Meet Felice Wagner, Chief Business Development Officer at Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan LLP
At LMA's 2012 National Conference in Dallas, Felice Wagner, the Chief Business Development Officer for Sutherland, was inducted into the LMA International Hall of Fame. Recently, I had the opportunity to ask Felice about some of the choices she made in her career, and what's next.
To put the conversation in context, you should know a little about Felice and her amazing career, or should I say, careers. After serving in the U.S. Air Force as a Russian linguist, she earned her law degree cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center in 1991, and subsequently practiced mainly antitrust law at two firms for over four years. Then, she transitioned from practicing law to a new role managing two of the largest legal staffing firms in the country. A highlight from her years there is her intimate involvement in developing the DuPont Legal Model and playing a significant role in creating the first Conference on Women and the Practice of Law for DuPont.
In 1998, Felice founded the Sugarcrest Development Group and spent more than a decade advising major law firms throughout the U.S. and Canada on building business development strategies. In 2008, she accepted an in-house position as Chief Business Development Officer for one of her best clients, Sutherland, where she provides strategic leadership for the firm's business development, marketing and communications efforts.
Q: What enticed you to shift from marketing consultant to a senior in-house position?
Felice: What attracted me was an opportunity to bring all of my experience to bear for one client. I went from giving advice, providing training and having sporadic interaction, to being a full-time part of the implementation of my ideas and seeing the results. I knew a significant number of the team members and had been involved in their lives as mentor and friend for years, but to have a meaningful impact on their careers and work with them was exciting.
Q: What kind of challenges did you face in making that transition?
Felice: Not the ones I would have expected. It wasn't as frightening as when I left practicing law to join the staffing industry, or when I left that to become a consultant. The bigger challenges had more to do with my personal life. The first year I had this job was like being in front of a fire hose. I didn't have my nails done once, I didn't play tennis, and even going to the grocery store became challenging. I found it much harder than I anticipated to incorporate my personal life with my work life. I don't have children, but I have never had more respect than I do now for working women who do.
As for the challenges of the job, I consider myself an expert in business development and sales strategy, but in a position like this, there's so much more than that.
One of the things that unexpectedly overwhelmed me early on was the volume of e-mail, which was 100-fold more than I had to deal with previously, and I just couldn't keep up with it. I sought advice from my team members, called former clients, and read a book that was recommended to me by a former colleague called The Hamster Revolution. That helped a lot.
Q: What have you done in your career that has brought you the most value for the time spent?
Felice: I know it's not something that most legal marketers can do, but for the time and money invested, I have to say that the law degree was probably the smartest thing I ever did. I learned a lot about how to think, and it put me in position of credibility later in my career.
About two years after I started Sugarcrest, I did a series of articles for the Legal Times. Starting with clients, I interviewed some rainmakers about how they developed their practices. It got me an incredible amount of exposure, and it was good for the person I was interviewing as well. After the first two articles were published, I was able to get interviews with rainmakers who weren't clients, and it led to new business.
One mistake I made early in my career was trying to be involved in too many things at one time. You really have to pick one thing to dedicate your time to and do well. I belong to several organizations as members, but I choose to be active in LMA and focus my efforts there.
Probably one thing I did that I might not do again was The New Partner Institute, an annual event we developed at Sugarcrest. While it was worthwhile and fun to do, bringing 150 attendees the first year, I was not in the conference business and running a conference is a full-time job. You have to get a large mass of people there to make it pay off. Too often, we're very hopeful that something will work out if we keep going, but there's no shame in walking away from something that's not working.
Q: What advice can you share with other legal marketers?
Felice: In meeting situations, I tell my team members that just because there's an elephant in the room, it doesn't mean you have to be the one to point it out. Sometimes the others in the room don't want to face the elephant or they don't want to deal with it in that setting. If you insist on pointing it out, those who were doing a fine job of ignoring it may get frustrated and take that frustration out on you. Sometimes it's better to confront issues privately. It gives people a chance to discuss the issue in a non-threatening environment.
I think the most important piece of advice I can give is, if you can help others be successful, they will help you. One of the reasons I've been successful is because I've approached everything I've done by keeping in mind "how is this going to make others look good." Make the lawyers look good. Make our clients look good. Make my boss look good. That's my job. If I do all of that, I will by definition look good.
Last, but not least, get involved in something-anything-and do it well.
Q: Now that you're in the LMA Hall of Fame, what's next?
Felice: I have to retire now (laughing). I don't know what's next. I do know that I will continue to be deeply involved in LMA. It's the best organization that I've had the pleasure to be involved in. I'm going to stay in this profession for a long time. I think that if there is a "next" it will be something that has personal meaning for me and a social impact.
It's weird to be in the Hall of Fame. I don't see myself as a senior person. It seems to me like it was just the other day I was getting off the bus in San Antonio for basic training-certainly law school doesn't seem that long ago.
Felice's LMA Experience
- Program Committee Chair (Mid-Atlantic Chapter)
- Capital Chapter President-Elect
- Capital Chapter President
- Capital Chapter Immediate Past President
- Annual Conference Co-Chair
- LMA-ACC Advisory Council Co-Chair
- Participant and planner of more than a dozen programs
- Currently working on a program for the Southeast Chapter on Legal Project Management
Profile written by Elaine Noble, President of Noble Pursuits, providing Graphic Design Services and Integrated Legal Marketing Database Software.