Though you might not have thought about it yet or don't believe you need to — the look, or the design, of how you present your practice is critical to building your business. It is an important business investment. But it’s hard to know when new design is needed for your law firm when you’re the one running the business every day. That’s why thoughtful, proactive planning and appropriate resources can pay long-lasting dividends. In fact, it’s an important element to business success.

Step #1

In my younger days in the business of marketing and advertising, I was in a meeting with the Brand Director at Microsoft. When someone in the meeting referenced a brand project as “something we need to do” the Brand Director quickly corrected that person and said, “Our brand is not something we do. It’s who we are.” Profound? Sure. But it’s also very instructional when it’s time to think about your brand.

In a series of blog posts, I’ll outline what I consider to be the five most important steps in developing a brand vision for your law firm. One that makes you say “That’s who we are.”

But first, let’s quickly define what a “brand” is. It’s actually many things:

In my previous blog, Part II – Decanting, I addressed the option where a trustee exercises his or her discretion in making distributions for the benefit of a beneficiary and, rather than distribute the property from the trust outright, the trustee distributes property in further trust. This modification provides an alternative when the results intended by the original trust instrument cannot be successfully achieved as the trust is actually administered.

As a further safeguard to ensure a grantor’s intent is fully and faithfully executed, we now move to the top step in our ascending staircase of Trust Modification options: modification by Trust Protectors.