21% of major law firms miss out on differentiation as seven distinct groups emerge among top 100 UK law firms

Using law firm website content as a basis, we collated brand taglines (concise phrases) and brand statements (the handful of sentences defining a firm and their offering), as well as the content they showcase on their websites.

We identified the following clusters:

28%: Client Centric and Personalised

21%: No tagline

13%: Innovative and future focused

11%: Legal experts with comprehensive services

11%: Stewards and champions

7% Global presence and excellence

Freshfields made big waves this month with its brand now incorporating the brand tagline ‘Make bold moves’ reflecting a significant shift towards emotionally engaging and impactful brand positioning.

Two decades ago the vast majority of law firms defined their offering using plain vanilla descriptions. Fast forward a decade and a wave of firms began portraying themselves as innovative, whilst a few years later, client centricity came to the fore. Shift to now, and there is an emerging class of firms evoking emotional buy-in and defining themselves as social and client champions.

There are examples of brilliance across the UK top 100 firms. It’s not just a big firm’s game and the market itself isn’t static. New firms are rapidly rising up the revenue ranks, and brand value propositions are being taken more seriously by firms as a means of ensuring buy in from their clients, stakeholders and current and future employees. Despite this, there is still a large proportion of firms that struggle to differentiate, focusing on their own attributes and describing themselves in similar ways.

If you’d like to find out where your firm’s brand is positioned, please reach out. We can provide you with the data behind our findings, and the guidance to create a more impactful brand.