Making every person who works at your law firm feel important and an integral part of the team is about as smart of a marketing approach as exists out there. One small way to do that is to include not only the attorneys, but staff as well (at least their names) on the firm’s web site. (Granted the mega firms with offices worldwide may find that problematic, but they’re not likely to consider such a thing anyway.)

Some firms apparently don’t even put associate bios up on the site for fear that headhunters will scoop them up. Since recruiters have many sources to call upon to get their names, why would a firm want to send a communication like “you aren’t really important enough to be up on our (usually static and boring) web site in the first place.” What kind of a terrible message does that send to such valuable internal assets?

I have talked before about making your staff part of the marketing team, but what got me thinking about it today was a discussion that has been going on for the last couple of days over on the Legal Marketing Association’s listserv. Some of the comments included:

  • One 50-lawyer California puts everyone on web site – bios for all lawyers and senior staff, and pictures of everyone who works for the firm under their job category;
  • A marketer from a smaller firm stated: “I like the sites that feature ‘Our People’ – that’s your human capital…Clients do like to ‘see’ your people;”
  • And from my good friend Ross Fishman who works with a lot of law firm associates: “Although I did not ask them specifically about this biography issue, it is my clear inference from the conversations that this disparate treatment would be viewed VERY negatively;” and
  • Another recounted her earlier experience in (non-legal) sales where a boss told her that if she ever got a better offer than what the company “can do for you, and the situation is better as well” he wouldn’t blame her for taking it.

If your firm is doing all the right internal marketing things to make it the best possible place to work, you won’t have to worry about such things. In any event, they’ll talk care of themselves, but I can guarantee that your turnover will go way down.  And that is a cost savings that will go straight to the bottom line.