Morgan Lewis

Turning strategies into action

All top-tier national/international law firms seem similar to buyers, in large part because none differentiate themselves. Most say “we’re global”—touting the number of office locations and attorneys. In fact, globes have overtaken courtroom steps as the stock iconography on large firm material and sites.

Morgan Lewis takes a different track in its new branding initiative. The focus is on working style: how Morgan Lewis puts global resources to work for clients. This is true to the firm’s DNA and links to research that said large global clients increasingly value sustained relationships with a few trusted providers.

Thus, people, not buildings or skyline, are always the photographic subjects in the firm material. The designs are bold, confident, built for the scanning reader (the only kind). And they are always anchored with relationship words like “together,” “collaborate” and “access.”

The Web site is as advanced in its design as it is technologically. Focus groups with buyers of legal services helped inform the design and development of the new morganlewis.com. One of the biggest shifts was in the organizational structure, where the main level navigation was collapsed from 14 categories on their former site down to six. Graphical “sidebar widgets” are found throughout the site. These widgets push users to information like recent articles, litigation successes, client events and on-campus recruiting dates.