Interesting post over at The Great Jakes Blog  on the necessity and usefulness of taglines in building a law firm's brand in marketing efforts. For those of you not familiar with the term, a tagline (in this instance) refers to a short statement or motto that defines a firms mission (and should do so as succinctly as possible). A number of firms have created taglines and incorporate them into their marketing efforts as a way to help create their "brand" in their marketing efforts. It seems like every firm is coming up with their own tagline, but not so fast according to a recent Great Jakes post.

According to the author in Law firm taglines: How to sound like everybody else, taglines don't assist in marketing a firm and in fact are wasted effort since they really don't convey meaningful information to potential clients.  Citing a number of taglines, the post begins:

Someone recently compiled and posted the taglines of the world’s top law firms. The list is cringe-worthy. A quick glance reveals tagline after tagline of monotony. Here are a few examples from the AmLaw 100:

• Experience. Creativity. Results.
• Experience Innovation
• When Experience Matters
• Everything Matters

I have to agree that these taglines don't exactly call to mind any law firms. Heck, I couldn't tell you that these were in fact from law firms if the author didn't point this fact out they are so ambiguous. According to the post, firms should focus on emphasizing its attorneys and giving them the tools necessary to establish their reputations and by association that of the firm.  Even one of my favorites from the Chicago firm of Schopf & Weiss LLP   "Bigger is Good Smarter is Better" ^SM doesn't exactly convey their mission although it does, to me anyways, convey that they  are focused on working smarter for the client.. What say you?