If you’re building out your law firm website, then chances are that you’re considering expanding or rewriting your attorney biographies. Oftentimes, attorneys treat their bios like a chore — they do the absolute bare minimum necessary to explain their background and training. This sort of approach misses the point of an attorney bio, however, as the bio should be seen as a useful inflection point when attempting to convince third parties (i.e., prospective clients, opposing counsel, etc.) of your legal prowess.
In this article, we’ll cover some of the foundational aspects of attorney bios, and give you a quick 10 tips to improve your attorney bio. Keep reading to learn more!
The importance of having an effective attorney bio
Law firms should create effective attorney biography pages to put on their websites, even if they are not intending to make a strong marketing push online. That’s because the data shows that there are many interested parties — not just prospective clients, but opposing counsel and potential attorney partners (looking for someone on whom they can rely when offloading a case) — who will investigate the bios on your law firm’s website to evaluate important qualities, from case experience to specific training and awards.
Given just how important attorney bios are to firm business, they should be prioritized quite early when building out your firm’s website. That being said, not all attorney bios are equal. A poorly-written attorney bio can paint your firm in a negative light, while a positive one can convince an iffy client to contact you for an initial consultation.
10 Tips to improve your attorney bio
Here are 10 tips to improve your attorney’s bio so that you can represent yourself (and your services) better to prospective clients, potential attorney partners, and opposing counsel — the more effectively you can position yourself through the attorney’s bio, the more leverage you will have in the initial stages of litigation.
Consider the following:
Make sure to get your basics down correctly.
Here’s what you absolutely need to include in your attorney bio. These are non-negotiables that most prospective clients have to see before making a decision on whether to call in for a consultation:
- Professional headshot
- Name, work title, location, department
- Contact information
- Up-to-date social media links (professional social media profiles only)
- Specialized training and certifications, if available
- Relevant practice areas
- Bar status
- Attorney awards and other accolades
- Major acts of community service
- Personal info, such as hobbies and other humanizing facts
While traditional credentials such as law school are important, focusing on recent achievements and specific industry expertise can be more impactful.
Though there are many other aspects to an attorney bio that you could develop (for a more comprehensive bio), these form the backbone of any basic bio page — ignore these requirements at your own risk!
Keep your priority audience in mind when writing your bio.
First, know the audience that you’re attempting to target, including both current and past clients, as your prospective client base (from which you’ll be acquiring inbound leads). Then, keep them front of mind when writing your attorney biography. That means serving them with just the right tint of formality and highlighting just the right elements to convince them that you are trustworthy and authoritative in your legal practice areas. For example, if you are a personal injury lawyer serving the Latino community, primarily, and you often encounter concerns about immigration status linked to litigating injury claims, then you could include information in your bio talking about how you have protected your clients against any undue immigration-related harms.
Avoid long-winded explanations.
Increasingly, readers (and internet users in general) have a reduced attention span. If you cannot capture their attention with the information they need — presented concisely — then you risk losing them. They’ll simply click away from your law firm’s website and go to another site, or perhaps they’ll stop searching for an attorney that day. Either way, you lose if you engage in long-winded explanations and content writing for your bio. Be efficient and you’ll have a much easier time retaining the attention of prospective clients. There are too many attorney bios that fail to capture attention due to their overly formulaic and lengthy content.
Highlight critical practice info so that prospective clients can scan your bio and find out whether you can handle their case.
Many readers — especially prospective clients — have a priority list of items that they’re looking to evaluate when they first look at your attorney bio. The legal practice areas that you cover (and the specifics of your experience litigating in those areas) are at the very top of that priority list. For instance, if you specialize in family law, make sure to highlight your experience in handling sensitive cases like divorce. Highlighting critical practice info lets a user scan your bio quickly to determine whether you’re even capable of handling a claim like theirs and whether it’s worth it to keep reading to learn more. So make sure to draw attention to your practice areas through proper formatting, concise and effective language, and relevant legal experiences for the reader to evaluate, like case results and awards and scholarly papers you might have been involved in writing.
Testimonials, awards, and reviews matter when it comes to enhancing your bio.
It can be extremely difficult — if not even somewhat arbitrary — for prospective clients to sift through dozens of law firms and attorney bios and determine who to move forward with on the basis of what is written.
One effective strategy is to reuse approved client testimonials to highlight the favorable opinions of past clients. That being said, one differentiating factor that can help is the inclusion of relevant testimonials, awards, and online reviews. Including the best testimonials you’ve received, as well as your online review averages (if they’re high enough to be impressive) are a great start. You’ll also want to list out relevant legal awards you’ve won, such as Best Lawyer or Super Lawyer yearly placements. These are notable “authority gains” that grant your firm outside legitimacy, which can help convince a prospective client to pick up the phone and call in for a consultation.
Don’t use legalese if you can avoid it.
Unless your prospective clients are mostly high-level professionals, it’s best to avoid legalese and other industry jargon. You don’t have to simplify your language to the point that it sounds entirely informal — but do try to minimize your use of jargon that would not otherwise be known to a general audience. When a prospective client cannot understand what your bio is talking about, they are likely to “tune out” and click away from your law firm website. Clear communication is a key aspect of exceptional client service, which can be undermined by excessive legalese.
Don’t forget to optimize for SEO, even on your law firm website’s bio page.
Attorney bio pages are still website pages that should be optimized for search engines! So don’t ignore the search engine optimization (SEO) aspects. In fact, a large number of prospective clients could contact you by landing on your law firm’s website through your attorney bio page.
Implement all the best SEO practices that you would normally use for a blog/article page. Do your keyword research on competitors in your niche (geographical, practice area, etc.) and identify the competitive keywords that potential clients searching for legal services might use — then use those keywords and optimize your attorney bio for that and other relevant factors, such as technical SEO factors (i.e., page load speed).
Outdated information can undermine your competence.
Some information in your bio may be so old that it makes you appear out of touch and inactive. For example, mentioning impressive cases that you’ve litigated and won 30 years ago might seem relevant (and might actually “be” relevant), but could put off prospective clients who worry that you haven’t had a higher volume of “big wins” recently worth including in your bio instead. To avoid this, you may want to remove the dates from the information at issue, or simply replace very old information in your bio with newer data, even if the more recent inclusions are not quite as profound or impressive. Let your recent accomplishments speak for themselves by showcasing recent case studies and client testimonials.
Highlighting your personal values can help with certain audiences.
Highlighting your personal values is an important differentiating factor in an attorney bio that can win over clients who fit a more “general audience” demographic. If you operate in the plaintiffs’ civil litigation context, then including information that centers your personal values (and relates to the needs of the general audience) is likely to win over prospective clients who aren’t “quite sure” whether to trust you yet.
Securing a conversion — in other words, a call-in for a consultation — is the first step. Do what you can in your bio to relate to your audience and gain their trust such that they are at least willing to pick up the phone and call your firm for an initial discussion.
Personal values can be represented in a number of ways. You can list out and describe your community work, or your pro bono advocacy. Or you can even include quotes from famous people that match your professional sentiments — whatever quote you use, tap into the client’s concerns and desires. Most clients want a compassionate attorney who is determined, competent, and aggressive (when necessary) in securing the best possible outcome. They want a dogged advocate who is not too proud to hear them out and fight for them at every stage of the dispute. Remember, law is a relationship business, and showcasing your personal values can help build trust with potential clients.
“Me, me, me” bios can backfire. Highlight others in your narrative.
Ironically, attorney bios should not excessively use “I” language — this can give the audience the impression that you are conceited, or that you are unconcerned with their legal issues and that you will advocate for them only insofar as it serves your interests. “Me, me, me” language tends to give the impression that you are not client-oriented.
To avoid this subconscious implication, try to include language where you highlight the clients that you help or the communities that you’ve advocated for — just a few sentences interspersed in your bio can have a substantial impact on the perception of the reader! Including personal narratives about why you chose to practice law can make your bio more relatable and engaging.
Contact Walker Advertising for Helping Growing Your Firm’s Client Base
Whether you’re a solo or small firm lawyer or are part of a larger firm with plans for expanding your client base, it’s important to invest in your marketing efforts in order to hit your revenue and client growth goals. Here at Walker Advertising, we can help. We operate a number of popular attorney networks — including our Los Defensores and 1-800-THE-LAW2 brands — through which firms are able to access leads for various legal claims.
The leads we acquire through our various online marketing efforts — from social media marketing to targeted web ads — have been pre-qualified by our team so that you aren’t hassled by a flood of leads that are simply not relevant or actionable for your purposes. By accessing these quality leads, you’ll be well-equipped to select the best ones to grow your firm business.
Contact Walker Advertising today to connect to a member of our team who can explain how our legal networks can help your firm business thrive in this ever-changing digital marketing landscape.
We look forward to assisting you.
