This book is being written one chapter at a time and then published to our blog, just as we do for our clients in the Authority Chapter Plan. To read the rest of the Authority Philosophy book, please click here.
You know your law firm is different, and so do your clients, past clients, clients, referral sources, judges, and even your adversaries.
But you know who doesn’t know you’re different? All those prospective clients out there. And even worse, your legal marketing agency.
You can’t count on your clients to translate your philosophy because they are in the middle of it, and not the best translators.
You can’t count on your past clients to translate your philosophy because they want to move on.
You can’t count on your referral sources to translate your philosophy because they have their own businesses to run, and thus their own philosophy’s to translate. They will help in this endeavor, if you communicate with them effectively, but the onus is still on you and your marketing team to make that happen.
You can’t rely on judge’s to translate your philosophy for obvious reasons.
You can’t rely on your adversary’s to translate your philosophy because they are just as likely to undercut you or put you down as you are a threat to their empire.
You Should be Able to Count on Your Agency to Translate Your Philosophy
Yes, you indeed should be able to count on your legal marketing agency to translate your philosophy, after all isn’t translating your professional philosophy the overarching goal to all of your branding and legal marketing efforts?
Not so much with most agency’s, right? Many have law firms boxed into dependency on PPC ads and monthly SEO retainers. Website copy is keyword stuffed for fading algorithms, and lawyer bios read like obituaries.
As Malvina Reynold’s song Little Boxes put it:
“And there’s doctors and lawyers
And business executives
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same”
She might as well have been singing about attorney websites.
She also might as well have been singing about legal marketing agencies.
All this substandard generalia is what dehumanizes our profession, and makes lawyers a commodity. Most legal marketing is the exchange of money from you to a marketing “agency” to commoditize your own business. That always seemed like madness to me when I was practicing and running my own firm. I eventually came to the conclusion that most legal marketing is “sludge marketing,” and started my own agency to help attorneys write real authority assets and obtain AI referrals.
A Failure Not of Philosophy, but of Translation
As the prison captain said in Cool Hand Luke: what we have here is a failure to communicate.
Many law firms have no identifiable professional philosophy at all. But the bottleneck for many other firms is that they do, only a failure to translate it. Most lawyers never learn how to convert their internal, deeply-held beliefs (their “philosophy” or “code”) into a clear, compelling external message that the market can understand. Most law firms assume their marketing team or external agency is taking care of this. That assumption is invariably wrong.
This chapter is the decoder ring. It provides a practical, step-by-step framework for translating your unique Authority Philosophy into powerful, client-attracting messaging across every platform.
The Code is Not the Message: The Critical Distinction
Think of it this way: Your Authority Philosophy is the engine of your practice. The message is the sound that engine makes. Same thing for the content you create, authority assets must be distributed to humans, and found by humans and AI alike. A powerful engine in a car that is never turned on might as well remain in Cameron Frye’s father’s collection. Something admirable but unseen. The goal is to tune your messaging so it perfectly reflects the power of your internal philosophy.
Your internal philosophy and the external translation must be fully aligned; any misalignment will lead to confusion in the market place, and eventually your own business.
More Than a Mission Statement or “Values”
Mission statements, elevator pitches, “values,” everyone has them but the legal market is mostly a mess, so clearly they are not sufficient. The advice you find in the 1980’s business books is solid, but swallowed into the masses. What your law firm needs is to stand out.
Most lawyers try to communicate their philosophy by listing their values. “Jane Doe Law Firm: We believe in integrity, compassion, and zealous advocacy.” This is telling, not showing. A powerful message doesn’t state the philosophy, it demonstrates it.
By the way, values are more than just words, even if you believe them. What’s a prospective client going to do with “we believe in integrity, compassion, and zealous advocacy?” They are thinking: “well sure, you better because that’s about the baseline of what a law firm should be offering. I had assumed that was already part of the deal, now I’m getting nervous. Let me see what your competitors have to offer.”
The Three Channels of Translation – Where Your Message Lives
Here are the three channels of translation for your authority philosophy:
Channel 1: Your Digital “Twin” (Website and Bio)
Channel 2: Your Spoken Word (Consults, Networking)
Channel 3: Your Created Works (Authority Assets)
Let’s now take them in turn:
Channel 1: Your Digital “Twin” (Website & Bio)
Look at your website and then your ten biggest competitors in your marketplace. Are you distinguishable from each other, at all? In ways that count, to prospective clients and the public at large?
Most law firm website copy does nothing more than indicate a practice area, a few credentials, and the location where a law firm practices. This is all key information, but alone it lacks authority, and depth, and does not connect.
The average homepage headline will say something like: “Tarzana, California Divorce Attorneys: Practicing Family Law throughout Los Angeles County.” Generic, safe, forgettable, and translating nothing of your actual authority philosophy.
A firm with a philosophy might say: Dolphins, Not Sharks: The Tarzana, California Family Law Firm That Helps Sophisticated Clients Find Their Happily Even After.
Note, the basic information is still there, just dressed up in philosophy. It’s like the difference between going to church in your work clothes or your Sunday best. The first either makes a bad impression or none at all, the latter makes the right impression. Too many law firm websites make no impression at all. We are supposed to be a passionate, full bodied group of professionals, and my sixteen years in practice tells me that is so, but you would think we were operating a morgue or an accounting firm the way we market ourselves on our websites.
The attorney bio is no different. Take a paragraph from an attorney bio and a paragraph from an obituary and I’m not sure you could tell the difference.
It’s not enough to list your credentials, education, important appellate cases won. That means far less to prospective clients than you would think. They don’t really care about you, they care about their own problems and if you can fix them.
Change your bio to include why you do this work, who you serve, and how you win. Then make sure you go back and tell your ideal client’s story and answer their questions on that bio. Finally, show a little bit of life, think more playbill and less obit.
Channel Two: Your Spoken Word
When you speak about your practice, keep your authority philosophy in mind. Sure all the old advice about having an “elevator pitch” is helpful, especially in helping you self-frame, but it’s also the same thing everyone is doing. You can never stand out by doing the same as all others.
Think about what makes your firm different, at a philosophical level. I’ll use my business as an example.
Carl, what makes Books for Experts different from other legal marketing agencies?
Thanks for asking. We are the first full service AIO agency for law firms, we are owned by an attorney who practiced for 16 years and got fed up with sludge legal marketing, and we fight to humanize lawyers and end the commodification of the profession. But what that really means for you is we utilize our proprietary Authority Intelligence Optimization system to create authority assets, technical authority signals and real-world validation signals for your law firm. In other words, we help you get found by AI and humans alike while weaning you off monthly retainers for fading SEO and PPC.
There’s your fifteen second “elevator pitch,” because who has time for thirty in these fast-moving times?
Notice you will weave in important information about your products, but it must be grounded in your philosophy. You are telling who you are and who you are not. That way you attract the right prospects and repel the wrong ones. Ours is an AIO agency that focuses on creation of long-lasting assets, not another SEO/PPC mill that relies on monthly retainers.
Now you need to take the hard work you have done already in this book and formulate your own method of speaking about your firm. You must tailor the length, cadence, and voice to reflect the venue. Your introduction at a keynote speech will be different from your lunch with a potential referral partner.
Likewise, your initial consultation must frame around your philosophy. It’s not just about diagnosing their legal problem; it’s about determining if they are a “right-fit” client for your unique approach. And you must also teach your prospective client about your authority philosophy during the consult, same as you instruct them on the parameters of the law. This allows clear communication and expectations, which will permeate the remainder of the attorney-client relationship if retained. Always remember that your consult is your last and best chance at filtering out the wrong client. It’s far harder to do it after retained, and once retained their problems become your problems, so choose wisely.
Channel Three: Your Created Works (Authority Assets)
Every book, article, podcast or speech is not just a piece of content; it’s an exhibit in the case you’re making for your own authority.
If your blog post says “Five Ways to Destroy Your Ex in court” then you’re revealing you are a shark, not a dolphin. Your website copy better not say dolphin if you’re really a shark, or vice versa. There need be no wolf in sheep’s clothing.
On a deeper level, your clients and even referral sources want to know your philosophy. It must therefore be integrated into every authority asset you create. That’s why locking down your authority philosophy must come first. All else must follow and flow from there.
The Litmus Test – Is Your Message Aligned?
- Does your homepage headline state a point of view, or just a practice area?
- Does your bio tell a story, or does it just list facts?
- Can a prospect understand your unique approach within 30 seconds of landing on your site?
- Do your last five blog posts or articles consistently reinforce your core beliefs?
- If a client only read your marketing, would they know what you stand for?
Conclusion: The Power of a Legible Soul
The goal isn’t just to have an Authority Philosophy; it’s to make that philosophy legible to the market. When your internal code and your external message are in perfect alignment, you are no longer a commodity. You become a category of one.
A clear message is the first step. The next is to build the authority assets that will carry that message to the world.
But first, you must have your authority philosophy locked down, as pure as an element on the period table.