Anytime something like this takes off, the question always becomes: how do I replicate it?  No secret there—start with a great product.  Marketing folks often say that the worst thing you can do is use good ads to drive a customer to a bad product.  Why?  Because when you eventually have a good product—customers won’t believe your good ads.  iParis iHilton.  iGeorge iBush.  Doesn’t generate those same warm feelings as iPod, does it?

When you couple a great product with great advertising and branding devices (the “i” and the iconic Apple) you have what Apple has going for it now: the benefit of the doubt.  With the onslaught of hype surrounding the iPhone—one wonders whether Apple can revolutionize yet again.  Having not read a review of the actual capabilities or features its success already feels inevitable to me.  So what if it drops calls, radiates my brain, and hides itself from its owner like all the rest?

Perhaps that is because, according to a recent study, only 30% of clients are happy with their law firms. Loyalty, like a partner’s practice these days, is portable. And with people being marketed to everywhere they go, word of mouth, business cards, and golf balls with the firm’s name on them are no longer cutting it. So law firms are acting more like businesses and less like, well, law firms. Here are the days of client-teams, marketing departments, and tag lines. Firms are dropping names off their letterhead for branding purposes and working with advertising agencies to develop websites that are as well designed as they are technologically sophisticated. And, like all good things, success begets success. When one thing works, firms are replicating it and wanting more—a new web-site becomes a new print campaign becomes, well, billboard advertising.

Which brings me back to the billboard and my thoughts: I came to the same conclusion that I suspect a lot of people in the legal profession did: what is good for business may not be good for the profession. Any time someone goes too far with something these days, there is a backlash. Just ask Don Imus.