Most law firms put off rebranding for longer than they should. Not because the conversation is difficult. Because nobody has handed them a clear reason to start it.
The brief rarely arrives fully formed. It tends to surface as a feeling: that the firm has outgrown something, or that what worked five years ago is quietly working against you now. The question we ask prospective clients is simple: what is your ambition, and how will you get there? The brand question is always the second one.
Here are the five situations where the answer to it becomes urgent.
Five signs it’s time
01 / Your positioning no longer reflects who you are
Firms change. They grow into new practice areas, exit old ones, develop genuine specialisms. But the brand often stays the same long after the reality has shifted.
Capsticks came to us in 2013 having already rebranded once in 2007. The first rebrand had given the firm confidence and was the launchpad for sustained growth: turnover had nearly doubled from £19.4m to £37.7m in seven years. But the firm had since expanded into social housing, consultancy and regulation. The board’s question was straightforward: how can our brand help our ambitious growth plans over the next five to ten years?
The answer was a new positioning: “More than just the law.” It reflected what Capsticks had become rather than what it had been. Both clients and staff recognised it immediately as true.
If your brand still describes a version of the firm that existed five years ago, it is working against you.
02 / Growth has stalled
Hunters came to us with turnover flat at £12 million for three consecutive years. The firm had real strengths: founded in 1715, based in Lincoln’s Inn, exceptional private client expertise. But none of that was coming through clearly enough to drive growth.
Our brief was to make Hunters modern and relevant to a new generation of high net worth individuals while retaining the stature that comes with being a 300-year-old firm. We started with their core story: “with confidence, with consideration, with care.” We made those principles the design foundations for the identity and the website.
The year after the rebrand, turnover grew 33% to £16 million. Website enquiries were up 224%.
A flat period is not always a brand problem. But if the quality of the work is there and the pipeline is not, the brand is worth examining.
03 / A leadership change or structural shift has created a gap
Capsticks’ first rebrand, in 2007, was triggered by a change in leadership and legal structure to a Limited Liability Partnership. The new identity gave the practice confidence to tell its story and became the foundation for everything that followed.
Kennedys came to us in 2004 because they wanted to expand their markets and territories and needed a brand bold and confident enough to signal that ambition, internally and externally. At the time they had a turnover of £40 million, 68 partners and 350 staff. By 2025: £428 million, 350 partners, 2,900 staff, 47 offices.
When leadership changes, or the firm’s structure changes, the brand needs to keep up. If it does not, you end up with an identity that belongs to a previous chapter.
04 / You are struggling to attract the right people
The best candidates research firms before they apply, before they interview, and before they accept. If your brand does not communicate what makes your firm a genuinely distinctive place to build a career, you will lose people to firms that do.
One of Hunters’ three business objectives was to attract high-calibre employees. After the rebrand, a partner at the firm noted: “A number of applicants we have been interviewing have made very complimentary comments about the firm’s branding. We are clear where we stand and what we want to do. It has been very good to hear.”
Attracting and retaining high-calibre employees was also one of the three core objectives when Kennedys briefed us. Brand is a recruitment tool. Firms that understand this use it deliberately.
05 / You want to move into new markets or command higher fees
Kennedys wanted to expand across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and America. Hunters wanted to attract a new generation of high net worth international clients. Capsticks wanted to be seen as a partner of choice across health, social housing, regulation and consultancy, not just a legal practice.
In each case the ambition came first and the brand followed from it. Not a logo exercise. A strategic decision about where the firm was going and what it needed to communicate to get there.
If you are trying to move upmarket, enter a new sector or expand internationally, and your current brand does not support that move, you are starting every conversation at a disadvantage.
The question underneath all five
Every one of these situations comes back to the same thing: does your brand give the right people a clear reason to choose you?
If the honest answer is no, or not clearly enough, the conversation about rebranding is worth having. It starts not with a logo but with positioning. What does the firm actually stand for? What do you want clients, talent and competitors to think of you? Get that right, and everything else follows.
