What Firm Leadership Needs to Understand
Most law firms treat marketing like a restaurant. That is why it stops producing.
Managing partners order what they want from marketing and wonder why it does not produce revenue. The firms that fix this stop treating the department as a vendor and start treating it as a function. Here is what that shift requires.
Three Problems Worth Understanding
The gaps that keep showing up at regional firms, and what closing them actually requires.
Firms do not know what their marketing investment is producing
Most managing partners cannot connect a line item in the marketing budget to a client relationship, a new matter, or a retained piece of business. That is not a reporting failure. It is a structural one. When marketing operates as a service department that takes orders from partners, there is no system connecting its activity to revenue outcomes. The first thing firm leadership needs is an honest picture of what the spend is actually doing.
What to examine
- Budget allocation vs. measurable revenue activity
- Vendor and agency output against stated goals
- Attorney participation rates in BD activity
- CRM adoption and whether pipeline data is real
- Whether the technology stack is used or just licensed
- How marketing performance is currently reported to leadership
Marketing departments cannot succeed without attorney participation
The restaurant dynamic is common: partners tell marketing what they want, marketing produces it, and nothing moves. This happens because the department has no authority and attorneys have no accountability. Fixing it requires firm leadership to change how it thinks about the relationship. Marketing is not a service function. It is a growth function that only works when attorneys treat it as one of their tools, not one of their vendors.
What to measure
- How often attorneys brief marketing vs. place orders
- Which partners have active BD pipelines and which do not
- Whether BD activity is tracked or assumed
- How marketing campaigns are built and who is involved
- Whether attorney participation is expected or optional
- How firm leadership models the behavior it wants from partners
Attorneys are not trained in business development and no one fixes that
Business development is a skill. Most firms treat it as a personality trait. Partners who bring in business are assumed to be naturals. Partners who do not are assumed to be technical lawyers. Neither assumption is accurate, and both are expensive. The firms that grow sustainably are the ones that teach attorneys how to work with the marketing department they already have, hold them accountable for doing it, and measure the results.
What to change
- Whether BD training exists or is left to partners to figure out
- How attorneys learn to brief and use the marketing team
- Whether personal BD pipelines are built and reviewed
- How firm leadership reinforces participation vs. ignores it
- Whether marketing activity ties to individual attorney goals
- How the firm measures BD behavior, not just revenue outcomes
How an Engagement Works
Every engagement starts the same way.
The Assessment comes first. It tells us, and you, what the actual problems are before we commit to solving them. Most firms are surprised by what they find. That clarity is the foundation for everything that follows.
01
AssessWe conduct a structured review of your marketing department, spend, vendors, attorney participation, and business development (BD) reporting.
02
AlignWe present findings to firm leadership and agree on the highest-priority gaps. You decide what to address and in what order.
03
OptimizeAdvisory and enablement work begins. We measure progress against the specific outcomes identified in the assessment.
From the Insights
Why Attorneys Don't Use Marketing
The structural gap between attorneys and their marketing department, named and explained.
Why Law Firm Marketing Spend Doesn't Produce Return on Investment (ROI)
Most firms have no system for knowing what their marketing investment returns. Here is why.
What to Look for in a Law Firm Marketing Advisor
The one question worth asking before you bring in outside help.
