Why it matters
Law firms have spent years building participation programs around the wrong assumption, that lawyers need more confidence to show up online. A new Oktopost survey of 200 lawyers, legal marketers and business development leaders across the US and UK says otherwise. The real barrier is time, and the fix is a lot more solvable than a culture change.
Key takeaways
- 97% of respondents agree their firm produces more valuable insight and expertise than ever reaches the market.
- There’s a 22-point gap between what marketers assume holds lawyers back (confidence, 39%) and what lawyers actually say (billable-hour pressure, 34%, versus confidence at just 17%).
- 29% of lawyers say AI-assisted content drafting would increase their participation, nearly double the 17% of marketers who think the same.
- 46% of lawyers cite stronger client relationships as the top business outcome of visibility activities, versus 30% of marketing and BD professionals.
- 76% of respondents rate LinkedIn very or extremely important to a firm’s professional credibility.
About the report
Today, Oktopost is publishing Firmly Visible: Why Visibility Is the New Competitive Edge for Law Firms, a brand-new, independently fielded survey of 200 lawyers, legal marketers and business development leaders. The findings are some of the most interesting the legal marketing space has seen in a long time.
The headline: firms don’t have an expertise problem. They have a visibility problem.
Here’s the number that stands out. Ninety-seven percent of respondents agree their firm produces more valuable insight and expertise than ever actually reaches the market.
Read that again. Almost every single person surveyed believes their firm’s lawyers are sitting on more good thinking, sharper points of view, and more market-ready expertise than the world ever gets to see. That’s not a content problem. It’s a visibility problem, and it’s a real opportunity for any firm willing to close the gap.
See the chart below for more details:
The Gap Between Firm Expertise and Market Visibility
The surprise nobody saw coming: it’s not confidence, it’s time
The assumption going in was that firms had a “lawyer participation problem,” the polite industry term for “why won’t lawyers post on LinkedIn.” The data told a more interesting, and more fixable, story.
Thirty-nine percent of marketing and business development professionals believe lack of confidence is what keeps lawyers off LinkedIn. Only 17% of lawyers agree. That’s a 22-point gap, the single largest role-based difference anywhere in the study.
So what do lawyers actually say is holding them back? Time. Billable-hour pressure, cited by 34% of lawyers, tops their list, not nerves, not training, not confidence. Marketing teams have spent years building participation programs around encouragement and coaching. The data says the real fix is friction, not confidence.
See the chart below for more details:
Key Barriers to Lawyer Participation
Lawyers already know what would help
The good news: lawyers aren’t shy about what would actually move the needle. 29% say AI-assisted content drafting would increase their participation, nearly double the 17% of marketers who think the same thing. Give a partner a fast, governed way to turn a client memo into a draft LinkedIn post, and participation stops competing with billable time.
Visibility isn’t a marketing metric. It’s a client-relationship one.
One more finding worth sitting with: 46% of lawyers say stronger client relationships is the top business outcome of visibility activities, compared to just 30% of marketing and BD professionals. Lawyers aren’t chasing impressions. They’re building trust, and 76% of respondents rate LinkedIn very or extremely important to a firm’s professional credibility.
In summary
Law firms don’t have a shortage of expertise. They have a shortage of visibility, and the data says the fix is about removing friction, not building confidence. The full report digs into every one of these findings in depth, plus the four priorities firms are using to close their own visibility gap, and what “The Visible Firm” actually looks like in practice.
Download the full Firmly Visible report now
For more insights, contact us to request a demo
