For the final installment of the takeaway articles from the LMASE Regional Conference, I wanted to report on the findings from the presentation addressing what many legal marketers would identify having difficulties with, "Lawyers' Expectations of Law Firm Marketers". During the presentation, as I listened to the different stories coming from across the room, I realized that each of us have an entirely different organizational structure within our respective Firms. Whether legal marketers have well-founded roles or vague responsibilities, also affects the overall expectations a Firm places on their marketers.
Several of the speakers from the Conference touched on managing the expectations that are placed on marketers by attorney's, but this session went a bit further by advising marketers to promote their skills and use their influence to establish successful efforts. Overall, the presentation was divided between two main points:
- Understanding your attorney's unique place in the market, and
- Helping attorneys understand how you can help them succeed.
Especially important to consider from this session was the necessity of the marketer to categorize the responsibilities and marketing efforts of individual attorneys within the Firm. Partners, for example, hold a wide-range of responsibilities including administration, their personal workload, client work with other associates, budgeting, and pitching. However, marketing on behalf of a law firm is everyone's responsibility - especially for a Partner or Shareholder. By understanding the roles and responsibilities of the attorney you are trying to assist, you will be able to more effectively assist them with their individual efforts through delegation, "effective nagging", and by suggesting appropriate new efforts.
Lawyers do not always know what the marketer is capable of and therefore may not utilize their resources effectively. If possible to establish, each attorney can benefit from individual marketing opportunities and goals. A marketer may provide an opportunity to an attorney in the form of a speaking engagement, an article submission, or a networking event; however, it is more useful and effective to assist an attorney's marketing efforts by becoming their support system. By taking the initiative to suggest appropriate efforts to decision makers, marketers can help to encourage more writing content from attorneys or even make a concerted effort to have all attorneys consistently marketing via social media. Whether you are helping with meeting prep, coordinating logistics, or updating attorneys with relevant feedback information, a legal marketer's primary objective is to help their attorney become a trusted and well-known practitioner within their practice area.