With the importance of Internet advertising for lawyers, some attorneys have the misconception that the internet makes 1-800 vanity phone numbers less important then they used to be.

That’s because most lawyers don’t understand what a vanity phone number does.

Most lawyers (and others) think the importance of vanity phone numbers are that people will remember how to call you. That’s what the ABA Journal reported in 1-800 ADVOCACY Vanity Phone Numbers Make Your Firm Less Forgettable. It’s certainly a good feature but not even close to being the most important.

Attorney Big Al’s website

Toll-free vanity phone numbers are not only easy to remember, but after the end of a long advertising campaign a good vanity phone number can be remembered for years. After a law firm discontinued a two-year advertising campaign with 1-800-HURT-911, calls continued to come in for another two years.

That’s the problem with the New York State DMV hotline 1-800-DIAL-DMV. Due to budget cuts, the toll-free vanity phone number was dropped by the state 18 months ago and that’s when the problem started.

UPDATE: 1-800-BUSINESS was sold

1-800-BUSINESS, LLC is being sold at auction together with the valuable toll free vanity phone number 1-800-BUSINESS and related domain names.  The auction was announced earlier this week and will be held on May 27, 2010 by Streambank LLC.

The company is including the domain name 1-800-BUSINESS.com, but 1800BUSINESS.com and 800BUSINESS.com were registered to someone else.

The President of 1-800-BUSINESS, LLC said a number of bidders have already registered. To become a registered bidder, a certified check which is refundable to the losers must be submitted by the bid deadline of May 25, 2010.

I received an e-mail today from Jerrold Parker, senior partner at Parker Waichman Allonso, LLP, the well-known New York personal injury law firm.  Jerry was writing to ask me to evaluate and list his new personal injury case management software called SmartAdvocate. Apparently, Jerry invested a substantial amount of money to develop custom case management software for personal injury and mass tort cases and is now licensing it to other personal injury lawyers.

I responded to Jerry’s e-mail and he called me back a few minutes later. During our telephone conversation, we began discussing my vanity phone number 1-800-HURT-911, vanity phone numbers for lawyers and Parker Waichman Alonso’s new vanity phone number 1-888-BIG-CASE.

You need a vanity phone number for advertising. But what’s the value of a vanity number? That depends upon the vanity phone number, what it’s used for and whether you are a licensee, buyer or seller (vanity telephone numbers cannot be sold, but can be transferred with money exchanged as part of the sale of another asset, however, this is a topic for another discussion).

1-800 vanity phone numbers and 1-888, 1-877 or 1-866 vanity numbers using other area codes are like diamonds. All diamonds are rare and come in many different qualities. A “D Flawless” diamond with perfect proportions is the rarest of all. There are thousands of vanity telephone numbers, but probably no more than 3 or 4 “D Flawless” vanity phone numbers for any particular field of business.