News From the Legal Expert in September
We know that potential clients search online for lawyers. Allowing someone to steal your firms’ online identity has serious potential for reputational harm. We are seeing countless instances of scammers setting up fake law firms using real law firm names and credentials, even copying bios and photos of lawyers. Many will use the firms’ name and divert traffic to a counterfeit site or other malicious destinations. Once the fraudster has scammed a would-be client, “clients” complaints about your firm can then proliferate across social media before defending yourself. Therefore, your firm needs to protect and monitor its brand.
The need to properly monitor your brand has never been more important. There are many high-quality brand and trademark monitoring services that you should investigate. You can create a brand protection strategy that meets your firms’ specific needs. Trying to protect your brand without the appropriate professional service providers is an overwhelming task. You need to hire a professional.
Typical protections include some or all of the following types of services:
- Global Domain Name Watch
- US and International Trademark Watch
- State Trademark Registration Watch
- Company Name Watch
The best advice I can give is to consult with a Brand & Trademark Monitoring Service to decide what you need to best protect your brand. They can address and combat issues such as:
- Combatting counterfeit websites
- Preventing unauthorized domain name and trademark hi-jacking
- Preventing the diversion of consumer traffic to unauthorized or malicious destinations
- Overall protection of your brand
Brand protection is money well spent and usually a fraction of the cost of defending or correcting some malicious act.
