Meet Gina Cimarelli, Web Site Coordinator at Patton Boggs
It all started with playing field hockey. Gina Cimarelli grew up in Fairfax County where field hockey is a popular sport. She played the sport through high school, and received a full scholarship to the College of William and Mary to play on its team. Two years ago, just after graduating with a degree in marketing, Gina was surfing the Web for marketing job opportunities when she found the LMA job site from a link on her college’s careers page. She answered a posting for marketing assistant at Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox, an intellectual property firm with nearly 100 attorneys. That proved to be the entry point for her career in legal marketing.
“I chose marketing because I thought there would be job opportunities and I liked the creative side of marketing, and what attracted me to that particular job was the opportunity to do a variety of things and to learn from others in the department,” Gina said.
In the last month, she accepted a new position as Web site coordinator for Patton Boggs LLP.
As a marketing assistant, Gina enjoyed being involved in Web site maintenance as well as business development initiatives like competitive research, putting together firm statistics, public relations, logistics for tradeshows, and helping with responses to RFPs. She has also been working with Adobe Creative Suite since the firm installed it about a year ago.
Sterne Kessler was just beginning the redesign of its Web site when Gina started there, so she had the opportunity to participate in the full process, from sitemap and wireframes to implementation. When the site launched, she not only managed the content and Web analytics, but she was able to contribute ideas for ongoing enhancements for the design and functionality of the site.
As an IP firm, Sterne Kessler has a lot of attorneys with technical backgrounds and multiple advanced degrees. “I really enjoy working with people,” said Gina, “but starting here right out of college, it was a challenge to gain the trust of the attorneys and develop relationships with them. It just took time.” Gina took the opportunity to reach out to the attorneys when she created a database in Excel to track the advanced degrees and other credentials of attorneys in the firm.
In her new position at Patton Boggs, she will utilize her experience in Web site maintenance, but she will also act as the liaison to the firm’s outside Web developer, and participate in other marketing activities.
She feels that she has benefitted from her LMA membership since the start of her career. She wanted to get involved and that happened quickly. “It’s been great because when I joined I met people right away who were friendly and enthusiastic. They helped me to get involved in the community and to not be afraid to speak up,” she said.
Gina and Jean Brinker of Van Ness Feldman co-chair the LMA Future Leaders Roundtable, a group of legal marketers with one to five years of experience. The group meets four times a year, usually in the evening.
“The roundtable presents topics specific to our job functions, such as social media, in a casual environment where people don’t have to be afraid to ask questions,” Gina said. “It’s not as intimidating because it’s a smaller setting and you know you’re with peers who have the same issues and concerns.”
Gina also had an opportunity to attend the LMA international conference when she won one of this year’s scholarships for her written entry.
“Recently, Diana Kroner was speaking at a luncheon,” Gina recalled. “She said that getting more involved helped her get more out of her membership. I couldn’t agree more.”
Profile written by Elaine Noble, principal of Noble Pursuits, a graphic design and branding firm in Warrenton, Va.