Keys to creating standout law firm thought leadership

In a recent contribution to Law360, Vice President Content and Client Strategy Steven Andersen and Senior Account Director Tal Donahue discuss how law firms, who are willing to be different, can make their thought leadership stand out. 

It often seems that new business lingo arrives with every season. The terms may seem brilliant at first, but overuse diminishes them and eventually they descend into cliche.

Think leverage, synergy, ecosystem. We continue to use them, because they are well-understood and effective shorthand, but they lose their distinctive value over time. Thought leadership could well be counted among these.

At first the idea of a thought leader was quite literally someone outstanding — a person whose ideas stand out in the crowd. But that meaning has been gradually eroded and fragmented. In the U.K., the term is often associated with data-heavy but sometimes dry reports. Here in the U.S., it can mean almost anything. Bylined articles, blog posts and even client alerts are often filed under the catchall heading of thought leadership.

Still, the term is not going anywhere, so let’s make the best of it. But what is a true thought leader? To our thinking, it’s someone with the expertise, originality and insight to change an existing conversation, or to start a brand new one.

Continue reading on Law360 here.