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Unfortunately, many law firm associates have a bit of extra time on their hands these days. One of the ways they can remain valuable and visible when there is not as much billable work to do is to contribute to their firms' thought-leadership marketing efforts.

The COVID-19 crisis is creating brand-new challenges for law firms, and it is also deepening and accelerating existing trends. One of those trends, now moving at hyper-speed, is a transformation away from traditional marketing tactics in the physical world to modern tactics in the digital realm. And when it comes to marketing sophisticated professional services, thought-leadership content is at the heart of efforts to compete in the digital marketplace of ideas.

Thought leadership is the most effective form of marketing because it allows lawyers to position themselves as narrowly focused experts to those searching for answers to vexing business and legal challenges. By sharing their ideas, lawyers enable themselves to be discovered by their target audiences and to build trust. Over time, by staying top-of-mind through thought-leadership content, lawyers come to be trusted and create new business opportunities. Lawyers who consistently publish effective thought leadership will generate more and better opportunities over time because their expertise will be perceived as more valuable and unique, and therefore, more irreplaceable.

How to Help Your Firm, and Yourself, Stand Out

For the last two months, lawyers have been pumping out massive amounts of content in order to address the wide and varied implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. The challenge they face is standing out amid all of the noise online. Writing and publishing content often feels like tossing a needle into the Internet haystack. That's enough of an obstacle to overcome. But if all you're doing is recycling the same old ideas, and trying to make them relevant to the biggest audience possible, then it's not even a needle you're contributing—it's just more hay.

As a young lawyer, you may feel like you lack the expertise necessary to craft content that is capable of cutting through the noise, but that doesn't mean you can't provide an important contribution. The best content is often narrowly focused on discrete issues, rather than a sprawling dissertation on an entire body of law, so consider whether a topic you've covered in a deep-dive research memo can be spun into a thought-leadership article. You also can, and should, be volunteering to assist more senior lawyers in your firm with aspects of articles they're working on. In either case, you should keep in mind certain principles to make your content more relevant and effective.

Know your audience. Don't write for the masses. Have a specific person with a specific job title in mind and address that person's needs. Write like you'd speak to them. Fight your instinctive belief that the best way to reach a big audience is to write something that is broadly relevant. Instead, trust that a narrowly focused article that is hyper-relevant to a small constituency will make a more significant impact (on your reader, and on your practice). People want to read content that seems like it was written specifically for them.

Craft unique headlines. When everyone is in a rush to publish content about the same issues, most headlines will more or less look the same. That's a problem, because a strong and unique headline is the gateway to your substantive content. Statistics show that, on average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest of an article. Accordingly, the effectiveness of your headline determines the effectiveness of the entire piece.

The key to writing a compelling headline is knowing your audience (see point one, above). When a reader is confronted with 60 articles discussing the ins and outs of COVID-19 paid leave rules for employees, the headline that mentions the reader's specific industry is going to get the click.

Address the implications of information. Don't spend too much time on what happened. Explain why it matters. Information is plentiful these days—you'll never beat the New York Times in breaking the story. Your job is to pause and consider the implications of information, and not merely summarize it. Accordingly, don't try to be first. Take the time necessary to chart a course for your clients to follow based on the repercussions of fast-moving legislative and regulatory developments. That's the mark of a true thought leader.

Don't bury the lede. When writing a legal memo for a client or partner in your firm, it's best to summarize the key points and conclusion right up front, rather than forcing them to wade through 20 pages of research and analysis to get to the punch line. The same is true for thought-leadership content. The readers you're trying to reach are busy. If you give them the answer they're looking for right away you'll engage them. If you don't, they'll often click away in search of a more succinct solution.

Find valuable publishing opportunities. Many media outlets, already under intense economic pressure before COVID-19, are being hit even harder. At the same time, the hunger for reliable content among media consumers has never been higher. Editors are trying to satisfy this demand, but are being forced to do more with less.

For lawyers, who now must rely on thought-leadership marketing as one of the only means to reach their audiences, there has never been a better time to pitch and publish content with highly respected outside platforms. However, in the rush to be first, most lawyers are merely defaulting to publishing content on their law firms' websites. With a bit of extra effort, you can make your content stand out and reach significantly larger and more targeted audiences through a smart external publishing strategy.

Finding such opportunities is not rocket science. Identify a publication whose readership might be interested in the topic you're writing about. Review its website to find out if it accepts contributed content. If so, read its contributed-content submission guidelines. Based on those guidelines, reach out to the appropriate editor with a pitch as to why your content will help the publication engage its readers.

It's more important than ever to demonstrate that you're invested in the well-being of your law firm. One of the best ways to do that is to add value by helping to create engaging thought-leadership content.

Jay Harrington is an executive coach and trainer for lawyers and law firms and is the author of the new book, "The Essential Associate: Step Up, Stand Out, and Rise to the Top as a Young Lawyer." He is the owner of Harrington Communications and is associated with Simier Partners. Contact him at [email protected].