Branding Your Law Firm

When people hear your law firm’s name or see your logo, what do they think of? Hopefully, their association is positive and they think of you as a law firm they can trust. Hopefully, they think of you at all. Law firm branding and trust is important to stay top of mind with clients and prospects and develop brand recognition, but first you need to create and cultivate a strong brand image for your firm.

Creating and sustaining your law firm branding is essential across your website, through your content, and within your social media presence. A strong brand image leads to stronger brand recognition, reputation, and trust with clients and prospective clients.

Image

Brand image includes all visual elements associated with your law firm starting with the name. It’s important to consider your law firm’s name and domain name carefully because changing them would require quite a bit of rebranding. Avoid choosing a long name and aim for a domain that matches closely to your firm’s name or abbreviation.

Elements like logo and website design are more flexible to innovation and adaptation as aesthetic trends change. While you should put time and effort into these visual elements, they should remain simple and directly correspond with the persona you want your law firm to embody.

Distinction

During an rebranding effort, one firm discovered that 146 of the Am Law 200 firms used blue as their primary color. While it may be tempting to emulate the branding of a successful competitor, it’s always better to try and stand out.

When it comes to law firm branding, think about how your law firm is different than competitors. You could position yourself based on the types of clients you serve, whether you’re a local or international firm, or your niche practice areas.

Content

Content is key. In order to gain new leads it’s important to establish your firm as a thought leader through blogs, podcasts, webinars, and so on. The content you post can also further develop your law firm’s brand image. The voice and style of writing as well as the type of audience you aim to write for will all tie into and emphasize the type of law firm you want to be positioned as.

Even if you outsource some of your writing or have multiple authors make sure they understand your audience and brand in order to maintain a consistent tone across content.

Social Presence

Social media is an excellent place to further promote your thought leadership content. Your social media strategy should reflect your law firm’s brand image across platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Social networking can be just as important as traditional networking. Follow and engage with others on social to make your presence known and your voice heard.

It’s not just up to the company to be active on social media, but the employees as well. Employee advocacy makes it so your law firm’s name and content has an even farther reach as employees within the firm share with their own individual social networks.

Your firm may understand what they represent and how they want to be perceived, but often there is a disconnect when it comes to how this is actively expressed to your firm’s target audience. Through brand image, distinction, content, and social presence you can maintain a transparent and consistent brand for your law firm.