Their law firm had grown by leaps and bounds, mostly through acquisitions. As they eyed even more growth, they needed a brand (and ultimately, a website) to unite their internal teams around their client-centric approach and show clients – both existing and prospective – how they’re different from traditional law firms.
Creating the new Husch Blackwell brand positioning was a decidedly collaborative effort. We worked closely with their team – both lawyers and laypeople alike – to understand their ideal client experience.
We learned what their clients are looking for, and how they go about looking for it – and then we built a new brand to answer it.
It started with their core differentiator – that they had literally built their firm around leveraging expertise in their clients’ industries, rather than the traditional law firm approach of working through practice areas.
Law firms, of course, aren’t like traditional professional services firms. Their marketing efforts are often handled on the local level, executed by multiple people for a wide variety of purposes. That’s why, rather than focusing simply on making “things,” we started by making a series of brand elements the firm could use to express itself.
We created elements that felt like an evolution of their current brand, so existing materials could live right alongside newer pieces. With every element our team built, we asked ourselves, “Does this look like a brand that’s leading clients toward better?”
As we started working on the website, the team at Husch Blackwell challenged our preconceived notions of how people use websites. We explored often-overlooked pages like bios, which are immensely important to their prospective clients. And we fine-tuned calls to action throughout the site, leading people through the site and to an eventual, direct contact with a legal professional in their industry.
True to the philosophy of leading people to the information they need, the site’s clean design ensures key actions are always on screen, from inviting questions on the homepage (a clever search bar), to reading case studies and testimonials on industry-specific page, to contacting a legal professional when the time is right. Subtle animations make the site feel fluid and alive, without getting in the way of core actions.
We took a similar, clearer-is-better approach to writing copy for the site, forcing ourselves (and our client) to keep the core brand in mind: this website is about solving clients’ problems, and proving that Husch Blackwell is qualified to do so.
Check out the new Husch Blackwell website, and keep scrolling for a behind-the-scenes look at how this group of 800 lawyers taught us to build a better website.
