Crafting Compelling Legal Content: Your Personal Narrative’s Role

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Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts on motherhood in the legal profession, in partnership with our friends at MothersEsquire. Welcome Stacey Freeman to our pages. Click here if you’d like to donate to MothersEsquire.

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Throughout my career as a writer and legal content marketer, I’ve come to understand the incredible power of storytelling. The ability to connect with an audience on a deep and emotional level is a skill that transcends the practice of law. It’s a skill that can humanize lawyers and allow clients to see the person behind the legal expertise.

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My journey into this world began early with a painful personal experience — the sudden loss of my 41-year-old father when I was 13. It was a cold December day in 1985 when I arrived home to discover he had suffered a massive heart attack not long after my younger brother, who was 10, and I had left for school. There was no will. No life insurance. Only bills and no money to pay them.

Had my father, a criminal and labor lawyer who had fallen on hard times, created an estate plan, this and other uncomfortable situations, most notably my mother having to borrow money from begrudging relatives to survive until our house was sold, would never have happened. If she had left my father after years of verbal, emotional, and, on occasion, physical abuse instead of staying, her financial footing might have also been different.

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The experience haunted me emotionally and logistically for the duration of my childhood as money became a constant worry for our family, more so than it had been when my father was alive. So, when I discovered I was pregnant with my first child at 27, I insisted my then 29-year-old husband apply for a life insurance policy (in addition to the policy he had from work) and that we both create an estate plan. I, too, took out a life insurance policy on myself. About to embark on becoming a stay-at-home mom, I wanted to make sure my husband would have enough cushion to hire help should he have to in my absence. Some of those in our inner circle lacked understanding and muttered out of turn that these were concerns for “old people.” I knew better and stood my ground.

When my husband and I divorced 13 years after our first child was born and the two who followed, I revisited my estate plan, taking measures that, should I no longer be around, the children, today in their late teens and early twenties, would have some measure of financial security to get them through and know my wishes so they wouldn’t have to guess. The last thing I would ever want is for them to argue about what should be understood. Mine is a story that needs to be told, and I tell it often.

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But it is just one of the stories I share with my clients about why I became a writer and legal content marketer and the why behind us working together. My journey is similar to theirs, driven by personal experiences that shape our why. Many of my clients are lawyers who have embraced their areas of practice — family law, estate planning, personal injury, corporate law, and criminal law, among others — because of a story. Because of an experience that altered and shaped their current life view.

Unfortunately, that “why” isn’t always evident in their race for SEO ranking, which, of course, has its place in legal content marketing and is an important skill set, one I honor. But the real power comes from consistently communicating stories through content, balancing SEO and the whys. This can be done in various ways — website content, executive bios, blogging, social media (including videos), thought leadership pieces pitched to publications at the hyperlocal to national levels, the creation of ebooks, podcasting, and authoring books alongside a writing professional who understands them.

I became a writer, editor, and legal content marketer following my own divorce more than a decade ago, facing full physical custody of my children, then 11, 10, and 6, as their father made a permanent home 8,000 miles away in Hong Kong. Embracing my passion for storytelling, I began helping attorneys tell their stories, revealing the reasons behind their legal careers, a crucial aspect often missing from their online presence.

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As I continued delving deeper into the world of legal content marketing, I saw how storytelling could bridge the gap between lawyers and their clients. People want to connect with legal professionals who understand their challenges on a personal level. Lawyers often choose their areas of practice based on their own life experiences or a burning desire to make a difference, and these stories deserve to be told.

I’ve had the privilege of working with family law attorneys who fight for fair outcomes in custody battles because they’ve faced similar struggles themselves, estate planning lawyers who learned the hard way when they discovered a relative didn’t make their end-of-life wishes known, resulting in family turmoil still an issue long after their loved one’s passing, corporate lawyers who enjoy elevating their clients’ successes, criminal lawyers who strive to right injustices, and personal injury lawyers who advocate for victims because they’ve witnessed similar devastating effects personally.

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By crafting compelling narratives that incorporate these personal insights, I’ve witnessed firsthand how it’s not only possible to enhance a lawyer’s online presence but also to help them build trust and empathy with potential new clients. In the end, being a lawyer is not just about winning cases; it’s about making a meaningful impact on people’s lives. Which is perhaps the most important story worth sharing.

Stacey Freeman is a New York City-based writer, journalist, author and editor and the founder of Write On Track LLC, a full-service consultancy dedicated to providing high-quality content and strategy to individuals and businesses. Her writing has been published or syndicated in The Washington Post, The Lily (published by The Washington Post), Forbes, Entrepreneur, MarketWatch, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Woman’s Day, Town & Country, InStyle, PBS’ Next Avenue, AARP, SheKnows, Yahoo!, MSN, HuffPost, POPSUGAR, Your Teen, Grown & Flown, Scary Mommy, CafeMom, MariaShriver dot com, and dozens of other well-known platforms worldwide. Her memoir-in-essays, “I Bought My Husband’s Mistress Lingerie,” was published in 2022 by Unsolicited Press. Stacey holds a B.A. in English from the University at Albany and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law. You can connect with her on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, Twitter/X (book), or by email at [email protected].

 

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MothersEsquire, Small Law Firms, Stacey Freeman, Writing