Online newsrooms are powerful and versatile marketing tools for law firms. They are powerful because lawyers can use their firms’ newsrooms to build their authority and credibility with website visitors simply by talking about themselves and the work they’ve done for their clients. Newsrooms are versatile because with a single piece of information, lawyers and their firms can talk to audiences as varied as clients, referral sources, members of the media, and current and prospective partners, associates, and staff members. An online newsroom is often the first place a website visitor will go when he wants to know what has been going on recently at a law firm. For these reasons, newsrooms are probably the second-most important section of a law firm’s website behind attorney biographies.

I have noticed a recurring theme with many law firms’ online newsrooms, even when controlling for size, location and practice areas: they do more “telling” than they do “showing.” When they actually talk about the work they do for their clients, firms often focus on a legal result (a favorable settlement or a defense verdict) instead of explaining how the client benefited from a particular legal result. Likewise, when it comes to what their lawyers and staff members do outside of pure legal work, law firms often focus on speaking engagements and published articles instead of shining a spotlight on the human side of their employees and lawyers.