"law firm marketing"

Published on: November 17, 2023

LP Magazine — At the Intersection of Leadership & Marketing

Is law firm leadership and law firm marketing synonymous? Or better yet, should they be? I try to answer that very question in the November/December 2023 issue of Law Practice, At the Intersection of Leadership & Marketing.

Please note that if the ABA paywall prevents you from accessing this column, send me an email and I’ll forward you a copy.

The leaders of most law firms—sometimes a managing partner, other times a management or executive committee—are often going to have first and final say on marketing and business development decisions. If not the strategies themselves, then often the dollars approved to staff and finance them. The problem lies in that not all great law firm leaders are great marketing minds.

Published on: April 25, 2023

Temple ESQ. — 10 Tips for Attorney Marketing and Business Development

by Micah Buchdahl

The magazine for Temple Law School Alumni

Thanks to Patrick Plunkett and Dean Rachel Rebouché at the Temple University Beasley School of Law for thinking of me in contributing the “Top 10 Tips” segment of the Spring 2023 issue of Temple ESQ. In Top 10 Tips for Attorney Marketing and Business Development, I try to boil down a lot of what I do into 10 pithy things totaling around 500 words—not an easy task.

My tips are not rocket science. But as I often like to say, something is better than nothing. And if lawyers struggling to figure out how to market walk away with one thing for a to-do list, then that is something better than nothing.

Published on: April 16, 2014

Marketing for Law Firms: Priorities, Purpose, and Pay Grades

by Micah Buchdahl

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.