Have you ever heard of the digital lawyer? Today, anyone can start a new career by taking advantage of the countless possibilities that digital offers. So did Alessandro Vercellotti. After his legal studies and the start of his activity as a lawyer, he decided to take a new path or rather to improve it.
He specialized in digital and integrated it with legal matters. He draws up contracts, checks laws for e-commerce, and gives legal advice online.
Let’s take a closer look at who he is and how he did it he also calls himself a legal coach.
From simple lawyer to digital lawyer
Where did you start from and what do you do specifically?
Ever since I was a kid, I have always loved the world of marketing and digital. I am a digital lawyer but I am from ’84 so I have seen the web world grow. Then life led me to be a lawyer, to study law.
At a certain point, I asked myself if this love for digital was just something juvenile or something I still love and so I dedicated a lot of time to training.
For a year I dedicated myself to this by studying the digital world. Then I combined the two, on the one hand, digital culture, and on the other hand my profession as a lawyer, so I became a digital lawyer.
So I became a digital lawyer, an atypical figure: on the one hand, I am a lawyer, on the other hand, I have the knowledge to fully understand the digital world and to verticalize.
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The old legislature and the new digital age
What is the difference between being a lawyer in the most classical sense and what you do?
To become a digital lawyer the difference was the investment of time, effort, and money. I studied something that is not strictly my profession. Digital Marketing Courses and studying e-commerce were definitely not my subjects.
On the other hand, they give me a superior and complete understanding of who works in this world and consequently of my potential customer. Definitely different from the classic approach of a lawyer.
How do you use social channels in your work? Which one is the most important for you?
Learning these skills posed a problem for me: how to communicate them externally. I asked myself how I could do that. So I tried to put my study and approach to social media into practice. I started by making videos and I used LinkedIn, 70 percent of my clientele as a digital lawyer comes from there.
I also used Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and Telegram trying to create a link between the various social networks. In each channel, I create different and more specific content for that particular society. LinkedIn is absolutely the best for me.
I work entirely in B2B so this is where I find my target audience. Also, there is not a lot of use for the types of content I create videos made by lawyers dealing with digital-related topics.
The lawyer and content marketing
How important is content marketing to you?
For me it is fundamental. My content has never been sales-oriented. There is no post or video where I say “Come to me I will give you the best deal”. It’s a different mental approach: I give away knowledge, skills, and my background as a digital lawyer.
I’m giving something, the recipient can be satisfied, on the other side a person can see who I am and if I’m good at what I do. Giving content instead of making videos where I tell you to come to me because I am the best, has been a key.
It seems counterproductive, but giving skills rather than trying to sell them, gives you a considerable return. Better to try to inform yourself today, even if you don’t need me, when you need a digital lawyer you will remember me. The aim has been to become the benchmark in the field.
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The digital lawyer’s mistakes
During your journey did you make any mistakes in your approach to digital?
You are human and you can make mistakes, and then it is not easy. The world is constantly changing, and the content I was doing six months ago is not the same as today, you have to keep people alive if they don’t get used to it. One mistake was the YouTube channel, here I am followed very little.
I opened it at the time because I had videos and I had thought of putting them on the main video channel. Nobody saw them, unlike LinkedIn. Another mistake was not going for the blog straight away.
I’m a lawyer, I’m not born a copywriter, it’s one thing to write legal documents, it’s another to write texts from an SEO perspective. Today I realize that this would have allowed me to position myself in a definitely different way in terms of SERPs as a digital lawyer.
Definition of targets and objectives
How important is it to have clear ideas at the beginning of a project? Channel and target
In my experience, I can tell you that it is crucial to know who I want to propose myself to, what content I want to offer, and consequently choose the right channel. In the beginning, I used to make one-and-a-half-minute micro pills, but YouTube was not in favor of such short content and preferred richer ones.
Conversely, making ten-minute content on LinkedIn doesn’t work so much. So knowing what your target audience is and going to give that target audience the right content on the right platform is crucial.
Some advice
What do you recommend to those who want to reinvent themselves in digital? In your opinion, is it possible for any profession?
A lawyer has a very strict deontology. We are restricted in advertising, in not quoting clients, we cannot do comparative advertising, and we cannot be disparaging towards colleagues. Doing marketing or disclosure work for a lawyer is really difficult. Having said that, anyone can really do it.
One should certainly not be afraid; on the contrary, one should jump in. Sharing one’s own content is not easy. If you manage to break this initial barrier and if the content is of value, the following starts to happen.
I saw it as an opportunity, no one was doing this profession of the future online, I wanted to be the first digital lawyer. I didn’t see it as a limitation. My colleagues at first called me crazy, they said I was giving away advice.
Only with time did they realize the possibility. In the beginning, it can be difficult to change the classical approach, also for the possible clientele. Now I have no limits, I am in Lucca but I have clients from Valle D’Aosta to Sicily.
What do you think of the story of Alessandro Vercellotti?
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