Funkhouser
A campaign and website for a firm that understands the big picture and offers tailored, contextual legal advice.
Objective
Build a campaign for a Chicago-based firm of boutique business lawyers to use in their marketing materials, including website and brochure.
Background
Many corporate law firms look similar — smart lawyers handling transactional and trial work for companies. Most lawyers specialize to a certain degree, and the bigger the firm, the more specialized the lawyer. Most lawyers view themselves as litigators or transactional lawyers, real estate or tax lawyers.
In large firms, lawyers specialize further, in certain narrow types of litigation, or specialized types of real estate deals (e.g. “I do Section 1031 Exchange deals.”). In most firms, Litigators don’t do deals. Real Estate lawyers don’t litigate. There’s little overlap among the departments – Litigators don’t attend their firm’s Tax Department meetings or have an expert-level knowledge of the Tax Code .
That level of specificity offers insight, but for some clients it can also be a problem: When you go to your doctor with a back problem, if he’s a surgeon, he’ll invariably recommend surgery as the solution. BUT — if your doctor ALSO understood physical therapy, acupuncture, chiropractic, and yoga, you’ll get a better solution to your back problem.
You don’t go to the doctor’s office wanting back surgery — you go because you have a problem you want solved (you want your back to stop hurting). Surgery is just one tool. The more tools your doctor understands and has at his disposal, the better chance you’ll have of getting the right one for you. It can be the same with lawyers.
But companies aren’t “files” that have such specialized needs. They are businesses that have needs, concerns, problems, and opportunities — and a lawyer that has a deeper and broader depth of knowledge has more options available to solve the clients’ problems. He’d have more weapons available to beat up the opponent, more arrows in his quiver.
The lawyers at Funkhouser ARE true generalists. Sure they have areas they focus in, but they pride themselves on having a broader perspective, and that helps clients more. They overlap. If you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Funkhouser lawyers also have screwdrivers available. And wrenches. They have more tools available. They can see more options.
The campaign, including visuals, ads, tag line, and website conveys that Funkhouser lawyers see the big picture, not just a single piece of the puzzle.
