The agreement would allow Mexican freight trucks on U.S. highways, and this possibility has already generated controversy.  Several lawmakers are opposed to allowing Mexican trucks to freely operate on U.S. highways.  The concerns are not just for job losses in the United States, but also for the safety standards of these trucks.  According to lawmakers opposed to the agreement, the trucking safety culture in Mexico is vastly different from, and inferior to, that in the United States.  The trucking industry in Mexico is less regulated, and not subjected to the same number of inspections as here.

The Department of Transportation is moving to assuage concerns about trucking safety, by assuring Americans that Mexican trucks will be electronically monitored once they begin operating inside the United States, and that drivers will be subjected to random drug and alcohol tests.  Additionally, the Department of Transportation says it will ensure that Mexican drivers who operate inside the United States can speak English.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has a hard enough time inspecting trucks operated by American trucking companies, and keeping medically unfit and intoxicated truckers off our highways.  It’s hard to understand how the agency plans to ensure the safety of Mexican freight truck drivers who will now be allowed to operate here.

It’s not just the safety standards of trucking companies and truck drivers that is a question here.  It is also the fact that in Mexico, hijacking of commercial trucks is rampant, with more than 10,000 trucks being hijacked every year for narcotics trafficking.  It’s reasonable to fear that some of those trucks will find their way into the United States too.

Howard has practiced law in California for over 30 years and has an successful track record. He has settled cases for large sums of money and taken other cases to trial for a jury verdict.

I think Howard’s injury website is a great example of a website that brings a little of everything to the table.  It has great design, a lot of very specific information & is very easy to navigate.  But what really stands out to me is Howard’s use of video.  His video is NOT the garish type of video we often see of attorney websites.   Instead, it is very tastefully done, has a very high production value, and most importantly gives the prospective client a chance to see what Howard is all about.

There is a lot of confusion about the benefits of video.  Personally, I don’t think it helps with visibility all that much, but from a conversion standpoint I think it is incredibly powerful.  In many ways, attorneys with videos today are like attorneys who had websites back in 2002.  They are much more likely to be contacted by new clients because people searching the web for legal information will fin their sites, watch their videos and feel that they know more about them.

I recently met with an attorney (who is not yet a client) who was a Personal Injury attorney in Los Angeles.  Although he practiced all types of PI cases, his preferred cases were Bad Faith Insurance cases.   While putting together my presentation I looked at the traffic reports for many of our PI and Bad Faith Attorney sites.   The general PI sites were bringing in anywhere between 7,500 – 20,000 visits per year, but a small fraction of those visits ever went to those firm’s Bad Faith pages (around 1,000 hits per year tops).

The Bad Faith only sites definitely had less traffic, ranging from 3,700 – 6,800 visits in a year.  Yet virtually every visit was from someone looking up Bad Faith Insurance law information.    If you are an attorney looking for Bad Faith cases, which would you rather have?  More traffic to your site, or less overall traffic but more Bad Faith traffic?

But not every attorney or firm can have multiple websites.  Still, the same principals hold true.  The more detailed your page subjects, the better.  Don’t just have one page for motor vehicle accidents, instead have a page for car accidents, a page for truck accidents & a page for motorcycle accidents.   Don’t just have a page for defective drugs, instead have a page for Avandia Injuries, a page for Vioxx injuries, etc.   Those individual pages might individually bring in less traffic than one big catchall page, but their combined traffic will most likely be greater and certainly be more qualified.