In a few weeks, attorneys will acquire a new Internet area committed to them. How committed attorneys will be to it is addition matter.
The new “.pro” area is for accountant professionals — currently doctors, accountants and attorneys. Each group, moreover, will get its own “secondary level” domain. Doctors can annals at “.med.pro,” accountants at “.cpa.pro” and attorneys at “.law.pro.” So the XYZ Law Close could adhere out its cybershingle at “xyz.law.pro.”
But there are signs that things acquire afflicted back the 1990s, if humans agilely affective up area names. It now appears that abounding attorneys and their firms acquire alloyed affections about application the dot-pro domain.
LUKEWARM REACTION
“From my perspective, dot-pro has generated actual little absorption in the acknowledged community,” said Mark Willard, a accomplice at Pittsburgh’s Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott.
Special aegis appearance of the area to acquiesce encrypted e-mail may not be a big draw. Abounding law firms already acquire Internet security.
“If we wish to encrypt our e-mail, we absolutely do that if necessary,” said Willard. “We aswell acquire agenda certificates.”
Moreover, dot-pro’s aegis seems absurd to amuse all clients’ needs. Audience who wish encrypted e-mail generally adopt to use their own technology or one which is an industry standard, said Mark Heaphy, a arch accessory at New Haven, Conn.’s Wiggin & Dana. “Best practices alter beyond industries,” he said.
The ambition bazaar for dot-pro is the small- to medium-size able convenance group, said Sloan Gaon, arch operating administrator and carnality admiral of action and acknowledged diplomacy for Atlanta-based RegistryPro Inc., the anthology for the dot-pro domain.
However, one business adviser for baby law firms is advising his audience to save their money and stick with dot-com.
Doron Levin, an advocate and the admiral of Houston’s Levin & Associates, provides client-acquisition casework for baby firms that specialize in accumulation abomination and claimed abrasion litigation. He said, “Consumers acquire a mindset to access dot-com on their keyboards. I don’t admonish my audience to bathe adjoin the current. Most of my audience are not traveling to be registering.”
It may be beyond firms that will wind up registering, to assure themselves from cybersquatters.
“We will register, if we haven’t done so already,” said Alan Sutin, a accomplice in the New York appointment of Greenberg Traurig. That way, he explained, “we won’t acquire to accord with any abeyant issues of third parties demography our name.”
Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker will register, according to agent Patrick Dorton, as “part of attention the Paul Hastings brand.”
Eckert Seamans won’t get an alive registration. It is unnecessary, said Willard, because “dot-com is the area for business.” But he added that the close may get a arresting registration.
Hartford, Conn.-based Day, Berry & Howard is undecided. “We are still allegory this,” said accomplice Richard Harris. “The analysis is whether there will be abashing a part of our audience if addition acknowledged alignment takes our name in dot-pro. And my business humans can’t acknowledgment that for me appropriate now, because no one knows how accepted the dot-pro area amplitude will become.”
In all, eight out of 11 firms contacted discussed their affairs with attention to dot-pro.
SELLING POINTS
The dot-pro area has some adorable features. Unlike a dot-com registration, it will accommodate added than just an Internet address. Registrants will acquire accoutrement to facilitate arcane communications over the Internet — specifically, agenda certificates and software to encrypt e-mail.
“A agenda affidavit is like an online passport,” said Gaon. It tells the almsman of an e-mail “that you’re a lawyer, that you plan for XYZ close and that this credential has been cross-verified by a third party. It indicates area the e-mail came from, that it hasn’t been tampered with and that it has been beatific and received.”
Dot-pro is altered from dot-com in one added way: It’s abundant added expensive. Registering a name for one year will amount about $300, about 10 times the amount of registering a dot-com.
An buyer of a nationally registered brand can book a absolutely arresting registration, which is somewhat beneath expensive. Such a allotment doesn’t actualize an alive Internet address. It alone prevents anyone abroad from avaricious it. The bazaar amount for a arresting allotment accoutrement just one secondary-level domain, such as .law.pro, is about $1,000 for four years, according to Gaon. The amount for a arresting allotment accoutrement all the accessory domains in dot-pro is about $3,000 for four years, he said. A arresting allotment covers alone the exact agreement of the trademark.
The new area is accepting alone arresting registrations until the “sunrise period” ends on June 30. The area is accepted to go reside ancient in mid- to backward July, Gaon said, at which point it will acquire registrations for alive addresses on a first-come, first-served basis. Resource collection by WS
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