2018 Azbee Awards of Excellence

Category

Print > Feature Article - General Interest > Less Than $3 Million Revenue > Upper Midwest

Awarded to

Victor Li, Assistant Managing Editor; Reginald Davis, Managing Editor

Entry details

Ad It Up!

Issue date (if applicable): 4/1/2017
Publication name: ABA Journal
Publishing company: American Bar Association
Website home page: www.abajournal.com

Please describe the publication's mission and readership:

The flagship magazine of the American Bar Association, the ABA Journal is a general interest legal publication covering the trends, people and finances of the legal industry. Its audience includes the more than 400,000 members of the ABA, readers of ABAJournal.com, those engaged on social media, and podcast listeners.

Please describe the enterprising work that went into this entry and its significance or impact on readers:

There was a time when lawyers were either forbidden to advertise their services or found it unseemly to do so. But in the forty years since the U.S. Supreme Court declared bans on lawyer advertising violated the First Amendment, advertising has become a vital part of many an attorney’s livelihood. It’s also a big business, generating nearly $1 billion in spending as lawyers fight to distinguish themselves from their many competitors.

While some attorneys remain committed to traditional forms of advertising—television, radio and billboards—new media have changed the landscape, allowing innovative and creative lawyers to take advantage and gain business. Along with these developments has come the rise of attorney attack ads, a result that once justified the now-outlawed rule against lawyer ads.

Victor Li’s reporting included a wide array of subjects, from a food safety expert to a viral video specialist. Integrating them into a coherent piece was a challenge. Li looks at the history of ad regulation, including rule changes happening at deadline. Additionally, his work required a lot of coordination with Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, which provided up-to-date statistics on spending.

And after publication, a film company asked to show the “Ad It Up” cover art in a major motion picture.

Ultimately, this feature addresses an important matter that all lawyers must deal with and provides interesting options for those that want to think outside the box.

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