Morgul Marketing

    Every idea in a Miami-Dade family law feed has to be made twice

    A bilingual family law practice in Miami-Dade pays for its content twice, and usually notices the second bill only when the Spanish version stops appearing. Every finished idea is two scripts, two recordings and two sets of replies, and the one that gets postponed is always the same one. Around that sit two constraints firms tend to discover late. Whatever the Florida Bar requires a lawyer's advertising to carry has to be there in the language the video is actually in. And a large share of the families you want to reach will already have taken advice from somebody whose title meant something very different in the country they came from.

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    Record the Spanish take first, or the Spanish version never gets recorded

    Every clip a bilingual firm makes is two clips, and the plan has to be built around that from the start.

    The pattern that fails is familiar. The English version gets recorded on the day, the Spanish one gets scheduled for later, and later never arrives because the attorney is at the Eleventh Judicial Circuit all week.

    So invert the order. Record the Spanish take first, on the same subject, before anyone is tired. If only one version survives the day in this county, it should be that one.

    Write the Spanish version rather than translating the English one. Same subject, different script, because the questions people actually ask are phrased differently and the useful examples are not the same.

    Budget the session honestly. A recording day yields around half the topics it would for a single language practice, which is an argument for covering fewer subjects properly rather than a long list thinly.

    A disclaimer that lives only in English does not cover the Spanish clip

    Florida's advertising rules follow the lawyer rather than the language, so anything a firm is required to say has to be said in the language the viewer is watching in.

    A Spanish video carrying its firm name, its required wording and its limits in an English caption is not doing the job. The person it was made for is not reading that caption.

    The same applies to anything that sounds like a promise. A sentence carefully hedged in one script often comes back harder in the other, because a translator reaching for the natural word reaches for a stronger one.

    Have whoever answers the phone read both scripts before either is recorded. They will hear the line that means something firmer in Spanish than anybody at the firm intended.

    Confirm the current requirements with the Florida Bar or your own counsel rather than with a template, and confirm them for both languages. Nothing in those rules is written to give a translated advertisement an allowance.

    Families here ask a notary before they ask a lawyer, and that is content

    A large share of your future clients will take their first piece of legal advice from somebody who is not a lawyer.

    In much of Latin America a notary is a trained legal professional. In Florida the role is very different, and families arrive expecting help that the person in front of them is not permitted to give.

    Explaining that difference calmly is useful and almost nobody does it. It reaches people at the moment they are deciding who to trust, and it positions the firm without a word of self promotion.

    Keep the tone clear of contempt. Most people who went that route did so for sensible reasons, including cost and language, and a video that mocks the decision will be read exactly that way in Little Havana and forwarded as proof you look down on the neighborhood.

    Describe the role rather than the business. What the job covers in Florida and what it does not is fair comment; naming an office two blocks away is a different act with a different set of risks attached.

    A matter with a party abroad fills the inbox overnight

    In a county where the other parent, the marital property or the relative paying for the consultation is often in another country, the messages do not arrive during a Florida workday.

    A separation with one spouse still abroad, a house held in another country, an order entered by a foreign court. Work like that is ordinary here, and the questions about it land at four in the morning, sometimes from an account with no name on it and sometimes from a relative rather than the client.

    An automatic reply promising a call the next business day reads differently to somebody several hours ahead who has been awake since before you posted. Say what the window actually is, in both languages, and say who will be on the other end of it.

    Decide in advance what the firm will do by message. Whether a first conversation can happen by video with a person outside the country, what may be sent that way, and what has to wait for a consultation in Hialeah, Doral or wherever the local half of the family actually is.

    For the questions that have nothing to do with Miami-Dade, such as what to publish, who should say it and how to judge whether the channel is working, see our general guidance on family law social media.

    Questions we get

    Every firm here says it is bilingual. Why would a feed change anything?
    Because saying it and showing it are different. A page listing Spanish as a language is a claim. An attorney explaining a foreign custody order in Spanish, on camera, is proof a viewer can evaluate in one sentence. The feed does not out-shout anyone. It makes one lawyer a recognizable person to households who otherwise pick from a list of identical claims.
    Can we just add Spanish subtitles to our English videos?
    Subtitles help, but they are not the same asset. A subtitled English clip reads as content made for someone else and then handed over. Record separate takes when the topic matters, subtitle the rest, and put your effort into the Spanish versions of the two or three subjects that bring in the most work.
    Are we allowed to talk about cases we have handled?
    Not in any way a person could be identified or a result implied. Confidentiality governs the facts, and the Bar's advertising rules govern what a firm may suggest about outcomes. Teach the process instead, and confirm current requirements with the Florida Bar or your own counsel before publishing anything close to the line.
    Our only Spanish speaking attorney is in trial for much of most months. What cadence is realistic?
    Set it from her calendar rather than from a content plan, and publish only what she can also answer. A Spanish video that draws Spanish messages nobody can reply to for a week does more damage than a quiet month. Let the English side run at its own pace and stop treating the two as one schedule.
    Can a translation service write our Spanish scripts?
    A translator is useful as a check, not as the author. The script should be written by the person who will say it and take the call, because the questions arrive in different words than the English ones do. Then have somebody read the translated lines for anything that now promises more than the English did, including the wording the Bar requires you to carry.

    Rules that affect your marketing

    Florida Bar advertising rules govern what a firm may claim, how past results may be described and what has to be reviewed before publication. The practical local fact is that family matters are heard in a judicial circuit, and circuits differ in their standing orders, parenting-course requirements and mediation practice, so procedure genuinely varies between neighboring counties.

    Written by KC Thompson, Morgul Marketing. Updated .

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