While the uncertain economic climate has made hiring lawyers a potentially expensive proposition, one national firm is giving entrepreneurs information at no cost over the web.

Over the past year, Fraser Milner Casgrain (FMC) LLP has created specialized microsites — DoingBusinessinCanada.com and TechStartupCentre.com — that provide a guide to the legal and business issues facing foreigners interested in setting up shop here (such as recent mergers-and-acquisitions activity) and for those already here wanting to launch a technology company (giving them info on such details as understanding intellectual property rights).

Primarily intended for clients, the microsites reflect industry experience FMC has accumulated over the past two decades, says David Little, who chairs the firm’s private equity and venture capital group in Ottawa and who spearheaded the initiative with Warren Glenn, FMC’s Toronto-based digital marketing guru.

“People don’t have time to read information in a 200-page guide. They want answers to questions they have right now, so the microsites are designed to address that need,” explains Glenn.

“Our lawyers involved in these issues also have the greatest knowledge base to answer questions and interact with people who want more information.”

The microsites provide a direct link to FMC’s main website, and serve as a more subtle marketing tool for the firm.

“Every law firm talks about all the great deals they’ve done and how good their lawyers are, but the microsites take it one step further by showing people what we know,” says Little, who adds that FMC will roll out more of these sites covering such topics as mergers and acquisitions, energy and clean technology.

There are also plans to make the microsites available in different languages, such as French and Mandarin.

“The existing sites reflect the questions we’ve been asked over the years,” says Little. “We’re just making it easier for high-tech entrepreneurs to get themselves ready for the marketplace and for foreign investors to understand the key parts about doing a Canadian financing deal.”

For more information, please read Christopher Guly's article "Connect to clients through microsites," appearing in The Lawyers Weekly (Nov 2011)

Republished with permission.