You Are the Brand

Gibbons: One Name Can Communicate So Much

Branding a law firm to stand out in such a crowded professional arena is no easy task. A law firm is a collection of individuals who provide clients with individual service; each lawyer has his or her own personality, style, and approach. How do they all contribute to one brand? Having a long and distinguished history adds another level of difficulty to law firm branding. Consider the case of Gibbons P.C., a 230-lawyer firm with five offices in four mid-Atlantic states and a long and distinguished history. Gibbons stands out in the legal community for having great lawyers who provide excellent client service, primarily geared toward middle-market corporations in the range of legal areas, as well as toward major companies in their middle-market matters. It is one of the most innovative and successful brands in the country—but it didn’t start out that way. In fact, the firm named after John J. Gibbons (former chief judge of the United States Court of Appeal for theThird Circuit and one of the most respected people in the legal community) was actually founded byAndrew B. Crummy in 1926.According to Gibbons Chairman and Managing Director Patrick C. Dunican Jr.: “For many years, we were known as Crummy lawyers.”Think about that. “Crummy lawyers.”What’s in the name? A lot. Over time, the firm became known as Crummy, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione.Then in 1990, Judge Gibbons, who had originally worked for the firm for twenty years before serving twenty years on the bench, came back, and in 1997, the firm became Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger &Vecchione. All those names were important and all those lawyers were important to the firm’s history and to building its reputation for excellence. 158 Gibbons One Name Can Communicate So Much Adubato_(Brand)_final 4/11/11 11:29 AM Page 158 However, Patrick Dunican and his closest advisers knew that something had to change.According to Dunican,“In 2007, we took a hard look at the name. We commissioned a study, and a market research professional talked to our clients, our lawyers, and others in the legal community to make sure that changing the name to simply Gibbons was the right thing to do. That was perilous for us because people across the country knew the firm as Gibbons, Del Deo and every variation of that.We knew this was a change we had to make, but how would we do that while also capturing the history and legacy of the Crummy firm and the Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione firm?” A Delicate Balancing Act That question was hard to answer. Along with his Chief Marketing Officer Dawn Afanador, Dunican and others involved in leading the branding effort needed to balance tradition, legacy, and history with what made the most marketing sense for today’s world.These people of vision knew that not only did the name need revising in order to allow the firm to reach its brand potential, but the entire way the firm looked at marketing, public relations, community outreach, and social media needed to evolve as well. To start, the firm’s name was changed to just one word. Gibbons. Sure, there was some resistance, but largely through Dunican’s strength of personality and persistence, along with the trust that he had developed, a multitiered, sophisticated branding effort was undertaken, not just to change the name to Gibbons, but also to expand the firm’s name and reputation outside the insulated legal arena. A charitable arm of the firm was created, called “Gibbons Cares,” which now gives away over $1 million a year, some of which is raised by Gibbons employees themselves through sponsoring monthly “wear jeans to work for $5” days and other efforts. To further reinforce the firm’s new name, Gibbons endowed $1 million to the Seton Hall University School of Law to establish the Gibbons Institute of Law, Science &Technology, which is focused on educating and training the next generation of attorneys in the GIBBONS 159 Adubato_(Brand)_final 4/11/11 11:29 AM Page 159 technology and scientific communities. The firm also donated $500,000 to a major New Jersey law center and created what is called the Gibbons Conference Room. In addition, in 2007, Dunican made the decision to relocate the firm to a major piece...