It's a 24-hour thing. Everybody is either a potential client or a potential source of a client. You simply can't be a part-time marketer. In Gutierrez' opinion, visibility is one of the keys to good marketing for smaller firms and solo practitioners. Specifically, he refers to traditional public relations, in which lawyers gain visibility in the community by being quoted as experts in newspaper stories.
Visibility also means serving on boards as a way to network.
Gutierrez, for example, is on the board of the Bay Area's Mexican Museum and Dominican University. For instance, all the attorneys in his firm read daily court opinions. If they find a new or groundbreaking case, they're encouraged to write an article about it for publication in a trade publication such as a legal magazine or even, say, a real estate journal if the case is relevant to that industry. Gutierrez then reduces the article to a reprint and sends it to everyone on the firm's mailing list. Another untapped area for small-firm marketing, Gutierrez says, is marketing to other law firms.