Your Most Important Marketing Piece – Your Biography

When did you last update your biography on your firm’s Web site? Does it reflect your most recent work and other accomplishments? In short, does it say the right things about you and confirm what referral sources and clients would say today when recommending you to others?

Most lawyers with whom we work, when asked, say they have not recently reviewed their biography. Many assume their marketing professional, legal assistant or administrator has taken the time to do it for them. Their firms and the lawyers have no formal review and update process in place. We recommend you have a tickler system so you personally review your biography on a regular basis, at a minimum twice annually. A firm policy may also be appropriate.

Your Web site biography is your most important marketing document. At most law firms, Web site analytics reveal that after the home page, the most commonly viewed pages in the aggregate on a site are various lawyer biographies.

Other surveys indicate that a robust biography is important to both lawyers and non-lawyers performing due diligence. A thin or dated overview of your skills actually works against you. So does a picture that’s out-of-date. People do look at pictures before and after going to events so they can match faces and names.

Make sure you include and update your biography to reflect the legal issues you have recently confronted and the industries in which your clients operate. Surveys of c-level executives, business owners and in-house counsel have been in agreement for a number of years now– industry knowledge (so they don’t have to take the time and incur the expense of explaining jargon to you) is the number one hiring factor, followed closely by recent experience with the specific legal issue you will be hired to handle.

When reviewing you biography, don’t forget to update versions in key directories, such as Martindale-Hubbell, and on social media platforms, such as LinkedIn.