Packaging your name

The beauty of the legal profession lies in the fact that every lawyer has the ability to make a living for himself whether self-employed or under the employment of another lawyer. For the young wigs, two things are involved; its either one has the financial muscle to establish a law firm immediately after call to […]

The beauty of the legal profession lies in the fact that every lawyer has the ability to make a living for himself whether self-employed or under the employment of another lawyer. For the young wigs, two things are involved; its either one has the financial muscle to establish a law firm immediately after call to Bar or gets more experience under the tutelage of another before establishing his law firm – the underlying factor still remains that both seek to make a living from their name as lawyers.
Packaging your name can play an important role in the success of a young lawyer’s legal career; at this stage, a young wig needs to create ways of attracting clients to himself by being different and unique. When a lawyer is needed in your community, your name should come to the members’ lips easily; when a friend hears someone in need of a lawyer, he should dial your number first. This doesn’t just happen it takes a lot of packaging from the young lawyer.
At first it is not easy, the task of navigating through the legal profession to become a renowned name in the business is not for the lazy minded, it is a task that can only be embarked upon by young lawyers who want to stand out irrespective of temporary challenges. As Tunde Abdul put it: “When you start to realise that your future is for you and you alone, there and then you will stop depending on someone else (including firms) to determine the limit of your success… I personally believe that the bulk of the job is on the young lawyer who wishes to succeed beyond all odds to look beyond the present situation and shoot out to the outside world and let his/her voice be heard. It’s HARD and ROUGH no doubt but surely you will get there with strong will, discipline, and dedication”
Creating a name into a brand in the profession starts from a young lawyer’s dress sense; it should be clean, simple, immaculate and presentable at all times, not loud, flashy or ‘shouty’. The appearance should say ‘gentleman’ not ‘tout’ or ‘rap star’.
Communication is also key in the bid to turn a name into a brand. A young lawyer should be able to pass his message in the most courteous way to both colleagues and the general society without arrogance or pomposity. A look at many of the renowned names in the profession today, one would notice eloquence in their manner of speech be it in court, client briefing or interviews though there are exceptions, but we are not here to learn from the exceptions, as one social media display picture put it ‘Improve your argument, don’t raise your voice’.
Next is comportment, as a young lawyer, one is tempted to say what he feels is the right way of doing things in a hurry, which is a good thing but a brand name stands out because of the unique way it is presented to the public. There is really no need to be in a hurry to voice out your opinion, patiently wait for the right time and make sense when you talk, “if everyone is talking, no one is talking”.  One key skill a young lawyer needs to harness as he becomes a brand is listening to other people’s views and opinions before giving his.
The most important key to branding is ‘service delivery’, a young wig must always deliver client satisfaction, referral is one of the fastest ways of building a name and client base.  Once a young lawyer is known to deliver when given a job to do, the work of branding is half done, wherever your location maybe clients would always look for you.
This writer is well aware that lawyers are also humans with different types of flaws and lapses and the above mentioned is not an exhaustive list of things to do to become a brand, however, the idea is to attract people to your name by doing things differently and in a unique way, create your own style of doing things and before long your name would gradually become a brand.
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