By: John D. Barber, Marketing Coordinator, White and Williams LLP
On October 16th, 2014, the Legal Marketing Association - Philadelphia Metro Chapter met to discuss, "What does it mean to be a brand in 2014?" The featured speaker was Tony Defazio, Senior Vice President of Public Relations, DDC Works. Tony discussed attorney and law firm branding. He spoke on how to successfully, and consistently, brand individual attorneys and their firms as a whole.
The Internet and social media have created an enormous amount of opportunities for self-branding. Unfortunately, the accessibility of these opportunities has caused the marketplace to become increasingly crowded and standing out can be incredibly difficult.
In his presentation, Tony discussed several examples of individual attorneys that have set themselves apart from their peers by managing their own personal brands particularly well. While their individual brands vary greatly from one another, they each share several factors that allow them to be successful. They each specialize in one specific field and have become thought leaders in their practice area or industry. They each know exactly who their audience is and they position themselves in the marketplace to best reach that audience through whatever medium that audience feels most comfortable. They all remain consistent and committed to their approach seeking long-term, rather than short term, benefits from their efforts. By using this approach, attorneys display a clear, distinct, and consistent message of the value that they bring to clients.
A motivated attorney can do a great deal to manage his or her own individual brand. Creating a firm-wide identity from hundreds of partners practicing many different areas of law, servicing various industries, may be an unrealistic goal. However, coming together as a firm to discuss the image and culture that the firm wants to project can have great value. This discussion should give the firm a greater understanding of who the firm is and what its position is in the market place. Knowing these things will allow the firm to better position their messaging and manage its brand.
Individual attorneys’ and the firm brand should not be thought of as mutually exclusive. Utilizing an individual attorney's brand in a way that is consistent with the overall identity of their firm leads to positive brand awareness for both the attorney and the firm. The two brands should be working in unison with each other speaking to the same audience, possibly from different angles or channels, but saying the same things. Firms and their attorneys should always be aware of who they are, focused on what they do well, and consistent in how they talk about themselves.
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