Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe

Turning strategies into action

The full firm name, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, took a back seat to the firm’s street name, “Orrick,” as this branding campaign developed. The somewhat unusual initial letter, “O,” became the disarmingly simple symbol for all the firm’s activities. Rather than rendering that first letter as some stylized alphabetical “O,” the design was rendered as a perfectly geometrical circle in order to draw on centuries of positive symbolism. Because of the firm’s long-standing reputation in the financial markets, the color green was maintained from the earlier identity program.

Three years later, Orrick’s reputation and market position have been transformed from that of a California bond firm to a multinational full-service law firm. Our research shows Orrick being ranked high in categories where the firm never appeared before. The ads were published as a group in this special report from Corporate Legal Times recapping important insights from 10 years of roundtable discussions. CLT let us design the insert. We snuck an “O” into our cover design so subtly that, while the publisher smiled in recognition, no one screamed “foul!”

Consistent Application Across Multiple Markets

Orrick works in over a dozen discrete industries from financial services to human resources to high technology in over a dozen different geographic locations. Establishing a consistent look and feel across all offices was critical, but getting the individual offices to match the look and feel in every instance was the secret to Orrick’s brand success.

How did we do it? The green circle of the logo was echoed again and again in circle images. Some rules for the imagery emerged as the campaign progressed—the most important required every image to have a counter; that is, round was not enough. The circle needed to be perforated. Wherever possible—or believable, the image was green.

The creative opportunities were endless. Shortly after its launch, lawyers and even clients contributed ideas for the next ad in the series.

The Orrick circle found new life in the firm’s recruiting program. Usually, recruiting materials—like
firm brochures—all seem to sound alike. Ross Fishman, a Chicago-based consultant, urged the firm to let others tell Orrick’s story. He collected quotes from independent sources like The American Lawyer, vault.com and California Law Business. We organized and designed those quotes into the pages of the firm’s brochure. The cover was an illustration of a washing machine door with the words “No spin.” Ross followed one brainstorm with another. We developed his idea for a video game that was to be emailed to students during the recruiting season. We coded the game entirely in Flash so the final product was highly compressed. The game was organized around issues we know from research are important to students. Players gained points by catching falling objects in different settings. Scores could be emailed to Orrick and the firm would respond with sweatshirts, T-shirts and other gifts to the student.