Communicative strategies of law office image construction (on the material of Kemerovo corporate sites)

This research is part of a project dedicated to the linguistic-marketing monitoring of corporate websites belonging to regional law offices. The project addresses issues concerning the corporate website as an element of marketing communication, defining its role in shaping an organization's image, reputation, and brand. It involves analyzing the structure, linguistic design, and content of legal websites, as well as identifying the strengths and weaknesses crucial for law offices' successful competition in the modern market of legal services. The article aims to examine the communicative strategies employed on corporate websites to form a commercially appealing image of a legal organization. The research material comprised the websites of thirteen bar associations and law firms from the city of Kemerovo. The methodological framework is based on contemporary advancements in communicative linguistics, linguistic marketing, and content marketing. The collection of linguistic material was conducted using a continuous sampling method. For the classification and interpretation of the gathered material, communicative, definitional, and distributive types of analysis were employed. The study establishes that communicative strategies are a specific manifestation of a law office's strategic plan, which is oriented towards promoting its member attorneys and positioning the legal services they provide. It is demonstrated that the marketing communication conducted on regional corporate websites utilizes seven leading communicative strategies. Each strategy focuses a potential client's (principal's) attention on values significant to this professional sphere: legality, professionalism, authority, proven success, reliability, accessibility, and client-centricity. Collectively, these strategies enable the creation of a positive and trustworthy image of the law office. It is shown that some legal organizations in Kemerovo allocate specialized sections of their corporate websites for presenting these values. This not only facilitates navigation but also implicitly influences the consumer by showcasing the merits of the professional community presented in this manner and encouraging them to become a client. In other words, there are stable correlations between sections of a corporate website, the core values of the legal sphere, and the communicative strategies used to create the image of a law office. A competent utilization of such correlations can significantly enhance the effectiveness of a corporate website as a tool for interacting with consumers of marketing content, thereby influencing the commercial success of a law office. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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