What’s Missing from Lawyer Profiles on Websites?

Corporate legal clients told law firm audience members what they would like to see in lawyer profiles on law firm websites when they spoke at the annual Legal Sales and Service Organization (“LSSO”) RainDance conference in June.

Thanks to Louise Henkel, director of business development and marketing at Hill Ward Henderson, for her notes on the input provided by the following panelists:

• Christine Castellano, former Sr. VP, GC and Chief Compliance Officer for Ingredion, Inc.
• Dennis Garcia, Assistant GC at Microsoft
• Steven Heinrichs, Executive VP, GC and Chief Legal Compliance Officer at Mueller Water Products
• Edward Paulis III, VP and Sr. Assistant GC at Zurich North America

And here is a snapshot of what panelists told law firms they would like to see in website profiles of individual lawyers:

• All panelists agreed they would like to see some quantification of lawyer experience, such as number of cases tried or tried to verdict, number of transactions closed, dollar amounts of transactions, and percentage of times that transactions have completed ahead of schedule or under budget.
• All panelists agreed they would like to see more industry-specific experience in lawyer profiles.
• Three of four panelists agreed that it would be nice to know about the hobbies, personal interests and passions of lawyers to see their human side while one panelist saw such information as irrelevant but not offensive or silly.

Big kudos to moderator Julianne Hartzell, partner at Marshall Gerstein, for some excellent panel questioning.