The Future Law Firm Leaders Shared Interest Group (SIG) serves in-house legal marketers with fewer than five years of legal marketing experience by providing them with support, mentorship, peer networking opportunities, and relevant training.
On December 3, the Future Leaders SIGs from the LMA Capital Chapter, New England Chapter, and New York Chapter joined together to host a webinar titled “Building Relationships and Credibility with Your Attorneys: What Do Attorneys Expect from Us Anyway?”
The webinar featured two Steptoe & Johnson LLP partners who shared their perspectives on what to do to help legal marketers earn, and more importantly, keep credibility with attorneys. Some key takeaways from the event included:
- Understand the basics. You don’t have to know the details of the law, but you need to understand the practice well enough to know where the opportunities lie.
- Take the load off the attorneys. Make the job of marketing easy for the lawyer. (For example, editing something is easier than starting anew.)
- Quality ideas + quality work product = instant credibility
- Learn what really works for each attorney. If you are looking for ways to go above and beyond, pick something where the personality of the attorney matches the effort. If it works, do more of it. (Note: Techniques are not always transferable, what works for one attorney may not work another.)
- Be proactive, not reactive.
- You are not going to break through to everyone. When dealing with attorneys who don’t use marketing often, come with ideas – the longer the list, the higher the chance something will resonate. But don’t be discouraged if this doesn’t work; marketing isn’t for everyone.
- Energy/enthusiasm, responsiveness, and creativity are characteristics that attorneys continuously experience when working with successful marketing staff.
- You don’t lose credibility when you make a mistake. You lose credibility if you don’t own it. Explain up front what happened and don’t repeat it.
- Read Strunk & White. If you can write well, it shows that you can think reasonably well.
The full webinar can be accessed at BeaconLive.
If you are interested in joining the group or being added to our mailing list, please contact Kara Kane at kkane@steptoe.com.
By Michelle Sullivan, Senior Business Development Coordinator – Litigation, Steptoe & Johnson LLP for the January/February 2015 issue of the Capital Ideas Newsletter.