Co-authored by Emily Flowers, Manager of Content Marketing and Communications, McDermott Will & Emery
On March 27–29, more than 1,400 legal marketers from across the globe converged at the Aria Resort in Las Vegas for the 2017 LMA Annual Conference. This gathering – the largest of its kind – featured vendors, CMOs, general counsel and other business professionals who presented on a variety of topics related to legal marketing. Amidst these topics were several key themes: “One LMA” as indicated by the restructuring of U.S. and Canadian regions; understanding the client experience (especially from the client’s perspective); the importance of artificial intelligence to both clients’ and law firms’ long-term business development strategies; and how legal marketers can be movers and shakers in their own firms with regards to understanding their clients (the lawyers).
While we couldn’t make it to every breakout session, we wanted to share with you some key takeaways from the sessions we were able to attend.
DAY ONE
Pre-Conference Workshops
“QuickStart” Program: This program was quite a refresher for those who wanted to get a re-introduction into the world of legal marketing, or wanted to learn more about the basics of how law firms do business. One of the panels, titled “Law Firm 101,” encouraged the audience to be inquisitive in all things regarding legal marketing and understanding their firms’ dynamics. The presenter spoke about law firm economics – profit margins, utilization and realization, partner compensation and how firm budgets are put together. Another panel, titled “Attorney Persuasion – Powerful Techniques for Getting Your Way More Often,” challenged the audience to understand how different lawyers have different personalities (and hence require different strategies for moving them in the proper direction). Other panels in the QuickStart program focused on essential technologies, the advent of social media in legal marketing, and legal vocabulary.
Legal Lean Sigma® and Project Management White Belt Certification Course: Catherine Alman MacDonagh, creator and founder of Legal Lean Sigma® and 2017 inductee into the LMA Fall of Fame, and Tim Corcoran, principal at Corcoran Consulting Group, presented a highly-interactive course featuring experiential learning, table work and discussions. Using case studies, examples and success stories from law firms and legal departments, attendees learned the basics of Six Sigma, Lean and project management. Attendees walked away with useful techniques to review and improve processes, reduce incidences of error, improve collaboration, and cut waste. Not only did attendees learn tactics that are immediately useful to day-to-day work as legal marketers, but they also left with Legal Lean Sigma White Belt certifications.
DAY TWO
Keynote Address
Zoë Chance, an assistant professor of marketing at the Yale School of Management: Dr. Chance discussed two types of mindsets – the alligator (i.e., unconscious and instinctual) and the judge (i.e., conscious, rational and methodical). Dr. Chance cited various studies and concluded that the alligator mindset is lazy and focuses on what’s easy – giving the audience a better understanding of how to persuade other people. She explained that one has to capture people in their moments of truth and make it easy for them to take action.
Breakout
Best-in-Breed Bios: This session explored the traits that make some online attorney bios successful (and others unsuccessful). The presenters looked at what non-legal companies are doing to optimize their bios (making them personal and including relevant experience) and how law firms can apply these traits.
Mad Men to Math Men—Why the Rise of Digital Makes Data the New Imperative: With the pace of technology continuing to accelerate, legal marketers need to be nimble with blending the art of science and data. Our clients are using advanced analytics to make informed business decisions, which means that we need to align the data at our disposal with firm objectives and equip our lawyers with meaningful analytics that can help them achieve results. For example, with AI and predictive analytics you can figure out how to get in front of the client at the exact moment that they might need your services. When designing an analytics program at your firm, the presenters advised working backward from your goal so that you don’t get into the weeds with too many data points.
The “B” Word: Living the Brand: Two marketing managers explained that building a firm’s brand strategy is a fact-finding mission that doesn’t have to be Earth-shaking but does need to include everyone at the firm – partners, associates, secretaries, reception, staff, everyone!
Developing a Long Term Digital Strategy: In this dynamic presentation, the speakers asserted that any digital project should be approached with long term vision. If you look at the website development process as being complete when the new site launches, you set yourself up for eventual obsolescence and an exponentially higher costs over time. Instead, they suggested the most successful digital projects are iterative and allowed to evolve as the needs of the firm and the technology change.
Moving the Business Development Needle with Fusion: Two marketing managers and a partner from a global law firm elaborated on a program the firm’s marketing team developed as a means of coaching their lawyers through client interviews. Their discussion of the firm’s “Fusion” program explored ways that the marketing team can help their lawyers not only develop new relationships but also enhance old ones (hopefully leading to new business from already-existing clients).
The Secrets to Organizing and Operating an Amazing Marketing and BD Department: Three CMOs from prominent law firms discussed strategies for developing and leading effective marketing and business development teams. It is very important for the leadership to communicate the firm’s vision, and staff understands the “why” of how their individual contributions impact the big picture. From a team development standpoint, having a solid onboarding program that includes ongoing training and professional development is key to helping staff become highly effective and to keeping them motivated. One CMO placed personal welcome calls to all new marketing staff to ensure that they start off on the right foot, which she found ultimately led to happier staff and better retention. When asked what qualities they see in their best employees, they responded: they are passionate, proactive, have controlled ambition, are demonstrably engaged, and “hunt in packs” (in other words, they have each other’s backs).
Using Signature Events to Attract New Business: The presenters zeroed in on the importance of considering firm events from the client’s perspective. They noted how all decisions regarding event planning should be made with guests in mind (as guests for signature events often include long-standing clients).
Website Redevelopment War Stories: The panel shared their personal website design and launch stories, as well as the challenges they faced throughout the process. They all agreed that the composition of the website committee is very important, as is agreeing early in the process about how decisions will be made (e.g., unanimous or majority rule? What aspects require management committee buy-in?). Interestingly they recommended asking lawyers who have strong negative opinions about your current website to be on the committee in order to give them ownership and minimize group-think.
Connecting the Dots: Practice What You Preach: This presentation featured a CMO and the general counsel from a law firm client who talked about the relationship between firm and client. The GC mentioned how the firm didn’t try to impress him with the size of its law practice or with a variety of written pitch materials – instead, the firm kept him and his team informed about industry trends and has solved his company’s problems.
Content as a BD Tool: The Three Cs: Law firms produce a great deal of undifferentiated content, ranging from articles to podcasts and beyond. Yet, content marketing is foundational to law firm business development, and firms cannot afford to opt-out lest their clients get their thought leadership from a competitor. This program focused on the need to “start with the why” to understand the value and purpose of any content initiative, and then tactically use content to target specific clients.
DAY THREE
General Counsel Panel
The moderator and three GCs talked about a variety of topics but reached consensus about the following: (i) the best pitches aren’t presentations but instead conversations about the clients’ needs (and the lawyers understanding of those needs); and (ii) clients don’t care about the lawyers’ credentials – they care about predictability (especially with regards to historical costs of legal fees).
Breakouts
Outside the Legal Industry: How Businesses Are Using the Client Experience to Up Their Game: The panelists came from a variety of non-legal backgrounds – health care, entertainment and consulting – and explained how they improved the bottom line at their respective companies by improving their companies’ customer service models. These improvements happened, the panelists explained, by changing the culture at their companies by focusing on the positive and what employees were doing right. These improvements also happened by viewing change as a marathon instead of a sprint and by viewing change as something that needed to be constant and consistent.
Harnessing Predictive Analytics to Drive Client Growth and Retention: In this program, we heard a predictive analytics case study from DLA Piper’s marketing team, and their partner Axiom Consulting Partners. They developed a predictive analytics model that enabled them to reliably predict when clients were falling ‘out of love’ with the firm, and then take steps to not only turn the relationship around, but also grow the business.
Goldilocks and the Three Career Paths: Three panelists encouraged the audience to direct their own career choices by setting goals for themselves and by being open-minded to new opportunities.
The MBA Mindset: Strategy, Marketing and Metrics: In this TED Talk format presentation, three speakers, including our very own Mid-Atlantic Region President Helena Lawrence, discussed how their MBA backgrounds and cross-industry experience have informed their marketing practice. They explained several techniques for optimizing efficiency, and encouraged legal marketers to think like consultants when working with their attorneys.
Building Client Trust and Loyalty with Engaging Legal Content: The speaker in this presentation discussed how clients will come to trust their lawyers more with content that meets the clients’ needs, not simply content for content’s sake.
Empower Your Team, Transform Perception and Drive Change in Your Department: With marketing departments constantly being asked to do more with less, this presentation focused on protecting your team’s time by focusing on high-return work with high-return partners. The speaker recommended several strategies for empowering your team to say ‘no,’ collaborate, become an expert, and take ownership. Leadership strategies highlighted in the presentation included: (1) the team leader must always be the example of what is expected of the team; (2) get commitment from the team and give them a voice, clear instruction, and the appropriate level of authority; (3) provide adequate and ongoing technical training; and (4) make sure to always have your team’s back.
PR That Drives BD – Partnering with Media Relations to Complement Business Development: This session explained how PR efforts could be used to enhance pitches by creating collateral pieces as well as opportunities for access to prospective clients.
Wrap-Up
After all of the presentations were complete, attendees gathered once more for a brief wrap-up. Here the key themes were discussed once more: understanding the client experience from the client’s perspective; the importance of artificial intelligence; and how law firm marketing departments are crucial to moving lawyers in the right direction.
After the wrap-up concluded, everyone departed to take back to their firms what they learned in Las Vegas… until they would gather once again next year in New Orleans.
By Adam Hopkins, Marketing Coordinator, Dechert LLP, and Emily Flowers, Manager of Content Marketing and Communications, McDermott Will & Emery