Advertising aspect of lawfirm websites: Remedy in protective measures

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Indian law firms, Law firms' websites, violation of BCI advertising rules

I read an article on Legally India recently. Most of the top Indian Law Firms’ websites are in violation of the rule of no advertisement of legal profession. The article was only about allegations. Let’s try to deal with the issue, ya?

The concern: Exposure on the web with client-catchy-words as used by the business products/services websites, will increase number of clients and who can pay more will be preferred by the practicing law firms. Noble idea of serving the mass will be defeated.

Human tendency: Human mind has difficulty in taking negative directions it seems. That’s the reason when children are asked not to do a particular act, they are very tempted to that very act. The adult minds too behave exactly in the same manner. So the obvious question is, how far a preventive measure will be effective to stop the law firms’ attractive presence on the web.

Social Engineering: I personally find Prof. Roscoe Pound’s Theory pretty sensible – maximum satisfaction of interests with minimum friction/damage. It has a democratic approach also in the sense, it sounds more protective than preventive.

I remember an advertisement of LIC (Life Insurance Corporation of India). It used to come on TV long back. It was probably on some family insurance policy – I don’t exactly remember though. However, I still prominently remember one scene of the advertisement. A small kid was playing in the park and his dad was sitting on a bench and chatting with his friend. The child, while playing, came unknowingly near to the bench creating a fear in it’s dad’s mind of hitting it’s forehead with the corner of the bench. Dad, instead of preventing the child from playing, kept his hand on the corner of the bench so that the sharp edge of the bench does not cause hurt in case the child happen to hit the corner. The child continue playing happily and it’s dad continue his chatting without fear. What a sensible approach! Shouldn’t our legal system be like this? Hasn’t Prof. Pound advocated similar spirit?

Analysis of a living situation: I would like to give an example of human nature as I was discussing earlier and effect of preventive measures taken by the Govt. agencies. In UK, there is a tendency of using broker and estate agents (called introducers) for getting clients in few verticals like conveyancing, personal injury cases etc. In turn, the solicitors pay referral fees to them. Since they are the source of business, it was becoming more and more easy for the introducers to put pressure on the solicitors to complete the cases quickly and in turn, it was becoming increasingly difficult for the solicitors to work independently to the best interest of their clients. As an expected outcome, the solicitors were getting bogged down with the introducers’ pressure and clients were becoming increasingly unhappy with the truncated quality of work. The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) made regulations to make the referral fee payment transparent and directing the solicitors not to compromise with their professional independence. However, it failed to have much effect as expected with such kind of preventive regulations.

Alternative Business Structure (ABS) is introduced very recently in the legal sector in the UK to tackle the above situation. ABS, which allows multi-disciplinary practices in the law firm, is mainly introduced to deal with insufficient capital. This attempt, I personally feel, is jumping from frying pan to fire. When the solicitors are finding it difficult to cope with the pressure from business minded introducers, will it not gonna be far more difficult for them to cope with the pressure from similar business minded people in-house? Therefore, whether SRA will be able to make the solicitors act without compromising with their professional independence, has still got a question mark.

An attempt to find solution:
We, therefore, need to opt for a protective regulation instead of preventive one to deal with the issue. So, what information can be put in a law firm’s website and rationale behind it:

• Services/Practice areas with basic information
• Key people with name, photo, degree, areas of practice and experience. If giving visiting card to anybody in the world can be permitted, then the above details on the website should not make much difference.
• Blogs. For legal awareness.
• Contact information
• Display of clients’ feed back and firm’s achievements. This will give the public a vast array of options to choose quality service. The big law firms get this advantage through media. Mid-sized and small law firms also need to be known for their achievements. However, client-feedback procedure needs to be in the same line with Linked-in’s recommendation procedure – the person who is recommending has to mention how he knows the recomendee.

Let the client satisfaction be highlighted and the concern will automatically fade away without much friction. Individual, social and political interests will be well-balanced.

I remember one incident – I was dealing with the purchase of a property for a client who had to complete his purchase urgently. On completion of his purchase, I got an e-mail from him saying, he has probably got the best Christmas gift. I was in cloud number nine. I was getting market standard salary form the company I was working with but I hardly remember whether it could have ever been able to give me that level of satisfaction which one email gave.

If recognition is the deepest desire of human nature, a law (howmuchever noble objective it has got) which creates obstacles on the way of getting recognition, will be violated frequently because there is no commonly accepted strong counter convincing reason why shouldn’t a man desire for recognition if he is worth of it. Lack of sufficient recognition of one’s labor was probably one of the major reasons of failure of communism.

I feel, therefore, the concern discussed at the beginning of the article, can be better dealt with if the word ‘advertisement’ is defined in a constructive manner without blocking a way to get recognition while encouraging and liberally praising and appreciating pro bono legal services and also encouraging the media to promote these activities.

Marketing – A Psychological Affair

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Blog, Dale Carnegie, marketing psychology, Marketing strategy, Marketing technique, Plan and develop your marketing, suparna biswas bangalore, what is marketing strategy

Isn’t marketing largely a psychological affair? Yes, quality of the product needs to be really high but that’s not enough. Reaching to the desired customer groups in a soothing yet persuasive way and making them feel a need for the product, is purely an art of dealing with human psychology. Few months back when I started learning about marketing, I read so many books, exhausted google on marketing strategies. I got some fair ideas but probably yet to come across the mind-blowing one. Very recently I have been going through one of Dale Carnegie’s writings and while reading the book my first expression was – this is the one – this is exactly THE one I was waiting for. I wish I had read this when I started learning about marketing and I wouldn’t have to exhaust google! Not only his mesmerizing literary skill but the way he illustrated the marketing letters, it’s just incredible!

I would like to share the extract of the relevant portion of his marketing strategy – one of the best illustrations I have ever come across:

Here is one of the best bits of advice ever given about the fine art of human relationships. “If there is any one secret of success,” said Henry Ford, “it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.”

…….. That is so simple, so obvious, that anyone ought to see the truth of it at a glance; yet 90 percent of the people on this earth ignore it 90 percent of the time. ……. Take this one, a letter written by the head of the radio department of an advertising agency with offices scattered across the continent. This letter was sent to the managers of local radio stations throughout the country. (I have set down, in brackets, my reactions to each paragraph.)

Mr. John Blank, Blankville, Indiana

Dear Mr. Blank,

The —— company desires to retain its position in advertising agency leadership in the radio field.

[Who cares what your company desires? I am worried about my own problems. The bank is foreclosing the mortgage on my house, the bugs are destroying the hollyhocks, the stock market tumbled yesterday. I missed the eight-fifteen this morning, I wasn't invited to the Jones's dance last night, the doctor tells me I have high blood pressure and neuritis and dandruff. And then what happens? I come down to the office this morning worried, open my mail and here is some little whippersnapper off in New York yapping about what his company wants. Bah! If he only realized what sort of impression his letter makes, he would get out of the advertising business and start manufacturing sheep dip.]

This agency’s national advertising accounts were the bulwark of the network. Our subsequent clearances of station time have kept us at the top of agencies year after year.

[You are big and rich and right at the top, are you? So what? I don't give two whoops in Hades if you are as big as General Motors and General Electric and the General Staff of the U.S. Army all combined. If you had as much sense as a half-witted hummingbird, you would realize that I am interested in how big I am - not how big you are. All this talk about your enormous success makes me feel small and unimportant.]

We desire to service our accounts with the last word on radio station information.

[You desire! You desire. You unmitigated ass. I'm not interested in what you desire or what the President of the United States desires. Let me tell you once and for all that I am interested in what I desire - and you haven't said a word about that yet in this absurd letter of yours.]

Will you, therefore, put the ———- company on your preferred list for weekly station information – every single detail that will be useful to an agency in intelligently booking time.

["Preferred list." You have your nerve! You make me feel insignificant by your big talk about your company - and then you ask me to put you on a "preferred" list, and you don't even say "please" when you ask it.]

A prompt acknowledgment of this letter, giving us your latest “doings,” will be mutually helpful.

[You fool! You mail me a cheap form letter - a letter scattered far and wide like the autumn leaves - and you have the gall to ask me, when I am worried about the mortgage and the hollyhocks and my blood pressure, to sit down and dictate a personal note acknowledging your form letter - and you ask me to do it "promptly." What do you mean, "promptly".? Don't you know I am just as busy as you are - or, at least, I like to think I am. And while we are on the subject, who gave you the lordly right to order me around? ... You say it will be "mutually helpful." At last, at last, you have begun to see my viewpoint. But you are vague about how it will be to my advantage.]

Very truly yours, John Doe Manager Radio Department P.S. The enclosed reprint from the Blankville Journal will be of interest to you, and you may want to broadcast it over your station.

[Finally, down here in the postscript, you mention something that may help me solve one of my problems. Why didn't you begin your letter with - but what's the use? Any advertising man who is guilty of perpetrating such drivel as you have sent me has something wrong with his medulla oblongata. You don't need a letter giving our latest doings. What you need is a quart of iodine in your thyroid gland.]

Nurturing our natural talent – a life saving antidote

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Blog, indian joint family, introspection, mental health, natural talent, nurturing, self-actualization, suparna biswas bangalore

“I appreciate your busy schedule, understand this is the high time of your career and you have to work hard but you can possibly spend little more quality time with me. You talk to the whole world but hardly find time to have a chat with me.” Does this sound familiar to you whose parents have reached to their 60’s or 70’s? It may be spoken or symbolic but what is meant by this is same – craving for attention which is no doubt pretty natural. Having comparatively little time for them is a factual excuse and painful for us as well with unintentional insensibility.

Indian joint family system was and in few places, still is, ideal to deal with this kind of situation. Older and younger generations were complementary -having abundance time to spend for each other while the adults were concentrating on bread earning. Unfortunately, with the increasing number of nuclear families, our generation is going to face the same loneliness and it’s one of the obvious by products – possessiveness, after 40 years from now. What’s the way out then?

When we become old, we majorly finish our worldly duties of being someone of others like son/daughter of somebody, father/mother of somebody. What’s next? Suddenly we find that we are not much-needed anymore and feel lonely and in turn insecure. Off late, I have been observing this in my parents and in the older generation who are in their late 60’s or 70’s. Since the sense of importance was, so far, largely dependent on the outside uncontrolled factors, when our major contributions are not needed any more, it’s natural consequence is a sense of insecurity and loneliness.

I have been thinking, a creative natural talent could be a good medicine for this. It is that natural talent, which is our very own, which is our point of relief, pleasure and fulfillment, which does not require any gratification or recognition, mere pleasure of doing the activity is the sufficient stimulus. And since this talent will be there with us until death, there is nothing to lose – we are not dependent on the outside factors anymore. However, we will have to start nurturing this talent at an early stage of life because we may not have the enthusiasm to start from the scratch at our 70’s.

Making affordable housing really affordable: Concept of Staircasing

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affordable housing, application of social engineering theory, Blog, housing project, legal theory, low cost housing, real estate, shared ownership, social welfare, suparna biswas bangalore, urbanisation

An attempt to reshape affordable housing concept on the basis of social engineering theory propounded by the famous Jurist, Roscoe Pound – maximum satisfaction of interests with minimum friction and damage

The concept of ‘Affordable housing’ and it’s practical implication has been debated a lot since 2007 when National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy was made by the Govt. of India. The sole object of the Policy was, keeping in mind the socio-economic change, to promote private-public partnerships in order to realize the emphasis of ‘Affordable Housing for All.’

Since then a number of discussions have taken place and few experiments are also done by the developers and construction companies like Bangalore-based Golden Gate Properties, Gurgaon-based Omaxe and groups like Ozone with no much joy because of low bookings.

Let’s take a bird’s eye-view of the background and challenges and then we will try to reach to a possible solution.

 

Background:

So, what was the pressing urgency behind the concept of affordable housing? It was mostly the demographic transition towards urban areas which started crossing the milestones very fast.

India is now one-third urban, according to the 2011 census. Industrialisation and urban migration have created a very serious and critical housing situation.  Take an example of India’s economic capital Mumbai. Mumbai suffers from the same major urbanisation problems seen in many fast growing cities in developing countries. With available space at a premium, Mumbai residents often reside in cramped, relatively expensive housing, usually far from workplaces, and therefore requiring long commutes on crowded mass transit, or clogged roadways [Wikipedia on Mumbai].

Therefore, the idea of ‘Affordable Housing for all’ emerges to provide adequate land, shelter and other facilities to all.

Couple of developing and developed countries have been successfully implementing this idea when “the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) steered Governments to adopt an ‘enabling approach’ towards housing, i.e. supporting the role of the private and third sectors in housing instead of direct public intervention.”  [Housing co-operatives in India]

In recent past, couple of constructions companies have made sensible efforts to provide low cost housing. One of such companies, as Economic Times reports, is, “Gurgaon-based Omaxe, which had set up a subsidiary—National Affordable Housing and Infrastructure—to build cheap houses. It is yet to launch its Bangalore project. The firm had plans to roll out apartments in the Rs 3-18 lakh range around Bangalore during the first phase. An email query to the company remains unanswered. Its plans to invest Rs 8,000 crore in affordable housing projects across India seem to remain only on paper. And for groups like Ozone, floated by the promoters of Reliance Industries and HDFC Venture Fund, the going has been slow.”

 

Some statistics:

Requirements & Capabilities:

• India currently has a shortage of over 24.7 million housing units, and that the need for housing is growing at an annual rate of 14%. The figure was measured in 10^th Five Year Plan.
• Approximately 44% of the population is comprised of middle and lower middle class earning Rs 8,500 to Rs 40,000 per month.
• These people have the capability and willingness to make a 20%-25% down payment and are happy and able to take on a 15-year loan obligation, at market rates, in order to realise their dream home.
• Economic Times suggests that the housing market for the Rs 7,000-Rs 15,000 earning segment translates into a market size of over Rs 5,00,000 crore!

Attempts made & Results so far: Economic Times Survey:

“Bangalore-based Golden Gate Properties, which planned to launch 2,500 affordable apartments under the Commune brand, has called off its project. The firm, which planned to invest Rs 2,000 crore in its affordable ventures in Bangalore and Hyderabad, has done so mainly because of low bookings, states an employee at the company. The fate of its other ventures in Bangalore and Hyderabad also hangs in limbo.

Similarly, Gurgaon-based Omaxe had announced that it would roll out 10 lakh units across India. But only two projects in Faridabad have taken off. Its plans to invest Rs 8,000 crore in affordable housing projects across India seem to remain only on paper.

And for groups like Ozone, floated by the promoters of Reliance Industries and HDFC Venture Fund, the going has been slow.

Sources say, Ozone Group has managed to sell just 30% of its apartments (in the range of Rs 29-30 lakh) since its launch in January 2009.”

Challenges:

• The Ministry of Housing estimates that we will be looking at a shortfall of 26 million residential units by 2012.
•  Two major hurdles: lack of institutional financing options and rising cost of property.
• The 2008-09 global financial crisis had hit the realty sector hard and the same is expected again under the current economic environment when US and European economic scenarios are giving unpleasant surprises at regular basis.
•  The existing schemes for housing are grossly inadequate to implement the concept of affordable housing.

Possible Solution: A Hypothesis:

Let’s make an attempt to address the challenges on the basis of the Social Engineering Theory – satisfaction of maximum interests (both social and individual interests) with minimum or no friction and waste. How about giving the taste of part ownership at an affordable cost, which in turn can act as a stimulus to buy the entire property?

There is a concept called shared ownership and staircasing, in simple words – part purchase and part rent, which have been successfully experimented by couple of commonwealth countries like UK. Generally, either the developer or the housing association is the freeholder of the property and the buyer partly owns the property for proportionate consideration and pays rent for the remaining portion, thereby becomes a joint owner and a lessee simultaneously, with an option to gradually buy the entire property in installments. The primary advantage of this scheme in Indian scenario is, middle and lower middle income group (44% of the Indian population) can statistically afford to make 20% -25% down payment for the low cost houses.

Key features:

• Part buy and part rent. Purchaser buys a minimum of 25% share in the property and pays rent for the rest of 75% to the builder/developer/housing association i.e. the freeholder.
• Straircasing – 25% ownership acts as a stimulus to buy, gradually, the whole property. The buyer enjoys an opportunity to buy another 20%, 30% and gradually 100% share in the property in various installments over a period of 15 to 20years.
• Rent amount is inversely proportionate with the acquisition of the portion of property.
• At the time of acquiring final portion to become an absolute owner, the buyer pays the then market value on the final portion of the property.
• Rent is generally lesser than the rent otherwise charged in a purely leasehold or short-hold tenancy and far less than any mortgage rate.
• 50% share needs to be bought on or before 10yrs from the date of purchase of the first share in the property. Alternatively higher amount of rent is imposed from the 11^th year onwards.
• A buyer, who has bought 50% or less share in the property, enjoys an advantage of reverse staircasing which means, he can sell off his portion to the freeholder in the same way he has bought.
•  A buyer who has bought between 51% – 70% share in the property, can sell their portion of the property with prior consent of the builder/housing association.

Thus, shared ownership can be seen as a step up to full ownership of a property. Buyers will get sufficient time to buy the property without depending on the financial institutions at the outset. The young/ first time buyers will also be enthusiastic as after 10/15 years it’s going to be pretty easy for them to qualify for a loan because of two reasons – increased income and proportionately lesser amount of loan required to buy the final portion of the property. The construction companies won’t suffer loss for want of purchasers.

Ray of hopes:

One risk factor in the above scheme can be the time span of 10-15 years.  This risk can be covered by a suitable insurance program in the similar fashion how the housing co-operatives are insured. The housing co-operatives are protected by NCHF (National Co-operative Housing Federation of India) in collaboration with the United India Insurance Company and Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company.

The recent news is, the Brigade group plans to set up four affordable housing projects totaling 10,000 units across Bangalore in the next 6-12 months. The firm is facing a lukewarm response from the market it seems. If the construction companies like Brigade group, opt for the shared ownership scheme coupled with a suitable insurance plan, they are logically expected to get quite a handful of booking request.

The scheme will probably transform our urban landscape in the true spirit of sustainable welfare society.