Your professional biography is one of the most important pieces of copy you’ll ever write about yourself. It’s your opportunity to showcase your work, capabilities, and areas of expertise, and what makes you stand out from your competitors.

Many in-house counsel cite lawyer bios as one of the most important sources of information regarding researching outside lawyers (yes, everyone is Googling you and your bio is usually the number one search result of your name). In addition, lawyer bios are among the most trafficked pages on law firm web sites.

Your bio can serve as an important business development tool if it is well-crafted. Yet within the legal industry, so many bios are still lackluster, outdated, not client-focused or just poorly written.  

Given the power of bios, it has always baffled me that many lawyers do not update theirs at least several times a year or write them with a client focus. The new year is a great reason to take a fresh look at your bio and make enhancements to it. Now let’s get to work!

LinkedIn is a great job search platform. If you’re looking for a new job, you can let recruiters and your network on LinkedIn know you’re open to new job opportunities right from your profile.

If you specify the types of job opportunities in which you’re interested and your preferred location, LinkedIn will help your profile show up in search results when recruiters look for suitable job candidates.

To protect your privacy, LinkedIn takes steps to prevent LinkedIn Recruiter users who work at your company and related companies from seeing your shared career interests, but LinkedIn can’t guarantee complete privacy.