The Role of Vanity in Law Firm Marketing
William M. Doll. Ph.D., J.D.*
A dark secret about marketing for competitors are thinking, of course, the same
business or corporate law firms: so much of it about their ad compared to yours.)
has more to do with attorney vanity than it does
Now the ad could be snappy, well done
with getting new business. Yes, of course, within the boundaries of West Virginia’s Rules of
developing new business is supposedly the Professional Conduct, and even arguably
justification for spending what can be large financially useful. But few firms have the ad
amounts of money. Yet,
budgets those objectives
Law firms often don’t look at
these sums are hard to
require, or the financial
marketing as a coming attractions
connect to any specific,
campaign about the firm. Instead
stomach.
Advertising
bottom-line outcome. But
they throw money at one-shot
which attracts attention
they do make an attorney
ads to announce their selection to
has good design, smart
a “Best Lawyers” list. Why?
feel good.
copy, sufficient size on
Vanity.
Take the ads law firms put in local and
even national publications. Let’s move past their
resemblance to tombstones, with similarly
lugubrious associations. Here’s the firm’s ad,
dully nestled among a dozen other similarly
dyspeptic designs, generally noticed by nobody
– except the attorneys who placed the ad. The
attorneys no doubt feel good seeing their name
in print, marveling at their snappy graphics and
witty copy, so clearly superior to the
embarrassingly gray pudding placed by their
competitors elsewhere on the page. (Those
the page to be noticed and runs often enough to
be remembered.
Each of these elements – design, copy,
ad size and print frequency – costs money. An
effective ad campaign in a metropolitan daily
and an industry trade paper can easily cost
$70,000 -- $80,000 a year or more.
And, for all that, frankly, they won’t get
you clients. That’s not what ads for professional
services do. They start the conversation before
prospects meet you. Done right, ads and other
p.r. and marketing tools give you an identity in
the marketplace, an identity that precedes you
into a meeting.
Law firms, however, often don’t look at
public relations and advertising as a coming
attractions campaign about the firm. Instead
they throw money at one-shot ads to announce
their selection to the “Best Lawyers in [fill in the
blank]” or one-offs in special sections
(concocted by advertising managers primarily to
lure such ads) on estate planning.
point -- stoking vanity may be a necessary and
even economically useful function in a law firm.
Media appearances keep attorneys soothed,
recognized and important. A happy partner is a
good thing.
The other attorneys in the firm (if they are
not rivals of the media darling) also feel good
about their firm – that it is in the news, it is
recognized. Current clients, too, feel good –
raising the stature of your firm when clients see
that the media says their attorney is an expert.
Why? Vanity.
But what these one-shot, scattershot,
A partner feels good seeing his name. vanity-powered exercises don’t get you is
Scattershot p.r. is less business
The practice group feels good. Or, the flip-side: business.
development
than it is internal management.
absence from a page filled with the assembled
High-glamour H.R. In some instances, such
ranks of competitors’ ads doesn’t feel good.
plays to vanity may glue that high-billing attorney
Or take getting an
of inconstant affection to the
Done right, ads and
attorney’s name in an article
firm. What it isn’t, and can’t be
other marketing tools
in the paper. The function
without a sustained eye-on-thegive you an identity in
once served by legions of
prize effort, is a way to develop
the marketplace.
gossip
columnists
from
new business or markets.
Walter Winchell to Dorothy
To be a business development tool, law
Kilgallen – showcasing celebrity names in print -firms
need
a
single-minded
business
has morphed so that every beat reporter has
become a Winchell-like potential outlet for an development and p.r. effort, not just staring into
attorney to be quoted as an expert on some legal the lovely mirror of their occasional media clips.
issue or decision or (if one is truly blessed) the
Otherwise, it’s all about vanity. Nothing
subject of an article.
wrong with that. Just know what you’re buying.
What’s wrong with that? Nothing. But
recognize it for what it is. Vanity. Not business
development. In fact -- and this is the larger
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* William Doll is an attorney and sociologist in Cleveland, Ohio where he heads Bill
Doll & Co., a professional services research and communications firm.