modern version of that, which is creating Spotify playlist for every podcast episode that I report where the songs are tangentially related to an episode topic this week. I suppose they're directly related to an episode topic as our playlist features songs with misunderstood lyrics to see we're consistent. It's sponsored by General Electric because we'd be cooking on this show. Now. Hold up, let me cook. I'm just kidding. By the way, general Electric hasn't sponsored shit. Do I look like Ronald Reagan to you? But I wish they would hit me up. Join us next time when I run an entire ultra marathon and we record it, or fucking not.