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Define your personal brand as a lawyer by answering 4 questions

January 23, 2010

The need for a lawyer to develop a personal brand in order to succeed has been a hot topic of late. My post on the need for associates and law grads to develop a brand following a New York Times Story on the plight of young lawyers getting and keeping a job drew a fair amount of commentary and emails.

Then successful lawyer and former in-house counsel at LinkedIn, Doug Mandell, spoke at the Avvo conference this week on how critical it was for lawyers to use social media to develop their own brand. Doug and I hooked up yesterday morning for breakfast to continue a discussion on that among other things.

So a blog post at the Harvard Business Review by management consultant, Ron Ashkenas, on how to define your brand by answering a few simple questions was a timely one.

The questions:

  1. What differentiates you from everyone else who might have a similar background or set of experiences?
  2. What skills, abilities, knowledge and attitudes do you have (or are developing) that will make people want to work with, follow or ‘friend’ you — online or off?
  3. What value can you create for others as a friend, blogger, colleague, teammate, boss or subordinate?
  4. What will make you satisfied and fulfilled that you are indeed making a contribution?

Why the need to develop a brand, per Ashkenas?

Regardless of whether you also actively contribute content online, I believe this is a question that everyone should periodically address about themselves. We are all the chief branding officers of our own personal brands. We have the power to determine and control our own reputation, whether through our actions at the workplace or through what we decide to Tweet. We are able to create our own sense of distinctiveness, trust and confidence. In every environment, from the workplace to the Web, people make choices that affect their personal brand — whether it is who to work with (and who to avoid), who to follow, who to ‘friend’, or what special message to share in 140 characters.

If you don’t know what sets you apart and have a plan for how you are going to communicate that, at best you’re going to be viewed as a average lawyer. At worst, you’ll be unemployed.

Fortunately with the advent of social media, it’s never been easier for a good lawyer to develop their own brand.