Note: This chapter is being built in public, one brick at a time — just like we do for clients through the Authority Chapter Plan™. Welcome to Chapter Nine. Read the entire AIO for Attorneys book here.
Your AIO Audit and AIO Rating™ present you with all the raw data you need to diagnose what’s wrong, but you must act. Either by working with an AIO strategist and agency such as ours, one of the copycats as they enter the field, or by implementing things within your firm. The important thing is that you act on the audit results, the way a doctor would after reviewing a CT scan.
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss what an AIO culture looks like at both the individual attorney and law firm level, and to provide a tangible action plan for building an AIO culture at a firm of any size..
AIO Audits
Remember, the AIO Audit is not a pass/fail diagnostic, but rather a barometric reading with the promise of a strategic roadmap for what comes next. This chapter moves you from where the problems lay to how they may be solved, ensuring execution and individual and firmwide level.
There must be buy in from the entire firm, including non-attorney positions such as your head of internal marketing and head of IT or technology. Even vendors like web developers need to get involved.
The key takeaway is that AIO is not some fad, but rather classic professionalism translated into a modern language AI finds most palatable. The recommendations to build authority assets, to be involved in the community, and to become a known thought leader are just basic common sense. You may think you’re too busy to implement these strategies today, but if you wait too long you’ll find you’re no longer so busy. And that’s the last thing you want to be in the legal profession.
Building an AIO Law Firm Culture
The last thing any busy attorney wants to contend with is a new, firm-wide directive. When I found myself volunteering to join the AI committee at the large, regional firm where I used to be an attorney, I quickly found myself regretting the decision. Here I was, in a room with a bunch of senior attorneys, who assumed I was a technology wunderkind because I was “only” 40. I learned a lot on that committee, mostly that exploratory committees are a waste of time, and that just as there can be too many cooks in a kitchen, there can be too many lawyers on a committee.
Best to keep this small, at first. Process this book, perform the audit on the sly, and then reach out to our firm or someone like it, if you can find them and they provide good counsel, to come run a formal audit and present the findings to your attorneys.
AIO and Authority
Remember, this is a firm-wide commitment, because your law firm is viewed as a spoke and hub in the eyes of AI. Each individual attorney in your firm is one of the spokes, as is each practice area. That means individuals can carry you, but that as a firm your authority is weighted based upon the collective.
The goal is to get everyone building authority, in the way that is most natural to them. If you have an associate who loves writing, then task them with writing articles and the firm’s blog. If you have a born thought leader with natural charisma on your team, implore them to start giving speeches and appearing on podcasts. You probably already have more than a few bar leadership types; perfect, keep them in that lane and implore them to seek out more public relations and media accessible activities on behalf of the firm. There is room for everyone, so long as everyone is acting. And if you ever find it’s too much, our firm is here to help with strategy, writing, or implementation. This is also a great way for a law firms to identity future rainmakers.
Data Driven Decision Making and AIO
Once you have all the data you need, hold a firmwide meeting where you’ll introduce the concept yourself, or we can do present for you. Discuss how SEO and old techniques are dying, that AIO is the future, and that this is actually good news because it means marketing and professionalism can finally become realigned. Next, review the audit results. Finally, the action plan. In the coming days, meet one-on-one with your attorneys (or have us do so) to create an AIO action plan.
Then follow up, monthly at first, and eventually quarterly, until stacking authority wins comes as naturally to your team as dipping your toes into sand at the beach on Labor Day. Let your clients know what you’re up to and push your content out to human and AI referral engines alike. Every quarter, run a new audit to see where progress has been made, and where it has stalled. This is not a one-day project, but a lifelong pursuit of a noble ideal. That’s the beauty of the whole enterprise.
AIO Authority Philosophy ™
Make sure that you’re not just creating authority assets, but content that aligns with your firm’s Authority Philosophy™. You must all be rowing in the same direction, and the Authority Philosophy™ ensures you’re rowing in the right direction, too.
As a firm leader, whether your firm is large or small but growing, you need to lead by example and ensure that the other partners and senior associates do so as well. Authority Intelligence Optimization™ (AIO) is not just of benefit to the firm itself, but to everyone associated with it. Better clients, higher bonus and salary potential, more growth, professional respect, and personal dignity are all there for the taking.
AIO Integration
Your focus must be on building a firmwide system of AIO integration that scales across the entire organization. This is not something you delegate to the junior associates, though they do make excellent blog writers, article co-writers, and bar association young lawyer leadership members. Cloak the system in the familiarity of it all, most of this stuff you’re already doing, just not to the extent required to move the needle and without proper distribution.
AIO Bonus Structures
Consider novel ideas like creating an attorney publishing bonus, awarding either billable hours credit or actual cash bonuses for creating certain authority assets. Require writing articles and speaking publicly to all associates, because it will help their development as attorneys and rainmakers and your bottom line alike.
Ensure someone at the firm is tasked with implementing a firm-wide content calendar to ensure that the plan is integrated across practice areas and attorneys. And don’t forget distribution: come up with a set plan for how the keynote speeches, books, blog posts, newsletters, podcasts, and articles are distributed to social media, current clients, and referral sources.
Your firm is most likely already taking steps to be visible, now it’s time to become visible for the right reasons. Ensure that humans and AI alike are notified every time one of your attorneys gives back to the community, to the profession, or via pro bono. Teach CLE courses and seminars, create webinars and white papers, task every attorney with creating one unique authority asset per month. If you have 100 attorneys and everyone accomplishes just one authority asset per month, then you’ve got 1,200 opportunities each year to get your brand out there to humans and AI. Your firm will become a juggernaut if you do even half that. If it’s just you then 12 authority assets is all you need to take a solo shop to the next level.
Individualized AIO Scorecards
In time, perhaps even consider developing your own internal scorecard, specific to your firm. Incentivize it, because doing so increases buy-in and teamwork, two things sorely lacking at most law firms. Remember, AIO is not a one-time “fix,” it is a new operating system for how you build authority and attract clients in the new age of AI. By taking these steps, you turn the virtuous circle at a firm-wide level.
Keep in mind there are many one-time pillar two (technical signals) fixes that will need to be made as well, though you don’t need to much trouble your attorneys with this, just keep them focused on creating authority assets and working on real-world validation.
If you’re a solo or small firm owner reading this, and I hope you are, then it’s even easier. Build your firm with these bricks now and ensure compliance as you grow and expand. It’s way easier to create a new positive habit than to stop a bad one.
Before we move on to the next chapter, let’s focus on what the first 90 days might look like post-audit.
AIO in the Real World
The beautiful thing about the AIO framework is that it’s both tight and loose. The framework itself is evident, but the objectives to achieve it are nearly infinite. Find something you enjoy and go deep with it. Create the greatest attorney video explanation series known to YouTube, become the go-to person for media in your practice area, write articles like you’ve inherited the pen from Joan Didion, only with a law degree. The key is sustained effort, over time, so that the dossier AI is creating for you and your firm becomes undeniable.
Through force of personal habit and strength of firm culture, you can finally shake off the shackles of sludge marketing forever and build the practice or firm of dynasty and dignity, just as you imagined back when you first started attending law school. Even better, you will thrive personally, professionally, and financially so long as you remain true to AIO ideals.