The next decade will be quite amusing for most professionals. Every marketing tactic or strategy that we have been following until now will either evolve or be replaced by something entirely new.
Before we dive into the problem and the solution, we need to understand the difference between being known and being unknown. A 'known' lawyer is someone who is visible to people, or at the very least, someone whose name or certain qualities people remember. 'Unknowns' are people who remain invisible and are not known to those outside their existing circles.
Known does not mean famous. Known means that when someone needs what you do, your name is one of the two or three that comes to their mind, appears in their search results, or is recommended by an AI tool, without them having to dig for it. Unknown does not mean bad. It simply means that even if you are brilliant at what you do, nobody outside your existing clients has any way of finding that out unless they already know you personally.
For most people, it is important to understand why we are even having this conversation about being known and unknown.
The reason is simple: your clients' psychology is changing. Their behaviour is changing with time. Earlier, clients spent most of their time elsewhere. It could have been at a shop, a club, a bar, or any other physical place. That is why businesses invested in hoardings, signboards, and other forms of offline marketing.
Let’s dive into some facts:
Volume of daily activity
- The typical internet user cites more than 7.5 reasons for going online- an indicator of how deeply the internet is woven into daily life. The report even describes the internet as being "more akin to electricity... than media like television or radio."
- 96.7% of online adults use at least one social network or messaging service every month, and 93.8% specifically visit social networking platforms.
People cite an average of just over 4.5 reasons for using social media, signalling that it serves multiple purposes in their daily lives rather than just one.
Global average time online:
Global internet users spend an average of 6 hours and 38 minutes online every day, according to the DataReportal/We Are Social Digital 2026 report. Out of this, approximately 2 hours and 21 minutes are spent on social media alone.
Wouldn't you consider this an important metric while assessing your clients' psychology and behaviour? If someone is looking to grow and become visible beyond their existing network, they certainly should.
I can say this from my experience of working with close to 40 lawyers over the last two years. There are different kinds of professionals. Lawyers may be doing great work, average work, or even poor work. But if they have made themselves visible, treated themselves as their biggest project, and built a perception that inspires trust, they are far more likely to attract and sign new clients.
People who are still unknown may dislike the fact that marketing often requires them to do things that do not come naturally to them, but we still have to do them. Some aspects of marketing may be outside your comfort zone, but they can still deliver results if you practise them consistently.
As professionals, we need to understand the value of visibility-not in terms of becoming an influencer or a marketer, but in terms of ensuring that our work is seen by the right people. What you do or what you want to do cannot be communicated solely through physical meet-ups or one or two posts online. You need to move beyond that.
We need to move beyond celebrating promotions and posting job updates on LinkedIn. We have to explore different platforms. We also need to understand how these platforms work and ensure that our opinions reach the public in a way that helps people understand who we are, what we stand for, and what we are trying to achieve.
When we talk about being visible, we need to go beyond SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). It is no longer just about whether people can find you through search engines. It is also about whether you are AI-friendly. Are you visible in AI-generated responses? People are increasingly searching through AI tools in ways they simply were not four years ago.
Today, close to 37% of consumers say they now begin their searches with an AI tool instead of a traditional search engine. Platforms like ChatGPT alone have crossed 900 million weekly users worldwide, with India already being one of its largest markets. This is not a small shift, and it is not slowing down.
If a client asks an AI tool, "Who is a good lawyer for X?" before they ever open Google, and your name, your work, and your reputation are not part of what that AI can find and summarise about you, you have already lost that client before you even knew they existed.
As professionals and lawyers, we have to constantly adapt to changing times and to where our customers and clients are. One of the best ways to understand where your clients are is to:
- Study your existing clients. Understand where they spend their time and how they found you. This is one of the most important questions you should ask every client after they choose to work with you.
- Pick one platform and study it deeply. If you do not have the time, delegate it to someone. Whether it is social media, a newsletter, a blog, or something else, choose one platform and strive to master it.
- Step out of your cabin once in a while. Be selective about the events you attend. You may attend only one event every three months, but even there you could interact with 40-50 people. Among those people, identify and nurture the most meaningful relationships.
- Consistency and uniqueness must go hand in hand. They cannot function independently. If certain activities are bringing you clients, continue doing them consistently while finding ways to make your approach uniquely yours.
We cannot rely on Google alone anymore. We have to go beyond that. The idea is not just to be a lawyer who does amazing work. You also need to consciously build systems that generate referrals, leads, and opportunities.
There are two things that I really want to point out here. Of course, you can focus on becoming highly visible across different online and offline platforms. But at the same time, you must ensure that the quality of your work is impeccable if you want recurring clients. You cannot survive in this profession on visibility alone. The delivery of your services must be equally outstanding.
Once you have mastered the art of delivering exceptional work, go ahead and build your brand and your visibility. Consciously let people know what you are capable of. Once your systems are in place, you can focus aggressively on creating visibility.
Now, it is not important which platform you choose. Nor is it necessary to attend the same networking events as everyone else. Experiment, fail, learn, and eventually find your niche.
Many of us believe that visibility alone will bring clients. Visibility can certainly get you into rooms you never imagined entering. But converting those opportunities into paying clients is an entirely different game.
The invisible tax is paid by lawyers who never consciously invest in their visibility and remain stuck in the cycle of working hard and serving existing clients. You cannot rely forever on the assumption that your current clients will keep referring to new ones. Referrals work to a certain extent, but if you want to reach the next level and interact with an entirely different set of opportunities, you have to become more visible.
When do you start focusing on your visibility?
I believe that during the initial years of your legal career, 80% of your focus should be on delivering exceptional work and building strong professional capabilities. The remaining 20% should be spent marketing yourself and talking about your services, both online and offline.
This is not a soft suggestion. It is the order of operations that determines whether your visibility will eventually mean anything. A lawyer who becomes visible before having meaningful work to showcase gets discovered- and then found wanting. A lawyer who builds substance first and visibility later gets discovered-and then trusted.
Once you have the bandwidth, you can always hire a strategist or an expert to help you with your visibility. When you do, make sure you hire someone who takes the time to truly understand you as a person.
So, coming back to where we started.
Known and unknown were never about who is more talented or who works harder. Most of you reading this are doing equally serious work. The split is simply about who consciously decided to be found and who left it to chance.
In a decade where clients are asking AI tools about lawyers before they ever ask a friend for a referral, chance is no longer a strategy you can afford.