HOW YOU CAN TEACH MARKETING IN LAW SCHOOL.

• Author: Silverstein, Silvia Hodges

You should teach it in our business school. Law students don't take business classes."

This is what the associate dean for academic affairs told me at the university at which I was interested in teaching.

"But they should learn about business and management. They need it," I countered.

It was December 2008, and the world looked pretty grim for many law students and practicing attorneys. Still, it took me another seven months of continuous pursuit of the dean. Every few weeks, I would email her. Whenever I read an article on the importance of lawyers having business skills and a book of business to protect themselves in this foul economy, she was sure to hear from me. I was determined--I wanted to teach business in law school. As you know, the yardstick for what it takes to be a successful lawyer had significantly increased. Bruce McEwen had warned in his blog, AdamSmithEsq.: "Given that AmLaw 200 firms are multi-hundred-million dollar per year enterprises, this naivete [of lacking business acumen] can be dangerous to one's career." I wanted to rid law students of this naivete.

So I continued emailing the dean until August 2009 when she finally gave me the go-ahead to teach the two-credit course, Law Firm as a Business: Managing Lawyers, Clients & Career.

Every law student should be taking at least one business or management course. Having business savvy will make lawyers more useful to their clients, their firm and themselves, and it will make marketing and business development professionals' lives easier. The question is this: How will they become business savvy? Picking it up on the fly doesn't work for most. They will need to be taught early on while they are still in law school by the businesspeople in law firms: marketers, pricing specialists, finance experts, and LPM and business development professionals. Or, in other words, by you.

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