I was in a meeting (a physical one) with two law firm clients this week and one was showing the other the new website we have just designed for them.
The topic came up of which staff to feature on a law firm’s website. I am pleased to say that the website we have just designed is going to feature ALL the staff that work for the law firm. The client is following our advice which is always to include all staff.
Yes, I understand that it will be more work e.g. more photographs to take, more biographies to write, more content to load and thus take more time or cost more money. But I believe the benefits outweigh these ‘costs’:
1.It’s ‘inclusive’. It tells all staff that they are equally valued irrespective of their position in the firm
2.Quite often, it is support staff who spend as much, if not more time, than the lawyer talking with the client
3.So if the client visits the website to check out who they are dealing with, they will find them and perhaps find something in their bio that resonates with them
I understand that at some point you might think that this approach does not ‘scale’ depending on the size of your law firm, but I’m not so sure. Even if you are having professionally taken photographs for staff, when someone new joins your firm a modern smartphone has a good enough camera to take a good photo ‘staged’ in broadly the same way.
Staff can write their own bios, no need for the marketing team or external copywriting specialists to do it. Give them a brief template to follow. Or, why not do something a bit different and pair people up to discuss or even co-create their profiles.
Good Law Firm Staff Profile Pages
Two of the best examples of law firm staff profile pages that we have done in the last couple of years can be found at:
- https://www.talbotslaw.co.uk/site/people/ (check out their CEO Mary Morgan) and
- https://www.lavellepartners.ie/our-people/ciaran-leavy/
Both are variations on a theme which is to allow the human side of staff to show through and show clients that they are ‘real people’ and not stuffy.
Seven steps to get your staff profiles into shape
Convinced it’s time to give your staff profiles another look? Here are seven key steps to help you give your existing staff profiles a polish and fill in the gaps.
1.Review your existing staff profiles. Who’s missing? Do the current profiles really reflect the expertise and personalities of your staff?
2.Make a staff profile template. Decide what information each profile needs to include and put this into a document as a series of questions/key points to cover. This will make it easier for your team to get started and ensure consistency.
3.Create example profiles. Get a few of the more willing members of your team to do their profiles first. This will give the rest of the team an idea of what their profiles need to look like. It might also spark a bit of competitiveness – nobody wants their profile to look shabby compared to everyone else’s.
4.Set a deadline. We get it - writing a staff profile isn’t going to be at the top of everyone’s To Do list. Setting a deadline can help to ensure the profiles actually get written, especially if someone is going to chase people about it.
5.Give people a helping hand. If people are struggling to write their profile, help them out. As we suggested above, you can pair people up to help each other or get another member of the team to ‘interview’ people and write up their answers for them.
6.Double and triple check the profiles before they go live. Make sure you proof each profile thoroughly before loading them – it’s amazing what a fresh pair of eyes will pick up and you don’t want prospective clients’ first impression of your firm being that you can’t spell.
7.Create profile photo guidelines. Whether you are paying a professional to take your photos or doing them yourselves, having some clear guidelines will help achieve consistency. Do you want headshots or three-quarter length photos? White background or something more distinctive? Is it time to ditch the ties and go for something less formal? Pick a style that reflects your brand and the image you want to portray, then stick with it and even self-taken photos will look much more professional.
Struggling with your staff profiles? Let us help
Of course, if you’d rather have someone else do the hard work for you, the team here at Conscious would be more than happy to help. Simply get in touch and tell us what you need.