Speaking to The Protégé Podcast, Ms Kelly said she took a page out of her employer’s book to create an online presence. Director and creator Clarissa Rayward’s “warm and kind” profile demonstrates to the audience of lawyers and clients that they will be open, welcoming and have all the values that are important to working in family law. 

“It’s critical,” Ms Kelly said. “I think that in order to attract work and then to attract clients you need to be seen to know what you’re talking about and you need to show that you have the values that people are looking for. I don’t really see many other ways to show that. There are so many traditional marketing options available, absolutely, but I think that social media is so accessible. It’s sort of a question of, why not?”

Ms Kelly said she subscribes to the belief that “people buy people”. If family law clients are seeking someone to share “incredibly personal information with”, it makes so much sense to have an online profile that they can research and connect with. Having a kind of social media presence that speaks to them breaks down some of the hesitancy. 

“Our clients want to get to know us, especially in my area of practice. They are trusting us with incredibly personal information. If anyone has brought a service like in a sense of medical services or a psychologist or something like that, trusting a professional to provide you with that service is a really big deal,” Ms Kelly said, adding that from client perspectives it’s about “knowing as much as I can about a person before committing.” 

Ms Kelly used her online presence as a strategy to becoming employed at BFLC, which had been using this kind of approach for some time. For Ms Kelly, her Instagram was demonstrating to future clients that she has the values they are looking for, but part of it was showing Ms Rayward what she could also offer to the firm if they hired her. 

“It is a key part of our business here that we all have personal brands, and so I do take mine very seriously because I want to further the business goals of my firm. That really is important to me. That model she put down for us is evident in everything she does,” she said. 

One of the important parts of using personal social media brands for a legal career is understanding that lawyers are representing the profession at all times. While some comments may go far and wide for being positive, others could damage reputations in law. Ms Kelly said it’s important that, when starting out with social media, new lawyers should operate on the assumption that nothing will be private. 

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“If you are careful and responsible and you take on the importance of being an officer of the court, you won’t miss a step. If you don’t want something being shared, then do not put it out there. I don’t think there’s any such thing as a private account these days,” she said.

Listen to the entire episode here for more tips on finding your law language and using a social media brand to boost career opportunities. 

If you have any questions about the episode or if there are any topics that you might want us to look into, please reach out – we would love to hear from you! 

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