Clients don’t just want any attorney handling their cases; they want a professional attorney that’ll take them seriously and provide clear solutions to their problems. And one way you can show clients that your law firm possesses the compatibility, experience, availability, and solid reputation is to pick a trustworthy brand name that appeals to your core clients.
Naming is challenging and complicated, especially in the legal sector, where you must abide by the American Bar Association’s guidelines for naming law firms. So, to assist you in getting the best name for your law firm, we’ve outlined three concrete steps to help you choose a trustworthy name.
Know Your Legal Brand
Before going into naming, you need to carve out time, sit down, and shape your law firm’s brand identity. And why’s this important? First, your brand is a summation of your law firm’s values, mission, and vision and is vital to your firm’s success.
You mustn’t confuse your business with your brand. Simply put, your business is your venture, and that includes the services you offer and your day-to-day operations, whereas your brand is how clients perceive your business.
Building your brand identity will help you decide if the best name for your law firm is a traditional one like Kirkland and Ellis or a modern one like Evergreen Law Firm.
Consider Accenture. What’s the first picture that springs to mind when you hear or see the name? To us, it sounds high-end, sleek, and modern. This name creates a unique perception in the minds of their target customers.
So make it a priority to find a name that adequately reflects who you are as a business and what you do as a brand.
Begin Brainstorming
This is the part you’ve been waiting for; the interesting part! Gather your team (if you have one at this point) and begin brainstorming. There is no need to analyze any names you come across or create at this point. Simply focus on activating your imagination and allowing it to flow.
And if you choose to use your surname and those of your principal partners, ensure you use only short, unique, easy-to-say surnames with great initials. Also, consider adding your area of legal expertise.
That said, here are some valuable tools for making your brainstorming more pleasurable and productive.
- Thesaurus
- Name Generators
- Legal jargons
- Rhyming words
- Visual names, perhaps relating to color
Ensure your naming team comprises people from multiple age demographics, especially from your target audience. This would help you to come up with better names that your clients will find trustworthy.
You should strive to end your brainstorming session with dozens of prospective names as we’ll now focus on trimming your list and selecting the top five names.
Validate
We all hope your top selection from the list of prospective names was the amazing business name you’ve been looking for! However, before you can rejoice, your best option(s) must pass a few critical checks.
Validating the name ideas you’ve selected can assist you in determining if they are good enough to be the name of your law firm.
Validate your name by:
- Feedback From Your Target Audience: Your target audience’s feedback is crucial for verifying your brand name. Make it a point to gather feedback from your audience. This will help you know if they love your potential brand name.
Also, put your name through a linguistics test to ensure that it can be spoken and does not have an offensive meaning in a foreign language.
- Check its Domain Availability: Your law firm needs a website that clients can easily access. And that’s why you must check and determine if the brand name you’ve chosen has an available domain name. If it doesn’t, you can always get powerful domain names for sale from a marketplace.
- Trademarks: Verify that your name isn’t protected by any existing trademarks. And, if none exist, consider getting your name trademarked. Although trademarking can take anywhere between three to eighteen months, it will save you a lot of trouble in the future.
Conclusion
Your law firm stands to gain a lot from using a trustworthy business name. A great name will boost customers’ trust in your brand, enhance your reputation, and help you win more clients. So ensure you get a great company name that matches the tone and personality of your law firm.
About the Author
Grant Polachek is the head of branding for Squadhelp.com, 3X Inc 5000 startup and disruptive naming agency. Squadhelp has reviewed more than 1 million names and curated a collection of the best available names on the web today. We are also the world’s leading crowdsource naming platform, supporting clients from early-stage startups.
