Not too long ago, the lawyers at Nishith Desai Associates (NDA) won the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Award as “The Most Innovative Law Firm in Asia Pacific.” Based in India, they were helping companies looking to conduct business in India — as well as helping India companies considering expanding their businesses abroad — with legal, regulatory and tax advice. But that wasn’t enough.

They wanted to expose their depth of expertise, innovation and vision to a larger global audience. Beyond their headquarters in India, they had opened offices in California, Germany, New York and Singapore. And they wanted to show that they had the expertise and staff to anticipate legal obstacles, mitigate potential risks and identify new opportunities for clients around the world. But how could they get that worldwide visibility?

Over the course of a year, Hinge worked with 17 NDA participants through its Visible Expert^® Enterprise program to prepare them to become recognized industry thought leaders and subject matter experts. Hinge implements a three-pillar approach founded upon training, techniques and infrastructure.

While the entire team takes the online Visible Expert^® course at Hinge University, participants come from different levels and practice areas within NDA and are organized into three cross-functional teams. The members of each team collaborate with each other, discuss progress and answer each other’s questions as they are introduced to new research, positioning, messaging, content strategies, and writing and speaking techniques.

A key benefit that comes out of the small, cross-functional team approach is new perspectives. In one instance a woman specializing in labor law collaborates with some team members knowledgeable in tech law and they come up with some solutions addressing anti-discrimination issues relating to artificial intelligence. As part of the preparation, Hinge meets with the full team of participants periodically via conference calls to provide guidance, insights and answers.

So how did the 17 participants do? Prior to beginning the Hinge Visible Expert Enterprise program, many of the participants had only presented publicly on a local level — and some had never done public speaking at all. By the end of the program, several lawyers had received speaking invitations. In fact, one lawyer had nine invitations to speak internationally.

One of the practice areas was recognized as a tier 1 practice for the pharmacy industry. Another practice area had a government agency reach out to it to help develop new regulations. And in a post-program survey, more than 87% of the respondents said that they had secured new clients or new business from existing clients as a result of their new Visible Expert training and techniques.