For the longest time, I resisted the idea of building a personal brand.
It sounded too much like marketing.
And marketing, in my mind, belonged to businesses, influencers and people selling something.
I was a lawyer.
My work was supposed to speak for itself.
If I did good work, gave sound advice, drafted well, prepared properly and built a good reputation, surely people would notice.
That belief is comforting.
It is also incomplete.
The uncomfortable truth I have slowly come to accept is this:
Being good at what you do and being known for what you do are two different things.
And increasingly, lawyers have to think about both.
Visibility Is No Longer Vanity
For years, lawyers could build their careers largely through chambers, firms, referrals, professional associations, conferences and word of mouth.
Those things still matter.
But there is now another layer to professional reputation: your digital presence.
Before someone sends you a message, refers a matter to you, invites you to speak, considers you for an opportunity or even reaches out professionally, there is a reasonable possibility that they will look you up online.
LinkedIn has become particularly relevant because it sits at the intersection of professional identity, expertise and networking. The American Bar Association has described LinkedIn as increasingly aligned with how lawyers traditionally build business—through expertise, credibility and relationships.
That does not mean every lawyer needs to become a content creator.
It means that remaining invisible is no longer necessarily neutral.
If people cannot understand what you do, what you know or what you care about professionally, they may simply move on to someone whose expertise is easier to find.
That is an uncomfortable thought.
But it is an important one.
The Problem Is That Lawyers Were Not Trained to “Build a Brand”
Law school teaches us to analyse.
Practice teaches us to advise.
Neither necessarily teaches us how to communicate our professional identity publicly.
And that creates an interesting tension.
Lawyers are trained to be careful.
We are taught to qualify statements.
To check facts.
To avoid overstatement.
To protect confidentiality.
To think about liability.
To consider the other side of the argument.
Then we enter a digital environment that often rewards confidence, speed, strong opinions and constant visibility.
It is easy to conclude that we need to become louder.
I don’t think we do.
I think we need to become clearer.
There is a difference.
Personal Branding Does Not Mean Turning Every Opinion Into Content
This is where I think lawyers can get personal branding completely wrong.
A judgment comes out.
Post about it.
A legal controversy trends.
Post about it.
Someone says something controversial.
Post about it.
A new bill is introduced.
Post about it.
Someone wins a case.
Post about it.
And suddenly, the lawyer’s professional identity becomes an endless stream of reactions.
But being visible is not the same as being valuable.
I don’t want my professional brand to become a record of everything I have ever thought.
I want it to communicate something much more useful:
What do I understand?
What perspective do I bring?
What conversations do I want to contribute to?
What do I want people to remember me for?
That is a very different approach to content.
Not Every Legal Opinion Needs an Audience
There is enormous pressure online to have an opinion on everything.
I think lawyers should resist that pressure.
Sometimes I don’t have an informed view.
Sometimes I am still reading.
Sometimes the facts are incomplete.
Sometimes there are competing legal interpretations.
Sometimes I simply do not have anything meaningful to add.
And I have learned that saying nothing can sometimes be more professional than publishing something simply because a topic is trending.
A personal brand should not require constant commentary.
In fact, I think restraint can become part of a lawyer’s brand.
If I know that when I speak, I have something considered to say, my voice becomes more valuable than if I comment on everything.
Visibility without judgment is noise.
And lawyers should be particularly careful not to confuse the two.
My Personal Brand Should Not Become My Personality
Another uncomfortable realisation is that personal branding can become exhausting when we start performing a version of ourselves.
The perfectly confident lawyer.
The endlessly productive lawyer.
The lawyer who has a lesson from every meeting.
The lawyer who wakes up at 5 a.m., reads five judgments before breakfast, exercises, mentors ten people and somehow finds time to write three LinkedIn posts before 8 a.m.
I don’t want to build a professional identity that requires me to perform perfection.
I would rather build one based on credibility.
That means sharing lessons when I genuinely have one.
Writing about areas I actually understand.
Talking about experiences that have shaped my thinking.
Admitting when something changed my perspective.
And occasionally saying, “I don’t know.”
Authenticity does not mean sharing everything.
It means that what I choose to share is actually mine.
The ABA’s guidance on building an authentic LinkedIn presence makes a similar point: authenticity can create trust without requiring lawyers to disclose confidential information or turn their personal lives into content.
I Also Don’t Want My Brand to Replace My Work
This is probably the most important boundary.
A personal brand can create visibility.
It cannot create competence.
A beautifully written LinkedIn post cannot compensate for poor legal advice.
A large follower count cannot replace judgment.
A viral video cannot replace preparation.
A strong online presence cannot substitute for client trust.
And I would never want it to.
The point of becoming more visible is not to become famous.
It is to make my professional expertise easier to discover.
There is a significant difference.
So What Should Lawyers Actually Talk About?
I have started thinking about content less as “What should I post?” and more as “What do I want to be known for?”
That shift makes everything easier.
Instead of trying to comment on every legal development, I can focus on a few areas where I genuinely have something to contribute.
Instead of summarising a judgment everyone has already read, I can explain why I think it matters.
Instead of saying, “Here are five things about this new law,” I can ask a more useful question:
What does this actually change for the person or business affected by it?
Instead of posting another generic career quote, I can talk about something I have actually experienced.
Instead of trying to sound like an expert, I can document what I am learning.
That, to me, is a much more sustainable form of thought leadership.
Your Brand Is Bigger Than Your Posts
One thing I have also realised is that personal branding does not happen only when I publish something.
It happens when I comment thoughtfully on someone else’s work.
When I respond to a message.
When I speak at an event.
When I write an article.
When I help a junior lawyer.
When I participate in a professional discussion.
When someone introduces me to another professional and says, “You should speak to her; this is what she works on.”
That last sentence may actually be one of the strongest measures of a personal brand.
Not how many people saw my post.
But whether people can accurately describe what I stand for professionally when I am not in the room.
The Goal Is Not to Be Everywhere
I don’t think every lawyer needs Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, podcasts, newsletters and a personal website.
Trying to be everywhere can quickly become a full-time job.
And lawyers already have one.
The goal should be to be visible in the places where the right people are looking.
For many lawyers, LinkedIn is particularly useful because it puts them in front of professional networks, potential clients, referral sources and business decision-makers.
But the platform is only the vehicle.
The real asset is reputation.
I Think the Best Personal Brand Is Almost Invisible
This may sound contradictory, but I think the strongest lawyer brands eventually stop feeling like “branding.”
They feel like reputation.
Someone sees your name and immediately associates it with a particular area of expertise.
Someone reads your article and recognises your way of thinking.
Someone hears a legal issue and remembers that you have written about it.
Someone needs help in an area you work in and your name comes up naturally.
That is what I want.
Not to be the loudest lawyer in the room.
Not to have an opinion on everything.
Not to turn my professional life into a content calendar.
I want to build enough credibility that my work becomes recognisable.
The Uncomfortable Truth
I still believe that good work matters more than good content.
But I no longer believe that good work automatically creates visibility.
Sometimes you have to make your expertise discoverable.
You have to tell people what you know.
You have to participate in conversations.
You have to write.
You have to build relationships.
You have to allow people to see how you think.
But there is another truth that matters just as much:
You don’t have to turn yourself into a product to build a personal brand.
You don’t have to post every day.
You don’t have to manufacture opinions.
You don’t have to share your entire personal life.
You don’t have to chase virality.
And you certainly don’t have to become someone you’re not.
For me, building a personal brand as a lawyer is becoming less about asking,
“How can I get more attention?”
and more about asking,
“How can I make my professional reputation clearer, more credible and more useful?”
That feels much more sustainable.
Because ultimately, I don’t want people to remember me because I posted the most.
I want them to remember me because I had something worth saying when it mattered.
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