Editorial
Front Page - Friday, November 12, 2010
New Bar Association directory will offer greater utility
David Laprad
Ken Berry, publisher of Chatter Magazine, and Lynda Hood, executive director of the Chattanooga Bar Association, discuss the new Bar membership directory, scheduled to debut in January in a highly revamped format.
- David Laprad
In some cases, the old ways were best. Consider, for example, the proliferation of the Internet and the explosive popularity of mobile devices.
The technology that was supposed to make life easier has actually led to a fragmentation of information. To find a bankruptcy lawyer, a person might have to perform several hit-or-miss online searches, comb through his mobile phone contacts and look through his email address book to find someone who could fit the bill. What once involved a quick search through a Yellow Pages or a Rolodex now entails rummaging through multiple devices to find one nugget of information that might or might not prove useful.
In ancient times, such information was gathered into manuscripts known as directories. Printed on wood pulp and bound between glossy covers, these indexes contained all of the contact information one would need for a particular field. It might have been primitive, but it worked.
Ken Berry, publisher of Chatter Magazine, remembers what it was like to hold a directory in his hands, hear the crack of its cover as he opened it and find a wealth of information inside. He’s even developed professional directories in other markets. Now, he’s bringing his experience and expertise in the field to bear on a spanking new directory for the Chattanooga Bar Association.
If Chatter does what it has set out to do, the directory will contain an abundance of contact details. In addition, it will present the information in a format that will benefit those who possess the directory.
“If you want to build utility into a directory of a Bar association, you’ll need more than an alphabetical listing of its members; you’ll also want to cross index the lawyers by specialty. That way, if I want to know which lawyers in Chattanooga handle bankruptcies, I can open the directory and see them grouped together,” Berry says.
That’s not possible with the Bar’s current directory, a small alphabetized membership directory. Berry looked at it and knew he could improve on it.
“There’s not a lot of utility in the current directory. And if a directory doesn’t contain utility, it’ll sit on a shelf and gather dust,” Berry says.
Berry also suggested the Bar might benefit from expanded distribution. The current directory is sent only to Bar members. By sending the new directory to selected firms outside the legal field, attorneys who are members of the Bar might receive business as a result.
In addition to being packed with useful information, the new directory will look great, as the team at Chatter will be using the same tools and talent it uses to design and lay out its monthly issues.
This means attorneys and businesses can expect a directory that’s easy to navigate, reader friendly and bursting with color, as opposed to the black and white format of the current index.
“It’ll be put together in a professional manner, which will increase the probability that people will use and reuse it,” Berry says.
That’s not all. The directory will also contain a 15- to 25-page section offering photos and articles about the history of the Bar and events in which the organization has participated over the past year. It will also include ads. The cost of advertising will be 20 to 30 percent higher than before, but the distribution will increase ten-fold, Berry says, making the investment worthwhile.
Finally, the directory will also be available online via Chatter and the Bar’s Web sites. “The Internet version will be first class,” Berry says.
Prior to coming to Chattanooga, Berry worked for Gannett Company, publisher of USA Today, in Honolulu. While he was with the media giant, the company asked him to oversee an offsite operation that focused on special publications such as directories.
The venture not only took first place in a state publishing competition but also earned Gannett a profit.
Berry says this experience, along with his close associations with lawyers, makes him the right man to put together the new directory for the Bar.
“I don’t know how this happened, but my best friends are attorneys, so I feel like I’m on the same wavelength as they are when it comes to this directory. The Bar is in good hands.”
Chatter is on tight deadline. The Bar would like the magazine to wrap up ad sales by Dec. 3 and have the directory ready for distribution in January. From there, Berry hopes the index will become an annual project, although Chatter and the Bar do not have an agreement to this effect in place.
That will likely change once the final product is printed on wood pulp, bound between glossy covers and placed in the hands of local attorneys and other firms. Call it primitive, but it just might work.
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