After 27 years, law firms still fascinate me. And occasionally frustrate me.
I’ve worked with some of the world’s most respected legal practices, Norton Rose, Macfarlanes, Herbert Smith Shoosmiths and many others across the UK, Europe and beyond. In all that time, one tension has persisted.
Law firms are among the most brand-conscious organisations on the planet. They highly value reputation and invest enormously in relationships, ranking and the cultivation of trust. However, many of them treat their visual identity as an afterthought which is where the paradox lies. Namely, a law firm’s brand communicates something to a prospective client long before a single conversation takes place.
It communicates through their socials or website and that either instils confidence or creates doubt. Then through the proposal document that either feels like it was made for this client or for any client. The typography, the colour, the photography may all seem superficial until you consider that they are the first impression a client forms of your judgement, which is after all, is what a law firm is actually selling.
The firms that understand that brand is a form of communication, that either earns, or erodes trust, tend to approach identity work very differently. They come to it with the same rigour they’d bring to a complex transaction asking hard questions and willing to be challenged. Those that don’t, brief for a logo refresh and wonder why nothing feels different afterwards.
A rebrand won’t make a good firm great. A confused, inconsistent, or generic visual identity though, will quietly undermine a great firm, one first impression at a time.
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