ShalePlay App Keeps Energy Clients Current

Positioning your Law Firm 

as an Expert

Blogger Mark Beese, at Attorney at Work, reports on several presentations given at the recent conference of legal marketing professionals.  This story about "valuable free content" offered to energy law clients caught my eye.  

Paul Grabowski, CMO of Bracewell Guiliani, gave a behind-the-scenes tour of what it takes to produce an award-winning mobile app. Targeting energy companies, Bracewell’s free “ShalePlay” app provides a stream of news, analysis and legal commentary on the hydraulic fracturing industry segmented by geographic shale “plays” throughout the U.S. 

The process of creating the app took 14 months, and was a cross-disciplinary collaborative effort of in-house staff, attorneys and outside designers that required strong project management and a good budget. More than 10 software tools were involved in development, design and usage metrics. 

Grabowski’s lessons learned? 

• Create a useful tool for clients that shares information or resources — not a brochure or directory of your firm.
• Make it simple and fun to use.
• Limit self-promoting content to 10 percent.
• Innovation and creativity in law firms are fertile soil for skepticism, group-think and Murphy’s Law. Be prepared for surprises, delays and cost overruns.

ShalePlay, which received a 2014 LMA “Your Honor” award, has been promoted through multiple channels, including industry conferences and email promotions. Word of mouth, however, seemed the main driver of the thousands of downloads in its first week of release. 

The fracking glossary and news feeds have been such a valuable resource, some clients and prospects have made the app required reading for landmen and energy executives.

The iTunes Store description provides: "Requires iOS 6.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5."