Growth in law firm marketing parallels the changing business landscape - firms are merging, consolidating, going global. Law firms have become much more sophisticated about marketing. In the early days, an associate who got tired of practicing law or a legal secretary took on the marketing function. Marketing used to be taking your client on golf outings and three-martini lunches. That isn't enough anymore. Law firms have grown up. They are accepting the fact that lawyers (who have traditionally run the business of a law firm) went to law school - not business school. Law firm management is recognizing that today's law firm must sell an intangible (intellectual capital of its lawyers) and, to be successful in doing so, requires experts who have been trained in marketing.
Q: What are the marketing professionals doing?
A successful firm is using the skills of marketing professionals to help them grow its client base and raise its profile. Law firms have begun to borrow some practices from other industries - competitive intelligence, client research, knowledge management and branding. Specifically in 2006, many firms have created new positions for professionals who specialize in public/media relations, who have advanced degrees in business to perform qualitative and quantitative analysis, professional writers for proposals, and graphic designers who work in-house to produce customized collateral materials.
Q: Where are the marketing professionals coming from?
The demand for marketing expertise has created a real shortage of professionals. Firms are all competing for the same small pool of talent - so you see more and more marketing people from other industries breaking into law firms. Specifically, those who have made the successful transition include professionals from accounting, management consulting and institutional financial services firms.
Q: What is the return on investment for hiring marketing professionals?
At the end of the day, a quality marketing professional pays their own salary. Their job is to learn the business of the firm's clients and present the lawyers with ideas and strategies for achieving new business goals. This allows the lawyers to attend to the business of lawyering which is, after all, what their clients are paying them for!
Free consultation to identify your specific needs
Having worked with nearly 40 of the AmLaw 100 firms on marketing placements, we have a broad view of what firms are doing and why. For example, on many occasions, we have devised job descriptions for our clients and have helped them explore creative options for finding the ideal candidate in today's very tight job market. We have assisted firms in restructuring their departments to achieve maximum efficiency so that their marketing professionals are functioning at the highest level.
Over the past 3 years, we have interviewed nearly 1000 candidates including many who have years of experience in professional services marketing; this has helped us to determine core competencies and responsibilities. Additionally, we have collected information that we can share with you on department sizes, ratio of marketing professionals to lawyers and salary/bonus.
Getting to know you
We prefer to have face-to-face meetings with the people who would supervise our placements on a daily basis. This way we can get to know their personality style and "what works for them" so that we have a better chance of making a solid match. We truly believe that if you cannot "fit" in an organization, you cannot function. We strive to find candidates who, with a combined skill set and work style, will be able to "fit".
Candidate screening process
We interview every candidate face-to-face with the exception of when a candidate cannot come to our offices. We travel regularly to other cities to meet candidates in person. In such cases where we cannot meet in person, we conduct an in-depth phone interview.
During the interview, we examine their educational background and then analyze their job history and experiences. We ask specific questions about their reason for departing from jobs (fired, resigned, lay-off) to have a complete understanding of their career path. We use process-oriented questions to get a sense of how involved they are in their work so that we can determine if they are a "do-er". We will never submit someone who does not meet your criteria or someone who we feel would not fit with the culture of your firm.
Candidate presentation to firm
We present candidates via email to the designated point-person for review. In most cases, we provide a customized cover letter that outlines our insights on why we think this candidate could be right for you. We also include their current compensation as well as their requested salary.
Interview scheduling
We take an active role in coordinating interviews to make it easy on the client. Upon initiating a relationship with a client, we ask them how they prefer to coordinate interviews and we adapt accordingly.
Communication with active candidates
We ask that each candidate call us with their feedback promptly after their interview. We then call the client with this information. Of course, we understand that a client often has many people to gather information from so it is not uncommon to not receive feedback for 24 hours after the interview. We always prefer verbal, rather than written, feedback from the client and we realize that this process takes a few days until all the interviewer's comments have been received. When communicating clientÕs negative feedback to candidates, we always discuss our approach with the client prior to speaking with the candidate.
Background/referral checks
We check references, upon request from the client, when an offer has been extended.