In today’s The Legal Intelligencer, reporter Gina Passarella writes about the trend toward sticking “business development” into the titles of many Philadelphia law firm lead marketers. She could have changed the title to “Philly Law Marketers should not let the revolving door hit them on the way out.”
The latest step (or misstep) for many of these firms is to add or change the CMO title to lead or include “business development” in it. Somehow, law firm management thinks this will make it all better. The irony is that most of the hires and candidates have the same set of credentials as their predecessors. It is nothing but semantics. Few have true BD experience, backgrounds or credentials. But that has not stopped many of these management committees from moving forward with their umpteenth marketing head of the last decade.
I often find myself reminding law firm management committees that there certainly is a connection between business development and marketing. In reality, every single employee of a law firm is somehow engaged in BD. We are all in business and we all are trying to develop more of the same. Marketing provides the image, messaging, tools and resources to develop said business. In corporate America, many CMOs are held to a number–meeting a revenue target, increasing market share, balancing the budget between them. In most law firms, it is the attorney that either generates a number–or not. They rely on the marketing team to give them what is needed to develop business. There are exceptions. But generally that is how it works.
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