You know the law and you’re a force to be reckoned with in the courtroom – but let’s face it, there is more to running a successful firm than mastering the law. Building a profitable and well respected law firm takes a business savvy that touches on many disciplines such as sales, marketing, customer service, and business development. In today’s post, I’d like to talk about a concept that encompasses every one of these aforementioned disciplines: branding.
What Is Branding?
If you were to ask three managing partners what is branding?, you would most certainly get three different answers along the lines of:
- Branding is the look and feel of my law firm – from logos, to business cards, letterheads, etc.
- Branding is the marketing and advertising campaigns I use to promote and attract clients to my law firm.
- Branding is how I make my current and potential clients feel good about doing business with my law firm.
While all three of these answers are correct, it is important for us to have a clear and concise understanding of what branding really is. You may be surprised at the sheer simplicity in which we define branding: Branding is a promise.
That’s it! But how can it be that simple – you ask? To better explain, let’s take a closer look at not what branding is, but what our law firm will achieve through great branding…
Imagine your law firm has a golden reputation. Whether you’re a solo practitioner or a mega firm, the community associates your firm’s name with a level of service that is unmatched. You charge more, in fact a lot more, than the competition, but clients keep coming your way and retaining. You’ve throttled back spending on advertising, but word-of-mouth is steadily growing and again – clients keep coming your way and retaining. Your staff his happy because clients are happy, the bottom line has never looked better, and to put it simply, life is good. Can we really thank branding for all of this?
Branding and The Golden Reputation
Of course we can, and here is why! To build the kind of firm I just described, you must maintain a golden and highly regarded reputation. In order to do that, it’s essential to make sure your law firm is always being perceived as having the qualities that people like doing business with: honesty, reliability, compassion, skill, and ability. When you promise these qualities and always deliver on these promises, word spreads and your business will enjoy great success.
This is why we say: Branding is a promise. Every single time a current or potential client interacts with your law firm, whether it’s calling your office with a question or receiving your business card, you have the opportunity to make good on your promises.
Good branding goes beyond fancy business cards and advertising. It encompasses everything and everyone at the law firm. If you want to brand your business as being reliable, it doesn’t matter how many cases you win, if you don’t answer the phone or your staff is keeping people on hold for a long time, you will not be seen as reliable. If you want to brand your law firm as being compassionate, you must ensure that every client interaction is empathetic and genuine (no matter how hard that may be).
Summing It Up
Your case record may be impeccable, but I hate to break it to you, you’re not the only one. Nowadays, especially in these economic times, clients have options. But more often than not, they will retain the firm with the strongest branding, because branding leads to a great reputation that clients can trust.
We are proud to announce the release of a highly anticipated feature – Batch Document Upload. This makes it easy to upload multiple documents into MyCase all at once – easily assign them to a case, control sharing, assign tags – it’s super simple! 
