DLA Piper Earns Top Overall Ranking in The 2017 Social Law Firm Index

The 2017 Social Law Firm Index takes a comprehensive look at the top 200 law firms in the country (as ranked by The American Lawyer) and analyzes, measures, and ranks each firm’s reach and engagement across a variety of social media channels and content platforms.

We asked the top firms in each category to describe their experience and efforts in achieving success. The overall winner, DLA Piper, achieved a near-perfect Good2bSocial score of 98.4.

As we uncovered in our inaugural release of The Social Law Firm Index, DLA Piper was an early adopter of digital marketing and social media, topping the rankings that year. In the years since they have maintained their digital and social media execution with outstanding reach and engagement evidenced across all platforms.

Here’s their story.

“Our lawyers embrace the most effective platforms they can use to reach their clients”

DLA Piper Chief Marketing Officer Barbara Taylor on the firm’s overarching mission of their digital efforts: “Social media isn’t new to us – we were an early adopter and continue to see it as an important channel to support the firm’s strategy and to tell the world the DLA Piper story.”

This might pose a unique challenge for an international firm with a presence in more than forty countries—every region brings its own cultural and legislative complexities to a communications strategy. “We have a global team that has regional as well as centralized responsibilities. We collaborate every day and, given the nature of digital, social media is a natural way to take advantage of our platform. It is a critical part of our external communication efforts and allows us to further push our message and brand beyond ‘traditional’ communications.”

This global strategy approach has helped DLA Piper to execute its marketing and business development efforts via targeted channels for different audiences. Barbara explains that “As large and expansive as DLA Piper is offline, we are as expansive online, and we strive to ensure the content we push online is high quality. We also look to innovate in how we reach our audiences, through various channels and rich media. The firm’s expansive presence on social [media] requires that we be strategic in how we approach our content—not every piece of content is right for every channel, and we try and use different platforms for different initiatives and different campaigns as appropriate.”

To help ensure success on the front end, Barbara’s team actively encourages attorney buy-in and participation, providing essential training in social media writing and best practices. “DLA Piper prides itself on being entrepreneurial and innovative, and our lawyers embrace the most effective platforms they can use to reach their clients.” This support also includes supplementing internally generated content from the firm’s attorneys with curated third-party content. As Barbara describes the evolution of social media initiatives at the firm, when it comes to digital outreach and engagement for business development: “The lawyers are always eager for and open to more.”

Perhaps another important indicator of success is a willingness to measure performance. Barbara reveals, “Analytics is integral to everything we do. The data we are able to pull with our digital tools helps inform us on what works and what doesn’t and accelerate the work we do with marketing overall.”

Download the 2017 Social Law Firm Index!