Published December 15, 1997

Does Sheela Murthy Have The World's Best Lawyer Website?
After just three years on the web, this Baltimore solo's practice has grown twentyfold. Here's how she did it.

By Michael M. Bowden

Back in 1994, Baltimore solo Sheela Murthy was still struggling to get her fledgling immigration practice off the ground.

When her husband, a computer graphics expert, offered to design a website promoting her business, Murthy - who jokingly describes herself as "computer illiterate" - told him to go ahead, figuring, "Hey, it couldn't hurt."

Talk about understatement!

A mere three years later, Murthy's home page http://www.murthy.com is arguably the hottest small-firm lawyer site on the World Wide Web, scoring some 300,000 hits a week.

As a result:

Her firm's gross revenues have grown more than twenty-fold over her already significant income.  She's raised her fees 25 percent over the going rate in an attempt to stem the tide of new business -- but the clients keep rolling in.  Her support staff has increased from zero to seven, with two more hires expected by year's end.  Her professional exposure has grown to the point where her name is dropped in top immigration and marketing circles worldwide, making her what one expert calls a full-blown "Internet celebrity."

It's definitely been a wild ride for the 36-year-old Harvard grad -- herself an immigrant from India -- who abandoned a promising megafirm career to open her immigration boutique.

What is it about her website that's caused her business to skyrocket with such dizzying velocity?

The answer, experts say, lies in Murthy's use of the Net as an interactive tool rather than merely an electronic billboard. And within that high-tech framework, the human factor still looms surprisingly large.

Murthy's cutting-edge approach to legal marketing provides a valuable lesson for small-firm lawyers looking to use the Net to their best advantage.

Hitting the Web

When she first opened her solo practice, Murthy concentrated on traditional marketing techniques such as networking through bar associations.

But she never really considered joining the biggest network of them all - the Internet -- until her husband, Vasant Nayak, made the suggestion.

Nayak, a graphic artist, is director of the graduate program in digital art at the Maryland Institute, College of Art. A long-time computer enthusiast, he was quick to grasp the Internet's possibilities as an interactive marketing tool.

"Back when the Internet was first getting popular, I began to see the potential of enabling Sheela to reach large numbers of people with information that wasn't available anywhere else," he says.

Murthy was skeptical at first, but Nayak persisted.

She recalls, "He kept following me around, saying, 'It's the wave of the future! I'll do the work! I'll do this, I'll do that!' And finally I thought, Fine, if it's free, I guess I can live with it. I've got nothing to lose."

So Nayak went to work, and by the fall of 1994 he had the first version of Murthy's immigration website ready to go online.

Joining Forces With a Giant

In the beginning, Murthy's home page wasn't nearly the showpiece it is today. "Back then, the site existed only in a simple, non-dynamic way," Nayak explains.

To boost its appeal, he decided to join forces with an organization called the India Network Foundation, which maintains a hugely popular website (http://www.indnet.org/) offering a broad array of information and services for people of Indian origin worldwide.

Murthy and Nayak were longtime fans of the site and subscribed to several of its listservers.

"India Network was already sending out a lot of e-mail bulletins on many subjects of interest to Indians," Nayak explains. "But they didn't have anything on immigration."

Understanding that the Indian community was a natural market for Murthy's services, Nayak contacted Dr. K. V. Rao, president of the India Network, and offered to fill the "immigration gap" with a mutually profitable service.

Rao was receptive to the idea, and Murthy went to work.

She established a service called IMMNET, the India Network's Immigration Forum. The forum's readers were invited to submit e-mail inquiries about U.S. immigration issues for free consideration by a real attorney: Sheela Murthy.

Immediate Results

This interactive approach to Internet marketing began to show results almost at once. Inquiries began trickling in immediately, and they quickly grew into a flood.

Soon afterward, readers were contacting Murthy's office with more specific problems. Her free advice was beginning to yield paying clients.

As more and more people discovered the India Network's new immigration feature, hits on Murthy's website multiplied dramatically. Understandably, she has no intention of dropping her free Q&A service even today, and the feature's popularity continues to grow rapidly.

"Every week we get hundreds of questions for her!" enthuses Dr. Rao. "She is very popular. She has become a celebrity in the Indian community."

Rao adds that Murthy's reputation is also spreading quickly among would-be immigrants of other nationalities.

"Initially, our forum was reaching mainly people from India," says Rao. "Now we have users who are Chinese, Vietnamese, European and everything else. We are still the only source on the whole Internet freely offering this kind of service."

Of course, Murthy carefully controls the ground rules in her online dialogue.

"We created some very strict guidelines," she notes. "All questions have to be very generic and non-case-specific, and very succinct and to the point. I advise readers that I can only give general information, because I don't want to enter into an attorney-client relationship. I don't want a malpractice lawsuit because someone relied on me. If someone wants to get specific, I tell them it's advisable to talk to their lawyer."

If the reader doesn't happen to have a lawyer, Murthy's website and contact information are only a click away -- which makes IMMNET an extremely powerful marketing tool. By linking the Q&A forum back to her home page, Murthy instantly connected herself to the India Network's vast readership.

At the same time, Murthy also established an e-mail subscription service of her own on the India Network. Titled the IMMNET Bulletin, the service offers a bi-weekly collection of immigration updates and articles prepared by Murthy's office - with each issue containing that all-important link back to her home page.

As Murthy's reputation grew, other immigration-related sites contacted her, asking if they could distribute the bulletin as well. She had no objection, of course, and her name spread still further across the Net.

Today, according to the Internet search engine AltaVista, nearly 400 other websites link to Murthy's home page. Add to that figure the 1,500 websites linking to the India Network, and the secret of her firm's growth becomes clearer.

Murthy's website has now grown in sophistication to the point where she's able to distribute the bulletin through her own listserver as well. Subscribers number high in the tens of thousands, and their ranks are growing steadily.

Dr. Puneet Chandak of Harvard Medical School's Department of Nuclear Medicine, says he first discovered Murthy through her IMMNET forum.

"I'd been reading her e-mail bulletins for about a year before I contacted her," he says. "It impressed me that she cared enough to release such helpful information to people free of charge. If you had to hire a lawyer to get this information, it would get pretty expensive."

The bulletins built Chandak's trust and confidence in Murthy's expertise, and a subsequent visit to her home page reinforced his good impression. Chandak got into the habit of checking Murthy's site regularly to keep informed on recent immigration law developments. Later, when he needed help securing permanent residency in the U.S., he decided to give her a call.

What She's Doing Right

As the popularity of Murthy's website grew, Nayak took a year's sabbatical from teaching to upgrade it into its current state-of-the-art form, for which Internet experts have high praise.

"It's a wonderfully comprehensive site," says Aaron Grossman, a technology journalist whose articles on the Internet are popular features in Lawyers Weekly USA.

"She has a bigger site than some firms with over 200 lawyers," he adds. "She provides a ton of basic immigration information. Everything a potential client really wants to know about her or her practice area is right there."

"The content is very, very important," agrees lawyer Stacy Stern, president of the Internet-based legal resource, FindLaw, Inc. (http://www.findlaw.com) in Palo Alto, Calif. "It gives people confidence that she's savvy in her expertise."

Stern also observes that Murthy's eponymous URL, www.murthy.com, is "easy to remember. It's a good idea to have your own domain name rather than a bunch of dots and slashes and symbols."

Grossman notes that Murthy is smart to offer readers an all-text version of her site, since the full-graphics version could prove too slow for users with older computers or modems - which is frequently the case in markets such as India, China and Russia, where Murthy finds many of her clients.

As for her showpiece graphic site?

"It's very professional-looking, and that's reassuring to clients," Grossman says.

The experts note the site's clean, uncluttered look; its logical organization and easy navigability; its speed; its sophisticated icons; its handy search functions; and its smooth links to numerous sites of interest to Murthy's clientele -- from cultural information to job-hunting assistance.

And no matter which links the reader follows from Murthy's site, her home page continues to frame the viewer's screen, Grossman notes.

"That's a nice idea," he says. "It keeps the reader's focus right where she wants it. She never lets you forget that you're at her site."

He adds, however, that this particular technique is quickly "becoming a matter of contention on the web" since it tends to obscure the actual ownership of the linked sites and their content.

Finally, Grossman notes that Murthy was extremely lucky that her husband was willing to contribute so much effort toward the creation of her high-quality site.

"If you hired a professional firm to do it, that kind of site would cost you a fortune," he says. "I'd strongly advise any lawyer who has free labor to take advantage of it!"

Nayak has bigger plans for the future. Already, the site includes video and audio clips of Murthy, but most computers are too slow to conveniently access these features.

"Right now, those things are just for fun," Nayak admits. But as the Internet becomes faster, he intends to incorporate streaming audio and video files as essential components of the site.

Online 'Talk Show'

Grossman and Stern agree that the effectiveness of Murthy's site principally results from her use of interactive Internet tools.

"She's doing a lot of things right," says Stern. "She's involved in the Internet community. She doesn't just have a website; she does things to drive traffic to her site. Her e-mail bulletins remind people to visit, and her frequent site updates give them a reason to stick around."

"You can have the greatest website in the world," adds Grossman, "but it doesn't mean a thing if no one's coming to look at it. You've got to be able to establish yourself as something more than just another lawyer with a website."

Murthy's Q&A forum also gets high marks.

"It's like doing a talk show," Stern noted. "It's a great way to increase name recognition."

Similar impressions are voiced by attorney and Internet expert Peter Krakauer, president of Internet Legal Services in San Francisco (http://www.legalethics.com).

"Putting up a website alone is not nearly as valuable as taking part in an online discussion, talking about your practice area, and referring back to your online resources. The most effectual lawyer sites I've seen offer a complete set of resources in their particular practice area," Krakauer says.

He credits Murthy's site for its tight focus on aspects of immigration law that are most valuable to her business-oriented clientele.

"She is providing important resources for both attorneys and the public on her site, and she's providing people with the opportunity to participate," he says.

In so doing, Murthy has effectively leveled the playing field, giving herself an opportunity to compete one-on-one with the world's largest, most prestigious law firms.

"A website truly is the great equalizer," Grossman says.

That, of course, can be threatening to the status quo. At a recent immigration law conference, Murthy was approached by a veteran immigration lawyer, who noted her nametag and said, "A-ha, so you're the infamous Sheela Murthy, the one with the slick website!

"It's amazing how someone who's only been practicing for a year or two can hoodwink all of those people out there in the big wide world by using some snazzy website," he continued.

Says Murthy, "I could have really lost my temper. Just because someone's been practicing for 35 years, it doesn't necessarily make them any more knowledgeable or any more of an expert than someone who's been doing it for two years.

"I'm proud to say that I'm one of the more knowledgeable people in immigration law in the United States - and that's because I spend my waking and sleeping hours dreaming, hallucinating and working on immigration issues."

Can Others Imitate It?

Our experts agreed that just about any lawyer with a website can learn something from Murthy's success. However, reproducing it wholesale could be more problematic.

One reason is timing. Murthy enjoys a significant advantage as an early entry in the Internet marketing sweepstakes, since it always helps to get in on the ground floor.

Says Grossman, "Murthy began doing this three years ago when the Internet revolution was just getting going, and she has now established herself as an Internet celebrity. She climbed on board at just the right time, and she has been able to parlay that into a successful career."

Another major factor working in Murthy's favor is the nature of her specialty. Since immigration is a purely federal area of law, Murthy's practice isn't constrained by state borders. She can handle clients coming to America from virtually any corner of the globe, as well as those already living anywhere in the country -- all without ever leaving her office.

"I rarely meet my clients in person," she notes. "Almost all of our communications will generally take place over the Internet."

Murthy points out that certain other practice areas, such as securities law, are also purely federal in nature. However, immigration law has proven to be especially fertile ground for Internet marketing.

As a top example, Krakauer points to the sprawling U.S.-Canadian firm of Suskind, Susser, Haas & Chang, which also built a booming immigration practice using a massive interactive website (http://www.visalaw.com).

Nonetheless, Murthy insists that the Internet offers a valuable market for lawyers in virtually any field. She explains that, while her referrals come from virtually every corner of the globe, her clients often live right around the block.

"We end up getting quite a lot of local business from people all over the world who refer their friends, clients, contacts, employees, or branch offices in this region to our office," she says.

The Human Touch

However, Murthy insists that technology is only part of the picture. She says the true power of the Internet can be harnessed only when it's combined with old-fashioned word of mouth.

"Whatever the source of the original referral, the future of my business is going to depend on the good work I do, and the goodwill I bring from existing clients," she says. As a result, she notes, her website seems to be most effective when a reader has been referred to it by another client.

"That added seal of approval makes all the difference," she says. "On average, each one of our clients ends up referring between a half-dozen and a dozen people within six months to a year. Once your site gets well-known, word gets around very quickly."

Too Much, Too Fast?

When her Internet practice took off, Murthy had to deal with the problem of having more clients than she'd ever expected, far sooner than she'd imagined possible.

When she first went out on her own, Murthy had set up shop in an office-sharing arrangement with a group of other solos. However, she soon realized she'd have to move on. Her practice had ballooned beyond the group's modest space and personnel resources.

Within a few months after her website went online, Murthy's workload "began to get overwhelming," she recalls.

"I was truly at a point where I thought I would collapse, because I was trying to do all the work on my own. It became very obvious that I was reaching the breaking point, where I was kind of cheating myself by not hiring someone to help."

In the spring of 1995, she made her first hire. By that fall she'd added another. Since then, "I've had to hire a new person every three or four months," she says.

Murthy relocated her growing office to a handsome office complex on an eight-acre wooded lot in the Baltimore suburb of Owings Mills. There, she turned to the rather enviable problem of slowing her firm's incredible rate of growth.

Upping Her Fees

Murthy says that her firm's growth rate has surprised no one more than herself.

"It's been just exponential!" she marvels. "By the fall of last year, we'd grown tenfold in terms of gross revenues. As of today it's twenty-fold, and we're still on a steep upward climb."

She realized that, unless she took control of the volume of work coming in, her level of quality and service -- and, ultimately, her professional reputation -- would suffer.

The solution? She upped her fees.

"I felt we'd established a good enough reputation around the country and around the globe, so I decided to raise my pricing structure accordingly," Murthy explains.

"I took a fairly average sampling of what was out there in the marketplace in terms of flat fees, hourly rates, blended averages, etc., and I came up with a number about 20-25 percent higher than that average."

If clients aren't willing to pay the higher rates, they're free to seek representation elsewhere. It's a policy that raises her perceived value in the eyes of clients, she believes.

Says Murthy, "A client will sometimes tell me, 'Your prices are much higher than the competition's. Can we work around that?' And I tell them, 'You're paying for quality, and I'm not ready to match the prices of a person who I don't think is offering the same kind of quality.'"

Murthy has also experienced a growing respect among her peers. While she has not formally written on Internet marketing strategy, her views on that subject -- and on immigration law -- are increasingly sought by both colleagues and the press.


No Other Advertising

And the rapid growth continues.

"I realize this can't go on to eternity,' she says. "There's got to be a plateau at some point -- but it's not in sight yet. In the meantime, I'm trying to control the steering wheel and push the brakes. If I dropped my prices to become more competitive, I have no doubt that we could grow one-hundred-fold."

Imagine what she could do if she advertised.

Except for a small listing in her local Yellow Pages directory, Murthy does no advertising beyond her Internet presence. She has a toll-free number, but has not yet released it to the public.

Her husband assures her that he has a host other other Internet marketing ideas up his sleeve, and frequently tells her, "Just let me know when you're ready to go to the next level!"

But Murthy's not quite ready yet.

"I'm scared that if I put my name out there, I'm just going to get more business," she says. "And who's going to do the more business? I can't handle all that work. I can't service all of those people with the quality that I'm looking for."

Another problem is her stubborn determination to remain solo no matter how much her firm may grow. But Murthy remains confident it's a balancing act she can handle.

"I'll figure it out somehow," she says. "I guess it's a nice problem to have, really."

Ethical Uncertainty

Practicing on the technological edge carries some risks. With Internet law still in its infancy, Murthy can never be certain that she's obeying all the rules.

For example, in their review of Murthy's site, two of our experts raised questions about her use of client endorsements, noting that many jurisdictions ban such advertising.

Murthy's jurisdiction, however, does not. According to Janet Eveleth, director of communications for the Maryland State Bar Association, lawyers in that state are free to use client testimonials for advertising purposes as long as the client has actually used the lawyer's services.

Nonetheless, Murthy acknowledges that an Internet law practice can be a dicey undertaking.

"I'm never 100 percent sure about it, because it's such a new and emerging area of the law," she says, noting issues such as whether a website constitutes unauthorized practice of law in other states and whether a client might argue that he or she relied on Murthy's advice despite the heavy use of disclaimers in her Internet communications.

"Sometimes it makes you a little nervous," she admits. "Because you never know who's going to rely on what and try to sue you. But I guess that's the price of success."

Rather than allowing such concerns to paralyze her efforts, Murthy instead concentrates on maintaining a precision and accuracy in her work.

"I do only business immigration," she says. "Plus some employment-based immigration, and a very little family-based immigration. But nothing else. No asylum, no deportation, no court-based work. It's a full-time job just keeping up with the areas where I do practice! With the number of changes all the time in federal immigration rules, it's truly a lifelong learning process. The more you know, the more you know you don't know."