What the brand of a lawyer can teach advisors

As Marie walked by his side, cameras flashing, journalists yelling, there was only one thing that I was thinking to myself.

Who IS this woman!? 

Her hairstyle was parted over as a smooth, or sometimes spiky-ish, black wave, matched perfectly with her black outfit and eyeliner. She began to capture both my attention and imagination.

Marie Henein is a criminal defense lawyer and in 2014 she was defending Jian Gomeshi in the highest profile case at the time, but I could only think of one thing.

You do not want to fuck with this woman.

Now in no way do we endorse the clients she represents or the ethics around defending those individuals, we are simply talking about brand Marie Henein and what can be learned from the way she’s gone about turning herself into one of the most recognizable figures in defense litigation.

Her personal style is curated…perfectly. She is giving off exactly the impression she’s intending, which is if you mess with my client, you’re going to have to mess with me.

I illustrate this point not because advisors need to take this kind of extreme edginess to their own look, but rather to share the lessons that this gives.

Somewhere along the way Marie decided that her look could become her superpower, and it worked. Curating your own distinct style gives you three things:

  1. A feeling of confidence for you.

  2. A feeling of trust through consistency for your clients and prospects 

  3. A feeling of envy, jealousy or intimidation for your competition

Women have an opportunity to leverage their style in ways that men can’t or don’t. Men can elevate their socks, tie or pocket square. Go too far and it will actually hurt a man’s brand because wearing something too daring gives the impression that you’ll be similarly reckless with their investments. Too casual and they won’t be taken seriously.

Women have so many options and opportunities through fashion, beauty and styling that even sticking to a simplified dark colour palette the way Henein does, is enough. I’m confident that she has styling help that curates her look with her approval on an ongoing basis, and in turn she can charge a premium on her services because her reputational success is closely tied to her brand image.

In this Toronto Life article, you’ll get a peak into what it means to brand yourself and your firm. In Henein’s case as the article states, it’s “...all part of a controversial exercise in building her own edgy legal brand.” The article goes into some significant detail of everything from the design of her office, her leopard patterned Louis Vuitton pumps, to her diamond encrusted serpent ring. They mention that she hired an ad agency to design a campaign positioning Henein Hutchison as no ordinary law firm. “Marie understands she is marketing a product just like Nike is,” says Breese Davies, a vice-president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association. “She’s positioned herself to be the go-to lawyer for rich and famous people in trouble.”

The Henein brand is no accident. It was driven from a motivation to distinguish herself and her firm as elite, through a series of very specific steps. 

The first step is to identify key words that associate yourself to a personality trait. From there the work can begin on developing a toneboard. Doing a Google image search can conjure up ideas of the words that Henein would have used to paint the picture of her vision. When you’re thinking about yourself, you can use Pinterest, Instagram, Google Images or other platforms to begin saving a wide range of styling that resonates with you. 

The second step is to find and invest in a stylist who can learn about you and your objective, in order to help you develop and curate a look that you actually get excited about. Pair that with an updated hair style and you’re on your way.

Once your new style is ready to be unveiled, the final step is to update your photography, and start filming new content for your website and platform. You may have resources in house, or you may need to hire an agency. Regardless, they need to ensure you keep the look consistent. Hire a professional photographer and videographer, and share with them your original toneboard, or portions of it. Have them get inspired too and contribute to your new brand. From there is where you start to bring all these various elements together to effectively brand yourself.

One word of caution before you end up finally committing: you need to believe in what you’re doing. As the famous saying goes, you need to wear the look, not have the look wear you.

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Cultural phenomenon as a tool to express your point of view