Along the new silk road.

• Author: Dransfield, Patrick

I think that marketing generally, be it by an American or a Magic Circle firm, is failing the legal industry in the Asian-MENA region Why? The aim of marketing, according to business guru Peter Drucker, "is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself." It is my experience that the vast majority of U.S. law firms' marketing fails to explain, on a fundamental level, the purpose of engaging an international law firm in the first place--in the case of China, an important lacuna in a developing market and a legal industry that is barely 30 years old.

As a byproduct of colonial history along the New Silk Road (and especially in Hong Kong, India and certain parts of the Middle East), U.S.-based law firms start at a disadvantage to their British and French peers. However, by addressing directly what the client wants, and by constructively reaching out to the in-house community of corporate counsel, U.S. law firms can (and do) speedily remedy this uneven starting base. To best fit the service (and hence the marketing message) to the client, the marketing professional can draw upon the research drawn from sources such as the annual Asian-MENA Counsel's "Representing Corporate Asia & Middle East Survey." If, for example, the marketing collateral created for the firm does not include how it provides expertise in specific areas and how responsive the attorneys are to their clients' needs, then there is clearly something awry.

I do wonder whether recent expansion by U.S. firms in Hong Kong and mainland China is more borne out of desperation due to the downturn in their home market than sound market strategy. It seems to me that senior management's assumption that...