By mid-career, most lawyers are technically excellent. Many are specialists. Some are moving towards partnership, leadership, or firm ownership.

And yet, a persistent challenge remains: clearly articulating value in a way that resonates with prospective clients and referrers – beyond other lawyers.

In a 2025 session for the Law Institute of Victoria, I shared common brand challenges I see in my work with law professionals:

1. Lawyers are time-poor and risk-aware – roadblocks to building a brand.

Brand building can feel like a “nice to have” rather than a core professional capability, particularly when client work, people leadership and billables dominate the week. Add confidentiality constraints and a justified fear of “over-sharing”, and visibility quickly drops down the priority list.

2.  Many lawyers are highly technical communicators in a non-technical world.

Expertise is often expressed through education — explaining the law, outlining risks, flagging what can’t be done. While essential, this can unintentionally position the lawyer as someone who “puts the brakes on”, rather than as a trusted commercial advisor who helps clients move forward with confidence.

This becomes particularly problematic at senior levels, where the role shifts to include client acquisition and development (read: ‘sales’!). Yet the ‘bridge’ between an educational or discovery conversation to a project commitment conversation can be a difficult one for trusted advisors to cross.

3. Finding ways to meaningfully differentiate is tough for a lawyer, whether one of many or one of few.

Many lawyers are specialists — but they are among many in their field. Some, conversely, are so niched that they struggle to know where and how to build a visible profile with a very specific audience, not all of whom are active online. Without a clear “go-to” position, even excellent practitioners risk blending into the background.

In the world of AI, clients and colleagues are no longer just buying legal answers; they are looking for judgement, context, foresight and leadership.

What a strong legal brand looks like

The legal landscape is shifting rapidly: regulatory change, new risk categories (cyber, mental health, AI), evolving client expectations and increasing competition from both national and global firms. In this environment, those who can clearly articulate what they are known for, who they help, and why their perspective matters are better positioned to stay relevant and top of mind.

Strong specialist brands are not about self-promotion. They are about leadership. They combine technical depth with clarity, commercial understanding and a consistent message — across introductions, conversations and online visibility — that builds trust rather than noise.

For experienced lawyers, the real question is no longer “Am I good at what I do?”
It’s “Can the right people clearly see the value I bring?”

And if not, what’s getting in the way?

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The best way to learn is from each other… so my session focused on 3 key conversations:

(Yep, since the conference session was called ‘Trouble When you Walked In?’, I threaded in some much-loved Taylor Swift references by request!)

I’ve broken down the 3 Shifts in a previous article, Seen as ‘Trouble’ or ‘Vital Partner’?, explaining what needs to change in your mindset and communication style to be given a seat at the decision-making table.

Here, I want to share some of the things that I heard in preparation for this session, and during the discussions at the conference, that really shine a light on the personal brand challenges in-house lawyers, external consultants and other advisors face to challenge the reputation of ‘trouble’!

Now, as Taylor would say, it takes one to know one. My own journey building a consulting practice working with legal, finance, accounting and other professional service clients around Australia didn’t start there…

I was challenged by:

• Being believable as I ‘stepped up’ through different contexts, with different sized clients, and with different (increasingly senior) audiences.
• Learning quickly, and then bringing confidence and conviction, to be given the opportunity I knew I was ready for!
• Finding how my ‘teacher’ foundation and ’directive’ personality could help or hinder my results as a consultant and advisor coming into different senior leadership spaces and working with different ‘power’ personalities!

Some of the shifts I’ve heard professional advisors, like in-house lawyers, say they’ve had to make include:

• From an Order-Taker… to a Change-Leader
• From a Detail-Dumper… to a Clarity-Bringer
• From a Technician… to a Decision-Making-Peer
• From an Outsider… or Integral Business Partner

The most important thing you can do to create a shift is to get clarity on how it is you want to be seen. As one ACC member put it:

“First, think about what you need to do so see yourself in that way – if you don’t see yourself that way, your colleagues won’t either.”

In preparing for this session, I asked experienced and senior members of ACC, Australia-wide, ‘What do you need to do to be seen as a leader at your organisation?’

Here’s what I heard (…and how about this for tapping into the power and wisdom of networks?):

I loved chatting with WA’s in-house counsel professionals at the conference, and the session topic was well-received… I’m now presenting it as a national webinar in September, and look forward to more conversations about shifting towards a powerful leadership brand!

“We extend our gratitude to you for delivering a remarkable session at the WA In-House Counsel Day. Your profound vision, extensive knowledge and vast experience will undoubtedly support our in-house community in shaping their path towards the future.” – ACC Australia Team

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Shift 1: Your Focus

A true partner in the business knows how to start where the other person is at – to frame ideas according to their interests and goals. This is about focusing the content of your communication to always speak from VALUE.

Start, weave through, and finish your message with the value that your ideas will bring to the receiver of the message. Cut to the chase – why are you bringing this to them now? Keep the thread going in your explanation – what is important here? Finish by underscoring the valuable outcome of this approach and clearly point to the next step. Then make it easy to implement – what steps will you guide them through, what support will you provide?

Shift 2: Your Communication Style

The most influential people, including the best teachers and advisors, use language that connects and engages their audience… and they do so with personable but confident delivery.

What are your stakeholders talking about? If you are talking to the board, for example, you need to understand what key elements of the business drive their agenda – and the terminology they use to describe that. If you’re talking to the CEO, you need to know what in the business and the wider ecosystem is impacting their decision-making and focus right now – and think about the words they use to describe things like team, culture, systems, goals, challenges. How does what you are proposing they focus on align with what they are talking about? And what language will resonate with them?

What do they need in communications from you in order to listen, absorb and action your recommendations? Do they need things to be quicker and shorter? Simplified? Illustrated with a real-life example? A 10-page memo explaining the finer details of the law, or an essay-style email explaining all the options, is usually not what they need. If you are a lawyer, auditor or accountant, you probably are very good at paying attention to detail and reading everything that comes across your desk with the utmost care… but most people – even busy, successful, intelligent leaders – don’t do this. And as we know, some don’t even read emails at all.

In addition, your personal communication style will affect how much you can get someone on your side. The challenge here is finding the balance between being friendly, personable – while being seen as the confident authority in your space.

Pay attention to the words you use, but also your body language, and investigate how small tweaks (like cutting back on saying things like ‘sorry for the interruption’ and ‘I just wanted to ask if…’), while doing more things like getting to the point, walking into the meeting room with purpose, asking for what you need with confidence…), changes how people see and respond to you. If authority is not your issue but connection is, look at how you can maintain what’s working while bringing in more warmth in simple ways, such as checking in with people to see how they’re going, or smiling and making more eye contact… the little things go a long way with human beings, who are emotional creatures at their core.

Great delivery is first about understanding what your audience cares about, and then thinking about how your verbal and body language connects and guides them, or loses them completely!

Read on for Shift 3…

Shift 3: Your Expectations

When we are navigating various crucial stakeholder relationships or trying to be influential with the leadership team… but we come from a small team, a siloed business unit, or for some other reason are ‘not one of them’… being seen as an important voice of expertise can be a real challenge. Understanding where we actually DO have some power to change the situation is essential here.

To a large extent, we teach people how to treat us. What is it that you expect from people, and what subliminal messages are you sending about that?

Examine where you need to structure conversations or set up situations differently so that you have more control in guiding the outcome. Where do you need to set up clearer boundaries (and stick to them)? Perhaps you need to rethink your level of responsiveness to shift from being seen as an ‘order-taker’ to someone focused on managing their own business function or portfolio. Perhaps you need to clarify your polite, but firm, responses to help you manage interactions with certain personalities in the office. Perhaps your email communications need to be clearer, more succinct and more authoritative.

“Perhaps you need to rethink your level of responsiveness to shift from being seen as an ‘order-taker’…”

While you’re at it… do you need to shift your expectations of yourself? Where do you need to see yourself differently? Where do you need to step up? It could be that to be seen as the expert, you need to do more to BE the expert – come prepared to every interaction, know the trends, know what others are doing, provide business case examples.

If you want a seat at the table as a trusted and vital partner, you need to start with your sense of personal power. If you increase this, then you will have more power to engage in the right conversations with decision-makers, develop relationships across the organisation, and bring your various stakeholders along for the journey too.

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Enquire about your eligibility for a complimentary Team Personal Brand Awareness Session or a walk through NWC’s Trust Map to see where your organisation sits in building trust with stakeholders. More information on our Brand Culture Advisory page.

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