How to Legally Steal Another
Law Firm's Telephone Number

 

Here's a neat trick I learned from a Canadian lawyer:

 

If you look in an old bar association directory, trade association directory... even the Yellow Pages... and you call up some of the telephone numbers, you'll find that some of the telephone numbers are no longer valid.  Some of the law firms closed... others simply moved and changed numbers.

 

If they ring to a residential number... you can easily have the telephone number transferred to your office, and get new clients calling you.

 

It works like this:

 

Find a directory that is a few years old, and start calling the numbers (better yet, get a college intern to call them for you).

 

In a single directory, you'll probably find only one telephone number that is no longer valid -- but that number can create a client surge for your practice.

 

Let's suppose that the telephone number rings to a residential address -- an old lady who goes nuts every time the phone rings, because it's another person asking for a lawyer.

 

If you just ask for the number to be transferred to you -- and pay for the expenses of getting the old lady a new telephone number...

 

She'll happily do it!

 

This situation actually happened to me -- a few years ago, I got a new number for my home, and it rang 10-15 times per day, because it was an old Cingular Wireless store phone number... even though the store closed down, the telephone number was still on the company website, and in newspaper advertisements.  I eventually sold the number to a local cell phone store -- but I would have gladly given it away for free, because it was so annoying.

 

The message is this: you can reap the benefits of all of the promotion, marketing, and advertising that another law firm did... for nearly nothing!

 

That's incredible leverage.