Stop Guessing What Your Clients Want

Two law firms had just merged. Different cultures, different client bases, decades of separate reputations. Now they needed to answer a question that would define the combined entity: What should we call ourselves?

The partners had opinions. Keep Firm A's name for its prestige. Keep Firm B's name for its regional recognition. Combine them. Start fresh with something new. Everyone had a preference—and a reason why theirs was right.

Would the new name signal growth—or instability? Would the visual refresh feel modern—or generic? Would longtime clients feel abandoned?

They were about to bet millions on guesswork.

The Gap No One Talks About

Here's what most legal marketers eventually realize: you don't actually know what your audience wants. You know what you want to tell them. You know what your partners think is impressive. You know what your competitors are posting.

But the people you're trying to reach? Their actual priorities, anxieties, and decision criteria? That's usually a blind spot.

The standard solution is focus groups. Recruit participants, rent a facility, hire a moderator, hope people are candid. Cost: $8,000-$15,000. Timeline: 4-6 weeks minimum. Practical for a major rebrand. Impossible for ongoing marketing decisions.

So most firms guess. Educated guessing, sure. But guessing.

A New Way to Listen

At Innovation Partners, we built something different. Proxy is an AI assistant that runs focus groups (simulated discussions with AI personas built from real-world research about your specific target audience).

It works like this:

1. Research phase — Proxy gathers current data on your target audience's behaviors and preferences

2. Persona building — It creates detailed representations of the people you want to understand

3. Moderation setup — You define how the facilitator should probe (neutral, challenging, empathetic)

4. Discussion simulation — Proxy runs an actual conversation among the personas

5. Synthesis — You get a summary, key insights, and specific recommendations

One hour instead of weeks. Hundreds instead of thousands. And you can run multiple groups for different audience segments.

What the Clients Actually Thought

Back to that merged firm and their naming decision. Before committing, they used Proxy to test how client personas from both legacy firms would react to each option.

The synthetic focus groups provided specific feedback on each naming approach, including detailed reactions about which names signaled stability vs. disruption, which felt like a fresh start vs. an erasure of history, and which approach made clients from both firms feel like they still belonged.

They moved forward—with certainty instead of hope. And with specific guidance on how to communicate the change to different client segments.

The Recruiting Problem No One Expected

Different firm, different challenge. This one had strong name recognition (the kind of brand that should attract top talent). But third-year law students weren't engaging with their LinkedIn content. Competitors with less prestige were getting the likes, comments, and applications.

They used Proxy to understand what law students actually care about when evaluating potential employers.

The insights were uncomfortable—and invaluable:

What law students want to see:

- Authenticity — Real voices sharing genuine experiences, including the hard parts

- Transparency — Actual information about comp, hours, and what the work is really like

- Day-in-the-life content — From real associates, not the marketing department

- Personal over corporate — They trust individual accounts, not firm brands

- Pro bono and DEI with proof — Real impact stories, not platitudes

- Mental health support — They're watching for whether firms take this seriously

- Tech-forward signals — Evidence the firm isn't stuck in the past

What makes them scroll past:

- Over-polished, obviously approved-by-committee content

- Generic posts that could come from any firm

- Anything that ignores the actual anxieties of being a young lawyer

The firm now has the insights it needed to rewire their LinkedIn strategy around these findings. They can let associates post authentically. They can share real numbers and real challenges. They can stop sanitizing everything through the partnership review process.

The results: increased followers, higher engagement rates, and more applications from the students they wanted to reach.

The Broader Opportunity

Once you can test audience reactions quickly and affordably, you start seeing applications everywhere:

- Test thought leadership angles before investing in long-form content

- Understand how different client segments perceive your practice area messaging

- Validate pitch themes for specific industries

- Get feedback on event concepts before committing to production

- Test website copy with personas matching your target visitors

The limitation on legal marketing research was never creativity. It was cost and time. That limitation is disappearing.

What This Means for Your Team

If you're building content strategies based on internal assumptions (what partners find interesting, what competitors are posting, what sounds good in a meeting), you're operating with less information than you could have.

The firms that understand their audiences will create more relevant content, make better strategic decisions, and outperform competitors who are still guessing.

Ask better questions and listen to the answers.

What would you want to know about your audience if you could get answers this week?