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There are times when a brick-and-mortar presence can be useful for a growing law practice, especially if it's hoping to nab clients through location-based—and consumer friendly—platforms such as Google Maps.

But where does that leave virtual law firms? Well, depending on the client base they are hoping to build, the answer might be in pretty good shape.

Kevin Broyles, a managing partner at the virtual firm of FisherBroyles, noted that an assistant general counsel at a major company isn't going to use Google Maps, Bing or the internet in general to find a lawyer.

“They're going to go on word of mouth, who they know and legal resources they have. Usually it's going to be the network they have,” he  said.

To be fair, FisherBroyles does maintain physical offices in major cities such as Atlanta, Boston and Chicago. Broyles described them as a “pay as you use the resource” setup.

Those locations weren't chosen less because they would make a splash on Google Maps as because the cities themselves carried a certain amount of prestige and would provide easy access for clients traveling in or out. “We used to say, if [the city has] a professional sports team, we'll be there,” Broyles said.

Like in real estate, location can still be important to ongoing health of a law firm, especially if that firm relies on business from walk-in clients who think their case might benefit from representation with intimate knowledge of the jurisdiction in question.

Of course, if a firm's business model isn't geared toward clients who turn to search engines in their time of legal need, that problem most likely doesn't apply. Like FisherBroyles, the virtual firm Potomac Law Group concentrates primarily on corporate clients who aren't consulting Google for legal services.

Marlene Laro, a partner and COO at Potomac, said that their clients are generally indifferent to where an attorney might be based.

“I think that the way we spread the word and get our name out and have our lawyers become known is very similar to the way it's done in traditional firms, frankly, by our lawyers publishing interesting articles or client alerts, by presenting at various professional conferences,” Laro said.

To be sure, the firm does maintain flex offices in several major U.S. cities, but those locations were selected  for their proximity to legal talent pools, not with an eye toward any kind of an online marketing  agenda.

In some ways, the business model favored by a virtual firm like Potomac—which Laro said has attempted to divest itself of many of the fixed costs impacting other law firms—seems to suit an approach to marketing that is less dependent upon location-based search optimization, event sponsorship or billboards.

Rather than engage in those practices, Broyles has distilled the formula down to relationships and warm referrals.

“I keep telling people you're wasting your money. You're better off becoming an expert in a field and writing about it. That may be how you get hired by someone who doesn't know who you are,” Broyles said.