There are very few lawyers who have built a successful practice solely off the back of their social media presence and fewer who have built an entire firm.
With close to one and a half million followers on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, Matt Baldwin has an audience with The Legal Queen Tracey Moloney.
Family law is fiercely competitive.
There is barely a law firm in the country that does not offer divorcing couples the specialist support needed to get them through what is often an emotionally charged time in their lives.
Yet at the same time access to good family law support is increasingly hard to find. Legal aid was removed from most family law cases in 2013 at a time when divorce rates were creeping ever upwards. Family law firm fees are in many cases out of reach leaving divorcing individuals with no choice but to litigate in person, adding further pressure on the already stretched courts.
Tracey Moloney, the founder of Tracey Moloney Family Law and better known as The Legal Queen, has been at the forefront of family law for the past 20 years, first as a barrister and until 2020 head of family law team at Co-op Legal Services. It was a career break and the 2020 Covid lockdowns where, thanks to her children, she discovered TikTok.
“Contractually, I wasn’t able to start a new job and there was little for me to do, so I thought ‘Why not do a few divorce law TikToks to pass the time?’” explains Tracey.
“I was overwhelmed by the response. There were a lot of people out there who needed help, couldn’t afford a lawyer and were floundering. People started asking questions, lots of questions, and it became very clear to me that there were far more people than I could have ever imagined that needed help and support.
“What started as me explaining how people can go through the divorce process themselves turned into people asking me for advice and to handle their divorce. Before I knew it, I had a book of new clients that wanted to come on board.
I hadn’t intended to start my firm… it was a complete accident.”
Watching The Legal Queen in action and the stratospheric levels of engagement, you could be forgiven for believing she has the support of a full production, lighting and editing team, with scripts carefully crafted and rehearsed, drawing on her two decades of marketing experience.
But the Legal Queen’s videos are unscripted, unrehearsed and shot on an iPhone in front of a window with plenty of natural light. Her children introduced her to simple editing software, allowing her to add captions.
“I know that the light is better in my dining room in the morning and in the living room in the afternoon, how to avoid any glare from my glasses, and when to delete and start again,” she explains.
This self-taught formula allows Tracey to shoot sometimes two videos a day, engage with her audience whilst delivering on the ever-growing caseload for the firm’s now eight-strong team.
“The Co-op was so big that whilst I provided occasional comment for press most of the marketing and business development was left to the marketing team,” says Tracey. But, as the Co-op Legal Services’ training principle, she developed a natural way to break down the often-complex areas of law, guiding trainees towards the basics.
It was, she says, the ideal format for the then-restricted 90-second TikTok format.
“In preparing for those early TikToks I would think ‘When someone wants to get divorced, what key information do I need to get across?’ It’s a divorce petition, you are the petitioner, you have to log on to the government website and it will cost you £593,” she explains.
“If you try and give people too much information, brains just turn off. And whilst I now have a YouTube channel with longer videos, I follow the same principles with all my social posts.”
It is clearly a winning formula, with some 600,000 followers on TikTok, a similar number on Facebook, almost 200,000 on Instagram and 20,000 YouTube subscribers. Each post can generate upwards of 1,000 comments and questions, providing useful insights for future posts.
“I no longer have the time to respond personally to every comment or question – there are just too many. But I do spend a lot of time engaging with my audiences. It is where our clients come from.”
It’s all about engagement
Lawyers are naturally cautious and often nervous about putting themselves ‘out there’ on social media for fear of criticism and negative comments, and it does happen.
Tracey will often receive flak when, for example, she makes a post on stay-at-home mums and the points they need to consider if they decide to divorce.
“Videos like that attract fathers who say ‘Oh, of course, you’re all about women helping women,’ or much worse,” says Tracey, “but I don’t mind too much because everyone is entitled to their opinion.
“I’ve been working in family law long enough to recognise that behind these comments there is often a father who is also hurting, perhaps not seeing his children as much as he would like. That anger is not directed at me, but towards family lawyers in general, the courts or the system.
“And what I quickly learnt is that engagement, whether positive or negative, is important. A negative comment is usually followed by three or four positive comments – it creates a conversation.”
There is a valuable lesson for every lawyer and law firm, irrespective of their practice and client profile: listen to your clients and engage with them. The better you understand what motivates them, the better you can support them.
The Legal Queen’s online presence is growing and evolving, with Tracey holding a weekly hour-long ‘live session’ on Discord and her Tea with the Queen podcast, released every Sunday at midday. Here, she has recognised the value of professional support with an editor making swift work of the longer-form content.
Tracey Moloney Family Law has grown rapidly since 2020, now employing eight people and its first trainee. It has recently moved from the family home to offices in Chippenham with clients drawn from across the country.
It is, in many respects, a family law practice that echoes many of those you might find in law firms across the country. But it has one big difference – a near unique ability to humanise the law and, importantly, lawyers.
“We sometimes forget that a visit to a lawyer’s office with a meeting in the boardroom can be quite intimidating,” Tracey says. “We see lawyers on the TV and think that is what all lawyers must be like. I want people to see the real me, the mum who loads the dishwasher, vacuums the living room and plumps the cushions.
“If more law firms did that, they too would receive great results.”
You can follow The Legal Queen on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
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