You've posted three times this year. Each one took an evening you didn't have, because each one started from nothing: a blank compose box, a half-formed thought about a case you can't talk about, and ten minutes deciding whether sharing an article sounds too promotional for an advocaat.
Why the posting stops after post three
Meanwhile a colleague's firm posts most weeks. Clients mention having seen it, and referrals start with "I saw your post about." You haven't matched it. And it's not for lack of stories: a twelve-person firm in Ghent has as much worth posting as one in Rotterdam that posts weekly.
The usual diagnosis is that lawyers need more ideas. That's not quite it. Most firms we talk to, whether a Belgian firm or a Dutch advocatenkantoor, have more raw material than they use: a ruling that touches half their client base, a hire worth introducing, a matter closed last week. What's missing is a shape that doesn't need reinventing each time.
A couple of years ago we published a broader list of LinkedIn content ideas for lawyers. Still worth a look for inspiration. This isn't that. These are five LinkedIn post formats for lawyers, built to repeat: a fixed shape, a real BeNeLux example, a rough time cost, and the confidentiality line to check before you post it.
One thing to settle first: how often you post matters more than how polished any post is. Firms that post weekly get 18 times more impressions per post than sporadic posters, across a year of data from 25 Belgian and Dutch firms. A separate study of 488 firm pages and 43,738 posts found steady weekly posting beats bursty posting by up to 9x. That argument is settled. What actually stops most lawyers is not knowing what to post most weeks, when nothing dramatic happened.
Start from the work, not the blank page
You already do the things worth posting about. You just don't route them anywhere.
A case closed last week. A ruling came down that changes something for clients. Someone asked a question in a meeting that a hundred other companies are quietly asking too. A new associate started. A partner made a ranking. None of that required inventing content. It required noticing it already happened.
The five formats below are routing, not invention. Each takes something you're already doing and gives it a fixed shape: what to say, how long it takes, whether you need to clear it with anyone first. That's the real gap between a firm that posts three times a year and one that posts every week. Not more ideas. A shorter distance between "this happened" and "this is a post."
The five formats
For each: what it is, a BeNeLux example, a rough time cost, and the confidentiality question to ask before it goes live.
1. The retrospective
A short recap of what the firm did last week or last month. Not a highlight reel, just what got worked on, who was in the room, what closed.
The strongest version reports things after they happen instead of announcing them before. A conference talk gets written up the week after, not promoted the week before. In one anonymised Belgian corporate law firm's own numbers, "we did X" recaps beat "come to X" invitations by roughly 3.9x on the same events, told after rather than before.
Time cost: about 15 minutes. You're describing something that already happened. No research required.
Confidentiality line: none, as long as you're describing firm activity rather than a client's situation. If the recap touches an actual matter, treat it like format three and abstract it first.
2. Recognition and milestones
A ranking, a partner appointment, a bar admission, an award. The kind of news the firm already turns into a press release.
Firms that run this well don't just repost the release. They add one line on what the appointment means for the practice, or why the ranking matters to a client rather than to the trophy case. It's also the best-reaching format in the data: roughly 1.8 times an anonymised Belgian corporate law firm's own median views per post.
Time cost: about 10 minutes. The facts are already written. You're adding one sentence of context.
Confidentiality line: essentially none. This is information the firm and the person involved have already chosen to make public.
3. The legal question
One real question a client asked, answered in general terms. To reference an actual matter instead, use the same format: strip out anything identifying and lead with the legal question, not who was involved.
One Belgian firm that won a ruling at the Hof van Cassatie clarifying the position of phishing victims led with the court and the principle: no client named, no amounts mentioned. It reads as legal insight the firm is qualified to give, not a case they're bragging about winning.
Deal announcements work best the same way: instead of "firm advises company on acquisition of target," post the pattern the deal illustrates. Standalone deal posts ran at 0.77x the same firm's median: useful, not a format to build a month around alone.
Legal insight overall ran below median too, at 0.93x. That's not a reason to post less law. A post that reaches the dozen corporate counsel who actually refer work beats one that reaches twelve hundred who never will. Retrospectives and recognition posts are the cheap reach that keeps a page warm. This format turns attention into a phone call.
Time cost: 30 to 40 minutes. This is the one that takes real thinking: what's the general version of the question, and where does it stop being general.
Confidentiality line: the one to slow down on. Never include anything that would let a reader identify the client, the counterparty, or a live matter's specifics. If it can't get down to a principle a first-year associate would recognize without the file, it isn't ready.
4. The new face
A new hire, an intern, someone starting a secondment. Not a generic "please welcome," but two or three lines on what they'll actually be working on.
The simplest version is usually the best received: a short note from or about the new person, with one real detail (where they studied, which team they're joining) instead of a stock line about being delighted to welcome them.
Time cost: 10 to 15 minutes, most of it spent finding a decent photo.
Confidentiality line: low risk. The one thing to check is the person's own sign-off before their name and photo go up. That's courtesy more than a bar-council rule, but it matters to someone on their first week.
5. The development with your take
A legislative change or a court ruling, plus the firm's own reading of what it means for clients. Never a bare link.
One Belgian business-law firm posts on legal developments most weeks, a shareholder-rights change say, or a tweak to company law. The shape barely varies: state the change, add one line on what's at stake for a client, then point to the firm's own article for detail. Repeatable, because the format doesn't change, only the topic does.
Worth knowing: across close to a thousand posts pulled from Willow's own platform data, firms sharing an article almost never post the bare link. Roughly 99% add their own line of context first. That instinct is correct.
Time cost: 45 to 60 minutes, because you actually have to read the ruling and decide what you think of it.
Confidentiality line: less a confidentiality question than a responsibility one. In Belgium, the advocate stays responsible for their own publicity no matter who drafted or scheduled the post: an associate, an intern, a tool. Someone with legal judgment needs to read the final line before it goes out, not because a rule demands it, but because that's where responsibility sits.
Fitting five formats into four weeks
You don't need a content calendar to run this. A social media content plan for lawyers can be one block of time a month and a place to schedule the output.
Set aside 90 minutes once a month and write four posts in that sitting:
- A retrospective, always: the cheapest post you'll write all month.
- Recognition or the new face, whichever applies this cycle.
- One legal question, the one your last few clients kept asking.
- A development with your take, if there's an actual change worth commenting on.
Queue the four a week apart. If nothing's changed legally that month, run a second retrospective instead.
One research effort can cover more than one post, too. One Belgian firm turned a single GDPR compliance question into a numbered four-part explainer, one angle a week. That's the batch model at its most efficient: one sitting, one topic, a month of output.
When a case is too sensitive to touch
Some matters shouldn't go anywhere near LinkedIn, in any form. Most can, once you climb far enough up the abstraction ladder.
Start with the specific case: names, amounts, the counterparty, the judge. That version never gets posted. Strip out anything identifying and you're left with the legal question the case turned on: not "we won for our client," but "here's how the court now treats this kind of dispute." That's the Cassatie phishing example from format three again: the firm posted the principle and the court, never the client. If it's still recognizable to someone who knows the file, it doesn't get posted.
The rules give lawyers more room than most assume. In Belgium, the Orde van Vlaamse Balies takes the position that publicity is permitted unless it conflicts with a legal norm. What's restricted is narrower than that: an advocate can't send a personalised service offer on a pending or specific matter to someone who hasn't asked for one. Posting generally about a type of case is fine. Messaging someone about their live dispute is not.
In the Netherlands, the Nederlandse Orde van Advocaten's confidentiality rule covers everything learned in the course of practice and doesn't expire when the file closes. But it isn't "anonymise it and you're covered." The advocate decides, with the client's consent, whether putting something into public view actually serves that client's interest. It also matters which capacity you're posting in: as the advocate, or as yourself. Say which.
On both sides of the border: responsibility for what a firm publishes sits with the advocate whose name is on it, whoever typed it. An associate can draft it, a tool can speed up the writing session, but someone who understands the file still needs to read the final line before it goes out. That's the real argument for building coaching into the process, not just automating it.
Bringing associates in
None of this scales if it's the managing partner's job alone. Five formats mean five people can each own one, and the easiest way in is starting associates on the format with the least at stake.
The new-face post is the obvious start: their own introduction, nothing to clear, posting under their own name without the pressure of sounding authoritative yet. A generous share works as a second entry point: someone else's article with one honest line on who should read it, costing nothing and needing no approval.
For formats that do need a check, keep the approval light. One reviewer, usually the practice lead, reads for two things: does the abstraction hold, and is the legal point right. That's a five-minute read, not a committee. If the review takes longer than the post did to write, the process is the actual bottleneck.
The register matters less than most lawyers assume. One firm opened a post about director guarantees admitting they couldn't find a decent stock photo, so they used a picture of a cat instead. Small thing, but a fair reminder the tone doesn't have to match a formal opinion letter. An associate posting for the first time usually worries more about sounding stiff than sounding wrong.
That's also where a second pair of eyes helps, the model behind Willow's coaching for law firms: someone reviewing the line so the call doesn't rest on one partner alone.
So run this for a single posting cycle, four posts from one sitting, and you'll know within a month whether the real bottleneck was ever the ideas. It usually isn't. It's the blank page, and these five formats are how you stop staring at one.