Texas Law Marketing took home the nationwide first prize in the Legal Marketing Association’s community relations competition for 2014. Working for the Family Law Section of the State Bar of Texas, TLM bested some of the largest law firms and other legal organizations to take first place in the Your Honor Awards at LMA’s national conference.

The winning entry was a narrative of the creation and execution of Family Law Cares, the program instituted by the Family Law Section to organize and market the state’s pro bono programs to provide legal services for the poor. The Dallas-based marketing and PR firm created a wide-ranging program that includes legal branding, media relations, website development, special events, email marketing, advertising, e-newsletter and video.

The summary accompanying the Pro Solutions submission reads: “By using a multi-level approach that continually connected with attorneys, the Family Law Section differentiated its message. At each special event, legal service providers signed up attorneys to accept training, take cases or mentor others.”

“We market by educating and informing,” says TLM president Larry Upshaw, a prolific magazine and newspaper journalist and the writer of a dozen books on legal topics. “We believe in providing a leading edge visual display, but it must tell a valuable story about our clients and their services.” Upshaw says his team’s award-winning work shows what they can do with an adequate budget and a client who values a creative approach.

TLM is the recently created successor to Pro Solutions Group, which has almost 30 years of experience in a wide range of PR and marketing areas. The firm offers the LawTalkTexas Marketing Platform to firms and individual attorneys that includes a speakers bureau, media opportunities and online and print content. From this basic approach, firms can add on video, email marketing and many other promotional features.