This started as a fifteen-minute post-lunch energiser for a room full of women in law who are all too often the silent heroes of the legal world, working as in-house lawyers, doing the unseen, essential work of keeping businesses ethical, operational, and protected. The kind of audience that makes you want to bring your A-game.
But the slides had different ideas on the day! shakes fist at tech Gods
So here’s the message I shared with the audience at the Women in Law UK conference hosted by TLD, and a chance to give those slides their day in the sun!
Visibility for Lawyers Is About Influence, Not Performance
Not the shouty, shallow, promotional humblebrag kind. But the kind that’s rooted in influence.
Because how you show up online, as in-house lawyers, shapes how legal is seen, understood and valued, both inside your business, and far beyond it.
Before I founded my legal marketing business, I helped grow one of the UK’s early alternative legal services providers Halebury. We placed in-house lawyers into businesses and legal teams. Back in 2011, that was a genuinely innovative concept, believe it or not! We didn’t have a big marketing budget. In the absence of funding (which is another blog) we had to bootstrap. But we had something better: two visionary founders. Women in law. Women who weren’t afraid to use their voice. Women who cared about change, and believed in progress in the legal sector. So we put their voices front and centre on platforms like LinkedIn. That’s how we built trust. That’s how we built a brand and eventually grew to an exit.
And that approach has shaped everything I’ve built since. My own businesses and reputation, my clients’ businesses and reputations, and a global collective of over 5,000 women in law called She Breaks the Law.
What Holds Legal Teams Back on LinkedIn?
Now, I make it sound easy.
But for General Counsel and in-house lawyers, I know it’s not.
Whether you are a lawyer or not, showing up online is uncomfortable. You’re putting yourself out there and making yourself open to criticism, disagreement, misinterpretation.
But when you are working in the legal sector, you have additional baggage. Regulation. Client confidentiality. Privacy concerns. Internal judgement. Cultural conservatism. Sometimes, as an in-house lawyer, you’re in a regulated industry within a regulated industry.
The barriers are real.
And then there’s the fear of virality. One of my clients reminded me about the story of the Big Four consultant, who fired off a misguided tweet before boarding a plane and landed to find they’d lost their job. A story to haunt lawyers everywhere!
But let’s not confuse poor judgement with meaningful visibility. This isn’t about going viral. It’s about building trust, consistency and presence over time, so people know who you are and what you stand for.
Your LinkedIn presence isn’t just external. It’s internal, too. It’s what your board sees. It’s what your future employers see. It’s what your team sees. It’s a chance to show your judgement, your values, your leadership.
It’s also a chance to educate.
Most people still don’t understand the full scope of a GC’s role. You’re so much more than legal support. You’re the strategic conscience of the business. You sit at the intersection of law, risk, people, policy and performance.
If you want that recognised, you need to make it visible.
Let’s not forget: people trust lawyers.
That might not be how it feels inside the profession some days! But out there in the world, you’re still seen as stewards of judgement, order, accountability, fairness. You’re trained to think clearly when things get messy. And right now? Things are messy.
We’re living through political, social and economic volatility. The public conversation is loud, polarised, full of false narratives and binary takes. People are desperate for reasoned voices. For nuance. For someone to bring context and calm to complex debates.
Lawyers have always played that role. We need that voice now on platforms like LinkedIn, too.
Not to self-promote. Not to chase a “personal brand” if that phrase makes you cringe. But to show what leadership looks like. To shape how legal is seen. To be part of holding power to account.
You already carry influence. LinkedIn is just where people get to see it.
What GCs can do differently on LinkedIn
So how do you show up, without falling into the cringe?
Here’s what I see the best of you doing already:
🟡 Step up — and be seen, as a human, not just a lawyer. This is not about showing up with more social media noise. It’s about showing up with care, consistency and capability and all those O-shaped leadership values we discussed in the conference yesterday. That’s how you build trust, inside your business, and as a legal voice beyond it.
🟡 Lead out loud. GCs influence policy, culture, direction. You’re already leading. Why not let people see it? Use LinkedIn to build your leadership brand and to model empathetic leadership in public.
🟡 Set the tone for the legal profession. This is so important. GCs influence what’s acceptable and what’s expected not just in law, but across industries. We need more GCs speaking up about law firm culture. Your buyer voice matters. You can help drive better behaviours in our industry.
🟡 Put legal thinking into the world. The law touches everything. AI, ESG, governance, privacy. Bring your context and clarity into the mess of public discourse.
🟡 Back justice as part of your remit. When GCs speak about justice, they position it as a business value, not just a legal one.
Maybe in your business there is still some resistance to being visible online. Maybe your CEO and leadership team do not post, maybe your team are nervous about risk. But if you want to shift perception – of your role as a GC, of the legal team and all that it does – someone has to go first. Why not you?
What great GC posts look like
The point to this is that there is no one way to do a great post. These were just three examples from our presentation of GCs who have showed up with their voices, with posts that demonstrate solid and grounded employee advocacy, moments that have brought law to life and showed that brilliance behind the world of in-house law, with humour.
📌 Alexa Culver‘s quietly powerful reflection on land stewardship and environmental law. Alexa shares a reflection about the “why” behind their work in environmental law. It’s not framed as a big win, but a moment that made a mission feel real. It brings legal to life. 👉 Read it here
📌 Jessica Winter, Announcing her team’s FT Innovative Lawyer’s standout mention. There IS a place for the humblebrag on LinkedIn, as Jessica shows as she ties their award mention back to Wise’s broader mission and celebrates her team. Also top marks for good use of video rather than a static image! 👉 Read it here
📌 Eunika Kurek is unique in how she shows up online. She pokes fun at the legal profession without undermining it. There is real pride in her craft – only a super smart lawyer could write with such a knowing tone! Her posts are human, fun, creative and provide universal appeal for lawyers in any setting 👉 Read it here
Quick Wins for Legal Teams Building a LinkedIn Presence
You don’t need to post every week. You don’t need to go viral. But you do need to show up..
Here’s how:
✅ Listen first.Use LinkedIn to tune into your business, your industry, your peers. If you just use it as a listening tool, it is still valuable, and every time you fire up the platform you are giving it valuable algorithm signals about what you want to read and creating a better LinkedIn experience for yourself.
✅ Engage safely.Like and comment – especially on your stakeholder’s posts. How brilliant for people to be recognised by their legal team for support when they are visible! This alone goes such a long way, especially when it comes to creating better stakeholder relations.
✅ Join conversations outside your bubble. When you grow in confidence, look to build on that and join conversations outside your bubble, with new people. Have conversations, make new connections, flex that visibility muscle,.
✅ Choose your pillars. One of the issues with LinkedIn is that you could post and chat about anything and everything. And that becomes overwhelming and unsustainable. Pick three – five pillars you know you are happy to post about or comment about and own those lanes.
✅ Share when it matters. Not just the company line, but your line, with respect of course to the considerations about the business you work for. Because that’s what people remember.
Final Thoughts on LinkedIn for In-House Counsel
You don’t build influence alone.
So if you’re a GC or in-house lawyer ready to step into your voice, connect with others doing the same. Back each other. Start showing up for each other on here.
Because if in-house lawyers start showing up more visibly, more honestly, and more often, we don’t just shift the narrative. We help share the future of the legal profession.