Ask the authorities.

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Date: 01 March 2014

THE QUESTION

"We started the new year, and lawyers in our firm are still doing things the same way as last year and the year before, and it's just not working. They haven't done their business plans or started cross-marketing; they're not following up on events or visiting clients. We need a behavior shift. Telling them to do these things doesn't work. Suggestions?"

Jon Mattson

The legal industry is moving away from a "creating awareness" dominated marketing strategy to one that includes a business development strategy designed to create relationships. Creating awareness requires a relatively low level of touch by lawyers. Creating relationships requires a higher level of touch by folks who did not go to law school because they aspired to be in sales.

At the same time, we are seeing the beginning of a whole new class of legal services providers in Legal Process Outsourcers and disruptive model firms such as Axiom and Clearspire, and there will be more as the lines are blurred between...