How to write a lawyer profile

Layout

Top: your opening gambit

Your firm’s house style may constrain you to a certain extent, but there’s a golden rule when writing a lawyer profile, or any marketing content for that matter. And brace yourself; this may sound brutal.

Your target audience doesn’t really care about you. They only care about themselves and if you can make their lives better. This is why the best profiles contain more ‘you’, ‘your’ and ‘you’ve’, and less ‘we’ and ‘I’.

I see far too many lawyer profiles that start with, “I relocated to Norwich in 2015”, “I’m a husband and father to two young children”, or “I’m a keen cyclist”.

Stop. No one cares. Well, not just yet anyway.

Instead, open your profile with how you can help the reader. So you could go with something like this: “Jane is a solicitor and partner who can help your business with all employment matters such as: employment contracts, drafting staff policies, employment tribunals, TUPE and settlement agreements”.

State the clients you assist and explicitly the types of problems that you solve.

N.B. Using the term ‘solicitor’ and the word ‘partner’ can help people find your profile online.

 

Middle: your credentials

Once you’ve established how you can meet potential clients’ needs in your opening paragraph or two, you can then move on to yourself (professionally, not socially).

Establish your credentials and expertise with your qualifications and experience. Back this up with bullet points demonstrating your areas of skill.

You could also provide some work highlights in bullet points that can help to showcase your expertise concisely.

Keep bullets short. If a bullet point requires more than one full stop, it’s too long to be a bullet point.

 

Bottom: a little bit about you

Having said all that, hobbies and a fun fact about yourself are worth a line or two at the very end. Use them to show you’re a human being, not a robot, and to possibly build some rapport and common ground with a potential client.

Make them exciting and unique. “Reading, going for walks and socialising” is pretty dry.

 

Length

With Netflix, Whatsapp, Facebook, Tik-Tok, and all the other millions of things vying for your reader’s attention, people have a shorter attention span than ever before.

Grab the reader from the start. Don’t waffle, use jargon, or spend a long time setting the scene.

Keeping your profile to 300 words. Once you’ve written it, go back and see if there are any words you could go without, e.g. watch out for adjectives:

If you’re “extremely experienced”, you can just be “experienced”.

Who’s going to read your profile?

• Clients
• Potential clients
• Clients on the other side of transactions
• Lawyers on the other side of transactions
• Recruiters

What content do these people want to see when they land on your profile?  

• That you’re a solicitor/lawyer and the area of law you practise in
• How long you have been practising
• The type of clients you assist
• The kinds of problems you solve
• Your academic achievements and any specialist qualifications that’ll strengthen your profile (you should only include relevant ones)

So there you have it: how to boss your profile.

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