The name game: rebranding legal firms

When Royal Mail change their trading name to Consignia and Andersen Consulting become Accenture, it’s evident that rebranding is in fashion. 

Glance through the People pages of this Journal and you begin to observe a slight, but discernible, trend of legal firms following suit, casting aside the traditional multi surnames, and opting instead for a brand name that starts to describe what they do.

Having traded in Edinburgh as Smiths for ten years, sole practitioner Brian Smith took the radical step of rebranding his firm @home.

“I had become conscious of the fact that the practice was synonymous with ‘self’. No doubt this is inevitably part of the psychological make-up of a sole practitioner anyway but it did cause issues that needed addressed.

“From the perspective of clients and staff, the practice was me. To grow the practice and have others develop a role in it required a more ‘corporate’ image that a name change could help cultivate.

“Also in mind was the appreciation from the point of view of any potential sale of the business, its value would be enhanced, not just by having a recognisable and marketable trading name, but also by the goodwill in the business being seen to relate to the business as much as to the principal.”

The rebranding also served to remove his firm from the conservative image of legal firms and “create a brand that would be modern and more memorable and relevant” as well as allowing him to develop a website and brand in keeping with the advances of Internet house selling.

The exercise has achieved positive results for his firm, though he’s not sure it represents the way forward for the profession as a whole.

“Such has been the success of the brand that in some instances potential clients have assumed we are a national and much bigger organisation.

“There is a place for such branding within many areas of the profession. However, I do not feel that it is ever going to be appropriate for more than a relatively small number of firms to use such brand names.

“Also, they are only really appropriate where the firm is focusing on core specialities with which the brand can be associated or where a larger firm sees the opportunity to operate or even spin-off a division conducting that specialisation. A good brand name gives opportunities for establishing new outlets or even for licensing or franchising set-ups.

“Having said that, every firm’s name is its brand and should be marketed as such. It may be that more should be aiming to be punchier and more easily remembered even where a generic type brand is not possible or appropriate.

“The hardest and most important thing with building any brand, of course, is the continual marketing after its conception. This has to be ongoing but the pressures of modern practice make this very difficult, especially in the context of a sole practitioner or small firm where the principals must assume this task.”

It’s arguable that a punchier name is more suitable at the conception of a firm rather than as part of its evolution, so when Hayley Bloodworth decided to go it alone in a specialist employment practice in Aberdeen, it seemed natural to choose a name that described the sort of services she wanted to offer clients. As a result, Proactive Legal Services was born.

“I chose the name Proactive a year before I set up the practice. I was getting frustrated at the reactive nature of legal service. As lawyers we would only get involved once the client had a problem.”

For her, Proactive stems from establishing a client relationship and letting them know where they are at risk of claims before they arise.

“One of the reasons I chose ‘Proactive’ is that I wanted the firm to have a clear identity. I wanted it to have a brand name. Of course ‘Bloodworth & Company’ would have sounded pretty threatening and this might have been useful, but it wasn’t really the image that I wanted to communicate. ‘Proactive’ was always intended to be something different, something bold, something innovative. Not putting my own surname into the practice name was a way of demonstrating that the idea was bigger than any one individual.

“I do think that the brand name marks us out as something different. It says we are not just another firm offering legal services. We are a firm offering a different kind of legal service. I think our clients appreciate and understand that. When we go out speaking to people about the firm it’s pretty clear that they understand the concept and like it.”

Ian Muirhead, Chairman of Solicitors for Independent Financial Advice, is well placed to comment on a change in branding solicitors UK wide. “There is certainly a general trend towards abbreviating names to make them more user friendly and more zappy. For example, Dibb Lupton Allsop became DLA Solicitors and Tuck Wilkinson Mann became TWM Solicitors. All reflect the fact that Joe Public relates to solicitors as a concept more than it does to Mr Haddock as an individual. Using a name such as Bloggs, Bloggs and Bloggs does nothing to distinguish the law firm from an estate agent or a plumber. Indeed, arguably its only value is to enhance the self-esteem of the partners bearing the names.

“Other firms have chosen names such as The Divorce Practice, AS Law, Solicitors Title and KLegal. Clients can’t be bothered to remember multiple surnames; and why should they? Better to adopt a name which describes what you do. Though firms with long-established connections with high net worth private clients may find advantage in retaining at least a vestige of their old name.

“The main value of branding, however, arises when firms want to broaden their client base, or when groups of firms undertake joint marketing. Solicitors Property Centres is a prime example of the value of the solicitors’ brand; as also will be Solicitors Financial Centres. Both are instantly recognisable for what they are and what they do; and both benefit from the respect in which the profession is held by the public. Scottish Widows have spent many millions promoting their widow as a connotation of quality and dependability, but the solicitors brand is equally valuable, if not more so, without a penny having been spent to promote it.”

So does adopting a punchy buzzword make it easier to market the firm? Brian Allingham, managing partner of Allingham & Co, and management consultant to smaller law firms throughout Scotland, believes “there is a tendency to believe that the firm’s name is important in maintaining relationships with existing clients and in maintaining the firm’s reputation in the community and this is almost certainly true for smaller towns”.

His own firm Allingham & Co have taken to using @ in their letterheads, which he reckons “does not seem to have done us any harm, although there is no evidence that it is doing us any good either”.

As the existing name has been established as a brand, partners have been happy not to adopt a new name which would have included their own surname – in this instance, at least, refuting Ian Muirhead’s idea of egos at work.

“For a new name, there may be a possibility of using a ‘modern’ style of name, which helps to describe the services which the firm is selling. However, a firm should think very carefully before changing its name, unless it is very good at keeping contact with its client base. @home may make a statement about the type of services on offer by the firm, and this may appeal to new clients. But existing clients may use a firm’s services some four or five years after previous contact, and, if they cannot find the firm in the phonebook under its old name, they may not make contact again. As around 75% of an established firm’s new business comes from existing clients or references from existing clients, it is important to maintain the link with these existing clients, and changing the name could be dangerous, if there is a risk of the link being broken.”

Professional marketing consultant Pauline Platt thinks there needn’t be a problem with using the real names of the partners in the firms as part of the marketing process.

“A brand is a simplified ‘shorthand’ description of a package of values upon which the client can rely. The important thing to remember about a brand is that it should identify and differentiate and the more that it does, the more valuable the brand is. What is also important is the potential longevity and flexibility of the name. Before choosing, you need to think to the future and see if your firm’s name will continue to suit when you want to develop your firm (eg increase your partners or change direction).

“Just changing your firm’s name to a snappy concept will not automatically increase or improve your business: any brand needs marketed in a planned and considered strategy. Tough Court Lawyers or We Win Cases may be easily recognisable for the public as they look up Yellow Pages, and in some ways more memorable than ‘Unknown and Unknown’ but as we know, business isn’t assured just because someone calls the office. Getting them to call is one thing, moving on to a proper business transaction is another step. No firm wants a situation where it is spending valuable time answering phones and having to explain what they  do or don’t do, because the firm name was either misleading or not clear.

“There are many examples of household brand names which were the name of the company’s founder(s) eg Saatchi and Saatchi, Disney, Ralph Lauren, McKinsey.  Although, most of us don’t all have the kind of money for promotion that these companies enjoyed, what these examples show is that there is nothing wrong with the principle of using real names. Sometimes, particularly in a small geographic region or in a sector where individual reputation is very important and quickly spread, using individual names is actually the shorthand way to get your message across. There can be an increased sense of trust, integrity and approachability with using an individual name, if that person is already well respected in the community (either in the general or professional community). Having said that, what is sensible is having the word Solicitors in the firm name. ‘Unknown and Unknown Solicitors’ is immediately working harder for you. And with the right approach, a planned marketing strategy and proper attention to the promotion of the firm, ‘Unknown and Unknown Solicitors’ could very soon be well known, well respected and well pleased.”