It’s a funny truism for law firm websites: attorney bios tend to look the same. But what if they were all different? Why not? No two attorneys are the same. They all sell themselves differently. Why should attorneys fit themselves into a rigid, one-size-fits-all bio template? This sameness is insufficient for attorneys to market themselves online. Shouldn’t there be a way to allow different attorneys to post different information — and different amounts of info — depending on their needs?
We’ve been working on this challenge and we think that for some firms the answer involves incorporating “attorney microsites” — expanded bios that are essentially, small websites within the firm’s website, one for each attorney. This has almost unlimited applications:
- Imagine that one of the attorneys in your firm has written numerous articles and has made many presentations. For this person’s expanded bio, you’d include an “Articles” page and a “Presentations” page on his or her microsite.
- Other attorneys might be frequent social media users. In this case, a feed from LinkedIn, Twitter or a blog can easily be incorporated into his or her microsite.
- Other attorneys may have special needs and make unique requests. This is not a problem, as the microsite pages can be configured to accommodate practically any content (e.g., a photo gallery, video, interactive diagrams).
- Other attorneys may just want basic bio information — and would require no other pages beyond the main CV page.
The beauty of the attorney-microsite concept is that it’s a malleable website structure. It grows as each attorney’s needs grow — just as a website should.