Overview
On April 7, 2021, legal marketers from across Canada tuned in to hear from law firm leaders, Alison Janzen, Chandler Lauzon, Morgan MacLeod, Terry Moore, Sharon Murray, and Brenda Plowman, as they shared their COVID journeys and discussed their lessons learned to date. They also provided advice on how legal marketers can continue to meaningfully contribute to their law firm's success in the short and long-term. Katie Sulatycki, Provocateur at Cubicle Fugitive and LMANext Committee Member, summarizes the key takeaways from the webinar below.
Adapt, Adapt, Adapt!
In the early days of the pandemic, it was all about adapting. From transitioning to work from home, to new technology, our budgets, roles, communications, and more. If anything, our ability to adapt and pivot has been an incredible learning experience for many of us. It has also further cemented the importance of legal marketers in both small and large firms.
This continues to be a major theme and can be translated into an even better skill. Part of our role is to provide solutions. The uncertainty at the beginning of the pandemic has taught us that it’s okay to not know every answer or solution immediately. Rather, it’s about having the confidence that we can figure it out, and learning to use the hurdles to our advantage.
With a year of working from home under our belts, everyone has taken to the new normal differently. Adaptation around people-management and team dynamics is more important than ever. For managers and others in a leadership role, focus on drawing from your empathy, creativity, and ability to help your team succeed in a different environment. While others have thrived during this period of working from home, some have struggled, and some have experienced spikes of both.
Breaking Down Barriers & The Shift in Collaboration
For many firms, one of the biggest workplace transformations that has occurred over the past year was our ability to collaborate. For many of us, work from home meant breaking down silos and barriers within our firms. For larger firms with multiple locations, geography is no longer the same barrier it once was. And internally, barriers between different teams have been broken, better enabling firms to fast-track projects and ultimately transform collaboration.
This creates even further opportunity for legal marketers to become drivers of tech convergence and innovation. The pandemic has only reinforced the credibility, importance, and capabilities of legal marketers. This has been especially evident in how we’ve been able to help our firms pick up the pieces and create strategic plans of action.
For some legal marketers, this has meant leveraging already-existing processes to keep on top of the dissemination of firm news, COVID-19 updates, and more. For others, it has meant finding new and unique ways to help their lawyers adapt to working in the digital sphere.
Not only has internal team dynamics shifted, but so has client relationship-building. Most legal marketers have little issue with reaching out to people digitally, but this was new territory for many lawyers. Simple things like creating email scripts for lawyers to use, or setting up peer-to-peer sessions for associates can prove to be valuable tools.
Not Losing Sight of Ourselves
While we’ve broken down barriers and have begun to forge new ways of being in the workplace, it’s just as important to not lose sight of ourselves. In the early days, it was easy to ignore the barriers between work and personal life. Sometimes the beauty in innovation is in the lack of it. Giving yourself and your team the encouragement to take breaks is critical. Sometimes this means simply turning your camera off, or taking a call over the phone instead of over video. Other times this may mean changing your environment if you can, turning that phone call into a walking phone call, or working outside. Other times this means taking a step away from work and reconnecting with your creativity and passions and taking hold of what drives you.
Leading the Way for Change
As we move forward and learn to accept the uncertainty that remains, we need to challenge ourselves. We have a responsibility for maintaining everything we’ve managed to change, the innovation, the breaking down of silos, the improved processes, and more. As agents of change, it is up to us to ensure we don’t backslide as the crisis eventually subsides. Do not miss this opportunity to reframe. This is our chance to rebuild the environment and make way for change.
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A special thanks to Sarah Huynh, LMANext Committee Member, for editing this article.