More cowbell

How about more cowbell and less courthouse and Lady Justice on lawyer’s blogs and websites? I can’t take any more of the tune being sung by law firms across the Internet.

Do you know who it was who thought pictures of buildings and scales of justice were a good idea for lawyer ads? Yellow page sales representatives holed up in cheap hotel rooms.

Yellow page sales reps were taught a two call concept. The first meeting you listen and learn. You then go back to your hotel at night to cut, paste, draw and write the ads. Unless you found phrases or artwork in the directories you cart around in your trunk, you just cut and paste an ad together. You then head back to the business for the second meeting to try to sell the ad.

I’m not sure who’s most to blame for all the legal ‘artwork’ being carried over from the yellow pages to lawyer websites and blogs. High school kids with cheap software, Martindale-Hubbell selling 25,000 ‘Lawyer HomePages,’ or lawyers, with the design taste of someone who shops for their suits at K-Mart.

Back in 1996 when I did a website for my law firm, I wanted the website to look the people I represented, not lawyers. No one had to tell me people didn’t like lawyers. No one had to tell me claimants were not looking to find themselves in a courtroom.

Rather than pictures of the law (whatever that even means), I wanted to create an atmosphere of professionalism, trust, and comfort. It remains true today.

LexBlog graphic design professionals and our creative director will do their darndest to avoid scales and courthouses. We’ll have occasion where a local historic building is desired by a client. But it’s music to our hears when we hear ‘no legal stuff’ in the design.

C’mon guys. There are no ethic’s rules that require cheesy ads. You can leave the yellow pages behind. You can let your prospective clients know you’re more like them and less like other lawyers. Imagine.