The 30 Best Law Firm Tag Lines Ever. (2 of 3)

Slogans/Tag lines are 5-word novels.

   (2021 update. Blog post 2 of 3)

Tag lines are hard – a small handful of strategically selected words that encapsulate everything you stand for and want your target audience to know about you. They're a complex story detailed in a brief blurb or phrase. Safe or boring blurbs like "Clients Matter" or "Since 1979" aren't noticed or remembered; they're a waste of opportunity to do something memorable that can truly set the tone for your firm. Here's the second part of a collection of some of our favorites law and accounting firm slogans. (Click HERE for Part One.)

We don't blink.?

One of the toughest litigation firms in the Carolinas, Hedrick Gardner brings outstanding trial experience to insurance and commercial clients. Fancy white-shoe firms that prefer pushing paper to battling at trial really don't want to be up against these guys. The branding initiative was intended to broaden the scope of the firm's work from traditional worker's comp and insurance defense litigation and grow more business litigation. We wanted to focus on how they work, not what they do, i.e. the firm's toughness, and trial expertise, rather than the type of litigation they often undertake. Beautiful "glamour" photography reinforces the quality message. See the marketing materials here.

We know Iowa like nobody’s business

Nyemaster is Iowa’s leading full-service law firm. The best-known firm in the state, they wanted to lock in this reputation for inbound work from large law firms and companies that needed to hire the safe choice when seeking a local law firm for referrals or local counsel work. We wanted to directly claim market leadership, which we could support with hard evidence of the firm’s statistical and technical superiority. The point was to to own Iowa Law and the design put "IOWA" in the headlines in the brand, ads, and website home page.

Product LiABILITY?

Marketing the national products liability practice of Carlton Fields, one of Florida's most-prominent full-service business law firms, we were pleased to discover that apparently no competitor had noticed the positive word "ABILITY" sitting right inside the practice area.

Whatever it Takes

Citrin Cooperman + Co. CPAs is a fast-growing, creative, and entrepreneurial accounting firm across the northeast, one of the nation's 100 largest CPA firms. They needed to build awareness in Philadelphia to break into the market and support their new office. Marketing to middle-market business owners and CFOs, we selected print ads in the local business journal and talk-radio commercials.

We built the campaign around a series of the firm’s outrageous client-service stories, showing the remarkable lengths Citrin Cooperman accountants go to serve their clients, like hanging upside down in a filthy garbage chute while conducting due diligence on a client's new cleaning product.

With a limited budget, we needed to have the ads jump off the page and actually used 3D images of objects that seemed to be sitting on top of the ads, including a slab of raw meat, fish, and a rat. Check out the ads here.

Bug Law?

Crosslin Slaten & O'Connor is full-service law firm in Montgomery, AL whose simple goal was to use marketing to quickly generate significantly more revenue. They were initially interested in marketing the full-service firm, although with such a small budget, significant financial gains were unlikely. So we persuaded them to seek leadership instead in the billion-dollar pest-control industry where they could build market dominance quickly, due to the complete lack of credible competition.

Anointing them "The Bug Lawyers" would promptly turn them into global news, with dozens of features profiles worldwide, from New York to New Zealand.

Did it work? A quote from the managing partner in a feature story in the ABA Journal - "We opened a new case every day for a year." The 20-year-old ads and tools are still fun. Click here to see the Best of Show-winning materials.

Every Case Has A Winning Truth

Trial lawyer Jim Figliulo is often described as “the smartest guy in the room.” His strategy in winning seemingly un-winnable cases is to find the one positive, dispositive fact, document, or element, and mercilessly hammer that point to the jury. We wanted to highlight that trait in the Figliulo & Silverman brand and tag line, to differentiate the firm from other skilled litigation firms and practices.

We designed the website around two architectural metaphors, the Arch and the Keystone. Each represents a single, seemingly simple idea that enables a larger, more complex construction:

“While the arch is one of the simplest architectural ideas, it enabled ancient architects to build soaring cathedrals and the monumental Coliseum. The same can be said of litigation, where the simplest idea can often be the most powerful.” 

Fostering Creativity

West Palm Beach's Jones Foster is one of the city's finest firms, and we felt that they deserved stronger name recognition, particularly for its strong client-service orientation.

Blessed with a positive verb as its first name, "Foster," we wanted to leverage this valuable attribute by reinforcing this in the marketing campaign, including logo, tag line (also spelled "tagline"), print ads, and website. They Foster success. They Foster creativity, collaboration, and relationships. We made the connection clear by updating their logo and connecting the blue "Foster" in the headline to the logo. 

Lawyers You Want to Know.?

Gordon Arata has a client-oriented culture and one of Louisiana's leading litigation practices. They handle tough cases, the type which can be extremely stressful for the clients. But with the care and concern Gordon Arata lawyers offer, their clients love working with them. Click here to see the other marketing materials.

Apply to Butt.

(One of our historic favorites.) Shawn Collins is one of Chicago's top trial lawyers. A former big-firm litigator, he built The Collins Law Firm, an energetic litigation boutique, with a unique personality. Hiring like-minded lawyers and staff, their take-no-prisoners philosophy is ethical but aggressive.

They'll hold their opponents' feet to the fire, because that's what their entrepreneurial clients want. Litigation is costly, inefficient, and distracts clients from their primary business -- so they want it to end as quickly as possible.

And that's Shawn's mission -- to end the litigation swiftly and favorably. They don't agree to their opponents' continuances without a darn good reason, because needless delay that only serves to increase cost and postpone the dispute's ultimate resolution. 

Virgin means experienced.?

Mark Virgin is one of Vancouver's top litigators, and his firm, StevensVIRGIN, handles some of the toughest cases in town. Mark asked Fishman Marketing to develop a marketing campaign and website to build their local brand, particularly among the legal community, for referrals. The charismatic Mr. Virgin has a great sense of humor (and probably some difficult middle school years...).

In addition to developing some branding ideas that related to their expertise, we wanted to explore whether we could use "Virgin" to build immediate memorability. The challenge is that "virgin" is a weak word, meaning "inexperienced," which is the opposite of what people are seeking in their trial lawyers. Similar to the previous "Low Ball & Lynch" example, we took ownership of the word, turning "weak" into "strong." In Law, Virgin means experienced.

The launch event was scheduled to be a national Canadian legal conference, where they had a trade show booth to build their brand. The "Virgin" materials were the hit of the conference, and they simply couldn't keep their giveaway Virgin mugs in stock.

Stay tuned for Part 3, coming in two weeks!

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Need a new brand or website?

Contact Ross Fishman directly to discuss your firm's branding needs at +1.847.921.7677 or [email protected]. We also recommend the definitive book on the subject, “We’re Smart. We’re Old. And We’re the Best at Everything. The World’s First No-BS Guide to Legal Marketing and Branding” available at Amazon here.