“A Partner saw an item in an alert, reached out to their client, and obtained a major matter as a result. The firm has since leveraged that matter into a highly profitable and market-leading practice where the firm is seen as a leader for these types of matters.”
That’s feedback from one of our clients. The alerts the library team sent out, through Vable, directly led to new business for the law firm.
Most library teams can send two types of email to their lawyers - alerts, which are typically automated updates about key topics, or curated newsletters. The latter are carefully created by the library team to contain the most relevant information on a range of topics.
Curated newsletters are not just a tool to inform lawyers of what is happening in their area of interest; they are an invaluable resource for building trust and marking yourselves out as industry experts. Obtaining the right information, as it happens, has a real-world impact on the bottom line.
So, how can you make the most out of your newsletters and alerts? There’s no single formula for success, but firms that get real engagement from their newsletters tend to share a few key habits. Here’s what makes the difference.
The best way to deliver content that will add real value to lawyers is to work with them to identify exactly what they need.
Encourage feedback on alerts and newsletters to determine how they are using them. Reviewing analytics on open and click rates on your emails can be really useful as a starting point here - if they’re not engaging with it, then you can take steps to improve the content or remove the alert and pivot to something more relevant.
Similarly, encourage lawyers to treat curated content as a starting point - an introduction or commentary can frame the news and open the door to further discussion.
Information overload is a buzzword these days, but it is a real problem facing law librarians. How can you deliver regular, timely, and relevant content, without making it too much or too little? It is a delicate balance.
But a key tool in your armoury is making that content easy to review and consume.
Curated newsletters should be broken down into clear sections, so lawyers can skip to the bits they’re most interested in and come back to the other topics later. A table of contents with links to those sections can help with particularly long emails. Ensure you use headers and line breaks to introduce the white space necessary to quickly scan the newsletter.
We are all different, and therefore, the way we want to consume information will be different as well. While some lawyers will prefer regular alerts, others will want to get their information in a well-laid-out newsletter. This is why Vable, and most content aggregation platforms offer both alerts and curated newsletters as an option.
This all relies on you sending the information in a timely manner, and in fast-paced industries, even daily alerts may not be frequent enough. Providing your lawyers with opportunities to self-serve the content you have curated for them can be a fantastic way to put them in the driving seat of how and when they consume their updates. That’s why we developed MyVable, a platform for lawyers, so they can get the latest news on their personal dashboard whenever they want.
So you’ve identified how to create engaging and relevant curated newsletters for your firm, but there’s more you can do - create content specifically for your clients.
Your clients are inundated with information every day - from industry updates and press releases to countless newsletters that all compete for their attention. To cut through the noise, your firm’s content needs to offer something distinctive.
It’s not enough to simply demonstrate expertise in a practice area; the real value lies in helping clients understand why a development matters and how it could affect their business decisions. It’s something to consider to reinforce your firm’s role as a trusted advisor who adds genuine value to every relationship.
But why is engagement from your lawyers so important?
Even a 10% increase in newsletter engagement can translate to more client conversations and new opportunities - proof that a little extra attention to structure and readability can deliver measurable returns.
As our client’s experience shows, when curated information is delivered strategically, it doesn’t just inform - it inspires action. That’s where true client engagement begins.