Lawyering up: legal marketing from the inside out.

• Author: Silber, Jeffrey F.

A flow of profitable, strategic new matters is the oxygen that keeps law firms healthy. Marketing at the institutional level is an essential part of this process. However, legal marketing departments are not solely responsible for bringing in new business. That is a sales function and the lawyers themselves should be a firm's primary sales force. But are they out there selling?

Lack of Know-How

Lawyers commonly believe they are on the right career path by working 12-hour days. They are often shocked to learn that being a great lawyer may not be good enough to become a partner unless they are also rainmakers. How were they supposed to know they had to meet this sometimes unspoken expectation? After all, few law schools teach practice development, and not all firms have mentoring programs that focus on developing new business. Nothing led them to believe that bringing in new business was so critical. Add to this that many partners and associates alike may believe that the firm's marketing department is looking after practice development, and so it is not their job. A firm's best marketing efforts may not be paying dividends because not enough lawyers actually sell its services.

Sales Training vs. Intrinsic Values

Some advanced-thinking firms, such as the mid-size firm Archer Norris in Walnut Creek, Calif. are using sales consultants to train their lawyers on the practical aspects of what is missing from their legal education: practice development. These sales training programs are clearly a step forward. However, lawyers never intended to be salespeople. Just the opposite-many may have been attracted to law for a range of intellectual and noble reasons, none of which included selling a "product."

Inasmuch as "sales" can be an offensive word for lawyers, I will call it individual marketing, but you will know what I mean.

Even without a prejudice against selling, lawyers can be ambivalent about individual marketing, a skill that may mean the difference between a successful and a mediocre legal career. The challenge is to get lawyers to move from ambivalence about to adoption of sustainable individual marketing efforts. Each lawyer must base his or her individual marketing initiatives on his or her personal and individual values. My partner, Liza Vasquez, and I call this "Legal Marketing from the Inside Out."[c] We base our hypothesis, and our program, on the premise that lawyers typically won't embrace or implement a marketing plan not based on...