When regulation creates opportunity

Changes to UK regulation of legal services opened a rare opportunity. For the first time, law firms could operate outside traditional partnership structures. New business models became possible.

An entrepreneureal lawyer saw the chance to create something different. A firm dedicated to serving tech startups and scaling creative businesses in London’s Shoreditch. No expensive city offices. No billable hours designed to maintain partnerships. Just former big-firm expertise at accessible rates, delivered by people who actually understood how startups work.

But there was a problem. Tech founders disrupting their own industries don’t trust law firms. Traditional signals – suits, oak panelling, legal language – are exactly what this audience is suspicious of.

The strategic insight – shared rebellion

Market-disrupting tech founders don't identify with the establishment. They’re naturally suspicious of lawyers, their traditions, and their billing practices. The last thing they want is to feel like they’re funding someone else’s lifestyle.

But a breakaway work-from-home team of former big-firm experts? That’s different. Real expertise, real value. It signals shared beliefs – flexibility over hierarchy, results over status, collaboration over power dynamics.

The audience wasn't looking for a law firm. They were looking for legal expertise. People that understood them.

Initial research and a brand workshop with the founders led to a clear positioning: A law firm like no other.

The Journey

• FROM: A new firm with a different business model, aiming to be a positively disruptive force in legal services for tech and creative businesses.
• VIA: Tech founders are unlikely to identify with establishment law firms – but they’ll trust renegades who share their values and understand their world.
• TO: Lean into the difference. Celebrate being a law firm like no other through name, positioning, and voice that’s refreshingly direct.

Finding the name

The name needed to do several things at once. Signal difference. Be memorable. Create conversation. And work hard enough that the firm’s positioning would be instantly clear.

Atypical Law Firm uses wordplay – or is that a typo? The slight disruption to the expected word makes you look twice. It's memorable and directly states the positioning line. This is a law firm like no other.

The purpose: To be part of your extraordinary success story.

Five core beliefs gave the positioning teeth:

• Great value for money (expertise without expensive overheads)
• Attitude, not age (inventiveness over hierarchy)
• Being flexible (we work to suit clients, not the other way round)
• Self-starters (entrepreneurial spirit)
• Cooperation (communities over hierarchies)

The personality: clear, straightforward, enthusiastic, engaging.

Making it real

The messaging needed to sound nothing like legal marketing. No pomposity. No hedging. Direct, confident statements about what they do and why they’re different.

The brand promise: We get a kick out of working with smart people who think differently. We want to get under the skin of your business and work in partnership with you. We will protect your inventions, nail your contracts and solve your legal headaches. We will decode jargon, outwit small print and talk in straightforward English.

The visual identity matched the voice. Strong, simple, direct. Black and white with only moments of colour. Typography that felt contemporary, not traditional law firm. A brand book gave them tools to stay refreshingly different in everything they produced.

Why it works

The brand irreverently positions itself as an antidote to the traditional law firm.

The name creates a conversation. The positioning is unmistakable. And the voice sounds like someone you’d actually want to work with – knowledgeable but approachable, confident, not pompous.

Most importantly, it signals shared values. It’s not another law firm trying to appear friendly while maintaining traditional power dynamics. It’s genuinely different, built on a business model that aligns with how their clients think.

1. The challenge: Create a brand for a new model law firm targeting tech startups and creative businesses‍
2. The insight: Tech founders won't trust establishment law firms – but they'll trust renegades who share their values‍
3. The expression: Atypical Law Firm | A law firm like no other‍
4. Partnership: Visual identity and brand application with Cauldron, additional copy by Fiona Thompson

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