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The Blogosphere Examines Lawyer Bios

One of this week's themes in the blogosphere appears to be the art of creating effective lawyer biographies on law firm Web sites. Matt Homann kicked this off on his [non]billable hour blog with a funny Venn diagram showing the tiny overlap between what lawyers include in their bios and what clients actually care about:

That led LBW alumnus Bob Ambrogi to offer a different view on the subject. Bob stated on his LawSites blog that while Homann's "diagram suggests that many standard elements of lawyer bios are irrelevant to clients. I don’t buy that." To the contrary, Bob argues, three of the points on the right side of Homann's diagram are the questions he thinks are most important and which should be answered in a lawyer bio:

• Do you have experience doing exactly what I need?
• What kind of work are you really good at?
• What do your clients think of you?

All of this led Brian Tannebaum to offer his own five key thoughts on lawyer bios on his My Law License blog:

1. Always look to see if the lawyer fails to state their year of graduation or admission to the Bar, or doesn't have a link to easy access to that information.

2. Disregard any value you may put into someone being a "member" of anything. If they practice law, they are required to be a member of a bar. Stating that in a bio is nice, but means nothing. Basic memberships in other bar organizations are also meaningless.

3. Plenty of morons went to great schools.

4. Plenty of stellar lawyers went to unknown schools.

5. A lawyers bio was probably written by the lawyer. A lawyer looking for clients. People say a lot of interesting things when they are looking for clients. Some of those interesting things are actually true.

Honestly, I have no idea who is right on this point. But what about the "day-in-the-life" lawyer bios from Axiom Legal that feature huge photos of lawyers gardening, having breakfast with their families or dancing? I guess nobody is on board for these?

Posted by Bruce Carton on August 31, 2010 at 01:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Comments

The Blogosphere Examines Lawyer Bios

One of this week's themes in the blogosphere appears to be the art of creating effective lawyer biographies on law firm Web sites. Matt Homann kicked this off on his [non]billable hour blog with a funny Venn diagram showing the tiny overlap between what lawyers include in their bios and what clients actually care about:

That led LBW alumnus Bob Ambrogi to offer a different view on the subject. Bob stated on his LawSites blog that while Homann's "diagram suggests that many standard elements of lawyer bios are irrelevant to clients. I don’t buy that." To the contrary, Bob argues, three of the points on the right side of Homann's diagram are the questions he thinks are most important and which should be answered in a lawyer bio:

• Do you have experience doing exactly what I need?
• What kind of work are you really good at?
• What do your clients think of you?

All of this led Brian Tannebaum to offer his own five key thoughts on lawyer bios on his My Law License blog:

1. Always look to see if the lawyer fails to state their year of graduation or admission to the Bar, or doesn't have a link to easy access to that information.

2. Disregard any value you may put into someone being a "member" of anything. If they practice law, they are required to be a member of a bar. Stating that in a bio is nice, but means nothing. Basic memberships in other bar organizations are also meaningless.

3. Plenty of morons went to great schools.

4. Plenty of stellar lawyers went to unknown schools.

5. A lawyers bio was probably written by the lawyer. A lawyer looking for clients. People say a lot of interesting things when they are looking for clients. Some of those interesting things are actually true.

Honestly, I have no idea who is right on this point. But what about the "day-in-the-life" lawyer bios from Axiom Legal that feature huge photos of lawyers gardening, having breakfast with their families or dancing? I guess nobody is on board for these?