Your Honor Award Member Profile:
Gina Eliadis, Content Manager, Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC
Winning Category:
Member of the Year
Gina is one of the few law firm marketers who can say she’s been with the same firm for the entirety of her career. She has seen significant change in the delivery of legal services during that time and knows that what we do – as in-house legal marketers – is constantly evolving. Learning new things and being adaptable is a key component for success. “If there is one thing I’ve learned how to do, it is change on a dime.” And, change she has. In the past year, Gina has managed to survive (and thrive) during a major law firm merger while seamlessly navigating the regionalization change as a leader in LMA Mid-Atlantic.
Gina’s legacy firm, Ober|Kaler, where she spent the first 20 years of her career, was a mid-sized firm with a small marketing department. There, she was responsible for the department’s operations and wore about 50 hats. When word came down of the merger with Baker Donelson, Gina swung into action. As manager of the department, she coordinated everything that needed to be accounted for, and that means everything – from practical items like ordering stationery and transitioning website content – to stewarding legacy Ober|Kaler initiatives to the appropriate counterparts at Baker. She also worked hard to manage the sensitive issues that arise when combining firm cultures, learning as much as she could about all aspects of the merger to support her colleagues as fully as possible during and after the transition. Her best practice for navigating change: “listen to everything and talk to everyone.”
She cites the amazing and welcoming team at Baker for being central to the successful integration of the firm and marketing departments. “Adam Severson, the Chief Marketing & Business Development Officer, flew to Baltimore and got to know each of us. He encouraged and initiated connections and relationships with our counterparts at Baker.”
After the merger on January 1, Gina found herself a member of a large team, and happily with a more defined role. Rather than 50 hats, she now gets to focus on a topic she loves, content marketing. In that role, she reviews all content, leveraging each piece as much as possible. She is helping her business development counterparts define key messages, identify content strategies, and build thought leadership plans with the sole goal of raising profile. “Other industries have been ahead of legal in this space, but the good news is that there is already so much we can learn from – the foundation has been laid.”
Gina is currently serving as Vice Chair of the Baltimore City Local Steering Committee (LSC). As many in the Mid-Atlantic region will note, this has been a year of transition to embrace regionalization and establish Baltimore as its own local group. From day one in her service on the board, she jumped right in to managing the communications for the LSC and stream-lined processes. Gina also serves on the newsletter committee, contributing thoughtful and educational articles for the region’s bi-monthly newsletter (including several that have been picked up by JD Supra). When asked about her role on the board, Gina says “First of all, I love it…it's given me the opportunity to meet and work with people I never would have met otherwise. Because of that, I have a better handle on the local legal marketing community as well as what other legal marketers are doing in other parts of the region.”
We are so excited for Gina to take the reins as Chair of the Baltimore Local Steering Committee in 2018 and congratulate her on her Your Honor Award for Member of the Year!
By Rebecca Edwards for the September/October 2017 LMA Mid-Atlantic Region Newsletter