The Winning Approach to Writing Attorney Website Bios
At Spring Insight we feel fortunate to work with some amazing law firms. We create their websites, keep those sites performing, help them attract new clients with ongoing content marketing support, and help them put their very best foot forward finding new associates by creating and curating an active presence on social media platforms like LinkedIn.
Why do they come to us? It’s way more simple than passing the bar exam.
Law schools don’t teach you how to win new clients. They don’t discuss just how difficult it is to stand out among your peers offering similar services. The bar exam doesn’t test on effective marketing techniques and ways to convert website traffic into viable leads. And that last bit is tricky for another fairly simple reason.
An attorney-client relationship can be a super personal one. (And I’m not just saying that because I’m married to one.) Whether a business is seeking an attorney to help them with an acquisition or a wronged spouse looking for a family law attorney to guide them into a new phase of their life, finding someone with whom you “fit” is critical.
And where are these potential clients going to look to see if an attorney at your firm might be the right attorney for their case? They are going to read (and re-read) the bios on your law firm’s website. And, spoiler alert, they are going to read a lot of bios as they seek to find the right person, from the partners to the associates. They want to see who is best for them and to make sure your entire firm is staffed with highly qualified, competent lawyers who can help them resolve their case.
It’s super important to get attorney bios just right. We have experience helping law firm clients craft website bios that communicate credibility, experience, and yes, personality so they can speak directly to those clients that are a perfect fit for them and vice versa.
Here are some content marketing recommendations for writing a winning law firm website bio.
Establish Credibility
Your potential clients want to know you have the education, experience, and skills necessary to solve their legal problems. Get specific about the types of cases you handle, how long you’ve been practicing, your work and successes in and out of the courtroom, and any recognition you have among peers in roles as a mediator or appointed advocate. If you are the go-to third-party for mediation in your local area, your bio is definitely the time to share that. If you’ve litigated high profile cases, include that, too.
A note for freshly confirmed members of the bar: We know you don’t have decades of experience to tout to help establish your credibility. Leverage any and all student lawyer roles you held, including which courts or jurisdictions that service happened in. If you served the firm in a legal assistant capacity or as a paralegal, talk about that.
Get Personal
Potential clients want to know who you are as a person. Reveal your personality, passions, and approach as they relate to your legal practice. If you are direct and no-nonsense, let potential clients see that about you. If you are empathetic and compassionate, this is the place to let those traits come through.
Some law firms include anecdotes about their children, pastimes, or pets. We don’t typically include things like this in our client’s law firm bios for a couple reasons. One is that potential clients frankly don’t care where your favorite vacation spot is when they need help sorting out a legal matter that has serious consequences for their life. But also, it’s because of our next point, which is all about keeping it tight and concise.
Avoid Overly Verbose or Complex Language
In content marketing, we’ve all heard that legal writing tends to be overly wordy. The Spring Insight team has seen this in action while researching the web presence of law firms. Many of them are chock full of text. The words go on and on, rivaling an encyclopedic volume.
Don’t do this on your law firm bio pages. You aren’t talking to other lawyers and you aren’t making a case for an actual legal matter. You’re attempting to communicate with clients who, for the most part, won’t be other attorneys.
Keep it tight and concise. Make every word count. Potential clients want to glean what you’re about, what makes you qualified, and get a sense for the person they are potentially choosing to be in their corner. If you drone on and on, you’re going to lose and confuse them.
We recognize this is no simple task. That’s why law firms come to web and marketing agencies like Spring Insight who have the copywriting chops needed to communicate the message in a powerful, compelling way in as few words as possible.
Create Alignment with Your Firm’s Values
Ask yourself, what does our law firm stand for? What makes us different from the others? Why would a client want to work with us instead of another firm? These are defining characteristics of your firm and they help clients understand if your firm is the right fit for them. (And if you don’t know the answers to those questions, we should talk about your brand position.) Incorporate how your practice of law is driven by those values.
These values should be consistently communicated across every bio on your website. Now, of course we don’t recommend plugging a simple value proposition into every page “copy and paste” style. Mix it up with different ways of demonstrating that all the lawyers on the team are anchored by a core philosophy. Content marketing can get easier by the reminder to include your firm’s value!
Include Community and Professional Associations
Potential clients want to see what else you are doing. Do you give back? Do you volunteer your time? Is your community important to you? We recommend including these affiliations and associations in your bio, but not in a long list style. There are many stylistic choices a skilled web designer can make that will display this information in a way that is fully digestible and accessible.
Writing your law firm website bio is an important, but sometimes tricky task. Incorporating these elements and techniques can help make it shine and attract the clients that are the best fit for you and your firm. If you want some help putting your best digital foot forward, Spring Insight can help. Contact us to learn more about what we do for the law firms we serve.