Second Place
Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C — The Reexamination Center Microsite

At the close of 2008, the marketing team was discussing a substantial business opportunity — the increasing use of patent reexamination as an alternate venue to challenge patent validity. They envisioned something broader in scope than a blog filled with opinion and news clips, but rather a subtly branded Web site neutral in its presentation of information. The marketing goals of the project were to become the number one online resource on patent reexamination, to increase Web traffic to the knowledge site and the firm Web site and become a top search engine result.

The firm clearly defined internal roles for the legal and marketing staff teams. Legal staff focused on the nuts and bolts and strategic elements of patent reexamination; they were organized into an editorial board, with a chairman to provide strategic direction and an editor to facilitate content updates. The marketing team focused on translating firm needs for the Web development team, branding and design elements, content layout, and site blueprints in order to create the most useful and navigable site.

Summary of Outcomes

The Reexamination Center launched on Oct. 13, 2009 and the firm is well on its way to realizing its goals. After the initial splash at launch, the firm is seeing sustained levels of traffic to the knowledge Web site and increased traffic to the reexaminiation page of the firm Web site. The firm is using Google Analytics to monitor traffic and is beginning to achieve first-page results when searching through Google and Bing. Feedback from key audiences has been very positive. Most importantly, The Reexamination Center has played a part in at least one new client engagement.

Third Place
Preti Flaherty — Legislative Extranet (Bill Tracker)

The legislative bill tracking site, “Bill Tracker” was designed to position the firm as a progressive and preeminent legislative and lobbying practice. The online legislative bill tracking system was developed to keep the firm’s clients and attorneys fully informed of the status of all bills of interest in the current legislative session in real time.

Marketing goals included developing a niche site that will help keep clients and attorneys informed and up to date on the status of all bills of interest in the current legislative session. The firm also wanted to make it easy for attorneys to keep clients apprised of the implications of particular bills, their progress through the legislature or modifications to bills. Bill Tracker also allows attorneys the ability to make private comments online to specific clients attached to specific bills.
 
Bill Tracker took 4 months to design and develop. It stores all information about all bills being followed in the current legislative session (between 700-1000 per session). This includes legislative number, title, sponsor, status, amendments, work session and public hearing dates, lobbyists comments on the implications of the bills. An advanced search tool allows any site visitor to search on multiple criteria, and then output the search results into a preformatted report in the format of choice. Preconfigured reports for individual clients are available for lobbyists to generate at any time and send easily to a client who would like an update without logging into the system. Attorneys can quickly add bill-specific comments for a given client by clicking an icon next to the bill in table view, thus providing relevant and time-sensitive information quickly and easily. A mobile version makes it possible for attorneys to provide clients up-to-the-moment updates from the legislative hearings immediately, as decisions are made. This helps present the firm as highly organized and efficient, and as an expert in the legislative field.

Summary of Outcomes

This system saved an incredible amount of time for lobbyists, legislative specialists and marketing staff through the ample use of dropdown menus, calendars and the pre-configuration of frequently run reports. It also had the flexibility to create anything that is needed, allowing personnel to stay on top of the fast moving and complicated legislative bill process. Clients get real-time updates on work sessions and the progress of legislation well before other sources of information are available and before attorneys can even leave the legislature to contact clients. Attorneys have a central repository for all the bills being tracked for their clients that can be sorted by issue, committee or hearing date, streamlining the process of staying on top of the details of hundreds of bills each day.