Get the latest legal insights at Primary Opinion

One of the things I enjoy about law blogging is my opportunity to interview thought leaders in the law.

Recently I interviewed Martin Burke who is CEO of Primary Opinion Limited.

Primary Opinion is the host for a webpage that strives to present a platform

“for the latest legal insights direct from lawyers worldwide.”

Here is the interview:

 What exactly are you trying to accomplish?

The name of our business, and of the platform as well is Primary Opinion.

We are bringing to market a new online platform for law firms to publish and distribute their articles, so they can reach and engage more actively with target audiences, whether it be in-house counsel, professional advisory firms, or other law firms to help develop referral networks.

Our platform uses the latest technologies such as legal taxonomies for better indexation and searches, as well as a modern UI design that ‘learns’ to deliver relevant and quality content according to a reader’s interests.

For law firm contributors we also enable customized and automated channels for further content distribution as well as analytics to provide insight as to how well their content is performing.

Where are you located?

We are located in a technology park, just outside London.

What is your background and how long have you been involved with this industry?

The team here at Primary Opinion have both extensive experience working in leading content service companies in the professional services sector as well as the building of new service operations and start-up companies.

I personally have worked for the last 25 years in the online content and legal services markets, including senior roles with the Financial Times, Thomson Reuters and CPA Global.

How did your idea come about?

The idea for Primary Opinion came about as a direct result of seeing how the legal industry has changed over the past five years, and how all law firms have to be far more proactive in being able to differentiate their capabilities and expertise in what has become a very crowded market.

What were some of your concerns as a start-up?

Making sure that we were prioritizing our resources in the most efficient way to be able to build and launch our services to the broadest possible market.

As a start-up entrepreneur what type of lessons could you give to inventors and people with new ideas as to how to bring their ideas to fruition?

Don’t get bogged down with planning to the nth degree – build, launch, learn from your customers, iterate, improve. You can’t second guess what will work and what won’t – listen and learn as much as you can from your customers.

You contacted me across the ocean are you pretty much going to be worldwide?

For many areas of law there is an international aspect, so for us to be a worldwide service was very important.  Large law firms are expanding their global footprint in order to find new business, while smaller firms are keen to build referral networks with other law firms worldwide.

What are some of the topics you intend to cover?

As an example our initial focus is on Intellectual Property law, and for most large corporations their legal needs are international if they sell or operating globally.

We shall then be quickly expanding to other areas of law such as Tax, Employment, Commercial and Finance.

Are you familiar with any of the laws regarding patent, trademark law or licensing and how they affect your business?

Our terms of service with our contributor law firms allow us to republish the content we are being provided with by them, and we have trademark protection on our company name in a number of key jurisdictions such as the EU.

How can law firms differentiate themselves in an increasingly digital world unless they embrace the use of this technology through content marketing?

 The answer is that unless they do take advantage of the opportunities this offers in terms of improved communication, engagement and service with their clients the risk is that over time they will become increasingly marginalized in an industry that is only become ever more competitive.