We are happy to announce the release of the Body of Knowledge (BoK) created by the Legal Marketing Association. The BoK was created by the LMA Education Advisory Council (EAC) and education staff and constitutes the first educational resource of its kind for the legal marketing community.
“LMA and the EAC have been working tirelessly over the past year to ensure we are providing a comprehensive and useful document for the legal marketing community,” said Holly Amatangelo, education director for LMA. “We are thrilled to provide this for our members, and have already begun to tailor our online and in-person education content around the document.”
The BoK is a foundational resource for the industry and defines the core skills necessary for a successful career in legal marketing. The BoK is organized into six domains — each with its own set of competencies and corresponding skills. Skills are provided at both the essential and advanced level.
The building blocks of the BoK are the six domains:
- Business Development drives new business and increased revenue for the law firm – both directly and indirectly – through client and prospect outreach, attorney coaching and mentoring, and market intelligence.
- Business of Law includes understanding the legal profession, evaluating firm financial and operational performance, building strategies to leverage market opportunities and implementing practices that maximize performance.
- Client Services consist of the techniques, processes and standards by which law firms’ professional staff serve the lawyers in the firm and the clients of the firm, including the disciplines of project management and process improvement.
- Communications entail developing and implementing internal and external messaging strategies to broaden the impact of the firm’s programs and brand position.
- Marketing Management and Leadership establishes and effectively manages a highly functioning marketing organization through people and processes that foster collaboration and drive overall business objectives.
- Technology Management includes identification, implementation and effective management of the technologies and technology staff that support marketing and business development.
“The BoK is a key resource for the legal industry; it outlines the core competencies that are essential to our daily operations as legal marketing professionals,” commented Jennifer Ahner, director of accounts and proposals at Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. “It empowers departments and professionals to ensure they are operating at a level that aligns with industry best practices, therefore elevating the service we provide our attorneys.”
Access your digital copy of the BoK, or purchase a hard copy today!
Attorneys and hiring managers who are not members of LMA may purchase access to the BoK for use in writing job descriptions, evaluating prospective employees and creating professional development plans for their legal marketing teams.
As a compendium of skills legal marketing professionals bring to the table, the BoK provides a view into the diverse ways legal marketing professionals can and do impact the success of their firms on a daily basis.