Before a prospective client ever sits down with you, they have almost certainly already met you: on LinkedIn, scrolling your profile, checking that what you say about yourself lines up with what your firm says about you. Catherine Dhanjal, Principal of the PR and marketing firm TheAnswer Ltd and FICPI's long-time communications partner, joined FICPI Focus 45 host Louis-Pierre Gravelle, Deputy Secretary General of FICPI and Partner at Dipchand LLP, to talk through what that means for independent IP attorneys and how deliberately, or accidentally, they show up there.
Be yourself, even to the algorithm
Catherine's advice keeps returning to one word: authenticity. Not as a platitude, but as something LinkedIn itself now actively checks for:
"LinkedIn is getting better and better about spotting content that's written by AI. Be wary of that."
Her suggestion is not to avoid the tools but to keep the voice your own: use AI, if at all, to prompt ideas, then write in a way that carries your own technical vocabulary and your own way of talking. The underlying test, in her account, is simple: when a client meets you after reading your profile, is the person in the room the same one they read about:
"You don't want there to be a disconnect between your online persona and your real life persona."
Practising what she preaches, Catherine opens the session itself with a Welsh greeting, "Prynhawn da," and later in the conversation mentions the Welsh community groups she organises as the kind of genuine personal detail worth bringing onto a professional profile, not hidden from it. For a profession built on precision and credibility, that consistency is not a marketing nicety. It is the same trust that makes a referral worth making in the first place.
Before the meeting, there's the search
Catherine is direct about how much of this happens before an attorney knows it is happening. A prospective client will typically look up a firm's website first, then check the individual on LinkedIn to see that credentials, career history and posts line up with what the firm says, building a fuller picture before any conversation starts.
Because LinkedIn is indexed by Google, a name search will often put a LinkedIn profile on the first page of results, sometimes ahead of the firm's own site. That makes an unfinished or dated profile a real gap, not a cosmetic one.
Catherine's practical guidance is correspondingly specific: refresh your photo every four or five years, fill out the free-text sections with the jargon and keywords a client would search for, and treat the platform as something to build deliberately rather than leave on autopilot.
It is not only individual profiles doing this work. Catherine points to the LinkedIn newsletter function available to LinkedIn Pages as one of FICPI's own most useful communications tools, now among the top three channels the organisation relies on to reach members. The same logic that applies to a personal profile applies to an organisation's page: it is worth actively building out, because the people reading it are forming a judgement either way.
Reaching the markets LinkedIn can't
Not every market runs on LinkedIn, and Louis-Pierre raises a real gap for IP attorneys specifically: two of the five largest patent jurisdictions have limited or no LinkedIn presence, cutting off a chunk of the profession's natural audience for outreach.
Catherine's answer is not a LinkedIn workaround but a different kind of network entirely:
"We have a feature on the FICPI website, it’s called the FICPI member directory. It’s genuinely an extremely useful resource."
Search by firm, by name, by skill, by country, and the connection that comes back is a different kind of connection than a cold LinkedIn message: one built on a shared professional body rather than an algorithm's guess at relevance.
What this means for FICPI members
The through-line across all of this is that visibility only works if it is trustworthy, whether that trust is built through a consistent LinkedIn presence or through a directory of colleagues who already share a professional home. For independent attorneys, the two are not really separate tools. One helps a stranger decide whether to reach out to you. The other connects you directly to colleagues across FICPI's global community, especially in jurisdictions where general social platforms have limited reach.
The conversation itself is a reminder that FICPI members do not just build connections; they share practical experience and insights that help one another navigate a changing professional landscape.
FICPI’s view
For independent IP attorneys, business development is ever more important, and LinkedIn can be a critical element.
The FICPI community is built on trusted, global relationships. It uniquely combines education and advocacy on topics around patents and trade marks, with a focus on developing the professional excellence of its individual member who are independent IP attorneys from across the world. The FICPI community is driven by a strong shared interest among like-minded people to promote common solutions and advocacy for private practice.
Next steps
- This article is drawn from FICPI Focus 45, featuring Catherine Dhanjal in conversation with FICPI Focus 45 webinar host Louis‑Pierre Gravelle. FICPI members may view the recording of this episode from 13 May 2026, including her take on posting frequency, premium subscriptions, and engagement pods at: https://ficpi.org/on-demand.
- Audio-only versions of the episodes are available to any interested parties across major podcast platforms – search for ‘FICPI Focus 45’.
- FICPI webinars are open to any interested party. Find out what’s upcoming at: https://ficpi.org/eventstraining/upcoming-webinars
This article was generated by AI using careful prompts from our Communications Committee, review from our IP attorney Editorial Board, and editing from our expert editor.