Leadership for Lawyers

How Essential is a CMO?

In today's AMLaw Daily, reporter Zach Lowe posits the question,"How Essential is a CMO?"  While his article doesn't attempt to answer the question, here are my two bits:

In many companies, the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) is responsible for all things marketing, public relations and business development. S/He is the key strategist and implementation leader, and part of the executive team rounded out by other C-level folks in finance, accounting, IT, etc..  The CMO reports to the CEO, who typically reports to a board of directors, representing shareholders or owners.

In law firms, the role of CMO is often muted, in part because of the relatively young profession of legal marketing and in part of the unique and inefficient management structure of law firms.  In most cases, the owners or shareholders of law firms serve on its board of directors, serve in the role of CEO, are the firm's key sales people, and craft or approve the firm's policy, strategy and budget for marketing and business development.  The CMO plays the role of internal brand and strategy consultant, traffic cop, team leader, vendor manager, coach and occasional change agent - all within a structure that makes decision making difficult, at best.

So, how essential is a CMO?

Regardless of what you call it - CMO, Marketing Director, Chief Business Development Officer - law firms need leaders who can:

1. Brand - help their firm and lawyers communicate the character, personality and value of its people and services.  Marketers get this.  Clients get this.  This doesn't mean expensive ad buys, but it does mean paying attention to basic rules of communication.  Creativity helps. CMOs lead the efforts to assure a consistent and accurate brand.
2. Train and direct staff -  Llawyers are best utilized when they are working for clients, not when they are writing a proposal or seminar ad copy.  Firms can increase profits by leveraging marketing, communications and other tasks by letting marketing professionals do it.  This is not rocket science, but firms do need marketing staff that understand the legal issues, the business issues of their clients, and the applicable rules of professional conduct.  They also need staff that have the emotional intelligence and people skills to work with lawyers.  CMOs train and direct staff to effectively and efficiently conduct marketing projects, allowing lawyers to do what they do best.
3. Motivate and engage -  Let's face it - working for lawyers is no walk in the park.  A successful law firm marketer will see increased revenue and profitability for the firm, but because marketers are rarely partners or shareholders, rarely do they share in the financial success.  Granted, some CMOs have been well compensated of late, but many front-line marketing staff are compensated below what they would make in other industries.  How do you motivate a marketing manager to help a millionaire litigator to make another $500,000 this  year, when she is making $60,000?  CMOs find ways to make work meaningful for their staff.  They motivate and engage them to work hard to fulfill a mission that may not include financial reward. 
4. Spark Change - In some ways, the legal profession is slow to change, but many of the practice management changes over the past 20 years have been driven by marketers:  client satisfaction surveys, CRM, seminar (content-based) marketing, advertising, branding, business development training and coaching, web and e-marketing. I'll be the first to admit that not all of these changes have been effectively implemented industry-wide. CMOs borrow, steal and innovate to help their firms be recognized as thought leaders in their field and effect cultural change to make business development more effective.
5. Coach Lawyers - Many CMOs come from other industries or professions, bringing insights, processes and models that help lawyers and law firms achieve their business development, marketing and management goals.   CMOs help lawyers, often one-on-one, find their path to balancing billable work, business development, personal brand/reputation development, management responsibilities and their personal lives.  Sometimes CMOs do this themselves; often they do it in partnership with their top staff.  Frequently it is done over a cup of coffee or bottle of beer.

So, how essential is a CMO?  Can  you run a marketing/business development function without a competent leader?  Can you effect lasting change without a C-level champion?  Can you expect law firms to be managed like a business without a chief marketing officer being responsible for all things marketing and business development?

Alternative Fees = Alternative Delivery

The Denver Business Journal quoted me in an article on ACC's Value Challenge and alternative fees,Law field seeks alternatives to billable-hours system.  I'm glad that the reporter got the idea that alternative fees mean changing how firms deliver service:

“The question is which firms are more agile and flexible to come up with fee systems that best meet the needs of their clients,” Beese said. “It’s not easy; it’s a huge cultural change. And there are questions on how it affects compensation and profitability. If it’s done well, it’s not just a change in how you bill for the service; it’s also how you provide the service.”

A Client's Poem

April is National Poetry Month, so I thought I'd share one of my favorite client service poems by Felice Wagner, former consultant, now CMO of Sutherland.

A Client's Poem

If only you'd ask, I'd be happy to say
I wish you would do things more often my way.

If only you'd ask, I'd be happy to say
I don't like that new partner that calls everyday.

If only you'd ask, I'd be happy to say
I'd like you to bill me in an alternative way.

If only you'd ask, I'd be happy to say
We have four new matters that came in just today.

If only you'd ask, I'd be happy to say
Being responsive to me means you call back the same day.

If only you'd ask, I'd be happy to say
There are three other law firms we're considering today.

If only you'd ask, I'd be happy to say
I expect your budget to reflect what I'll pay.

If only you'd ask, I'd be happy to say
When you go over budget, I see my career slip away.

If only you'd ask, I'd be happy to say
I wish you would do things more often my way.

by Felice C. Wagner
October 2003

HR.Com: Growing Law Firm Leaders

Here's an interesting article based on a recent survey of law firms' approach to leadership development.  Some high (low) lights:

• There is no consistent process among law firms on how emerging leaders are identified. Executive Committees, Practice Group Leaders and Managing Partners may all have a role in identifying potential talent. In nearly a quarter of firms, no individual or group formally takes on that responsibility.  While in comparison to other industries, the CPP study reported that 53% of companies surveyed globally (and 60% in North America) have a formal leadership development process in place.

• By far, the preferred choice for developing leaders in law firms include “on-the-job leadership experience” and the use of “internal mentors.” Though these methods have become the norm in many firms, they remain, now more than ever, incomplete. In relying on basic, default methods, firms continue to miss the bigger picture in developing more evolved leaders.

• There can be costly mistakes or missed opportunities from learning-on-the-job. If those emerging leaders are not given ongoing, concrete support, they may miss vital opportunities to reflect on their learning, enhance their skills and gain new insights – all of which help to accelerate an individual’s readiness in assuming a key leadership role.

• With outside guidance from a trained executive coach, this support is reinforced with fresh perspective. Executive coaching is still a rather new phenomenon in law firms; yet, in the CPP global HR survey, over 40% indicated their companies have a formal executive coaching program in place, trumping most law firms who fall behind in this proven approach to developing leadership talent.

Alltop Leadership

I want to thank Guy Kawasaki and Neenz Faleafine for including Leadership for Lawyers on their "Alltop Leadership" page.  Alltop is a aggregation of top news and blog sites, fed by RSS feeds.  Guy, Neenz and have created pages focusing on topics from Africa to Zoology.  Alltop Leadership has feeds from some of the best web sites on leadership.  If you are interested in leadership topics, I'd encourage you to visit http://leadership.alltop.com/ daily. Thanks Guy and Neenz!

COLPM Futures Conference

For the first time (that I know of) the College of Law Practice Management is opening part of their annual meet to non-members.  The "Futures Conference" will be held September 25 & 26, 2009 in Denver.  

The Futures Program will feature leaders in our profession interacting with Fellows of the College in thought-provoking dialogue. As the name implies, conference attendees will address how changes from outside and within the legal profession might unfold to impact the future of the profession, and the resulting challenges to law firm leadership and management.

Watch their website (www.colpm.org) for more information.

InnovAction 2009 Deadline is June 1, 2009

The College of Law Practice Management has opened is call for entries for the 2009 InnovAction Awards.  InnovAction recognizes law firms world wide for implementing truly new ideas in the practice of law.  Here's COLPM's description:

"The InnovAction Awards is a worldwide search for lawyers, law firms, and other deliverers of legal services who are currently engaged in some extraordinarily innovative efforts. The goal is to demonstrate to the legal community what can be created when passionate professionals, with big ideas and strong convictions, are determined to make a difference. Each year, we present the coveted InnovAction Awards to those unsung heroes and rising stars within the legal profession who dare to think differently and succeed by doing so."

The 2009 InnovAction Awards (NoVa, for short) will be awarded at the College's annual meeting in Denver in September.  For more information, go to:  www.innovactionaward.com.  Visit the web site to read about some of their past winners and read their innovation e-zine (worth the download and read!)

Leadership in Law Firms - LMA September Program

I will also be speaking at the Legal Marketing Association meeting in Denver on September 8th at 11:30 am.  The topic is leadership in law firms.   Here's the blurb: 

Being the Leader You Would Want to Follow

 

Why is it hard to lead lawyers?  How can I get lawyers to act, instead of just talk?  How can I be a leader when I lack authority (and I don’t have a J.D.?)  How can I help lawyers lead effective teams?  How can I turn conflict into opportunity for positive change?  How do you build consensus and commitment for projects?

Visit RockyMountainLMA.Com for registration information. 

Speaking at LegalTech West 2009

 I will be speaking at LegalTech West Coast on June 25th with Vanessa DiMauro on the topic of leveraging Web 2.0 tools like blogging, linkedin, facebook and twitter for business development purposes.  If you are planning on attending, drop me a note or "tweet" me at http://twitter.com/mbeese.

Advice on Weathering the Storm

 Every day I read about law firm layoffs and the effect of the recession on our profession.  Rarer are insightful articles about what to do about it.  Here are a few that I found helpful:

Surviving the Slide:  What Firms Should (and Shouldn't) do to Ride Out the Economic Storm.  Panelists Ed Flitton (former managing partner of Holland & Hart), Merrilyn Astin Tarlton, Karen MacKay and Gerry Riskin participate in a prescient panel moderated by Dan Pinnington for LawPro Magazine.  The panel offers insightful and sometimes counter-intuitive advice on matters of leadership, human capital, employee engagement, client relationships, marketing and finance.  Read the abbreviated article here and the full discussion (worth the read) here. 

Weathering the Storm.  Gerry Riskin and fellow Edge Group Consultant Robert Millard offer these seven admonitions to law firm leaders in this article.       

1. Display Strong Leadership
2. Ramp up frequency of financial data reporting
3. Make the hard decisions quickly and humanely
4. Focus client and practice team leaders on short term action plans
5. Involve your clients
6. Manage internal expectations
7. This too shall pass:  Keep a balance with your long term strategy

On law.com, we find ACC's Susan Hackett's advice to GC's on getting through the storm.  Her advice focuses on how to set matter and project budgets for outside law firms.  Her comments are from ACC's new songbook, the ACC Value Challenge.

Lee Altenberg discusses business development in a National Law Journal article from last May in this article.  Gail Cutter offers some personal professional development advice for lawyers in a recession, in this New York Law Journal article, Think Like an Olympian. 

Peter Zeughauser discusses four pillars of a strong law firm culture in hard economic times in the American Lawyer Article,Four Essential Elements of a Strong Law Firm Culture.  They are:

1. Hard Work
2. Rewards for Rainmakers
3. Knowing who you are (and aren't)
4. Transparency, with discretion.

Zeughauser is always a must-read.

Finally, I opine on a new e-zine, Originate, focusing on relationships with key clients.  Read the article here.

LawDragon Names Top 100 Legal Consultants

  Late last year LawDragon.com named "100 Legal Consultants You Need to Know".  You will find names like Brad Hildebrandt, David Maister, Jay Jaffe and Ann Lee Gibson - all experts in our profession.  I'm pleased (and very surprised) that the Dragon also listed me among these luminaries.  You can read the entire list here.  Thanks Law Dragon! 

New Year, New Gig

Since starting this blog in 2005, I've worn several hats, including my day job as Director of Marketing/CMO of Holland & Hart, a 450 attorney law firm based in Denver, Colorado.  Earlier this month I left Holland & Hart to consult full-time.  My website, www.leadershipforlawyers.com and this blog have been a venue to communicate ideas about marketing, business development and leadership. 

Now I am helping a wide variety of firms, from AmLaw 100 firms to firms of 50 attorneys with marketing, business development, client feedback,  client service and leadership development projects.   I am particularly interested in helping law firms develop closer and more profitable relationships with existing clients.

I was with Holland & Hart for nearly eight years, and am glad to continue my relationship with the firm as a consultant.   If you know of a firm looking for business development or marketing help, I would appreciate the referral.   For more information, visit www.leadershipforlawyers.com.

A Thanksgiving Story

When I was a boy, I went to the Mid-Winter festival on the Tonawanda Indian Reservation, near Buffalo NY.  Dan, one of the Boy Scout leaders in town, managed to get an invitation from the religious leader.  Dan's adopted son is Seneca.  He was too young to spend several days sitting around the longhouse in the middle of winter.  Dan successfully claimed that he wanted to learn Iroquois traditions so that he could pass them on to his son.    Dan, a 40+ year old scoutmaster and I were interested in native culture and were thrilled at the invitation to observe and participate in the festival.

An Outstanding Example of Sharing Vision

Denver Welcomes the DNC

The Democratic Party arrives in Denver today, along with 15,000 members of the media and countless corporate executives and lobbyists hoping to connect with the political elite during this historic week.

It seems to me that the key word for this event is party.  I recently saw an unofficial party list that went on for more than 20 pages.  I've been getting calls from the media for weeks now, asking, "So, what is your firm doing for the DNC?  Any parties?  Who's coming?"

Many of the major firms are hosting parties this week.  Brownstein Hyatt has been planning their fete at the Denver Art Museum for more than a year.  They expect more than 2,000 in attendance, including former Presidents and politicians of all sorts.  Holland & Hart, Kamlet Shepherd, Patton Bogg and other firms are either throwing their own parties, or hosting events for clients. 

Stars are everywhere.  Getting tickets and access seems to be the buzz this week.  As an e-town listener, I got the jump on their DNC taping at the DPAC, featuring James Taylor, David Crosby and Graham Nash, Ani DiFranco and others.   Many are still scrambling to get tickets to the Green Sunday at Red Rocks concert tonight, featuring Dave Matthews and Sheryl Crow.   I hear there is still room to play poker at Coors Field with Ben Affleck later this week. 

If  you are in Denver for the convention, drop me a note and tell me about your experience.  See you in Denver.

A Russian Truck Driver and the Olympics

 I once met a consultant who helps cities bid for the Olympic games.  As part of the bid preparation, he conducted surveys of the general public to determine their attitudes and opinions about the Olympic Games and the prospect of them being hosted in their country. 

He told me about a Russian truck driver who essentially said,"I love watching the Olympics on TV.  It inpires me.  I am too old to compete, and I don't have any sporting talent, but to see the Olympicans work so hard to meet their goals, it inspires me to be the best truck driver I can be."

While citizens' opinions vary about whether they want the games in their city, he found one common thread -people are attracted to the Olympics because it inspires them to reach for their goals, to be the best truck driver, the best fast order cook or the best lawyer they can be.    

While the individual performances of the 2008 Olympic Games have been sensational and inspirational, I know that behind every Olympian is team of professionals all focused on maximizing performances at the games.  For every gold medal swimmer or sprinter, there is a team of coaches, a national governing body that provides many levels of competition and training opportunities, sponsors and funders, family and friends, National Olympic Governing Bodies, and a host of other people and organizations that provide the structure and support for Olympic success.  In fact, many sport governing bodies (like USA Swimming or USA Track and Field) have research and training departments that just focus on maximizing performance - finding the strategy or tactic that can give the athlete the split-second advantage that sometimes separates a medalist from fourth place.

What inspired you from the 2008 Olympics?  One inspiration, for me, was Michael Phelps' comment, "Eat. Sleep.  Swim."  For a kid with ADHD, the focus on his goal and the discipline to practice inspired me to focus on my goals and the disciplines I need to reach them.

Who is your coach?  What infrastructure have you developed or benefitted from to be a better leader?  Have you considered starting a leadership development program in your firm, or sending your practice group leaders to the Center for Creative Leadership?  Does your firm make available leadership coaches to their managing partners or other key leaders? 

Who are you coaching?  How are you sharing your experience, insight and encouragement with others?

How do you get to be a better leader?

"Practice."  That's what Jim Kouzes, co-author of The Leadership Challenge book and leadership development process said last weekend at the annual conference for LC facilitators and clients.  Invoking Olympic tales and sports analogies, Kouzes said that leaders need to identify specific skills that they need to develop, create ways to improve those skills, and practice them daily to refine them. 

"My son once asked his tennis coach how much he needs to practice to be competitive.  He answered, "Two hours a day to keep your skills.  Three to improve."  Kouzes said.  As it turns out, research on expertise indicates that the most important factor in developing top-level performance - whether it be in the boardroom or basketball court - is not innate talent, rather it is dedicated practice. 

"Eat. Sleep. Swim." is how Michael Phelps describes his life. 

So what can leaders do to practice leadership?

Taking the Leadership Practice Inventory (LPI)is  a great way to start.  The LPI is a 360 degree and personal leadership skill assessment that illustrates your leadership strengths and weaknesses.  Kouzes challenged the prevalent idea that leaders should focus only on leveraging their strengths, "Often, it is our weaknesses as a leader that get in the way of us being effective.  We need to work on both our strengths and weaknesses to be more effective leaders."

The five practices of LC are:

   -  Model the way

  -  Inspire a shared vision

  -  Challenge the process

  -  Enable others to act

  -  Encourage the heart

In what area do you need practice?  Communication?  Sharing your vision for a practice group or firm?  Giving feedback?  Catching someone doing something right?  Delegating?  Mentoring or coaching?  Modelling the firm's or your values?  One on one communication? 

"We're Not Going to Take It" - Association of Corporate Counsel

You could almost hear Twisted Sister "singing" "We're not going to take it...anymore" at the Legal Marketing Association's national conference last month when Susan Hackett, General Counsel of the the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and Laura Stein, Chairperson of ACC, along with two other ACC members met with hundreds of law firm marketers to explain their approach to escalating rates of outside counsel. 

In a ninety minute presentation and discussion, Hackett outlined the pressures and realities facing in-house counsel, specifically, increased pressure to contain and predict legal costs and their frustration with double-digit rate increases, off-the-scale associate salaries (and corresponding hourly rates), a perceived unwillingness by law firms to discuss alternative fee arrangements and create lower-cost methods to provide lower-value (commodity) legal services.

To paraphrase, they said, "we're not going to take it anymore".  Hackett and Stein have created an initiative within ACC to explore ways to re-define the relationship in-house GC's have with out-house firms.  This new committee will develop a set of best practices to recommend to ACC members. ACC will sponsor seminars to teach GC's how to reduce outside attorneys costs, manage matters to budget, consolidate (or 'converge') the myriad of law firms some companies use to a small 'core counsel' cadre of firms, and stratify legal work so that only the high-end/high-value work goes to high-cost firms and commodity work is handled on a lower cost basis.   

Details were short at the meeting, but emotions were high.  The panel of in-house counsel differed on exactly what they wanted from their lawyers, but the agreed that lawyers and firms should work harder to understand what their clients wanted and they should create a relationship custom to those requirements.

What will come from this rebellion (and that's the word used in the LMA Conference brochure, btw)?  Hard to say, but I was impressed that four big-wigs from ACC spent a day at the LMA conference, not including travel time, to clearly articulate their frustration with the community of outside counsel and fire the warning blows over the bow of the $1,000/hour battleship created by our largest law firms.

Implications for biglaw?  Figure out - fast - what your clients want, including how to be billed, what work they consider high-value, what behavior they are tolerant of (and not, including associates billing $450/hour or more) and their plans their plans for convergence and changing how they manage outside counsel.  And after you listen, design a new way of serving them. 

For those of you who have conveniently forgot about Twisted Sister, here's a refresher:

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Naked Conversation Interview

Richard Levick interviews Shel Israel, co-author of Naked Conversations, a book about blogging and social media.  Why is social media important?

"When we wrote the book, blogging was social media. But now, if you’re a business, or an institution, or an individual, you can blog, you can create video, you can Twitter, or you can do combinations of them all. You need to identify and utilize the tools that are right for you.

But, what’s important isn’t the tools. What’s important is the ability to have two-way conversations with your customers rather than sit around and devise marketing methods filled with adjectives and legal disclaimers and shovel them into the foreheads of people who just don’t want them."

Read the interview here.

Why is this important to law firms?  Lawyers and their firms need to listen to thier clients, or their clients will find lawyers that listen.  Client interviews and surveys are a good start, but firms need to find multiple channels to receive client feedback and to listen to their preferences. 

BTW, Shel Israel is now moderating a video blog on Fast Company TV called Global Neighborhoods.  Check it out.

While you are reading the article, check out Levick's new book, "Stop the Presses" and their prescient blog, by the same name.  The book is a must-have reference about litigation public relations for the C-suite, lawyers, and marketing folks. 

ABA LPM Magazine Focuses on Tech and Competitive Intelligence

The recent issue of Law Practice Management Magazine (available online) has some great articles, including 45 Tips for Competitive Intelligence by Ann Lee Gibson, Keeping Up with Marketing -Speak, by Sally Schmidt and a Roundtable on Competitive Intelligence Tools, by a variety of panelists including David Bowerman, Cynthia Cheng Correia, Ann Lee Gibson, Mark Greene, Sabrina Pacifici, Meredith Williams and me. 

Green to Speak at LMA Event

Charles Green, co-author (with David Maister) will speak at LMA's Senior Roundtable in Washington DC in June.  This is from the LMA website:

"We are excited about this year’s program. Charles Green, co-author of The Trusted Advisor and Trust-Based Selling, will kick off our meeting. Richard Friedman will share proven metrics and tactics to measure and track ROI — ripe with examples from outside the legal industry. Matt Homann, popular blogger of thenonbillablehour.typepad.com, will lead discussions on strategic issues facing the legal market, group problem solving, and more. Take advantage of the great networking opportunity provided by this powerful event for you and your peers."

More information here.  Bummed I can't make it.  Sounds like a great program.   

Jim Collins to Speak in Denver, May 14th

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, will make a rare speaking appearance in Denver on May 14th.   The Community First Foundation is sponsoring his talk.   I hear Collins speak last Fall, where he discussed new research on great companies.  The mystery that puzzled him that day?  Innovation seemed irrelevant to long term success of a great company.  I'll ask him about it in May.   

Go to http://www.communityfirstfoundation.org/goodtogreat.cfm for more information.

Diversity Call to Action Summit

This sounds cool.   Several years ago, General Counsel from several hundred companies drafted and signed the Diversity Call to Action - a statement of principals and tasks to improve diversity in law firms and legal departments.  Not a lot has changed, so Rick Palmore of General Mills has called a meeting in Scottsdale on April 25 - 26 to get law firm Managing Partners and in-house GC's to come up with a plan to make a difference.  According to a law.com article,

"The goal is to have a collaborative discussion between the general counsels and the managing partners about what we can do to move the needle on this issue," said Roderick Palmore, executive vice president, general counsel and chief compliance and risk management officer at General Mills Inc., who wrote Call To Action in 2004.

Call To Action outlines goals for corporations to follow in order to improve diversity in their own offices and in the law firms they hire, focusing on gender, race and sexual orientation. About 90 general counsels have signed Call To Action, including those from The Boeing Co.; Prudential Financial Inc.; Microsoft Corp.; Johnson & Johnson; Tyson Foods Inc.; The Coca-Cola Co.; and Bank of America Corp.

In moving more aggressively toward specific goals, Call To Action is attempting to address a growing problem. Last year, for example, women made up less than 33 percent of lawyers employed in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Blacks made up less than 5 percent, Asians 2.6 percent and Hispanics 4.3 percent.

"The statistics speak for themselves," Palmore said. "They say our progress in the profession has been disappointing." Call To Action is the second major nationwide effort at improving diversity in the legal profession. About a decade ago, the American Bar Association worked with Charles Morgan, then-general counsel of BellSouth Corp., to come up with another initiative called, "Diversity in the Workplace: A Statement of Principle," which was signed by hundreds of general counsel executives. "

Interested?  There is still time to sign up.  Here is the

Download Summit_Agenda.doc

and the

Download Call_to_Action_Summit_FAQ.doc

Keynote speakers include former Secretary of State Warren Christopher and former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Contact: Richard Tom, 626-302-4430.

Ballard hires Client Interviewer

Did you see this article in The Legal Intelligencer (also on law.com) about how Ballard Spahr hired a "non-lawyer" to interview clients with the sub-title, "Could this new form of communicating with clients lead to the end of law firm marketing?"

A few thoughts:

• Interviewing clients for fun and profit isn't new, but it is hard to do consistently.  Instituting firm-wide standards and practices to gain feedback on client satisfaction and opportunity identification is contrary to most silo-based law firm cultures. 
• The managing partner of Ballard claims that they will focus on interviewing the top 300 of the firm's clients in the first year.  Good luck.  Most firms are happy to do quality interviews of a dozen or twenty clients in a year.  Still, they get points for hiring someone to do interviews and orchestrate a client service initiative.
• The article interviews a consultant from Altman Weil, who I truly believe was misquoted, indicating that if firms listen to their clients through feedback programs such as this AND they have a strong sales functions, then law firm marketing as we know it will not be necessary.   While I agree that firms need to listen to their clients in order to provide a custom experience, and that firms need to develop a refined sales process, we will still need law firm marketers for many reasons, if only to support and direct these efforts.

Client service interviews are becoming big business.  Many firms are quietly conducting top client satisfaction surveys in one form or another.  In fact, a new generation of consultants - outsourced interviewers - are emerging and growing.  You can now hire experienced, professional and insightful interviewer from firms such as Wicker Park Group, Zeughauser Group, as well as multi-disciplinary consultancies such as Altman Weil and Hildebrandt.

Speaking Gigs: Regional Marketing and CI

I'll be speaking at the following events:

Regional Marketing and Business Development Strategies
Webinar sponsored by Hildebrandt
May 28, 2008  Noon EST
Click here for more information

Competitive Intelligence in the Modern Law Firm
Sponsored by Managing Partner Magazine
June 10, 2008 New York City USA
Click here for more information.