We recently implemented a new tab in your account called “Account Access” where you may add additional email addresses to receive leads or assign separate emails as account administrators.

Account management levels are divided into three groups:

• Email Leads:  lead recipients will receive all leads via email, but will not be able to check the leads within the firm’s dashboard as they won’t have account access.
• Account Administrator:  the Account Administrator will have their own login and will be able to see everything on the account, with the exception of viewing the leads in the dashboard.
• Both:  this access level will be able to see all information on the account, as well as receiving lead notifications via email and viewing leads in the dashboard page.

The primary contact will have access to both leads and account administration.  The access level for the primary contact may not be edited; however, you may edit the name or change the email address.

Users that are granted Account Administrator access will receive an email with their username and a temporary password for account access.  They will be receiving that email from noreply@notify-experthub.com.  Please add this email address to your address book or safe list as this will ensure our e-mail communications get delivered properly to your inbox.

If in any case an Account Administrator forgets his/her login information, they will be able to reset their password by following these simple instructions:

1. Go to www.nolo.com/user.
2. Click on the “Forgot your password?” link.
3. Type in your email address (AKA username), and click submit.

An email will be sent to you momentarily with your new login information.  To change your password, go to the “Dashboard” tab, and click on the “Edit Password” link located next to your dashboard photo.

The benefits of submitting contributed content to Nolo include:

• Exposure for your business.  All contributed content is linked to the profile page of the lawyer who submits it.  We also place a link to the lawyer’s own web site at the bottom of the article.
• Gain creditability.  Nolo is a trusted name in legal information.  Having an article published on a Nolo branded site – and article that was approved by our editors, no less – automatically puts you in some great company.

It’s taken us forty years to build our reputation – we’re offering you the chance to jump on board right away!

We don’t take just anything, though.  Our aforementioned reputation means we have to hold ourselves and everything on our sites to a high standard.

Here are some guidelines to help you get started correctly:

• Unique articles not found anywhere else on the web:  We are looking for articles that have never been published anywhere else, including anything you’ve published on your own web site or blog.
• Written in plain English.  Our goal at Nolo is to produce accurate legal information that is easy for anyone to understand.
• Articles submitted should be on specific topics.  An article on drunk driving would invariably be too general.  Try to address the specifics of DUI laws by state or focus on different parts of the DUI legal process.
• We do not accept self-promotional material asking the consumers to contact the writer’s firm for assistance.  Your information will be included by Nolo, so there is no need to take up space in the article for your phone number or website.  Search engines also don’t respond kindly to content like this.
• Please be mindful of content that is considered to be seasonal or time sensitive. If the issue you choose to write about will only be of concern for the next three months it will not fit well on the site.  We are looking for articles that will still relevant years from now.

After contributed content has been submitted, it goes through several levels of editing.  We receive a high volume of contributed content, and our editing process takes time, so please be patient. Any time an article needs revisions by the author, a re-write will be requested, along with a reason for the request.  If your article is not approved the first time, we strongly encourage you to re-submit once the suggested edits have been completed.

Here are some examples of well written contributed content.  We urge you to read them so that you have a better understanding of what Nolo contributed content should look and sound like.

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/irs-back-taxes.html

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/buy-a-boat-protect-financial-interests.html

http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-defense/defendants-rights/police-search-car-consent.htm

Contributed content is an important part of what we do at Nolo.  We look forward to getting your submissions!

If you have a question about a legal matter (or most anything, these days), what’s the first thing you do?  You probably head to the greatest repository of free information the world has ever seen: the internet.

Whether you use Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL, or any of the other search engines out there, it’s a safe bet that doing an internet search is your first move to find information.  The goal, then, is to make sure that our sites are being offered to you by those search engines.

That’s what the SEO team at Nolo does; we try to make it so that the first few web sites on the list you get from a search engine features something by us.  It’s not just that we want you to visit, but also that we know our pages are useful.  The same can’t be said for all web sites.

In other words, we can only really be useful if people can actually find us.

So how do we do that?

That’s a tricky question that has long, overly complicated answers.  We ultimately don’t know with 100% certainty which attributes a search engine like Google looks for when it’s ranking web sites.  But there is one thing that never hurts: quality.

We try a lot of different things to get Google to notice us, but in the end it’s quality content that rules the day.  It’s not an exact science by any means, but it is important.  Strangely enough, our end goal is to make our jobs unnecessary.  We want everyone to know the Nolo name and to come straight to us for any legal matter they might have.  We’d love to remove the middle man (the search engine).

With so many web sites out there and so much information waiting to be addressed, it’s going to take a while before we cover everything.  So we’ll be here, still plugging away, still trying to figure out ways to keep Nolo at the top of the list.

We gave users the ability to self-edit their profiles which in turn gives them complete control over how their firm is represented across our network. It’s nimble enough for changes 24/7 and even accommodates unlimited videos for each profile. Check it out:

Our unique article syndication platform is featured on the right side-bar of profiles. And of course, our help center has also been expanded to help busy attorneys take full advantage of all their new profiles have to offer, quickly and easily!

Steve was a part of Nolo almost since its beginning. Like his close friend Jake Warner, Nolo’s founder, Steve was passionate about access to law and tireless in his pursuit of anything that would get information and advice to people who needed it. Steve and Jake dreamed of a “streetcorner law machine” that would make mass-produced legal information and forms available to the public, and when personal computers became widespread, immediately saw their potential for do-it-yourself legal software. Steve was also an early and enthusiastic proponent of giving away plain-English legal information on the Internet, and championed Nolo’s early (1994) foray online.

Steve was an author of many Nolo books, including How to File for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, The Foreclosure Survival Guide, Trademark, Legal Research, Special Needs Trusts, and Chapter 13 Bankruptcy. He played a crucial role in developing WillMaker, software produced by Nolo in the 1980s that continues to help millions of Americans prepare their own wills and other estate planning documents. The program is famously both complete and easy to use–a result that was achieved in large part because of how much thought Steve put into it.

Books and software were only part of his efforts. Steve and his wife Catherine helped create the profession of legal document preparer (independent paralegal, in his original term), founding an organization for California document preparers. Steve also personally provided low-cost, high-quality legal help to thousands of clients over the years. His strategy, unsurprisingly, was unique; for $100, Steve provided a phone consultation and written report, designed to prepare clients to represent themselves.

Always advocates of free speech, Steve and Catherine were deeply involved in their community radio station, KPFZ, hosting shows every week and serving on the station’s board of directors.

Steve’s generosity of spirit was legendary. He had time for everyone, listened to everyone. He could talk books, baseball, politics, music, ideas–conversations with Steve were never dull. All of us lucky enough to know him will miss him deeply.