You’ve probably seen the scholarship link-building pitch and filed it under “worn out.” Lem Garcia, a personal injury attorney in the Los Angeles area, still runs one, and when he was on Unscripted SEO he was plain about why: it helps a student, and colleges link to it. Here’s how the play works, why it holds up, and the local versions you can run next to it.
What Lem’s scholarship actually is
The Lem Garcia Law Scholarship is an essay contest. Students write about how they want to make an impact in the field of law after they graduate, and the winner gets $1,000. Here’s how Lem described the payoff on tape:
“So with this scholarship, we’re able to provide some help to people that you need help of course but then also through the scholarship we’re getting backlinks from from the university to the colleges that post that scholarship”
Notice the order he put it in. Help first, links second. That’s the version that lasts. A scholarship page that exists only to collect links reads that way to the financial aid office too, and they’re the ones deciding whether to list it.
Why it fits a law firm better than most businesses
The essay prompt is the part most scholarship pages get wrong. Lem’s ties straight back to what his firm does: students who want to make an impact through law. That gives a college a reason to list it and gives the page a reason to exist on a law firm’s site. If you run a plumbing company, a prompt about the trades makes sense. A generic “write about your goals” prompt on a dentist’s site doesn’t.
Here’s what I’d check before you copy it:
- The prompt connects to your work, so the page belongs on your site.
- The award is real and gets paid. Lem’s site posts the past winner, which is the proof a school wants to see.
- You track which school pages list it and whether they still do. Scholarship listings get pruned every year, so the links you earned in year one won’t all be there in year three. Check which schools are still linking before you renew the budget.
- It runs every year. A one-off contest earns one round of listings and then goes stale.
The local version: booths, teams and sponsorships
Lem doesn’t stop at the scholarship. His firm sets up booths at the mall, at running events, and at local high schools, middle schools and junior colleges, wherever the community is holding something. He also mentioned youth baseball and local organizations, whose websites can link back to a sponsor.
When we talked about it, I pointed him to ZipSprout, which surfaces local sponsorship opportunities by city: art walks, fun runs, canned food drives. You can find small-dollar and medium-dollar sponsorships, and you get the contact info to make it happen. If you want a step-by-step version, we have an SOP for building local links by sponsoring nonprofits, and another on local link building through referral partners.
The shortcut that works and still isn’t worth it
I told Lem about a business owner who’d consulted with me after buying spam comments on Fiverr. His link was the 13th comment on a tech article, between a casino and Viagra. And the page did move up. I wish it weren’t true. But that’s renting a ranking from a site you basically hacked, and it can go away the same way it came.
Lem’s version of the same instinct showed up when he talked about reviews. He went all in on client reviews in 2014, before other firms in his market were collecting them, and his rule since then has been to do it properly so the firm lasts. A scholarship, a booth and a team sponsorship are slower than a Fiverr gig. They’re also still there next year.
So before you buy another link, ask yourself what your firm already does in the community that nobody has written down yet. That’s usually where the next link is. Listen to the full conversation with Lem Garcia for his take on reviews, content and AI.
This article is about marketing, not legal advice.