The Hidden Cost of Poor Employer Branding

Here’s Why Top Legal Talent Is Saying No to Your Firm

Five years ago, candidates were salary-driven and firm-focused. Present a Magic Circle offer or competitive package, and the conversation progressed. That era is over.

Today's legal talent, particularly the high-calibre partners and senior associates that firms are desperately seeking, conducts forensic due diligence before they'll even take your call. They're researching your website, analysing your LinkedIn presence, reading between the lines of your values statements and checking whether team tenure data suggests genuine retention or a revolving door.

According to HR.com's State of Employer Branding 2025, only 28% of organizations have a comprehensive and consistently applied employer branding strategy. Yet the cost of this gap is measurable:

- 83% of job seekers research company reviews and ratings before deciding where to apply (Glassdoor, 2025)

- 88% of candidates consider a company's employer brand when applying for a job (LinkedIn)

- Strong employer brands see a 50% decrease in cost-per-hire and 28% reduction in employee turnover

- 70% of candidates are more likely to apply if the employer actively manages its presence on review platforms

- 75% of candidates look at employer brand before even considering pay or job title- reputation precedes compensation

All these numbers considered, why is it that most law firms still market themselves like it's 2015?

Why Legal Firms Lag on Employer Branding

Simply put, the legal sector has a structural blind spot. Firms invest millions in client-facing brand development while treating recruitment as an afterthought. Walk into any regional or mid-tier firm and ask the managing partner about digital strategy, you'll hear enthusiasm about SEO for commercial work, client acquisition funnels, and thought leadership content. Ask about employer brand and you'll get vague references to "our people are our greatest asset" and a careers page untouched since 2019.

Here's what firms fundamentally misunderstand: your website and brand are not just client tools. They are partner and senior associate recruitment tools. Every time a candidate searches your firm name, every LinkedIn post you publish, every Google review left by a former employee, these are the moments where you win or lose the talent war.

Simon Marshall, founder of TBD Marketing (a legal sector marketing agency), emphasizes that building a strong brand in legal requires external expertise and long-term consistency- "lots and lots of touchpoints over time." Yet most firms treat recruitment branding as an HR responsibility rather than a strategic marketing imperative. The firms that understand this are winning on retention, culture, and profitability.

The Three Hidden Costs

1. The Invisible Rejection

A senior lawyer with a £2.5m book hears about an opportunity at your firm. Before responding, they visit your website. It loads slowly. The "Our People" section features partners who left 18 months ago. The values statement: "innovative," "client-focused," "excellence-driven."

They close the tab. You never know they existed.

This happens constantly. For every candidate you see, three self-selected out before you could pitch. Research shows that 75% of candidates look at employer brand before even considering pay or job title. If your digital presence doesn't pass the 30-second test, you've lost them.

2. The Team Culture Blind Spot

Candidates aren't choosing your firm anymore, they're choosing their team within your firm. They want answers to questions most firms don't address:

- Who will I actually work with daily?

- What's the dynamic like in the corporate department versus what the website claims?

- Does the partner I'd report to develop their people, or churn through associates?

This challenge intensifies at senior levels. Joe Bryant, Development Director at JMC Legal, frames it succinctly: "Put yourself in a Senior Solicitor or Partner's shoes. When you've reached the top of the mountain and you're considering a move, where do you go from there? What are you seeking from your next challenge? As a law firm, how do you make your offering competitive to these lawyers?"

The answer isn't compensation. According to Randstad's 2025 research, work-life balance has overtaken pay as the top global motivator (83% vs 82%). For senior lawyers who've already achieved financial security, the decision factors become: team quality, practice autonomy, cultural fit, intellectual challenge, and development opportunities for the associates they'll supervise.

Yet how many firms actively communicate team culture in their recruitment materials? How many highlight the actual people candidates will work alongside, rather than just the founding partners? The gap between what senior candidates need to know and what firms actually communicate represents a massive missed opportunity.

3. The Retention Warning

If you're losing good people, recruitment is a band-aid. The market knows. Legal is a small world, reputation travels faster than press releases.

Candidates now ask recruiters pointed questions: "What's the real reason the last three people left that team?" They check LinkedIn tenure data. If your retention tells a story of churn, no employer branding will solve your recruitment problem. The culture issue must be addressed first.

What Good Employer Branding Actually Looks Like

The firms that excel share these characteristics:

Authenticity over polish. They don't produce generic corporate videos and content claiming to be "different." They share genuine employee stories, day-in-the-life content, and acknowledge the demands of legal work while demonstrating how they support their people through it.

Transparency about culture. They define values clearly and demonstrate how those values show up in daily decisions. They're explicit about behaviours they reward and what they won't tolerate. This attracts the right people and repels poor fits early.

Digital presence investment. Their websites are fast, mobile-optimized, and current. Team pages feature meaningful bios, not generic headshots and CVs from 2018. They maintain active, thoughtful LinkedIn presences showcasing both expertise and culture.

Data-informed decisions. They track website analytics to understand what resonates with candidates. They monitor LinkedIn engagement. They benchmark their digital presence against competitors.

The most sophisticated firms recognize that employer branding isn't separate from business strategy. When companies that invest in employer branding are 3x more likely to make quality hires (LinkedIn), and strong employer brands lead to a 50% increase in qualified candidates, the ROI is measurable and significant.

The Evolved Role of Legal Recruitment Consultants

This candidate behaviour shift has fundamentally changed what I do. Ten years ago, my role was 60% transactional: match skills to requirements, facilitate introductions, negotiate terms. Today, that's perhaps 40%.

The majority is strategic advisory. I help firms understand why they're not attracting the calibre they should. At JMC, we've invested in:

- Website performance analytics comparing firms against recruitment competitors on load speed, mobile experience, and content quality

- LinkedIn intelligence platforms mapping recruitment and retention patterns across firms and practice areas

- Employer brand microsites driving traffic from our platform to client ecosystems, boosting visibility and search rankings

- Marketing expertise helping firms articulate genuine differentiators and communicate them authentically

We've become growth drivers and brand facilitators because in a talent-tight market where the best lawyers have multiple options and infinite information, a clearly defined recruitment strategy touching branding, marketing, and employer positioning isn't optional.

What Law Firm Leaders Should Ask Now

If you're a managing partner, senior partner, or practice group head:

- When did we last audit our employer brand? Not client brand, recruitment brand specifically.

- What do candidates see when they Google us? Have you looked at your firm with fresh eyes, as a potential candidate would?

- How does our digital presence compare to competitors for talent? Not in your estimation, in measurable, data-driven comparison.

- What does our retention data tell us? And are we honest about what's driving departures?

- Can we articulate team cultures, not just firm culture? Because that's what candidates actually care about.

- What story do current employees tell? On LinkedIn, Glassdoor, in conversations with recruiters?

The Practical Path Forward

Month 1: Audit

• Conduct a full digital brand audit (website, LinkedIn, Google presence, review sites)
• Benchmark against key competitors for talent
• Survey recent joiners and leavers about brand perception
• Analyse retention data by team and practice area

Month 2: Strategy

• Define your authentic employer value proposition (what it genuinely is, not what you wish it was)
• Identify team cultures and how they differ
• Determine which digital channels matter for target candidates
• Set measurable goals

Month 3: Implementation

• Update careers and team sections with current, authentic content
• Establish regular LinkedIn content showcasing culture and people
• Train partners on communicating employer brand in interviews
• Implement systems to monitor candidate perception

Month 4+: Optimize

• Track which initiatives drive strongest candidate engagement
• Gather feedback from successful and unsuccessful candidates
• Adjust messaging based on data, not assumptions
• Ensure internal culture evolves with external promises

The Question That Matters

For too long, law firms have asked: "How do we attract more candidates?"

The better question: "Why are the best candidates not even considering us?"

Somewhere right now, a senior lawyer with exactly the expertise, business development capability, and cultural fit your firm needs is conducting research. They're looking to move. They've visited your website.

What happens next is entirely within your control. You cannot out-recruit a culture problem, and you cannot out-spend a brand problem. If your employer brand is weak, your website outdated, your values hollow, your team culture toxic, no salary increase will fix this. You'll attract mercenaries, not missionaries.

The legal market has shifted toward candidates who do their homework, prioritise culture over cash, and make decisions based on comprehensive research rather than recruiter pitches. The firms that acknowledge this and invest accordingly are thriving. The firms that don't are losing ground, one declined approach, one early departure, one invisible rejection at a time.

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