Close your eyes and picture a law firm. Okay, now picture a different law firm. What changed? Maybe it’s a different number of attorneys, or perhaps it’s the same exact people but they have different color ties. The reality is that when you compare law firms, there are an immense number of choices, but very few real alternatives.
Big firm culture dictates that the firm’s members and associates do everything they can to suppress individuality. The firm prioritizes minimizing negative impressions over cultivating positive ones, which makes a good deal of sense when clients are big corporations rather than individuals. The two pictures below are from the “Coloring Book for Lawyers,” currently hosted at https://www.sadanduseless.com/coloring-book-for-lawyers/ (note: this may or may not be the original source, but the it has been published here since at least 2014.) These illustrations demonstrate the extent to which complete uniformity is woven into the fabric of attorney culture, literally and figuratively.
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
This relentless pursuit of a completely neutral image is pervasive even in small practices, most likely because a lot of small firm partners either (a) came from a large firm or (b) think that copying a large firm will make them appear more legitimate. Consciously creating an alternative culture requires embracing the idea that there is a person underneath the gray suit.
In areas of law in which the lawyer must make a positive impression on many other people (who frequently are not other lawyers), a genuine person of good character is more valuable than someone who invests that same energy into looking and sounding exactly like every other lawyer. In trial law, especially, there are so many different people with unique personalities who participate in the process: judges, jurors, prosecutors, police officers, opponents, opposing counsel - the list goes on and on. Being able to build effective and meaningful relationships with a wide range of people is a much more consistent path to the best possible outcome than having baseline familiarity with an applicable law. Here is one way to think of it. Imagine all these people are guests attending a barbecue. If an attorney you’re considering for representation walks up to them, how do they react? Do they shuffle their feet and start looking for someone else to talk to, or do they share a laugh? If a lawyer can’t win someone over at a barbecue, they’re probably not going to in court.
In other words, while a lawyer’s knowledge sets the floor, the lawyer’s personality usually determines the ceiling. A warm, influential, and persuasive personality comes from a total commitment to genuinely caring about other people - and years of putting that attitude into practice; for just about anyone smart and determined enough to graduate from law school and pass the bar exam, memorizing and understanding an applicable law can often be achieved in an afternoon. Knowing the law is like knowing the lyrics to a song. It’s a useful starting point, but what really matters to the audience is can you sing?