State Bar of Wisconsin

Public opinion research

The Branding the Profession initiative is grounded in solid national and regional research. In addition, in order to gauge the current status of the public perception of lawyers in Wisconsin, the State Bar worked with Chamberlain Research, a marketing and opinion research firm in Madison. The surveys gathered information about the public's perception of lawyers, as well as people's experience working with lawyers.

Demographic profile tables of the survey respondents begin on the next page. Such analysis may be useful to lawyers and other legal professionals who wish to better understand the opinions of certain target audiences. The following are key findings from the October 2000 and November 2001 surveys.

October 2000 survey results

• 57 percent of respondents had used an attorney in the past 10 years.
• 58 percent agreed that attorneys are held to high ethical standards.
• 58 percent agreed that attorneys are active in their communities.
• 69 percent agreed that attorneys work for the best interest of their clients.

November 2001 survey results

The State Bar took the preliminary research conducted in 2000 one step further to determine what messages could improve the public's perception of the profession.

• 35 percent of respondents said that they had a favorable or somewhat favorable impression of attorneys and 35 percent were neutral. The branding initiative is intended to reach out to the neutral respondents and to reinforce the positive opinions of the favorable respondents.
• When asked what they valued most in their experience with an attorney, 43 percent answered "expert advice," while 25 percent answered "problem solving."
• When asked what would improve their perception of lawyers, the top responses were about equally split between "helping people solve problems," "advocating for their clients," and "serving their communities."

Lawyer focus groups

In addition to researching public perception, the State Bar gathered input from lawyers by conducting focus groups in La Crosse, Madison, and Milwaukee. Overwhelmingly, lawyers who attended the focus groups supported the idea of developing a message campaign on behalf of the legal profession. However, a common sentiment shared by lawyers was the desire for the branding campaign to be focused on how lawyers help their clients and the community. Many lawyers expressed concern that professional advertisements that appeared to be "hard sells" would not improve the image of the profession and may have a negative impact. Lawyers who attended focus groups had a chance to express their views on what they perceived is their value to the public. The intersections of the public's and attorneys' lists of most-valued qualities formed the foundation for developing the brand, which had to accurately convey to the general public what Wisconsin lawyers are about as a profession – and do so in only a handful of words that the public would notice, find credible, and remember.

• Branding the Profession: Educating the Public About the Value of Lawyers