For the team here at fSquared Marketing, the first annual Canadian Legal Digital Survey has been a labour of love. It had to have been or we would have abandoned it a long time ago.
Like many good things, the idea to put together the survey, and subsequent report, came out of necessity. Having come from the New York market I expected to find information regarding the digital needs of in-house counsel and other ‘legal marketing’ related research readily available. I was wrong. Although I could find one off reports, and, of course, the great research carried out by Canadian Lawyer Magazine, none of it answered the questions our clients, the law firms, needed to know to better inform and market to their clients, the in-house counsel. When we spoke to colleagues on these subjects, they pointed to US research as if that was the best that could be done.
And so we developed the Canadian Legal Digital Survey, which asked Canadian lawyers, both in-house and managing partners about their needs and usage of digital tools such as the web, social media and new media sources.
And then the hard part began – reaching respondents, ensuring we didn’t fall foul of the newly introduced CASL and having a decent sample from which we could write our report. We succeeded with in-house counsel. With managing partners, not so much.
We received wonderful support from many in the legal community especially Fred Headon, Past-President of the CBA and Alex Shorten, President of the BC CBA, both who encouraged us that the research was not only worthwhile, but needed. Special thanks to you both.
And now we throw our report out to the market and keep our fingers crossed that all of the blood, sweat, tears, (and money) was worth it, and that our research is embraced by our colleagues and those others who may be interested in what we found. Hopefully, our first annual survey won’t be our last.
