LexBlog vision and mission statement : A work in progress

LexBlog is a young company in a couple ways. One, we sell a young product, professional marketing blogs for lawyers and professional services businesses. And two, we’ve been around for less than a couple of years. This morning I was thinking that LexBlog needs clear vision and mission statements to guide us.

Allison Shield’s vision and mission statement post at the Legal Ease Blog could not have been more timely.

The vision is the statement of what you are building – what you want your firm to be in the future.  The vision should be as specific as possible and can include things like culture and atmosphere as well as financial goals, size and location of offices and areas of practice.

Brainstorm and be as expansive as possible when creating your vision statement.  Don’t edit yourself when you conceive of your initial vision.  You can always distill it down, if necessary.  Ask yourself if you could do anything, what would you provide for your clients?  What do you want their experience with your firm to be like? 

The misison statement illustrates how the firm intends to achieve its vision on a day to day basis. It demonstrates why clients will hire you to represent them. Your mission statement will convey to clients and potential clients the essence of your firm and the manner in which you do business. 

The mission statement can be a powerful way to strengthen the infrastructure of your business and to attract and keep the clients you want. To be effective, the mission statement should be unique and reflect your firm’s personality.  If the mission statement rings true if you substitute the name of another …firm, your mission statement is probably too generic or too vague. 

There are three major prongs to consider when writing a mission statement: purpose (why the firm exists), business (the firm’s clients and practice areas) and values. 

Use the vision and mission statements a guiding principles against which you measure each of the firm’s activities and strategies, from practice areas to marketing to client service.  Rather than the practice developing on its own, with no clear direction, work backwards from where you want to go and and figure out how to get there.

Want more? There’s Allison’s article, How to Take Control of Your Practice by Creating Vision and Mission Statements, in in the February 2006 ABA GP/Solo publication, Law Trends and News.

You can see why Allison successfully partners with “successful solos and law firms to establish higher value practices by developing strategies to increase growth and profitability.”