The 'super' benefits of becoming a thought leader

By Edward Poll The Daily Record Newswire Lawyers love credentials that symbolize professional recognition and accomplishment. Part of the reason is that credentials are evidence of effort and success, and the lawyer personality has a strong inclination toward both. Another reason is purely practical. There are nearly 1.2 million practicing lawyers in this country. Differentiating yourself in such a crowded market is a major challenge, and specialized credentials can theoretically help a lawyer stand out. A number of organizations try to do this by means of various "peer rankings" that purport to evaluate a lawyer's skill and ethics. Some have been around for years, more have sprung up recently. Various state bar associations have questioned these designations, particularly the ones that denote a lawyer as being "super." The concern is that peer review designations have the potential to lead an unwary consumer to believe that the lawyers so described are, by virtue of this manufactured title, superior to their colleagues who practice in the same areas of law, thus creating an unjustified expectation about results. Helping lawyers differentiate themselves to those who need their services does not mislead prospects, it helps prospects identify what they want and need. It is one thing to regulate for truth and fairness in promotional statements, and another to ensure that hyperbole does not create false expectations. That explains why the American Bar Association's commentary 3 on rule 7.1 covering communications about a lawyer's services stipulates that in order to keep "an unsubstantiated comparison of the lawyer's services ... with [those] of other lawyers" from being misleading, it should be balanced by "an appropriate disclaimer or qualifying language [that ] may preclude a finding that a statement is likely to create unjustified expectations or otherwise mislead a prospective client." An entirely different dynamic is created, however, when a lawyer specifically creates a reputation as a leader in a given field. This means a scenario where, for example, an individual charged with a criminal offense follows this thought process: 1) I need to get a lawyer; 2) I need to get a criminal defense lawyer; 3) I need to get the specific lawyer I have seen on local television news or read as the author of a newspaper column or a blog on the Internet. In this example, the client goes from knowing that he needs a lawyer all the way to knowing that he needs the thought leader and top performer in the field, by name. Thought leaders are those who have evidenced their capabilities, their knowledge of the subject involved and the leading stature of their expertise. Becoming a thought leader is a process. Write articles for local and national publications in your field; write a commercially published book (the gold standard of marketing success) for the equivalent of third-party endorsement (only someone important would appear in a commercial publisher's venue); speak at conferences; create teleseminars; create a video; do podcasts; refine and improve your website; send out an electronic newsletter. These are only a few of the channels of communication. The channel of ideas distribution is not magic; pursue as many as possible because you never know which one will spur that phone call to engage you. Published: Wed, Jun 6, 2012