Why Martindale Is Dying

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Summary: The only reasonable explanation for Martindale-Nolo sending out spam emails is that they are just dollars from going under and need to generate business using any means possible.

Business must be slow right now for Martindale-Hubbell. The company started roughly 140 years ago in order “to furnish to lawyers, bankers, wholesale merchants, manufacturers, real estate agents, and all others…the address of one reliable law firm, one reliable bank, and one reliable real estate office in every city in the United States…” Now the company has resorted to spam emails to find business.

  

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They purchased Hubbell’s Legal Directory in 1930 and released their first edition of the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory the following year. Now they provide profiles of over one million lawyers and firms in the United States as well as in Canada and 160 other countries.

In a desperate effort to generate business, Martindale Hubbell Nolo is emailing generic emails to potential clients. The email does not provide any direct mention to the specific person they are referring to such as, “Hi I got an inquiry from some one who listed your firm as being interested as being listed with Nolo. It looks like you have a broad practice that including civil litigation and some IP work.”

The emails are bursting with bad grammar and incomplete sentences, “I am thinking you would like a listing in our business law section and our perhaps our IP law section.” Or “Are you looking to more corporate transnational work?” We are not completely sure what point they are trying to make with these desperate emails. They don’t even take the time proofread before sending them out to the masses.

They claim that advertising with them is about 70 percent transnational business leads and 30 percent civil litigation. The cost to advertise with them is “20 per person you talk to and 400 to talk to 20 people.”

Update on December 9, 2016: We recently received another email allegedly from Martindale as a follow-up to this one:

So I had a quick call with your staff. This is our business civil litigation package. I included LA and Ventura counties. The only cost is 20 per person you talk to and 400 to talk 20 people. you can vet the quality of the leads by clicking the link below and then clicking view past leads.

http://www.nolo.com/proposals/review/NOLO_11x58472ad2ae92bx11950762

Update on December 13, 2016: We received another follow-up email from Martindale:

Do you think Martindale is desperate or trying something new? Tell us in the comments below.

To learn more about Martindale’s past, read this article:

Martindale-Hubbell Lays Off Attorney Ratings Specialists

Photo: lib.law.washington.edu