Making Estate Law Easier to Navigate

Situation

We worked with a law firm in Houston, Texas focused on estate planning, probate law, and will contests. Topics involving end-of-life issues such as these are already fraught and can be highly emotional, not to mention overwhelming. The firm was working diligently to provide education on these topics so that people can better understand their rights and their options in a no-pressure way that truly leaves them empowered and able to make the best decision for their situation.

They had found over time that two things were frequently the case: first that they needed to spend time with people catching them up on the basics of a situation they had not dealt with before (definitions for unfamiliar terms, legal processes, likely timelines, etc.), and second that there is an almost universal baseline for most people’s options from which they could then customize any given individual’s specific needs. The challenge was that, given the limited amount of time they had to interact with a potential new client, they had to spend much of that time just getting to the point where they could provide real, personal value.

Solution

We worked with the team to explore how they were regularly using a consistent approach to the topic. They were frequently sketching out by hand the same basic scenario, usually on a piece of scratch paper or on a whiteboard. We helped them capture that process along with other key elements that they had found to be almost always useful, and framed them as a brochure publishing what was essentially a unique map that they could trademark and own, but which also allowed them space to add and customize elements according to the situation under review. A physical brochure provides a shortcut allowing them to skip past parts that took time to draw and might be more or less legible when reviewed later depending on how hastily they had been sketched. Just as importantly, a brochure also serves as a takeaway, a promotional tool with inherent value already given the content, and even greater value given the customization.

Success

By providing an immediate and deeper understanding of the implications for decisions that potential clients had to make, the firm was able both to make people smarter and better informed about their own personal best next steps. Naturally this positioned the firm as well-suited to assist them, thus serving as a far more effective promotional campaign than any traditional advertisement.