So, you’ve started your dream job in a new law firm. The work, the clients and the team are all fabulous. There’s a coffee machine and city views. But THEN. You’re instructed to draft your bio for the firm’s website. And it needs to be done today.

A few thoughts occur to you:

“Dammit”

“I hate selling myself”

“Where do I even start?”.

Ah, yes, the dreaded lawyer bio (or professional profile, if you want to be fancy) is the mood crusher. The thing that brings you back to earth with a nasty thud.

But fear not, legal friend. I’ve channelled my years of experience as a legal website copywriter and created a guide to help. Now you can craft a lawyer website bio that’s effective for clients and painless for you. And it will impress your boss. Even better, I’ve also built a custom GPT which you can use for FREE to tick off that annoying job in a matter of minutes (or a few billable units if you’re old-school), and a downloadable checklist.

Let’s get into it.

Why do I need a lawyer website bio?

You became a lawyer to practise law, not to engage in marketing activities, so why do you need a bio? Because they’re a modern necessity. Here are a few reasons why:

First, your potential clients have access to more information than ever before, so they’ve probably done some research before initiating contact. Maybe a bit of Google Lawyering, or some Q&A on an AI platform, to get a basic understanding of how the law affects their issue. So, if you want to be in the running, you need to show up in their online search results. It means having an online profile, at the very least. (A LinkedIn presence is also important, but that’s a discussion for another time).

Second, most clients want to know you’re human. They’ll assume you have the qualifications to call yourself a lawyer. And they’ll probably also assume your expertise. But what they don’t know is whether they’ll like you, and whether you’ll communicate with them in terms they can understand. Having an online bio is a significant step towards helping the client feel confident about these things.

So, yes. You need an online bio. There’s no way around it. Business development is part of your job (or is likely to be at some point), so you may as well get used to the idea.

How to create your lawyer website bio

Basic details and image

The best way to create your bio is to think about what information a potential client needs immediately. It’s usually your name, contact details, and practice areas. So, these elements should be prominently displayed alongside a clear headshot of you.

Hate having your photo taken? Too bad. Do it for the greater good, because your image does three things:

1. it proves you’re human (there’s that pesky humanity again)
2. it helps the potential client to trust you
3. it gives them something to remember.

For example, if a potential client has narrowed their search to five lawyers, they need a way to make the final choice. If they remember what you look like, they may come back to your bio. It could be your cascading hair, your nose ring, your neck tattoo, or whatever. Images do a lot of heavy lifting in legal website bios.

If you have any special skills that establish your expertise or can promote you to a client group, it’s a good idea to include them here as well. Examples include fluency in another language or a specialist accreditation.

Setting up your bio in this way gives potential clients a quick and easy way to see whether you practice in the area they need and it provides an immediate way to contact you. Even better if the contact details are hyperlinked so they can call or email you at the touch of a button (because most internet users are on phones rather than desktops). This may require a chat with your web designer, but it’s worth getting right.

Here’s a mocked-up example of a bio header. (This is black and white because it’s an example. But your bio should be in colour for extra oomph).

If your firm has an “Our Team” page or similar, it may display a gallery of thumbnail images of the entire legal team. Here, the same information should be displayed, along with easily clickable links and buttons to navigate to either the individual’s bio page or to contact the lawyer. Again, this is something for your web designer to set up, but now you know why: the easier it is for website visitors to get the information they need, the greater the chance they’ll initiate contact.

​Body

If you’re like other lawyers, creating the body of your bio is probably the thing you’re dreading the most. Because even though you’re great at your job and your clients love you, you still don’t know what to write. And because you don’t know what to write, you start at the beginning.

You know, like “Hattie Doodlecliff was admitted to practice in 1857.”

Your current legal skills and expertise go first. In limited circumstances, this may also extend to post-graduate education, such as a Master’s Degree. But if it’s not directly relevant to your current work, it’s better to put it at the end, along with your other qualifications.

Then consider your broader transferable skills. You’ll find this information in all the jobs you’ve previously held, or other voluntary or personal activities. For example, consider someone who worked as a barista in a café throughout university and who played basketball. Their transferable skills may include:

• working under pressure
• delivering excellent customer service
• understanding the value of teamwork.

Don’t skip this step. The insights you’ll uncover can be fantastic. You don’t need to specifically mention those previous jobs and activities in your bio (unless you want to). Just focus on the skills.

Then, think about how your clients would describe you and make a list. Would they say you’re friendly? Empathetic? Clear in your explanations? Hard working? Now you have some handy adjectives for describing your work.

Then consider your personal interests. See if you can write down three. Yep, I know you’re cringing. You’ve seen the bios that try to inject some comedy with the personal interests, and they always fall flat. But hear me out.

Adding a few personal interests at the end of a bio can help a potential client relate to you and remember you. I’ve already said that clients fundamentally want to know that you’re human, and here it is in action again. Also, these little nuggets can be helpful conversation points for nervous clients.

So, add a human touch. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. But giving your personal interests also helps with recall if the client is looking at several bios, for example, maybe they’re thinking “I’ll choose the lawyer who drives racing cars.”

What you don’t want in your body section is anything that makes the copy more challenging to read, for example, case citations, legislation citations, publication details or memberships. But stick with me. I’ll get to those in a second.

To put together your body copy, follow these tips:

• Don’t include your full name, position or the name of the firm. These already appear in the headers above the body copy. Instead, use your first name only and appropriate pronouns (if writing in the third person), or I/me if writing in the first person.
• Aim for 150-200 words of body copy. This is enough to inform the reader and establish your expertise, but not so long that you’re at risk of losing the reader’s interest.
• Start with current skills and experience.
• Then work in your transferable skills (from your prior work or personal experience), and how others perceive you (your team or clients, or both).
• Go on to talk about other achievements or professional/voluntary interest areas.
• Finish with a brief statement of your personal interests.

Remember to write in plain language. Complex legal jargon will impress no one, especially if it’s in a bio. If you’re into a more conversational tone, even better (although remember that the tone should match the other bios on the site).

Here’s an example of body copy for our fictional lawyer, Tishka Holmes:

Other elements

Once you’ve written the body, most of the pain and suffering is over (at least for writing your bio). But maybe you’ve got a lot more to add. For example:

• professional and university qualifications
• professional memberships
• awards and achievements
• significant cases
• publications.

The problem is, this information is hard to read once you add citations, correct punctuation and complex names. Depending on your output, there may be a lot of items in each category. So the idea is to get this information onto the page in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the reader, and maintains the clean look of the page.

There are two great ways to do this: using accordions or tabs.

For both, the benefit is that the information is there for the user to access if they click on a bar or tab. The information will appear. So it gives them the choice how much they want to view and it keeps the rest of the page looking clean.

This also caters to clients at all levels. Some will only seek the basic information. Some want to know your story, while others want to dig deeper to understand the extent of your expertise. They’re in control, no matter the level of inquiry.

And if you want to go a step further, consider a pdf download with all the bio information, especially the complex information. 

Putting it together

When you put your lawyer website bio together, it should look clean and easy to read. I’m no web designer, but here’s a mock-up of a lawyer bio page using our Tishka Holmes example. Your web designer probably has other ideas, but it helps to have a basic understanding of where things should go, how the words will impact the reader, and what’s possible.

How to get it done quickly

I get it, writing your lawyer bio doesn’t factor into your billables, so it’s low priority. But still, it’s an important piece of work that will help attract clients.

So I’ve decided to help with a couple of resources.

The first is a little bit of AI magic.

I’ve built a Custom GPT, the Lawyer Bio Builder, which you can use for FREE. It will create your bio using a step-by-step process to gather and process your information. You can copy and paste the information from an old bio, your LinkedIn profile, your CV, or just type it in as you go. The golden rule, however, is to only give it the information that you’d be happy to have on the internet. (In other words, use yer noggin!)

It will also ask you to select a tone of voice from three choices: staightforward, conversational, or quirky. I encourage you to try them all.

But most importantly, make sure you check the result and edit accordingly. As I say, always check the output.

And if you’re worried that the result will be “too AI”, don’t worry. I’ve trained it. The result won’t be perfect, but it should only require light editing.

The second resource is a downloadable checklist to guide you through the process.

So go ahead, make my day. Give it a try and let me know how you go.

​

Wrapping up

Lawyer website bios are a pain in the proverbial , but you can ease the uncomfortable inconvenience with a lovely bit of structure. So use this guide to get the words flowing, and if you really want to save time, take the Lawyer Bio Builder for a spin and leave some feedback below.

My AI business solution services include training, bot building, needs analysis and implementation. Learn more about how I can help, or contact me for a chat.

​