Meet Sarah Laughlin, Regional Marketing Coordinator, McGuireWoods LLP
Sarah Laughlin, a regional marketing coordinator at McGuireWoods LLP, is part of the firm's large marketing and business development team and serves as the go-to marketing resource in the firm's Washington, D.C. and Baltimore offices. She is responsible for office-based event and sponsorship executions, office marketing budget management and local assistance for client meetings, pitches and proposals.
"I also help individual attorneys leverage their memberships in civic organizations so that they get the maximum benefit from those memberships in terms of business development," she says. "One of the parts of the job I particularly enjoy is working with the associates and giving them ideas. I sometimes just drop by and introduce myself, and we talk about their marketing goals and what I can do to help them get there."
Laughlin first began her career in legal marketing at the intellectual property law firm of Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox, PLLC. Laughlin's first foray into IP law began while she was an intern at a music production company in Denver. There she met an attorney who did some IP work for the company. She found the subject interesting, and when she moved to D.C. after graduating, she was fortunate enough to see a posting for a marketing position at Sterne Kessler. Her interest in IP, Laughlin says, helped her land the job. "I didn't know exactly what being a legal marketer would entail," Laughlin says, "but I knew what IP was about, so it seemed like a natural fit."
Laughlin, now 26 years old, spent two years at Sterne Kessler before moving to McGuireWoods last October. Laughlin says it's quite different to work for a large firm like McGuire Woods, with 19 offices, than for the one-office Sterne Kessler.
"Leaving Sterne Kessler was very difficult for me," she says. "[Marketing Director] Tammy Mangan and [Communications & Marketing Manager] Erin West really taught me what legal marketing was all about and served as valuable mentors."
At Sterne Kessler, her efforts were rewarded with national recognition. She was part of the team that won a second prize in the LMA's national "Your Honor" awards for 2012 in the "Marketing on a Shoestring" category for "The Breakfast Club," a series of 30-minute business development-oriented training sessions for attorneys.
Laughlin says she was brought up in a marketing environment - her father is a worldwide sales director - and that she has valued networking ever since she was a teenager.
"That's just the way I was brought up," she says, "to reach out to people and make new connections. I attribute my outgoing personality to my family."
Outside the office, Laughlin has kept up her interest in musical performance. She sings with the Capital City Voices, a jazz chorus, and has performed with them at Blues Alley and other local venues.
Profile written by Jonathan Groner, public relations and writing consultant in Washington, DC.