There’s a more effective—and versatile—tool for showcasing your law firm’s successful representations than case studies.
Want to effectively show off your law firm’s recent client successes?
Stop writing cringe self-promotional case studies and start writing thought leadership articles that explain how the firm secured those successes.
Case studies are a flawed tool
Case studies have their place as a marketing and business development tool, but they have notable flaws.
First, they’re self-promotional. That’s not a surprise since they’re unabashed marketing and sales tools, nor is there anything inherently wrong with that.
The problem is that they’re rarely engaging because they rarely provide value to readers. They exist to tell readers THAT a law firm achieved a result. They don’t exist to show HOW the law firm achieved that result.
Second, and on a related note, case studies often have a problem-solution-result structure. As a result, they discuss successful client representations in a straightforward manner, often in a cold, clinical fashion.
That’s great if a law firm wants to prioritize efficiency in its marketing and sales content. But this structure forces law firms to take a narrow approach to describing a client success that likely warrants a deeper discussion of the strategies they employed. (More on that in a moment.)
Third, case studies naturally focus on a particular client’s legal problem and its solution. Because the solution was based on the facts and circumstances the client found itself in, case studies rarely have wider appeal beyond a limited number of prospective or current clients with the same legal/business problems and the same facts and circumstances as the clients featured in case studies.
(That’s not a bad thing when a case study is part of a one-to-one or a one-to-few approach to business development, but it limits the efficacy of a case study when used as part of a one-to-many marketing program.)
Finally, case studies’ standard problem-solution-result structure doesn’t allow law firms to get into the details of how they were able to secure the successful resolution of their client’s legal problem (while, of course, being mindful of privilege and confidentiality concerns).
The structure is not conducive to law firms talking about the strategy and execution that helped bring that result to life.
This is the fatal flaw of case studies.
Thought leadership articles are more effective tools for showing off client successes than case studies
When a law firm talks about the strategy and execution it employed to secure a favorable legal result for a client, it is conveying to clients and referral sources the knowledge, wisdom, and insights it has regarding that kind of legal/business issue. That knowledge and wisdom, and those insights, can go a long way in putting a law firm “on the map” in terms of clients and referral sources considering them the next time they or their clients have a legal/business issue they will look to an outside law firm for assistance with.
Case studies do not allow for such discussions—but thought leadership articles do. That’s why they’re more effective tools for showing off client successes.
Case studies are focused on achievements: “Here was the problem. Here’s what we did. We won. Congratulations to us.” All within generally 500 words or less.
But with thought leadership articles, law firms can take readers behind the scenes and discuss how they overcame particular challenges and difficulties to secure a great result for their client.
When they do that, they’re showing off the knowledge, wisdom, and insights their attorneys have. That’s what resonates with clients and referral sources. They’re seeing more than just the end result: They’re seeing the attorneys’ thought process, their adaptability, their strategy, and their execution.
When clients and referral sources understand HOW a law firm was able to secure a great result for a client, they will gain a greater appreciation for how that law firm could help THEM with their legal or business issues and secure a similarly successful result.
Thought leadership articles are also more versatile tools than case studies
When law firms produce thought leadership articles about a successful representation, they can distribute them just like they would a case study, such as via social media, email, and their website.
But there’s one key channel law firms can distribute their thought leadership articles through that they can’t distribute their case studies through: media outlets.
They can submit a thought leadership article to a third-party media outlet for publication, which gives them the opportunity to get it in front of people who might not already know the firm, might not be followers of the firm on social media, or receive the firm’s email newsletters. They’re exposing a whole new audience to their successful representation compared to a case study, which will almost always be transmitted through channels requiring a preexisting relationship with, or preexisting knowledge of, the law firm (e.g., website, social media, newsletter).
In addition to an article in a third-party publication, a law firm’s thought leadership regarding their successful representations can take multiple forms, such as podcasts, short- or long-form videos, and webinars.
Going even further, law firms can approach thought leadership regarding their successful representations from a bunch of different angles.
They might start with a “how we did this” format, where their attorneys walk through three, four, or five different challenges they encountered when representing a client and how they overcame those challenges to secure a great result.
But then, the attorneys have the opportunity to create derivative content, such as best practices for handling a type of legal issue or matter, or misconceptions when doing so, or red flags regarding some aspect of the legal matter at the center of their case study, or lessons learned from handling that type of legal matter, or even comparing and contrasting various ways to approach that type of legal matter.
A few words about privilege and confidentiality concerns
While reading this post up to this point, you might have thought, “But what about confidentiality and privilege? Won’t they impact how my law firm approaches discussing successful client representations in the form of thought leadership content?”
Of course they will, though those concerns will also impact how your law firm drafts its case studies.
When creating thought leadership content about how your firm approached a client matter, you and your colleagues will obviously need to not give too much detail about your client, their circumstances, and the ins and outs of their legal or business issue.
But you can still communicate the strategies your firm employed and the steps it took to assist the client in a way that does not divulge privileged or confidential information.
It’s actually a good thing that you don’t go into deeper detail about what your firm did.
By having to zoom out a bit, the thought leadership content will be applicable to more potential clients. Removing details about specific facts and events means more similarly situated clients will think that your law firm could help them with their similar legal or business issues instead of focusing on how your firm helped a client in a specific situation with specific facts and circumstances those similarly situated clients aren’t facing.
A better approach to communicating client successes
Thought leadership content regarding successful representations of clients is a more effective and versatile tool for showcasing those representations than case studies.
Their added depth and potential for both multimedia formats and derivative content should elevate them to the tool law firms use most often when discussing successful client representations in a marketing or business development context.
Sure, case studies have their place in the legal marketing and business development mix. But they can’t carry the intellectual and persuasive weight that thought leadership content about client successes can.
