The concept of marketing law firms is now fairly well accepted even if the term is overused and often misused.  In some firms, marketing is understood as the entire array of business development strategies and tactics, and includes everything from broad-based advertising to retention and growth of existing clients.   It’s time to put a sharper focus on the term.

By now, virtually everyone knows that the floodgates for marketing opened up in 1984 with Bates vs. Arizona.  This decision, simply put, allowed firms to use the same media that have been available to their clients for years.  Unfortunately, many firms created a problem from and opportunity.  Faced with a  tabula rasa and endowed with sizable egos, many lawyers decided that they were better prepared than marketing people to create advertising, brochures and other collateral for their firms themselves, thus saving bags of money while spinning out product such as the world had never before seen.

Well, they got the last part right.  In a world where precedent is king, imitation truly became the sincerest form of flattery.  In a spectacular display of more is more, law firm marketing materials employed every symbol of the law as lawyers thought their clients knew it, from scales of justice to mighty Ionic pillars to jut-jawed Yalies in conference.  Thank heaven some real professionals stepped in to take the toys away before someone got hurt.

The mid-‘80s saw the emergence of professional law firm marketers, the first group dedicated to saving lawyers from themselves.  Now, virtually every US firm over 50 lawyers has at least one professional marketer—in fact, a good rule of thumb is one marketer for each 40 lawyers.  Most of the pioneers were from advertising or PR agencies and were attracted to law firms with the opportunity to (a) break all the rules, (b) show lawyers the right way to do it and (c) make lots more money.

Well, they got the last part right.  Many marketers found themselves in limbo, slowed by the forces of intellect, democracy and indecision in their firms—combined with lawyers’ natural tendency to expect immediate results, which rarely occurs in marketing outside of QVC and infomercials.    While some marketers flourished in law firms, many found themselves in environments that ranged from indifferent to undecided to hostile.   No wonder turnover in marketing departments averaged less than two years (and still does in many firms).

What does it take to do marketing the right way?  Unlike the early, wide open days, success is based upon clearly defining who we are, what we expect and what we received.  And I’m speaking about both law firms and legal marketers.  Both need to be in alignment; otherwise, it’s likely that firms will lose good people, often to competitors.  After all, I’m not aware of any marketing professionals becoming managing partners at their law firms, unlike many law firm clients where the path to the executive suite is often based upon success in marketing or sales.  For law firm marketers, success is often out then up.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 6:29 am and is filed under Business Development, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.