Case Study: Alexander Holburn Website Design and Development
Alexander Holburn Beaudin & Lang is a Vancouver-based law firm. Although the firm’s roots date back to 1948, for practical purposes, the firm was founded in 1973 through the merger of Robson, Alexander & Guest and McLachlan Holburn & Beaudin. It has since gone through two name changes, and is now comprised of 77 lawyers. Martindale-Hubbell, gave the firm their highest possible rating (“AV”) for a law firm.
They provide litigation/dispute resolution and business law services to clients including governments, corporations, and individuals with business interests and legal needs. Their lawyers are organized into a few key practice groups, and they actively seek out clients who desire a strategic business partnership with their law firm. They provide legal services in the province of British Columbia, nationally, and internationally.
Although Alexander Holburn was ranked one of the top-ten law firms in BC, market research indicated that they lacked visibility. To address this challenge, their marketing team chose to re-examine its position carefully. One of the key concerns they uncovered was the weakness of their existing website.
For some time in Canada, lawyers were barred from marketing their services, and it goes to reason that this colors how suspect many lawyers seem to be of marketing in general. A quick survey of law firm websites rapidly illustrates this: vague promises, bland messaging, and sometimes egotistical imagery make it hard for any audience to actually care.
Marketing Director Heather Gray-Grant wished to push past such associations and do something different at Alexander Holburn. Meanwhile, her I.T. counterparts wanted to find a way to integrate technology that would afford their staff the ability to edit their website, and add searchable PDF and Word documents. Additionally, they wanted to find a way to mirror their lawyer profiles from their intranet.
smashLAB began by reviewing the firm’s culture, position, and online strategy, alongside key stakeholder consultation. Additionally, we worked to understand the psychological nature of purchasing legal services. Ultimately, we were left with the general feeling that legal services are a little like a visit to the dentist: few want to go, but when you have to, you want a provider you can trust.
This insight, coupled with the firm’s claims relating to taking more time to understand their clients, led us to a simple phrase: “Get to know us.” As with most marketing, our approaches are largely driven by research and hunches. While we’d love to have hard data assuring us that we’ll find success, most times, we need to look critically at a situation and just establish a sensible course of action.
Our assertion was that the only thing truly differentiating one law firm from another was the collective expertise and nature of its people. Therefore, we asked them to start by introducing themselves in a friendly and unassuming manner. In doing so, we believed that they could sidestep some of the cold, dated, and sometimes standoffish tones found in many of their competitor’s web properties.
Like many of our hunches, the one we had relating to this firm’s scenario ended up working out quite nicely. The unconventional messaging and strong design earned Alexander Holburn nation-wide attention in industry press. Later, their Marketing Director remarked that the concept, “beautifully brought out exactly what makes us special, in a way that our clients and targets could really relate with,” also noting that it had become “a benchmark in the industry.”
Functionally, the site integrates with the firm’s on-site database to make otherwise complex operations simple tasks. The site is content managed via smashLAB’s shiftCMS, and it has real-time data replication with the firm’s internal MS SQL server. Additionally, we delivered a custom personnel database, and the inclusion of those searchable PDF and Word documents, as they had desired.
In addition to serving as a repository for articles and information on the firm, the Alexander Holburn site conveys a friendly invitation to visitors, free of any sales-propositions. Similarly, a careful effort to avoid cliché imagery and language allows the firm to start relationships in a welcoming, yet professional, manner.
“We asked smashLAB to present us with a creative concept for our website that would really differentiate our law firm from the rest, based on our own unique and cultural qualities. We knew this was a tall order because so many law firms look just like the next. But they ‘got’ us. And they came back with a concept that beautifully brought out exactly what makes us special, in a way that our clients and targets could really relate with. As a result, our Website has become a benchmark in the industry and we are very proud of it.”
—Heather Gray-Grant, Director of Marketing and
Business Development
Alexander Holburn Beaudin & Lang LLP