ResourcesBlog
Personal Branding, Visibility, and Career Growth for Attorneys in Today’s Legal Job Market
June 25, 2026
June 25, 2026
Most of us can identify a handful of moments that changed the trajectory of our careers.
Some are obvious: a move in-house, a promotion or a chance to work in a new industry. Others arrive unexpectedly through a corporate RIF, a new boss, a merger or acquisition, resulting in a role that suddenly looks very different than it did a year earlier.
These moments tend to raise the same questions: What are my professional goals? Is my current job aligned with my goals? Do I want to do something else? Am I positioned for a new job? How can I let others know that I’m open to new opportunities?
A recent ACC Northeast webinar sponsored by Latitude explored many of these themes, from career pivots and market trends to personal branding, networking, and professional visibility. One idea connected them all: the attorneys who are best positioned for future opportunities are usually the ones who’ve invested in their professional development long before they need to make a move.
Too often, people wait until they need a resume before updating their existing one. They wait until they’re interviewing before trying to articulate their accomplishments. They wait until they’re looking for a new role before thinking about how they’re perceived professionally.
So how can you prepare more proactively? One way to approach this is to periodically step back and reflect on a few questions:
Those questions matter whether you’re actively exploring opportunities or not.
Personal branding plays a role here too, though perhaps not in the way many attorneys think.
For some legal professionals, the phrase “personal brand” can feel uncomfortable because it sounds like self-promotion, but at its core, your brand is your professional reputation.
It’s what comes to mind when someone mentions your name. It’s what colleagues remember about working with you. It’s the combination of your expertise, judgment, communication style, and your ability to help the business navigate challenges and opportunities.
As Marissa Martin noted, branding is really about sharing what makes you unique.
Candice Reed encouraged attendees to keep track of those stories (e.g., a time you remained calm in the middle of a crisis or a situation where you led a team through change).
Stories are what people remember. They’re also what help differentiate candidates during interviews, networking conversations, and professional introductions.
The speakers also shared practical ways to keep those accomplishments from getting lost over time.
Reed maintains what she calls a “Sunshine” file filled with positive feedback and professional wins. Megan Grossman knows someone who keeps a similar “attagirl” file. The concept is simple: save examples of praise, accomplishments, and successful outcomes while they’re still fresh.
Those records become incredibly valuable when preparing for a performance review, updating a resume, considering a new opportunity, or even updating your LinkedIn profile.
LinkedIn is another important piece of that equation, as it’s often the first place recruiters and hiring managers go after reviewing a resume.
Keeping your LinkedIn profile current doesn’t require posting every day or becoming a social media influencer overnight. It simply means making sure your profile accurately reflects who you are and what you’ve accomplished, so people can see where your career is headed.
A useful analogy mentioned during the panel is that personal branding is like a label on a jar. Who you are and what you bring to the table is inside the jar, but most people don’t look past the label on the jar. Your LinkedIn profile is part of that label.
The panelists discussed several practices that many attorneys find useful as they think about future opportunities:
The legal profession continues to evolve, and so do the skills employers are seeking. While employers continue to look for in-house counsel with requisite expertise in a given area of the law, they also are highly valuing human “power skills” like flexibility, creativity, negotiation, leadership, and the ability and willingness to engage with technology.
That’s especially true in highly regulated industries such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, and financial services. Organizations operating in these sectors continue to need lawyers with deep subject matter expertise. Regulatory complexity isn’t getting any simpler.
But expertise alone isn’t all they’re looking for.
Employers increasingly want attorneys who can explain the business implications of legal decisions and collaborate effectively across departments.
Panelists noted that visibility often comes down to how attorneys communicated their work. Employers increasingly value lawyers who can translate legal risk or advice into business implications and help stakeholders understand trade-offs, opportunities, and strategic considerations.
For example, a lawyer supporting a biotechnology company may be expected to help leadership understand how regulatory developments affect product strategy or investment decisions. An attorney working in the pharmaceutical sector might need to collaborate closely with commercial teams and compliance professionals or help executives balance legal requirements with business objectives.
The ability to bridge legal and business conversations has become a meaningful differentiator.
Another increasingly important skill is cross-functional collaboration. As legal teams work more closely with colleagues in sales, marketing, technology, operations, finance, and human resources, employers want to see that your people skills are as polished as your technical skills.
The market is also creating opportunities in areas such as compliance, legal operations, and flexible engagement-based legal work. For attorneys willing to broaden how they think about legal careers, there are more options than ever before.
Another area creating new opportunities? Artificial Intelligence.
While many headlines focus on disruption, Grossman emphasized the opportunities emerging for attorneys who are willing to learn.
“People who are open to using different AI tools, who have used AI tools, and who are not going to fight against it, but are willing to learn it, to embrace it, to utilize it as part of their practice, that’s one area you can be sure there are lots of different jobs in.”
Her point wasn’t that every attorney needs to become a technology expert, but more so that the profession is changing. New tools are already influencing how legal work is performed and how information is analyzed, not to mention how organizations manage risk.
Attorneys who remain open to developing new skills and adapting alongside the profession may find themselves well-positioned as these changes continue.
Networking is another concept that tends to create unnecessary anxiety for many legal professionals.
Part of the problem is that many people associate networking with large events, conferences, cocktail receptions, and stilted conversations with strangers.
But as Martin pointed out, networking is really just the ongoing process of building and maintaining relationships.
Those relationships may develop through organizations like ACC. They may also grow through community involvement, hobbies, industry events, alumni networks, or simply asking a colleague to lunch.
One of the easiest ways to expand your network, however, is by starting where you are. You’d be amazed at how many mentors and trusted references can be found by reaching out to people within your organization. Whether that means building relationships with colleagues in other departments or participating in initiatives beyond your day-to-day responsibilities, don’t underestimate the opportunities that can come just from being visible within your company.
Ultimately, finding an approach that feels authentic to you will make networking more meaningful and more sustainable over time.
Martin also encouraged attorneys not to approach career development in isolation. Trusted colleagues, mentors, and professional contacts can often provide valuable perspective on how your experience is perceived and how effectively your professional story is being communicated.
Those conversations can be valuable whether you’re evaluating a potential career move, preparing for a promotion, refining your LinkedIn profile, or simply thinking more intentionally about what comes next.
Careers rarely unfold exactly the way we expect them to.
The panel’s closing reflections centered on three related ideas: understanding what matters most to you professionally, remaining open to opportunities that may look different than expected, and being intentional about the steps you’re taking toward future goals.
Whether the next chapter comes in the form of a promotion, expanded responsibilities, a new role, or an unexpected transition, investing in your professional visibility and development today can make it easier to recognize and evaluate opportunities when they arise.
Whether you're an attorney or legal ops executive looking for legal talent to assist your team or you’re a legal professional looking for a substantive yet flexible role, let us find a solution to meet your needs.