My Experience with Stephen Fairley and The Rainmaker Institute

The Rainmaker Institute, headed by Stephen Fairley, is a law firm marketing “school” of sorts, where you can learn how to promote your firm primarily with Internet marketing. I’ve never attended one of the paid “Retreats” offered by The Rainmaker Institute, but on two occasions I have attended MCLE functions such as the California Solo and Small Firm Summit, put on by the State Bar, where Fairley was acting as the moderator. At one of those conferences I won a CD set from one of the retreats, and listened to that, so I also have that indirect experience as well.

The Summits I attended started with a breakfast where Fairley spoke, then we went off to one of the many offered classes, then we’d return to lunch and hear Fairley speak some more, and so it would go. I found the information imparted by Fairley to be very (dare I say fairly?) useful. I credit him at the very least with introducing me to the full power of Internet marketing. I took what I learned from Fairley, added my own spin and techniques, and truly took my firm to the next level.

Fairley and The Rainmaker Institute are currently in the news because one of their clients – the Michigan law firm of Seikaly & Stewart – is suing them under a RICO claim, alleging that the firm paid Fairley and company $49,000 for Internet marketing services that turned out to be worthless. The law firm does not go so far as to say that it was hurt by the services performed, but claims that defendants should have known that “their schemes would have no positive effect and might have a detrimental effect on the [Plaintiff’s] webpages.”

After attending my first session with Fairley and applying some of the techniques I learned, I was excited to attend another such MCLE session a couple of years later, thinking it would bring the latest, greatest ideas. The problem was, unlike the first session, when I had known little about Internet marketing, by the time of the second session I had become somewhat of an expert myself. Fairley still imparted some good ideas about law firm marketing (and not all of them were Internet based), but they were more directed at newbies. Also, this time he was much more aggressive with the up-sells, and I knew from my own marketing experience that some of what was being sold was snake oil.

In one case he was talking about the value of backlinks (links from other websites back to your site), and quipped that all you have to do to see to it that your website beats the competition, is to have more backlinks. “If the site you want to beat has 20,000 backlinks, you just need to have 30,000 backlinks,” he said.

Amazingly, as luck would have it, he had someone there who was in the business of creating backlinks to websites. This person would create the aforesaid 30,000 backlinks to your website for the modest price of just $1,950 per month. As luck would further have it, this person normally required a one year commitment for this super-special backlink service, but if you signed up at the break, he would only require a six month contract. Attorneys lined up to sign up for the backlink service. Fairley can be very persuasive.

That one shocked me. For quite some time at that point, I had websites in my various practice areas ranking number one on Google, and their backlinks could be counted on one hand. The truth is that law firm websites don’t normally generate a lot of backlinks. The general public might link to a funny cat video, but an article on the latest long-arm statute interpretation? Not so much. Any technique that attempts to create that many backlinks to any website, let alone a law firm website, would be considered “black hat” by Google, and would almost certainly result in the website being de-indexed. On fiverr.com you can buy 50,000 backlinks for just $5, but they would provide no value. Google can spot link farms.

Given what I witnessed at the conference, I was not surprised to see that the lawsuit against Fairley and the Rainmaker Institute primarily involves backlinks. The complaint alleges that Fairley claimed that over 50,000 links had been created for the law firm, but that far fewer had actually been created and, of those, only 188 had any value, with the rest being “built with link farming techniques and, in many cases, were not forwarding to the Plaintiff’s webpages at all.”

The complaint admits right up front that no results are promised by Fairley, and that appears to be why the action is based on a RICO claim. The complaint can’t be based on breach of contract or even fraud, because it was never promised that the link building service would achieve any results. The plaintiff law firm is instead claiming that the services being sold are so worthless, that they “constitute a plan or scheme to defraud,” and entitle the firm to treble damages and attorney fees.

At the conclusion of the second conference I attended, Fairley suggested that attorneys should give their clients evaluation forms after representing them, to find out if any areas need improvement. Taking his own advice, he passed out his own evaluation forms. I gave him a “C” because I felt the up-selling had been too aggressive, and in the case of the backlinks, placed profits over the good of the attendees. I really wanted to talk to him about the backlink claims, and on the form I urged him or someone from his office to call me so I could offer my thoughts on how the issues could be addressed.

I did receive a follow-up call from The Rainmaker Institute, and the woman acknowledged the “C” grade on the evaluation form and promised that someone would call, but stated that the purpose of her call was to see if I would be interested in signing up for the next Rainmaker Retreat. She explained that the Retreat normally costs X dollars, but if I signed up during that phone call, it would be 50% off (I don’t recall the exact amount of savings).

No one ever called about the “C” grade. Had they done so, I would have explained that they are offering a tremendous amount of good information, and that there is nothing wrong with trying to monetize the process with some up-selling, but that there are enough valuable services to be sold that it is not necessary to stray into the snake oil.

I have to complete my MCLE by the end of the year, and there happens to be another Solo and Small Firm Summit hosted by Stephen Fairley set for June 19, 2014 in Newport Beach. I will probably attend. Despite his recent legal troubles (and my prior “C” grade), the fact remains that Fairley imparts a lot of good information. The MCLE classes will probably not provide nearly as much useful information as Fairley will between the classes.

As the old saying goes, you can’t cheat an honest man. Backlinks are a measure of the worth of a website specifically because they indicate that other websites thought enough of the content that they linked to it. When Seikaly & Stewart retained Fairley to create backlinks to its websites, it was intentionally paying someone to game the system; to artificially inflate the worth of the firm’s websites in order to fool Google. Fairley should not have offered the service, but neither should Seikaly & Stewart have requested it. Both are equally culpable. It is wholly disingenuous for the firm to now claim that Fairley should pay treble damages and attorney fees because the firm’s desire to game the system did not come to fruition. Isn’t that called unclean hands?