Yesterday, Helen Burness, a seasoned legal marketing expert with experience at major firms including Eversheds and founder of the collective She Breaks the Law, shared her insights and views on how legal professionals—particularly those early in their careers—can effectively leverage LinkedIn. Drawing from her extensive experience developing both individual and company brands through the platform, Burness offered practical guidance on creating a powerful professional presence in an increasingly digital world.

Why LinkedIn Matters for Legal Professionals

LinkedIn has evolved significantly from its early days as “a sort of corporate PR wasteland” to become the essential platform for legal professionals. As Burness explained, “It started off as a B2B marketplace, and I think that’s why it works for lawyers particularly. It is the go-to platform for lawyers, for legal professionals.”

The platform’s importance stems from several key factors:

• Discoverability: “It’s definitely the place to be in terms of being discoverable, in terms of being findable. It’s highly optimised on search engines and it’s feeding into artificial intelligence.”
• Decision-maker presence: “Three out of four people on LinkedIn have buying power. They are the people making the decisions.”
• Digital shop front: “For a lot of small law firms particularly, your LinkedIn profile as a lawyer is probably going to come higher up some search results than your company bio is going to on the website.”

While other platforms like TikTok and Instagram have their place in legal marketing, LinkedIn remains the primary professional platform where connections with influential legal professionals and potential clients are forged.

Optimising Your Profile: First Impressions Matter

The foundation of an effective LinkedIn presence begins with an optimised profile. Burness emphasised several critical elements:

Profile Photo and Banner

“Make sure you have an up-to-date photograph of what you look like now, and not the aspirational version,” Burness advised. She explained the importance of this visual element: “If you look at your LinkedIn feed, your digital corridor is a little tiny thumbnail of someone’s face, and then the first 150 characters of whatever their title is.”

The banner space behind your photo offers another opportunity to convey your professional identity. Whether using your firm’s branded banner or something that represents your practice area—like the construction lawyer who used an image of construction work in Dubai—this space can immediately signal your specialisation to visitors.

Headline Optimisation

With only 150 characters visible in the feed, your headline should lead with your professional role. Burness recommended placing your key identifier first: “If you are going to do a really long-winded title like ‘helping blah, blah, blah,’ with ‘lawyer’ at the end, that word or ‘legal professional’ or ‘business, banking and finance lawyer’ needs to be at the front.”

About Section

The “About” section should be written in the first person, not the third-person corporate style typical of website bios. “This is your story,” Burness emphasised. “Make it very clear who you are, what you do, how you do it.”

Unlike many legal professionals who begin their narratives with their training history, Burness recommends focusing on current work: “Where you trained and where you started your career doesn’t matter as much. People can go digging for that if they want, but really it’s what you do now and who you are helping now.”

The section should conclude with clear directions for connection: “Make it easy for people to connect with you… Say ‘I love expanding my network with other people in legal,’ or ‘I’m always interested in meeting these kind of people.'”

Building Your Network Strategically

Building a relevant network requires intentionality rather than random connection requests. Burness shared specific navigation tips to find valuable connections:

“If you look at your home feed, you’ve got a little button called ‘your network.’ If you click on that and look at ‘Grow,’ it flags up people where you’ve got something in common.”

When deciding whether to connect or follow, Burness offered this framework:

• Connect with people you know or have crossed paths with professionally, sending a personalised note with your request
• Follow those you’d like to learn from before making a direct connection
• Prioritise important connections by clicking the bell icon on their profile and selecting “See all posts” to ensure you never miss their content

“Don’t let LinkedIn make the decision for you,” Burness advised. “Be intentional. Tell it ‘I want to see all the posts this person does.'”

Managing Your Feed Experience

One of the most common complaints about LinkedIn is that the feed can feel overwhelming or irrelevant. Burness shared practical strategies for taking control:

“Unless you are in the platform a little bit every day telling it what you want to see and what you don’t want to see—and that means unfollowing posts that you don’t want to see, using the cross on the top of any post—you’ll see a lot of hacky, viral posts that you don’t want to see.”

She explained that the algorithm learns from user signals, making it essential to:

• Click the three dots on irrelevant posts and select the option to see fewer similar posts
• Report or hide sponsored content you don’t find valuable
• Engage with content you do find interesting through likes, comments, and saves
• Spend a small amount of time daily “training” the algorithm with these signals

“We have to take control of our content,” Burness emphasised. “That’s the world we are living in. We’re having content thrown at us 24/7, and we have to curate it to give ourselves the best learning experience and the best social experience.”

Time Investment and Approaches

Rather than viewing LinkedIn as a major time commitment, Burness recommends integrating it into daily routines:

“Don’t make it hours per week. Don’t make it an afternoon a week. It is doing a little bit every day—a marginal gains process. Fire up the feed on your commute or having a cup of coffee. Do some basic engaging and commenting.”

She shared that professionals can approach the platform in different ways depending on their goals:

• Some use it “prolifically,” enjoying the social aspect and regularly posting content
• Others use it more quietly, nurturing their network through direct messages and taking conversations offline
• Many are “lurkers”—approximately 56% of LinkedIn users consume content without actively sharing

“Just take the two or three things that make sense to you,” Burness advised. “Do those until they become habit and then bring in some new stuff.”

Navigating Firm Guidelines and Finding Your Voice

For lawyers working in firms with restrictive social media policies, Burness acknowledged the challenge of expressing creativity within boundaries. She suggested:

• Consulting with BD and marketing teams when uncertain about potential posts
• Considering your audience and professional goals when deciding how to present yourself
• Keeping authenticity while respecting professional constraints

While Burness champions creativity—noting recent algorithm changes have shown 69% growth in video content—she recognises the need for balance: “Be creative, but whilst bearing in mind who your audience are… If I’m trying to win work or be instructed or be referred by these people, how do I want to show up for them?”

Conclusion: The Long-Term Value

Beyond immediate job opportunities, LinkedIn offers legal professionals a rich ecosystem for growth and connection. “It is such a rich world of connections,” Burness observed. “Your network is so important… It’s a safety net. It’s a community. There is connection, there is intelligence, there is client listening, there is learning.”

For law students and early career professionals, establishing a presence early provides advantages in the competitive legal market. As Burness shared from her experience helping someone seeking training contracts: “Having that active brand presence when you are on this kind of search for roles can make a real difference between having something that wows the recruiters to actually not being present at all.”

By investing time in creating an authentic, professional presence on LinkedIn, legal professionals at all career stages can build valuable connections, demonstrate expertise, and create opportunities that extend well beyond their digital profiles.