LMA's Professional Advocacy Working Group advocates for the legal marketing profession and collaborates with others driving change industry wide. Through its advocacy initiative, LMA is dedicated to elevating the profession of legal marketing. Our efforts help firm management understand and appreciate the impact legal marketers have on the business of law. The working group generates data, resources and media coverage to demonstrate the strategic impact legal marketers have on their firms’ success. The LMA Advocacy Infographic, created by the working group, helps us advocate for you, your peers and the profession.
Download the LMA Advocacy Infographic
Meet Our Working Group Members
- Ioana Good, Founder + PR Strategist, Promova, Professional Advocacy Working Group Co-Chair
- Amanda Loesch, Chief Marketing Officer, PORZIO, BROMBERG & NEWMAN, P.C., Professional Advocacy Working Group Co-Chair
- Suzanne Donnels, Principal, Suzanne Donnels Consulting
- Jessica Grayson, Chief Business Development Officer, Phillips Nizer LLP
- Laura Haag, Sr. Business Development & Communications Manager, Lowndes
- Jessica Haarsgaard, Business Development Manager, Burr and Forman LLP
- Aileen Hinsch, Sr. Manager, Practice Group Business Development & Management, Crowell & Moring LLP
- Barbara Malin, Chief Business Development & Marketing Office, Jackson Walker LLP
- Jalisa McGaha, Marketing + Communications Manager, Siskind Susser PC
- Danielle Smith, Women's Initiative Manager, Baker Donelson
Media Attention and Content
LMA and its members continue to be sought after by the media to provide expertise on the business of law, business development, law firm strategy and legal marketing. This has resulted in a variety of recent articles to which LMA members have significantly contributed.
View Recent Articles
The working group is also featured in the September/October 2020 issue of Strategies magazine that was focused on advocacy.
Law Firm Leaders Spotlight
In today's competitive business landscape, many lawyers and law firm leaders understand that it is no longer enough to provide stellar legal services, but lawyers also have to understand their client's business and become their trusted advisors to help them grow. With COVID-19 thrown in the mix, law firms have worked more closely than ever with their in-house legal marketers and consultants to lead the charge and help law firms stay ahead of their competition. Below we highlight various marketing partners, general counsel and other lawyers who understand the power of marketing. We also offer examples on how lawyers have grown in partnership with their marketing team. Let's get to know them!
Sally Schmidt, President, Schmidt Marketing, Inc.
How did you get started in LMA, and what do you get out of it?
When I was hired for a marketing position in a law firm, my lawyers (and I) thought I was the only person in the country in that role. Soon after, I read an article written by a marketer from another law firm so I contacted her, as did about 15 other in-house marketing people working in law firms around the country. We got together in San Francisco and decided to start a national organization, which became LMA.
I’ve gotten so much from LMA: Friendships, information, professional development, leadership opportunities, visibility and business. Now, as a long-time member, I am also enjoying the role of mentor.
Women have made significant progress in the last year towards equality in the workplace. How do you advocate for your fellow women in the legal space?
The legal industry is still challenging for women lawyers and marketing professionals. I advocate for them in a number of ways: By seeking out great women for opportunities; by being a cheerleader for them as they take on new roles and responsibilities; and, probably most important, by coaching them on how to address difficult issues, many times involving resources or credit or opportunities, in a business-like fashion.
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Suzan Kedron, Partner and D&I Committee Chair, Jackson Walker
What are some specific initiatives you are most proud of?
I am most proud of our partnership with Pastor Richie Butler and Project Unity on our Together We Dine events and our new Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Hours, which was an outgrowth of discussions that I had with Wade Cooper, our managing partner. Each program helped our attorneys and staff listen, learn, and engage with those from different backgrounds and celebrate the great work of our diverse attorneys and staff members. The Together We Dine programs allowed us to spend about an hour with other JW team members engaging in courageous and safe conversations about race relations, sharing personal experiences, and listening to the stories of our fellow attendees. Each event was led by a trained facilitator who asked questions such as 1) Describe your community's racial makeup growing up. How did it shape your views on race?; 2) What is your first memory of racism? How did it affect you?; and 3) What gives you hope about future race relations in America? The Together We Dine experience proved that what unites us is greater than what divides us by discussing our beliefs and differences.
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Alfie Meyerson, Statewide Business Development Committee Chair, Jackson Walker
How does your Marketing Department drive strategic plans and lead the charge in a time of change?
Our marketing team has been critical not only in driving response to COVID-19 but also in recognizing other important factors that impact the firm’s business. As an example, the marketing team has been a key driver in our firm’s work related to diversity and inclusion. They’ve helped us better analyze where we stand, created internal and external communications that convey where we are succeeding and what we are working on, assisted in assuring that we are devoting adequate resources to diversity and inclusion, and – most recently – have taken a leading role in organizing new diversity and inclusion initiatives including listening sessions, affinity groups, and outreach efforts.
What marketing and business development initiatives born out of COVID-19 will be used in the future?
There is very little that we’ve done during COVID-19 that won’t be a permanent part of our post-COVID repertoire. From learning to do more with less – and remotely at that – to mastering new technology, we’ve learned valuable lessons from all that COVID has thrown in our path and we will incorporate those lessons into future best practices.
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Heather J. Oden, Chief Operating Officer, Ball Janik LLP
How have your marketing efforts evolved during the last five years?
Our law firm operates coast-to-coast with offices in Florida and Oregon. Over the last five years, we have focused on enhancing our connectivity and technology to help us better communicate with one another and strategize together to solve client problems. Ball Janik’s approach has become much more focused on collaboration between our lawyers and our marketing team to identify and develop solutions for natural business growth through careful planning and initiatives such as business development, social media strategy, media placements, website development and new offerings for our clients that bring high value to their business strategies.
What is your firm’s most effective marketing channel?
It really is difficult to only pick one channel because so many of our clients consume information differently and there is no one-size-fits-all. However, by working together with our marketing team, we recognize the most effective marketing through COVID-19 and after is to continue mastering technology and bolster our advice and offerings online by providing valuable information, newsworthy blog posts and articles, social media messaging, and more.
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Dan McIntosh, Shareholder and Co-Chairperson of Lowndes’ Marketing Committee, Lowndes
What are some new marketing initiatives that your firm has worked on as a result of COVID-19?
We launched a video series, offered clients customized webinars based on their needs, increased our client alerts to almost daily eblasts, and created opportunities for roundtable discussions with clients to address their short-term and long-term plans. We've also successfully executed our firm's own return-to-work plans and have shared those with clients.
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Jeremy Tiedeman, Marketing Operations & Communications Manager, Tonkon Torp LLP
COVID-19 has been a business interrupter which has forced legal marketers to look for innovative ways to lead. What is your biggest challenge surrounding leading during COVID-19 and how have you or how are you overcoming it?
Our firm and department has embraced a very significant amount of new technology this year, and during the pandemic. Training can be more laborious in the remote context and remote work can diminish morale as people work in isolation. To overcome these issues, we are promoting and scheduling more frequent meetings for communication and team building as time allows – the meeting are kept short and flexible in their structure. Because it is more important than ever to reach out to our clients via electronic/remote means we are constantly evaluating the best ways to do that. We have found that just as our world is constantly changing so is the world of our clients. We have seen successful campaigns lose steam as a result. We are using data analytics to assess the content our clients are most interested in and that is changing the way and the frequency in which we distribute that content. Our biggest goal is to stay in frequent touch with helpful information without bombarding our clients with unnecessary content or overwhelming them with too much content.
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Keith Dubanevich, Shareholder Attorney, Stoll Berne
How does your Marketing Department drive strategic plans and lead the charge in a time of change?
With a small marketing team we cover everything from public relations to website management/development to RFP development to social media management to database management and much more. We look for those unique ideas that make sense for the firm and our goals and then devise a plan for ways to implement them. Open communication is key and our firm values require that all our attorneys be approachable and open to discussing new ideas and marketing methods.
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James Goodnow, CEO, Fennemore Craig
How have your marketing efforts evolved during the last five years?
Our marketing is evolving at a rapid pace so we can stay ahead of trends and the industry. We’ve come to discover that marketing and branding is at the heart of our firm’s mission, vision, values, and purpose. Starting a few years ago, we engaged in a comprehensive and exhaustive effort to understand who we are, what we stand for, and where we want to go. This effort was led by our marketing team. The results formed the foundation for where we are taking the firm going forward and is part of not only our marketing and business development activities, but also our strategic planning. We’re lucky to have Lindsay Moellenberndt at the helm as our Chief Business Development and Marketing officer to oversee our stellar marketing team. She’s a superstar and has helped take the firm to higher levels.
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Morgan Ribeiro, Chief Business Development Officer, Waller
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How does your Marketing Department drive strategic plans and lead the charge in a time of change?
The legal industry is evolving so quickly, it seems we are constantly adapting to change - whether it is revamping our team and individual responsibilities; adapting our processes in order to serve a greater attorney population; or delivering services during lockdown. We have launched a number of initiatives that touch the entire firm and improve the way we deliver our services and ultimately how we drive business for the firm. An example of this would be our experience database where we house information (both confidential and publicly available) on matters for all practice areas. While the BD department leads on this effort and regularly accesses this information for pitches, this is a database that proves useful for the entire firm.
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Maura Brandt, Chief Marketing Officer, Crowell & Moring
What is your firm’s most effective marketing channel?
Although not what might be traditionally defined as a “marketing channel,” two of our most effective client relationship tools are our client service teams and our Business Development and Acceptance Committee (“BDAC”). Our formal and informal client service teams are structured in a manner that ensures we are operating in an informed, proactive, coordinated, and client-directed manner. Our BDAC is responsible for both identifying and implementing programs to support and advance our commitment to client service excellence. But this committee, which includes both attorneys and business development professionals, is also in many ways an incubator and a catalyst for new ideas and initiatives to ensure that we are continuing to provide the highest level of service excellence to our clients. Our client service teams and the BDAC are responsible for many of the new ideas and initiatives that we end up formalizing and implementing as a firm.
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