A defensible legal headshot is built on five constraints, in this order: framing, attire, background, expression, and lighting. Framing should be a tight head-and-shoulders crop, eyes on the upper third — that crop is what every legal directory expects, and anything wider gets auto-cropped badly on Avvo and Super Lawyers.

Attire follows your practice area. Litigators and partners at AmLaw 200 firms wear a dark single-breasted suit, white or light blue shirt, and a conservative tie or a structured blouse. Transactional and in-house counsel can drop the tie and shift to charcoal or navy with an open collar without losing authority. Solo practitioners in employment, family or immigration practice often go one notch warmer — a softer charcoal jacket, mid-blue shirt — to read as approachable to consumer clients without abandoning the formality.

Backgrounds are gray, off-white, or a softly defocused law-library bookshelf. Avoid anything with depth cues that compete with your face: no flags, no city skylines, no marble columns.

Expression should be a closed-mouth smile or a neutral confident look. The wide open-mouth smile reads as marketing, not counsel.

Lighting is soft frontal with mild fall-off — flat enough to remove harsh shadows under the eyes, contrasted enough that you do not look ironed onto the background. Read our headshot mistakes guide for the failure modes that look fine on a phone but break on a printed business card.