Most lawyer bios are horrible:
…trying to read one now, eyes getting heavy…went to school somewhere…went to work somewhere else…did boring things while in school…did more boring things later…
…BORING.
Sometimes, at the very end of the bio, there will be a nugget of something we don’t see often.
Sometimes there’s a tiny little nugget of…
…she goes to church, she has a husband, they’re in a band, they swap spouses (okay, just kidding on that one)…
There it is, right at the end. Sometimes there are these brief—very brief—moments of…INTERESTING.
Why is the interesting stuff always at the bottom?
Why is the interesting stuff always beyond the point where the reader stops reading?
Why is the interesting stuff saved for last?
Put the interesting stuff up top. Make it first. Tell us the human stuff right off the bat.
- “She’s afraid of snakes, and she is in a therapy program that involves beating them with a shovel right before she chops off their heads.”
- “She killed a man in self-defense, handled the murder charge on her own, and got herself acquitted.”
- “She raises tropical fish in her 100-gallon aquarium and has two sharks and an octopus. Her 14-year-old daughter got a D in math last semester, so she spends her free time tutoring the kid in algebra.”
Please, please put the good stuff at the top. Give us something—anything—interesting to read. We already know you’re a lawyer and went to law school. We assume you’re smart, or we wouldn’t be curious about you.
You’ve got us on your bio page. Now give us something that will allow us to connect with you. Just turn your bio upside down.
