Law firms and Barristers’ Chambers are tremendously good clients for Digital Marketing Agencies and SEO specialists. They often require extensive guidance, making it satisfying work. Also, after almost 30 years of working in the legal industry, I can say, as a general rule, most legal professionals are incredibly polite and friendly and pay their invoices on time.

One of the challenges a general SEO or Digital Marketing Agency faces when working with law firms and Barristers’ Chambers is creating legally accurate and engaging content that sells the benefits of the fee earners and the ethos of the business. This is where a legal copywriter delivers the landing pages and articles that provide the foundation on which your SEO and marketing expertise rests.

What type of content do law firms and barristers’ chambers need?

I have been writing legal content for over 11 years. Around 80% of my clients want regular (typically around two per week) articles for their law firm’s website. The remaining 20% is landing pages for a new or refreshed website.

What are the challenges concerning writing legal copy?

There are three key issues that must be considered before embarking on creating content for a law firm or Barristers’ Chamber’s website:

1. Law is complex and often difficult. There are plenty of legal copywriters out there who claim you do not need a law degree to write legal copy. And they’re probably correct – a basic landing page or SEO blog can be written by a non-legally qualified person. However, to ghostwrite articles and websites that are good enough for a solicitor, barrister, or KC to put their name to, a law degree is required. For example, it is difficult to imagine how a general copywriter could write a detailed analysis of a new Supreme Court or Court of Appeal decision if they lack a basic understanding of case law precedent. And how can you comment on the latest legislation if you do not understand how Acts are created and amended?
2. A legal content writer needs access to primary and secondary resources. Primary sources are legislation and case law, much of which is freely available online through BAILLI and legislation.co.uk. Secondary resources include legal journals and commentary. These are available through subscriptions to legal publications such as Lexis+, Practical Law, and Westlaw. These databases are expensive, and it is difficult for a general copywriter, SEO agency, or digital marketing agency devoted to servicing law firms to justify subscribing to them. This means they rely on other law firms’ websites to conduct research for landing page FAQs or a legal article. And due to the fact, many firms now rely on ChatGPT to create their marketing materials, these websites often contain mistakes that someone without a legal background could easily fail to recognise.
3. Getting ideas for legal articles requires access to resources like the New Law Journal and Solicitors Journal, as well as other top-drawer publications such as the Financial Times. Not only do these publications provide quality backlinks, but they inform the reader what is going on in the legal world, providing brilliant angles for new articles. Now, you may be thinking, “but I don’t need to come up with ideas and angles – my client should give me a detailed brief”. In theory, this may be true. In reality, you’ll be waiting for weeks, if not months, for content ideas because solicitors and barristers are always crazy busy. As a legal content writer, my job is to take the entire problem of writing articles and landing pages away from my clients, and part of that is having the resources and knowledge to produce engaging ideas for them. Again, for a non-legally qualified generalist with no access to legal publications, this is a tall order.

Landing the big clients

You may be thinking, “it makes no difference to my agency; my clients generally just want SEO content, and I can come up with ideas by doing keyword research”. This is true and works well for general B2B and B2C clients. It may even satisfy a small high street firm that focuses on Wills and residential property work. But suppose you want to work with large law firms, barristers’ chambers, and KC’s who are leaders in their field and are prepared to pay top dollar for quality digital marketing and SEO. In that case, you need to engage a legally qualified copywriter who has access to the same legal resources your client does.

Final words

What I have said above applies not only to the legal profession. If you want to work with significant medical, science, engineering, or financial services organisations, you will need to instruct content writers who are qualified and well-resourced in those particular fields. Doing so will mean you have fewer clients who pay more and provide increasingly interesting work. After all, as Tim Ferriss said, “Life’s too short to think small”.