In Brief: The Columbus Bar Blawg

by Bradley W. Miller, Miller Law LLC

Lawyers are creatures of habit. We stick to the tried-and-true, what has always worked in the past:

• Clients will hire us because we are the best attorneys around at what we do.
• Especially in the high-dollar practice areas, there are clear “experts” in the field that everyone looks to.
• We don’t need to market ourselves – clients will come to us because of our name.

The world is changing. The internet brings unfettered access to legal information and resources. Thousands of new attorneys are admitted each year and new law firms pop up almost daily. There is increased competition for clients, even in the once-exclusive high-dollar practice areas, and it is a buyer ’s market. The gaps in quality between one firm and another are shrinking, and firm names no longer carry the same weight they once did.

The lines differentiating one firm from another are blurring. The only way to stand out in the crowd is to be creative with our legal marketing. That means no more firm websites that read like brochures, extolling the firm’s virtues and explaining why any client would be crazy not to hire them. No more social media accounts that are glorified news feeds about the firm and provide no interaction with potential clients or the community at large. There are ethical rules that must be followed, but those are the outer limits of the marketing playground, and everything within those walls is fair game.

“So often we are trapped in what others tell us we can and cannot do in relationship to how we work , how we promote our work . We get caught up in other people’s images of us and it restrains our creativity. Our natural inquisitiveness is quashed.”

How Creativity Will Save the World