I hadn’t planned to spend the last few days posting about law firm website practices, but here I am.
Legal blogging pioneer Ernest “Ernie the Attorney” Svenson has written about another practice of law firms on their websites that has a pervasively negative impact on both their marketing efforts and the Internet itself.
I am speaking, of course, about the all-to-frequent practice of posting shockingly bad photographs of lawyers on websites.
There are an almost limitless number of ways firms make mistakes with photographs. Ernie’s comments are right on target.
Suffice it to say, if your portrait on your firm’s website looks like it came out of a surveillance camera as you were startled on a windy day, you might want to think about the message you are sending.
I can tell you from personal appearance that some firms have the guy who photographs accident scenes for their litigators drop by and snap a few headshots and then use those pictures for publicity and marketing purposes.
Ernie suggests a photographer to consider. Let me add a strong recommendation that you consider another excellent photographer who, by coincidence, happens to be married to my wife’s sister. We call him Uncle Dan, but you can call him Dan Donovan. At Dan’s website, you’ll find a nice sampling of his photos, that showcase Dan’s obvious skill, talent and, as someone who has seen tons of Dan’s family pictures, artistry.
Several years ago, I had an article published in a magazine and they sent a photographer over to take some pictures of me for the article. I was disappointed with the picture they chose, but, hey, I had gotten an article published with my picture on it. I showed the article and picture to Dan and I could tell he was underwhelmed.
He called me the next day. He said that the picture had bothered him so much that he wanted to shot a set of pictures of me that I could use in the future and that he would use in his portfolio as he moved toward doing more corporate portraits.
I was so pleased with those pictures and with what Dan was able to create. My blog picture comes from a more recent session we did for another magazine spot.
You will not find anyone more professional to work with than Dan and by the end of the session, you’ll have the feeling that you are working with an artist. That feeling will be confirmed when you see his pictures.
I’ve recently been to an awards event and seen a “one hundred faces of . . .” magazine cover where I was shocked by the pictures that people allowed to be used in these places.
Having a publicity picture that you like and you get compliments on is great thing that almost cannot be appreciated until you experience it.
Here’s your assignment for today:
Take a look at your photo on your website and your standard publicity photo.
Take a look at the pictures Ernie points you to and at Dan Donovan’s portfolio shots (by the way, it is OK for lawyers to have color pictures, so don’t just look at Dan’s black-and-white portfolios).
Take another look at your current photo.
If you are a managing partner or a marketing director of a firm, repeat the process for the rest of the pictures on your website.
Let your feelings percolate.
You’ll know what you need to do. Now you have a couple of choices about what to do. If you contact Dan, tell him I sent you.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]