One of the trends I’ve been seeing recently is the use of taglines for law firms. Just a quick look at 148 of the AMLaw 200 yielded the following (I used 148, as there was one merger and one firm that folded out of 150):

52% of the firms had a visible tagline on their site.

Wow.

I took a further look at the taglines and sliced them into a few different “categories”:

Generic:
When I say generic, I’m referring to lines like “A global law firm”, or “Providing legal services since 2005″. These are basically statements that say nothing about the firm other than that they exist.

About 20% of firms on this list had a generic tagline.

Excellence and Experience:
Most prospective clients want to know if your firm has experience in their particular business area. Because of this, 13% of the firms with taglines use the word “experience” in some way. In many cases, they use the word “excellence” when they use the word “experience.”

Hard to say:
These firms use a tagline that has some pop to it, but the tagline tells you nothing about what they do. Examples of this would be “awesome” or “years ahead.” I’m not making a value judgement here, as this can work in many cases. The difference here is context. If you already know a firm and what they cover, using a wildcard tagline can work.

The right tagline can be a great opportunity to say what your logo can’t say.

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